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In the 1980’s, IBM had an ad that said that said “Great minds think alike,” says Annis. Eventually, IBM changed the ad to read: “Great minds think unalike.” The point is clear enough: a diversity of knowledge, talents, and experience helps companies grow.

A recent article on Inc.com discusses what it means to be a diverse workplace and how to foster innovation through different workgroups.

Barbara Annis, who chairs the Women’s Leadership Board at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, says that using diversity as a competitive advantage starts with an understanding that a diverse way of thinking improves results. According to Annis, managers tend to value employees that think like them. But being a “team player” doesn’t mean that your employee must agree with you.

“We can’t afford to do that anymore,” she says. “We really need to understand things from a much more diverse perspective, because that’s the global world we live. For some managers that means shifting the gear in how they listen and how they treat diverse people.”

Eric Markowitz, the author of the article, breaks ideas down into 4 basic areas to focus on in order to truly innovate and be successful:

Foster Diversity in the Workplace: A Culture that Embraces Diversity

Having a diverse workforce with a strong culture of individualism has profound effects on internal employee relations, but it can also assist in obtaining new clients. “Diversity gives you greater access because you’re actually a building an environment where your potential customers recognize a different element within your organization and you’re able to help them execute better,” says Stephan Reeves, CEO of Montage Companies, a diversity consulting company based in Philadelphia.

Fostering Diversity in the Workplace: A Broader Definition of Diversity

Diversity can be a loaded term, filled with connotation about race and gender, but that’s not always the case. Personality, talent, and experience are also important traits to consider when creating a diverse work group.

Diversity in the Workplace: Hiring Practices

Plan: Hire the right people. Learn what their values are and what specific skill set they have that will fill a certain role and complement other roles.

Challenge: Not every hire ends up being the right hire.

Solution: Kindly and professionally let those who don’t align with your culture and mission go.
source: Pravin Pillay, an organizational ecologist based in British Columbia

We talked about leveraging your company culture for recruiting purposes in our culture blog.

Fostering Diversity in the Workplace: Dealing With Challenges

Plan: Create an environment where people feel comfortable expressing diverse opinions. Organizational leaders must set the tone and implement working processes that not only allow employees to openly share ideas, but create an environment that celebrates the exchange of thought.

Benefit: Feeling appreciated encourages employees to work harder and be more creative.

Challenge: Expectation to fill hiring quotas or bring in people from a specific demographic
source: Simma Lieberman, a diversity consultant and author based in Berkeley, California

Simma Lieberman says that the bulk of the responsibility rests with managers and company leaders to let it be known that there is not a single correct way of doing things. Of course there will be certain tasks, best practices and company guidelines that have to do with code of conduct and human resources that streamline recurring processes but what we’re talking about here is everything creative and forward-thinking that falls outside of that box — things that can help move the company forward as a whole. Lieberman also stresses that “In order to be able to leverage diversity of talent, a good leader knows how to uncover employee genius”.