Silicon Valley’s “diversity problem” has been getting a lot of attention for years, with articles digging into the lack of inclusive culture among of the technology industry and the growing pressure for change in the industry. There are even dynamic charts that track the diversity of the workforce and leadership in tech companies so you can stay up-to-date on where they are and how they compare. It's not just the technology industry that could stand for an overhaul of DEI policies, though.

[This post is an email that we sent to our clients on June 4, 2020.]

We felt it was important to reach out to you right now, as you are probably feeling a range of emotions in response to the horrific deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other people of color. We are, too. This grief is becoming all too familiar.

The shift to pandemic-related uncertainty and distributed work caught a lot of teams unprepared. By now, most have adjusted to the basics of remote work – spending most of your days on video calls and chat with your team, but have you asked yourself whether—and how—you could be doing things better than you were before disruption? 

Over the past few years, more and more corporate leaders and consultants have been talking about a “new” kind of workplace diversity: cognitive diversity, which can also be referred to as diversity of thought.

All the attention it’s getting is something of a double-edged sword, though. On the one hand, it’s great that so many people are beginning to see that cognitive diversity plays an important role in a business’s success.

But on the other, the term itself is getting thrown around so much—often in very general or superficial ways—that it risks becoming just another piece of meaningless jargon.

Cognitive diversity isn’t just new packaging on an old idea about the dangers of surrounding yourself with “yes men.” It’s also not just another way of saying that if you let conflicting ideas and perspectives rub up against each other for a long enough time, eventually something positive will come from it.

In some form or fashion, working virtually has quickly become the reality for most of us today. And whether you’re working with colleagues, customers, vendors or others, there are more tools and apps than ever to help you collaborate across any distance, whether it's across the country or even across the globe.

But no matter how many tools and devices you have, effective collaboration still comes down to how effectively the parties communicate with each other. Particularly when you don’t always have the advantage of visual cues, tone of voice, or cultural nuances, the chances for miscommunication are high.

Here are 4 steps for making sure your communications get across in the way you intended, no matter what technology you use (these can even useful for when you’re communicating in person):

A little over a decade ago, the remote workforce was dominated by people in outside sales roles. They came into the office on occasion for meetings or, if they were local, to load up on marketing brochures and office supplies. But for the most part, they were out of sight.

More and more organizations are recognizing that a team approach can be a key driver of business performance. But just having teams isn’t the answer, of course. Those teams have to be productive and able to work together to deliver more value as a whole than they would as individuals.

The stakes are high: If the team breaks down or can’t get it together, the business suffers. So we decided to take a look at what some of the world’s best-performing teams are doing to see what we can learn from their productivity and performance secrets.

For many, the word “diversity” brings up images of staid EEOC training or well-intended but not necessarily critical programs—the “have-to-dos” that don’t get much buy-in or enthusiastic support across the business. So it’s probably not the first word that comes to mind when you’re talking about innovation.

But here’s why it should be.

At Herrmann, we’re always striving to develop new ways to help our clients achieve better business results through new uses of Whole Brain® Thinking. This kind of innovation is what keeps Whole Brain® Thinking and the HBDI® relevant as the nature of work changes and technology evolves.

With high profile scandals popping up every day in the news, data privacy is a very hot topic these days. At Herrmann, we’ve always taken a strong stance on data privacy, as we believe transparency on these important topics is vital to maintaining trust. However, with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into effect next week, we wanted to take the opportunity to remind you what we at Herrmann do to protect your data, and let you know about our most recent efforts to strengthen our protections for GDPR.