Independence yields “Power to the Employees”
Perhaps the most important aspect of cognitive diversity is individual independence. Our culture has a tendency to conform to homogeneity, which lowers the ability of individuals to seek out unique information.
The rise of the internet was the saving grace of diversity. Individuals now have the ability to access information located all across the world with the click of a button. Utilizing the internet, groups of people may implement successful collective intelligence strategies, regardless of the size of the group and physical distance between the members.
A couple months ago there was a post by Albert Wegner on the blog for his VC firm, Union Square Ventures. (USV is an early-stage IT venture capital fund located in New York City) His post was titled “Power to the People” and I’ve included an excerpt below:
To us, this appears to be one of the great constants of the web. It is taking power away from existing large institutions and pushing it out to smaller entities and often all the way to individuals.*
When I read his post, it immediately resonated with what we are doing at Frontier Markets – using the web to give power to the people. Specifically, we are empowering our customers by helping them empower their employees.
By making use of this simple concept, firms have been able to add tremendous value to their organizations. For example, one firm used to post annual budgets to their employees and then asked for feedback. The response they got was always the same, “Looks good, boss!” However, at the end of the year when they missed budget by 12%, grumbling could be heard from every employee at the company. Clearly, they did not agree with the original projection, but for them, there’s no incentive for them to stick their neck out and offer a conflicting opinion. Employees are not rewarded for disagreeing with their superiors.
Their problem: By posting the management-developed budget, employees are disincentivized to give their truthful opinion.
The solution: Diversity through independence! Don’t influence your employees by posting management predictions too early. Instead, seek unbiased input from your employees through a means which makes the input anonymous. You’ll be amazed how diverse your employees’ opinions really are, and how accurate your new budgets will be.
*Power to the People
September 22, 2008, Albert Wenger, Union Square Ventures