What if I told you that the secret behind breakout innovation at your organisation isn’t buried in the latest tech or expensive consultants, but could be found right within your very own team? What if it turns out the secret sauce to staying in front is something as basic as who you hire and how you lead them?
And yet, after working with Australian businesses for two decades from the bustling startups of Sydney to mining companies in Western Australia, I’ve learnt something really powerful: Truly diverse companies aren’t just talking about innovation , they live and breathe it every day.
The Truth About Teams
Allow me to tell you a story that continues to haunt me. I was consulting for a Brisbane tech company that was having trouble establishing an international presence three years ago. Its product was sound and its team was brilliant, but something wasn’t working. It was during my first meeting where I made an observation that was rather startling to me everyone on their leadership team remarkably looked, well, the same. Same universities, same backgrounds , even same coffee preferences.
When I gently brought this up, the company’s chief executive, Nathan, laughed it off. “We recruit the very best talent,” he said, confidently. But there is a the catch: They were fishing in the same pond, yet wondering why they kept reeling in the same fish.
Ever wondered why some teams seem to come up with new ideas as if by magic and other teams get trapped in an endless loop of “that’s how we’ve always done it here”? The key tends to be the freedom of views around the table.
Combining Cultures To Work Magic
Six months later, I met with Nathan again and his company was unrecognisable. They had hired Elena, a marketing professional of South American background, and Raj, a developer who grew up in the regions of Queensland and studied in India. And the change was dramatic, and instantaneous. It was night and day the difference.
In the product the team was building, Elena saw cultural nuances that would resonate with Latin American markets , insightful facets of the product that had been invisible to the original team. Raj found technical solutions that combined his rural Australian problem solving ethos with advanced international methods he had studied overseas.
Here’s what I found most interesting though: it wasn’t just Elena and Raj who got more creative. That right there: That shift is something the whole team started doing differently. And when now, when Madison presented ideas, the rest of the team had to think through multiple perspectives. When Oliver from finance learnt how to crunch numbers, he would consider the variations between markets as he walked to the mill.
It’s incredible how being exposed to ideas around thought can unlock creativity we’d no idea we had.
Tearing Down Walls (And Bias) We Don’t Even See
There I met Rebecca, an operations manager who was having trouble getting her team to be more adaptable. “They’re smart people,” she said to me, “but they kill everything new before we even look at it.”
This is what the psychologists call “groupthink”, and it’s the innovation killer that nobody talks about. Every time all of us think the same, we build invisible fences, shielding us from fresh solutions.
What are the questions your teams are afraid to ever ask because they go against what is considered reasonable? What goes unchallenged when everyone around the table has the same blind spots?
For Rebecca it came when for their weekly innovation sessions she deliberately brought in voices of other departments and age groups and cultural backgrounds. Suddenly, ideas that appeared “obviously wrong” to the initial team seemed “obviously brilliant” when seen through alternative lenses.
The Ripple Effect: How Diversity Affects Decision Making
Something that might surprise you is this: Diverse teams don’t just come up with better ideas , they reach other, significantly better decisions. I learnt this the hard way working with a Perth based manufacturing company that was at a critical crossways about whether or not to grow or scale down.
Their initial group of leaders, all industry veterans, had unanimously agreed to enter Asia. It seemed like a no brainer, until they introduced Christina, their recently hired cultural liaison, whom they said grew up in Singapore.
Within half an hour, Christina found three massively important market factors the team had overlooked. Not because they were too stupid to notice any of them, but because their collective experiences had set just enough well trodden paths to have common blind sides.
How many expensive stuff ups could your business avoid by just hearing from a broad range of voices on key decisions? How many opportunities are you losing because all the people around the table see the world the same way?
How Diversity & Innovation Come Together
Let me introduce you to James, a software developer I met at a conference in Adelaide. His company had been stymied in designing user friendly interfaces until it hired Priya, a recent college graduate, whose grandmother had never before touched a smartphone, they set her the task of designing the grandmother friendly phone.
Developing “Perspective” from Priya, an outsider who knew both how the cutting edge of technology worked and the challenges of being online for the first time, her insight has pushed their software to create an interface that could be navigated by all ages and levels of savviness. Their user roster was three times larger than eight months earlier.
That’s the magic of diverse tech teams: They don’t merely create products for people like themselves , they create for the world.
What if your team represented voices from every community your product aimed to serve? How would that change not only what you make, but how you make it?
How the Culture for Diversity Is Shaped
But here’s the key point that many leaders miss: just hiring diverse talent is not enough. I’ve known too many companies to pat themselves on the back for a diverse hiring while perpetuating cultures that do everything to silence different voices.
Real innovation occurs when dissenting ideas from diverse voices feel safe challenging the way things are. It takes leaders who ask powerful questions, such as: “What are we not seeing?” and “Who does not like this idea?”
On a leadership retreat in the Blue Mountains, I witnessed Patricia, a CEO, shift her entire company culture with a single adjustment. But instead of trying to build consensus in meetings, she began actively seeking dissent. “Before we decide,” she’d say, “let’s make sure we’ve heard from everyone who views this differently.”
The result? They sped up their innovation cycle significantly and their employee engagement scores went through the roof.
When working with teams on conflict resolution, I’ve seen how embracing different perspectives can actually reduce workplace tension rather than increase it. The key is creating a framework where diverse views are seen as assets, not threats.
The Australian Edge: Our Diverse Country Benefits
In Australia, we have a unique asset , a natural laboratory for diversity led innovation. From the wisdom of Indigenous nations, who’ve been building futures for 60,000 years, to the insights and energy of recent arrivals with fresh perspectives on global challenges, from rural communities powerfully addressing problems with constrained resources to urban innovators extending the technological frontier.
Are we using this amazing diversity to our advantage? Are we building spaces where all these different points of view can help drive innovation?
I am reminded of Maria, there are Maria’s all across the country, who was a team leader in Darwin and through on site safety initiatives her mining operation was able to merge traditional land knowledge held by her Indigenous land owners with modern technical solutions. Or Trevor, a Tasmanian farmer whose farming innovations emerged from talking with his Vietnamese neighbours about sustainable farming practices.
How Innovation Begins
So, what does that leave you with as a leader? The way forward is not too complex, but it requires bravery and determination.
Begin to take an inventory of your team. Who’s missing from the conversation? What are you not considering when making this decision? What voices have been silenced in your meetings?
Remember Nathan’s tech company? They have scaled successfully to work in twelve countries now. Rebecca’s group has turned into her organisation’s innovation engine. James’ company has disrupted his sector, being one of the forefront pioneers in your user experience.
The question isn’t whether diversity leads to innovation , there’s overwhelming evidence that it does. That’s the question: what are you prepared to do differently, beginning tomorrow?
Are you ready for that game changing shift, that genius within your grasp? Are you ready to take your team forward into a future where a diversity of viewpoints doesn’t simply feel accepted, but is actively pursued and celebrated?
The choice is yours. But remember , as you mull things over, your rivals could be assembling the diverse, creative teams they need. The future is now for leaders who see that our differences aren’t just our strength , they are our competitive advantage.
What will be your artistic story? Developing good team collaboration begins with acknowledging the different viewpoints of each member.
Concluding Remarks
Diversity is an important part of any successful business. Many major companies realise that diversity can help them innovate and problem solve more effectively making their product and brand stronger. Learn more about Diversity and how it can help you too.
