Managing cognitive diversity
There are advantages to be drawn from cognitive diversity in teams, at the same time there are also challenges in terms of process losses and friction. How can we manage something that we don’t see? As mentioned previously, members of a team might be highly unaware about the cognitive diversity within the group. The question is how can we manage and maximize the output of the diversity that we can’t see? How can we utilize the combined pool of knowledge and experience, if we can’t even see what it is? How are we going to manage diversity when members have conflicting ideas or experiences?
There is no straightforward answer to these questions. What can be done, however, is to increase awareness around the issue, and make conscious efforts to build an atmosphere in the team where differences are appreciated.
To make this happen, the organization or the group needs to embrace diversity as an asset. There must be a belief that “differences add value” for the group. Having certain ground rules in place for productive behavior can also be beneficial. Showing an awareness that there might be friction and process losses, is important for moving on in times when there is a feeling of getting stuck.
Coaching Diversity
No man is an island, entire of itself, – John Donne
In coaching we often coach the clients relation to the issue at hand, rather than the actual issue in itself. Therefore coaching can be seen as a facilitator for embracing and maximizing the benefits of cognitive diversity in relation with the issue, and/or other individuals. This can be done via group coaching, or individual coaching. By exploring challenges and opportunities around cognitive diversity within the group, we have the opportunity to create awareness about the issue, and hopefully tap into the benefits from diversity.
Coaching implication
Creating self-awareness in the client is often a highly important task/skill for the coach. Needless to say, it is extremely important for the coach to have a great degree of self-awareness as well. Without a strong self-awareness, it will be very difficult for us to stay objective as coaches, and working with the client from his/her perspective. By creating awareness of our own cognitive style, we can more easily understand how we are reacting to differences with the client, and truly appreciating the complexity in the situation.
Some friends from a Consultancy I cooperate with, introduced me to the concept: Aware, Accept, Adjust. This fits very well with the idea of coaching the individual, and his/her relation to the issue at hand. Creating awareness about the cognitive diversity of an issue could be an interesting starting point in such a coaching conversation.
Some questions to explore in such a conversation might include:
Language and space
The ability to utilize language is a vital coaching skill. It shows in the way a coach summarizes, paraphrases, asks questions, and even listens to what the client is saying. As different individuals will have different ways of processing information, we will not only express ourselves in different ways. We will also encode the information in different ways. Such, understanding diversity through language and space is also a vital coaching skill.
… – there is a metric precision and visual detail in our thoughts that are not present in our language. In addition, and here is the startling fact, in many languages there is no way to express that specific thought at all! 4
In the example above we are talking about physical space. As I see, it we also need to consider the mental space in most coaching situations. When it comes to interpersonal issues, we sometimes see relationships in a hierarchical perspective where we might position ourselves “above or below” others. When facing a certain problem, we might also place ourselves “inside or outside” the problem. Helping the client to visualize such a space can be a powerful tool to gain perspective on the situation.
There are cognitive advantages of using spatial models for thinking. Building a mental spatial model and checking if it fits the premises, and then deriving to a conclusion, is a relative simple way to check presumed validity. Such models can include diagrams, graphs, tables etc. We all see the use of such tools in presentations and meetings. It seems like they can fulfill an important aspect in a coaching conversation as well as it will decrease the diversity in how we perceive the issue.