Around 1.5-2 decades back, an enthusiastic but an inexperienced version of myself set out to form a company. Along with a like-minded partner we registered a technology company in UAE providing web solutions. Potential clients soon started reaching out to us through word-of-mouth as the quality of work and our quick turn-around were getting noticed and appreciated.

Everyone in our organisation were hard-working, creative, operationally excellent. But a lacuna was slowly becoming evident - the hesitation to follow up on payments from clients and at times the aggression needed to chase a potential deal. The tendency was to pass the buck around; asking the other to pick that phone up and make that difficult call. Needless to say, this ended up being the noose that did us in.

Now as a #TeamCoach, when I think back, I am reminded of what Professor Peter HAWKINS kept reminding us - Recruit for requisite diversity within a Team! The moment one hears (#diversity), the immediate mapping is to gender, race, age, etc. Leaders often overlook the need for Cognitive Diversity within their team(s). This in simple terms is the difference in the way people think, behave, and interact with others; and can be governed by their personality type, values, role preferences, and so on.

In our case, we thought recruiting a BD cum Relationship Manager would help address the gap. What we didn't realise is, we eventually hired someone who somewhat cloned our existing preferences/competencies.

Are you as a leader or team member recruiting people who clone you? Even if you don't, how do you stay away from the risk of encouraging conformity and bring out all the voices within the team?

#teamcoaching #systemscoaching #leadershipdevelopment #cognitivediversity #systemicCI #coaching #team