Bookworm: Rebel Ideas

Matthew Syed champions the many benefits of diverse thinking.

Who's the rebel with a cause?

The author is award-winning journalist and former international ping-pong world champ Matthew Syed. He has a Pakistani father and Welsh mother, but was brought up in Reading, England.

And what's it about?

The power of diverse thinking – aka ‘rebel ideas’ – and why we shouldn't be able to get enough of it.

So, he's referring to racial difference when he talks about ‘diverse thinking’?

In this context, it means recognising the limitations of our own expertise and experience, and inviting minds with a different set of expertise and experiences into our world.

Demographic diversity (gender, race, age, sexual orientation, religion) is important, but it isn't enough to create opportunities for real innovation. For that, we need cognitive diversity, too.

And what is cognitive diversity?

To have a cognitively diverse team means that individuals within the team solve problems in different ways – using different thought processes, approaches, models, theories and working styles.

Why is that helpful?

Without cognitive diversity, organisations can suffer serious blind spots. Prior to 2001, for example, the CIA was predominantly made up of white, middle-class, liberal arts grads.

Their prevailing assumption was that Osama Bin Laden was an unsophisticated criminal because he lived in a cave, wore simple clothes and had a long beard.

Someone with a different background and approach might have realised that these attributes signifed not primitivism, but religous devotion, and that Bin Laden was a dangerous terrorist who needed to be watched closely.

So, why is it hard to create cognitive diversity?

We naturally like to be surrounded by people who look like us, sound like us, and agree with us (unconscious bias is the technical term for this).

As a result, we create for ourselves little echo chambers, and (often unthinkingly) shoot down anyone who questions our world view. Even if we do find ourselves having a divergent idea, unless we have a boss who is comfortable with being challenged (fairly rare), we typically choose to keep quiet about it for fear of negative repercussions.

And what’s the upside?

A core principle of innovation is that new ideas are created when two separate and distinct concepts come together in a novel way.

The author Matt Ridley talks about new ideas being born when two unrelated ideas “have sex”. In that sense, if we have a problem to solve, a product to create, or a business to grow, the more seemingly unrelated or alternative ideas we have flying around, and bumping into each other, the better.

Can you give an example?

Of course. Having an advisory board whose members all have the same view on how a business should be run is not helpful when disruption hits. When online retail began to boom around 2010, Prada lost millions because their traditional and ‘clone-like’ board didn’t see the value in investing in digital.

Gucci, on the other hand, had a ‘shadow board’ including members of mixed ages and skill sets. They advised Gucci to prioritise digital platforms, and the fashion house’s sales grew 136% as a result.

**So, would it ever be helpful to have a less diverse team?**

If you have a very specific, boundaried task which requires the exact same level of expertise or competence, then you don’t really need diversity.

For example, if you wanted the fastest 4 x 100 metre relay team, you’d simply want four ‘clones’ of Usain Bolt. Unfortunately, the world of business isn’t so simple. Complex problems require a more diverse approach.

Great, so how can I create a more cognitively diverse team?

Three things can help:

Blind hiring. Remove the name, age, gender from all applications and hire based solely on suitability for the job. In interviews, welcome challenging questions from your candidates. Those who see issues with your process and strategies will bring more to the table than those who just nod along.

Creating a culture of psychological safety. This is one where sharing ideas and trying things out are encouraged. Having a diverse team is pointless if everyone is anxious about saying the wrong thing. Anonymous idea sharing is a good first step to removing a fear of speaking-up.

Avoiding standardisation. Rigid processes and standardised outputs may seem efficient but they ultimately ignore our uniqueness as individuals and cauterise potential for new ideas. One size often fits no one.

What am I most likely to say after reading this book?

“There are things I don’t know that I don’t know.”

What am I least likely to say after reading this book?

“Oh, oobee doo,

I wanna be like you,

I wanna walk like you,

Talk like you, too.”