The video featured here is part of a series of Whole Brain Thinking topics presented by Ann Herrmann-Nehdi. 

CEOs and key leaders need to be more agile than ever in today’s onslaught of change impacting organizations. This requires a stretch for many leaders I am working with.

Momentum for action on racial equity has continued to build around the world, and we like many others have spent the past few weeks in an ongoing discussion on what else we can do to help contribute to positive change. It remains remarkably difficult for organizations to have uncomfortable conversations about racial bias, so as a first step we’re spreading awareness of how cognitive diversity can be used as a powerful device to break down the walls in these conversations.

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 impact of COVID-19 on our ways of working has been staggering. The most obvious, the shift to remote work, has impacted organizational cultures and employee engagement almost overnight. Beyond remote work, it has accelerated a number of key future of work trends, in some cases irreversibly. In the years to come, it will continue to reverberate in the ways we collaborate, balance our career and family obligations, and think about our teams and organizations. 

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.

Managing stress during this COVID-19 crisis is definitely easier said than done. We all have different ways of thinking and processing information. Therefore, it makes sense that we all have different ways of internalizing and reacting to stress.

This blog post is a brief excerpt from our latest white paper on adapting to uncertainty. The full piece can be found here.

It is no surprise that in the face of today’s constant volatility and uncertainty, agility is frequently cited as one of the most important attributes for leaders to be successful in growing organizations. Yet most managers and leaders have not been prepared or trained for how to deliver this agility, especially in a crisis. It’s one thing to have reactively put things into place in response to a new reality, often with a lag that creates competitive disadvantages. It is another to think about what’s next in the midst of a crisis and stay ahead of change, rather than chasing after it.

As the virus has swept its way across the planet, people from all walks of life, families from every region, and businesses large and small have all had to adapt to change. The most common change, and the most likely one to be affecting you right now, is adjusting to any social distancing measures you're taking or a shelter-in-place mandate from your government, which has likely resulted in you staying at home. For many companies, it's also led to remote-working measures being set in place.