Harnessing diversity in experiences, culture, and background is crucial for innovation and worldwide success. However, as businesses strive to become more diverse, one vital factor is cognitive diversity. Simple explained, Cognitive Diversity is the differences in people’s thinking and processing of information.
Researchers have discovered that teams that represent cognitive variety solve complicated issues faster than teams of individuals who have an identical approach problem-solving. When confronted with new and unpredictable situations, teams made up of cognitively diverse individuals use a variety of approaches to solving the problem. As a result, learning and performance are accelerated. In the meantime, teams made up of people who solve complicated issues in the same way are limited by their lack of diversity. The findings are consistent regardless of gender, age, or ethnicity.
Promoting greater cognitive diversity in teams can be difficult when leaders’ natural instinct is to hire people similar to themselves or the person who previously held the position. However, a culture of creativity necessitates a diversity of thinking and learning styles, and work is rapidly changing. What has worked in the past may or may not work now or in the future. Read more: Corporate learning
5 ideas for how businesses might foster cognitive diversity
Recruit for the sake of cognitive diversity
Make it a point to recruit team members with various thinking styles and methods. Few businesses aren’t striving to improve their employee skill mix, which necessitates hiring differently. Start by challenging preconceptions about what constitutes success in a specific role.
Organizations frequently aim to employ new talent based on their “pedigree” for a specific role, such as the number of years in a similar position, where they attended college, or the degree(s) they have earned. However, this recruiting method hinders an organization’s capacity to achieve the cognitive diversity needed to overcome business difficulties in a fast-changing world. “What are the difficulties we need to tackle, and what are the capabilities, experiences, and backgrounds we need to handle these challenges in fresh ways?” executives should instead ask. While not every role lends itself to this method, it is worth the risk to use it whenever possible.
It’s also crucial to seek beyond your business for individuals who can help you improve your performance by bringing in new ideas from other industries or work settings. These efforts result in higher levels of cognitive variety, which helps businesses keep up with the competition.
Crack the partnership pattern
The ability to rapidly adapt to change is crucial for long-term success and creativity. Strategic alliances are one approach to tap into the cognitive variety required to adapt and evolve in a changing environment. Ecosystems are more flexible than ever, and this trend will continue.
Look for methods to work with non-traditional people, groups, and companies to develop creative solutions to the complicated problems your industry faces. Using a “no lines” approach to addressing complicated issues increases cognitive diversity and better-positioned businesses to establish and survive disruptive innovation in their fields.
Partnerships between health care providers, technology and software companies, retail enterprises, and others are bringing new concepts to market that are altering established care delivery methods. Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and predictive analytics, according to the accounting firm PwC, are among the talents needed to respond to changing business models in health care.
And it’s not just health care that’s following this pattern. As companies worldwide navigate the fourth industrial revolution, the ability to draw on non-conventional areas of expertise — like AI, digital engagement, and predictive analytics — and build new skills in existing talent will distinguish organizations that control their destiny from those that let the market determine their future.
Make room for innovation
Leaders must set the tone for a creative workplace, whether virtual or physical. Many of the old social ties between employees and employers are altering when 43 percent of employees spend a minimum of a few hours working remotely. Given this, it is an excellent time to focus on developing innovative muscle. Work is being reinvented, with a stronger focus on results and new modes of working and communicating emerging.
Small steps can have a tremendous impact. Working with groups to clarify a problem, for example, can be enough to spark a new and distinct conversation about an old issue. Simply allowing teams to think together about a common need or issue without rushing to a solution can provide a different result.
To reshape an innovative culture, it’s also necessary to reconsider what behaviors are rewarded. It requires boldness to celebrate tries rather than triumphs, but it can be transformative in terms of developing innovative potential and attracting cognitively diverse personnel.
Embrace soft-skills training
It is a natural feature for people to think and approach problem-solving in specific ways. You may, however, assist leaders and employees in expanding their cognitive processing range. This can be accomplished through training in soft skills.
L&D professionals place a high value on soft skills training. Employees who learn the how-tos of cooperation, problem-solving, and communication might see things differently. The abilities serve as compass points for broadening people’s thinking during important work occasions. And there are two advantages to teaching them.
You give people a new perspective when you teach them how to voice their thoughts and retain respect in all encounters. Many people may be unfamiliar with the concept of actively building relationships while working through challenges.
Soft skills training should not merely be about the why if it is effective. It should instruct participants on reaching the ultimate goals of effective communication, problem-solving, and teamwork.
Allow for any existing variances
It is safe for different opinions to arise if a culture is created to listen to and welcome them. Your company most likely already has a diverse range of viewpoints. Teaching everyone how to start a discussion and talk respectfully encourages people to share.
Make healthy communication and collaboration skill the standard in your organization. It will encourage people to share thoughts or viewpoints that do not necessarily align with the prevailing “group think” mindset.
Designing a cognitively diverse training model
Build your training to suit your creation of a culture where people think and learn in diverse ways. The more inclusive your training is, the more people will benefit from it.
Learner engagement and knowledge retention improve when you make your training inclusive. This translates to higher skill transfer on the job and a better likelihood of meeting your organization’s objectives.
Here are four suggestions for improving your training’s cognitive accessibility.
Include content for a variety of learning styles.
Learning becomes more inclusive when you provide a diversity of material types to communicate to diverse sorts of thinkers. Consider varying the presenting technique or incorporating a library of various types of resources into your Learning Management System.
Allow your workforce the flexibility to learn when and where they want
People have preferences for training delivery techniques, just as they do for different types of content. Not everyone learns best in a regular classroom setting or when instructed for long periods.
Include self-paced learning choices to accommodate a variety of learners. Learners can access online training from wherever and whenever they want. They can also select whether to progress swiftly through training or take it in small doses over time.
Allow learners to access training on a variety of devices. While some people learn best while seated at a desk with a laptop, others will find it easier to navigate and communicate while on the go with a smartphone. To provide them options, make sure your LMS is mobile-friendly.
Include reinforcement in your training
Retention of skills is an essential aspect of learning. To help the content stick and people apply it to their professions, provide continuing learning and reinforcement assistance.
Some people learn best when they are taught. Others will benefit from hands-on experience. Many people learn better when they are reminded of the material regularly.
After the course, reinforce all types of learners by providing follow-up information. Consider holding role-playing or case study exercises in a group setting. Applying the abilities to real-world challenges helps learners develop muscle memory when they face similar issues on the job.
Provide regular reminders of the training content to help people who learn best through repetition remember it. Consider providing staff with bite-sized online review sessions after the training.
Read more: Corporate training platform
Frequently get feedback
When you know exactly what your employees require, you can provide training that meets their needs. What’s the most effective approach to figure it out? Inquire of them.
To see what’s working and where you might improve, poll learners during and after their course. Run reports on your LMS to see how individuals respond to their training. You can check to see if they’ve finished the courses and how well they’ve learned from them.
Put this knowledge to good use once you get it. Where you’re losing engagement, add content, boost interactivity, or shorten the lesson length. Determine what prevents people from participating or finishing, and make necessary modifications. This will allow you to meet people where they are and adapt your training to suit all sorts of learners.
Conclusion: A new approach to exceptional performance
To create a culture of creativity in any company, cognitive diversity is required, and vice versa. Supporting a cognitively diverse workplace necessitates strong leadership eager to rethink everything – not just for themselves, but with their teams, customers, and across different organizational units. For any firm competing in today’s fast-changing environment, the value of learning together and developing cognitive diversity in building tomorrow’s job is a strong play.