Diversity vs. Chemistry

Ok, this is an area of interest and consternation for me. The term "diversity" has been thrown around for at least the last 15 years in the business world. Yet I still see two trains of common thought around diversity that I would have expected to evolve beyond superficialness (is that a word?) by now:

1. Diversity is measured solely by gender, ethnicity, and country of origin


2. Any diverse group is better than a non-diverse group

For this discussion I will simply focus on the business aspects of diversity, leaving out the social ones. And rather than go into a long paper on diversity vs. chemistry, I'm going to jump right to the chase and throw my opinion out:

It is the right chemistry that can help drive business performance and needs to be measured; diversity as a metric is not useful

There, I said it.

It is the right mix of people, their experiences, their personalities, their cultures, their biases, their education, their knowledge, their wisdom, their risk-tolerance, their emotions, their passions, their view on life, etc. that enables great ideas to emerge. Have a diverse group of people for diversity's sake is not likely to generate any meaningful results. It's like grabbing random ingredients in random quantities and expecting to cook something that tastes good (and hoping you didn't grab poison in the meantime!).

Sounds easy, but what constitutes the right mix? I submit that your "portfolio" of people must include at least the following:

1. Representation within the group that are strong in the five basic hats of de Bono's Six Thinking Hats(if you are not familiar with the six thinking hats I highly recommend familiarizing with them). Put another way, you need a group that is capable of creativity, fact analysis, postive thinking, negative thinking, and emotional insight.


2. A balance of people in the group along the T-F (Thinking-Feeling) dimension of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
   

To me, that's chemistry.

A balance of different "hat" thinkers will ensure that all aspects of an idea are visited, and visited well. A balance of Thinkers vs. Feelers will ensure that ideas have a proper dose of rational vs. emotional perspective applied to it.

Note that the number of people here is largely irrelevant. My experience is that you want a few people that are each good in a couple "hats." Too many people and you either get analysis paralysis or the "shy" voices are not heard (very bad in terms of chemistry). I would argue that the great visionaries are capable of strong thinking in all five hats.

Also note that my "portfolio" is a minimum; clearly, for specific circumstances you will want to include additional diverse resources. Perhaps a strong gender mix, perhaps a strong cultural mix, perhaps a strong educational mix. That doesn't necessarily mean more people, just more diverse dimensions.

Now, to address my second observation ("any diverse group is better than any non-diverse group"), I would say if the goal is better ideas, I would tend to agree with this train of thought. However, in today's business world of "Fire, Fire, Fire" (as opposed to "Ready, Aim, Fire"), speed is an important consideration. And diversity/chemistry certainly doesn't speed things up.

To be clear, I am not against diversity per se. I'm against the assumption that diversity automatically generates better results. If only it were that easy! Diversity is a tool, not a measure.