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To stay competitive, businesses should always continue to innovate. Remember: Considering the perspective of an outsider may seem counterintuitive, but the payoff can be huge. The scientists think that diverse teams may outperform homogenous ones in decision making because they process information more carefully. It turned out that although groups with out-group newcomers felt less confident about the accuracy of their joint decisions, they were more likely to guess who the correct suspect was than those with newcomers who belonged to the same group. Five minutes into their discussion, the newcomer joined the deliberation and expressed their opinion as to who the suspect was. The three oldtimers in each group gathered to decide who was the most likely murder suspect. Three people in every group, referred to as “oldtimers” in the study, came from the same sorority or fraternity, whereas the fourth, the so-called “newcomer,” was either a member of the same sorority or fraternity or a different one. In a study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Katherine Phillips of Northwestern University and her team divided sorority or fraternity members into four-member groups, each of which had to read interviews conducted by a detective investigating a murder. Greater diversity may also change the way that entire teams digest information needed to make the best decisions. By breaking up workplace homogeneity, you can allow your employees to become more aware of their own potential biases - entrenched ways of thinking that can otherwise blind them to key information and even lead them to make errors in decision-making processes. They may also encourage greater scrutiny of each member’s actions, keeping their joint cognitive resources sharp and vigilant. The researchers found that individuals who were part of the diverse teams were 58% more likely to price stocks correctly, whereas those in homogenous groups were more prone to pricing errors, according to the study, published in the journal PNAS.ĭiverse teams are more likely to constantly reexamine facts and remain objective. The participants were placed in either ethnically diverse or homogenous teams.
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THINKING ROCK REPORTS SERIES
In a series of experiments conducted in Texas and Singapore, scientists put financially literate people in simulated markets and asked them to price stocks. Other studies have yielded similar results. One possible reason for this difference was that white jurors on diverse panels recalled evidence more accurately. If errors did occur, they were more likely to be corrected during deliberation. It turned out that the diverse panels raised more facts related to the case than homogenous panels and made fewer factual errors while discussing available evidence. They then had to decide whether the defendant was guilty.
THINKING ROCK REPORTS TRIAL
The people were shown a video of a trial of a black defendant and white victims. In a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, scientists assigned 200 people to six-person mock jury panels whose members were either all white or included four white and two black participants.
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People from diverse backgrounds might actually alter the behavior of a group’s social majority in ways that lead to improved and more accurate group thinking. Let’s dig into why diverse teams are smarter. Working with people who are different from you may challenge your brain to overcome its stale ways of thinking and sharpen its performance. In recent years a body of research has revealed another, more nuanced benefit of workplace diversity: nonhomogenous teams are simply smarter. In a global analysis of 2,400 companies conducted by Credit Suisse, organizations with at least one female board member yielded higher return on equity and higher net income growth than those that did not have any women on the board. A 2015 McKinsey report on 366 public companies found that those in the top quartile for ethnic and racial diversity in management were 35% more likely to have financial returns above their industry mean, and those in the top quartile for gender diversity were 15% more likely to have returns above the industry mean. Striving to increase workplace diversity is not an empty slogan - it is a good business decision.
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