Sustainable Growth:

Synergy

Harnessing the Power of Diversity

Leveraging Diversity – the Power of Integrated Opposites

"What sets GE apart is a culture that uses diversity."  

– Jack Welch

Steve Jobs' 12 Rules of Success

9. Ask for feedback. Ask for feedback, from people with diverse backgrounds.... More

Diversity Defined

Diversity is a specialized term describing a workplace that includes:

• people from various backgrounds and cultures, and/or

• diverse businesses.

Leveraging Opposite Forces

You can inspire innovation and find a strategic competitive advantage in an organizational and cultural context by seeking to leverage, rather than diminish, opposite forces. People with different cultural, educational, scientific, and business backgrounds will bring different frames of reference to a problem and can spark an exciting and dynamic cross-pollination of ideas.

"An important but widely overlooked principle of business success is that integrating opposites, as opposed to identifying them as inconsistencies and driving them out, unleashes power," writes Mark Stevens.³ "This is true on both a personal level (the balanced manager is more effective than his or her peer at one end of the control spectrum) and on organizational level as well... On an organization level we accept the existence of hard and fast dichotomies because this binary perspective helps to rationalize personal styles, viewpoints, and structures. Polarized thinking is simplistic and misleading. In the business world, ideal approaches are generally painted in gray as opposed to black and white." To be successful in today's complex, rapidly changing and highly competitive world, you must embrace and manage critical opposites.

Entrepreneurial Success

Entrepreneurship is the art of finding profitable solutions to problems. This requires diversified expertise. According to Peter McArthur, "Every successful enterprise requires three men – a dreamer, a businessman, and a son-of-a-bitch."

The Power of Taking a Different View

It was by taking a different view of a traditional business that major innovations were achieved. To find a better creative solution to the current practice, force yourself to reframe the problem, to break down its components and assemble them in a different way.

Inspirational Leadership: 10 Roles

Inspirational leaders create an inspiring culture within their organization. They supply a shared vision and inspire people to achieve more than they may ever have dreamed possible. They are able to articulate a shared vision in a way that inspires others to act. They leverage diversity.

People do what they have to do for a manager, they do their best for an inspirational leader... More

Integrated Diversity

"Integrated diversity" is a term used by Jack Welch, the legendary former CEO of General Electric, to define a synergistic learning culture. He described "integrated diversity" as the elimination of boundaries between businesses and the transferring of ideas from one place in the company to another. "Integrated diversity means the drawing together of our thirteen different businesses by sharing ideas, by finding multiple applications for technological advancements, and by moving people across businesses to provide fresh perspectives and to develop broad-based experience. Integrated diversity gives us a company that is considerably greater than the sum of its parts."⁴

Integrated diversity only works when the elements of that diversity, independent businesses, are strong in their own right. "GE wouldn't succeed by propping up small businesses with larger ones or having weaklings rely on winners. That was why Welch had always emphasized the importance of creating strong, stand-alone businesses."²

 Case in Point  Hewlett-Packard Way

To create an organization that could sustain its competitive advantage regardless of marketplace whims and what their competitors were building, HP founders based their corporate culture on the integration and reinforcement of critical opposites. This became known as the Hewlett-Packard Way. HP has achieved "what appears to be the greatest dichotomy: creating an environment that celebrates individualism, but at the same time one that is also wholly supportive of teamwork. Although HP people are taught to engage in cross-functional teams, they are also rated on the performance of decentralized business units and personal achievement."³