Are you too much like your colleagues?

We are different – use that

If you and your colleagues want to be innovative it is a disadvantage if you have the same educational background, sex or in other ways pretty much the same.

A homogenous employee group is efficient and makes it possible to make decisions quickly and then act upon them; but according to PhD stipend holder and innovation advisor Susanne Justesen it also creates group thinking and too little innovation.

Confirm each other

- When we are in a homogenous group we automatically confirm each other and no longer demand argumentation for our points of view. We believe we know what others think and not as much knowledge is brought to the table as would be if we challenged each other, says Susanne Justesen.

She thinks it is a great challenge to avoid that organizations become homogenous, since Denmark is already a very homogenous country and society.

Invite new people to your meeting

If you want to further the innovation ability in a company you have to take some radical action as the company Phillips has done, according to Susanne Justesen. They consciously employ people with very different backgrounds, all the way from designers to technicians, to an anthropologist.

The individual employee or manager can, however, be more aware of diversity on a daily basis.

- If the department has a weekly meeting you can make sure that every week a new person participates who has not before. You can also bring the differences into your network by thinking about whom you ask for advice. Do not ask the same person every time, Susanne Justesen suggests.

The conference “Innovation with diversity”

Susanne Justesen is specialized in innovation and innovation processes in larger, multi-national companies.

She is the initiator of the conference at CBS, which focuses on how companies and organizations best utilize diversity or differences in order to ensure innovation ability.