Many cases confirm that Cognitive Diversity (groups of individuals with different mental maps) can provide a greater framework of creative ideas and, consequently, foment innovation within organizations.
Executives, however, are facing a dilemma: how can such collaborative groups be constructed?
The reply is not simple, as all the subjects involve Social Sciences, but new academic studies have brought promising findings. A good start can be the agreement on the organizational dynamics amongst the attitudes of the senior executives.
More than anything else, executives are human beings who take on situations in accordance with their beliefs and values; they interpret reality through their own selective perception; and take decisions according to interpretations based on their experience of life.
At the same time, their attitudes and behaviors are interpreted as models to be followed by the employees of the organization, be they conscious or not. For example, if the directors of a certain company start to hire only young managers, this behavior will be understood by the group as expected and something that could be emulated. Age will become a salient category, that is, an excellent criterion for hiring and promoting. This social categorization will be able to generate changes in the composition of the organizational demography: a young group tends to hire younger professionals (classical theories in Social Psychology support the idea that human beings tend to feel more comfortable with those they feel similar to) and thus the process intensifies. As time passes by, this vicious circle can become an obstacle to the construction of a framework of new and creative ideas, since the management group is sufficiently homogeneous. Facing a crisis, for example, they will be unable to count on experienced professionals who could bring in their experiences of previous crises.
In summary, executives in powerful positions of leadership are important in the construction of sensemaking, but their decisions are subject to their obliquities¹. Budgets supported by high level executives can intensify or attenuate the perception of the climate of diversity within organizations². It is therefore important to access the mental map of the directive group as a first step before initiating any process of change focused on diversity.
References
¹ HAMBRICK, D. C. Upper Echelons Theory: an update. Academy of Management Review, v. 32, n. 2, p. 334-343, 2007.
² KUNZE, F.; BOEHM, S.; BRUCH, H. Organizational performance consequences of age diversity: Inspecting the role of diversity-friendly HR policies and top managers' negative age stereotypes. Journal of Management Studies, v. 50, n.3, p.413-442, 2013.
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Alessandra H. V. Miyazaki, MSc
Senior associate at BMI Blue Management Institute
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