It seems we now celebrate diversity in our society. We are working on cracking the glass ceiling for women in the workplace and finding new balances in the ethnic makeup of almost all elements of our society. We have crossed a few barriers I once held sacred, like women serving on the front lines of our armed services, but I guess I am OK with most of where we are going.
Most importantly, we are embracing the idea that our past bias for who is best qualified for a job is being discussed. We even seem to celebrate the idea that kids no longer have to recite the pledge of allegiance in schools (the latest here in Georgia) and of course the idea that it is OK for athletes to kneel rather than stand for our National Anthem at professional football games. I am still having difficulty with that, but that is not my point in this blog.
I am not a chef by any means but I enjoy cooking. It is therapy compared to my “thinking job” all day long and it is often social with my wife and son joining in. My usual role is to be the primary “slicer and dicer” taking vegetables and fruit from their natural forms to something reasonably uniform to enter the recipe.
As I read and watch the recipes for many dishes it struck me that you almost never see the statement: just beat one egg or something like that. It is very common to treat the yolk and white of the egg separately and to prepare them with extreme care (e.g., beating the egg whites to a froth) before putting them in at precisely the right time to the recipe.
Perhaps there is a bigger lesson here in our culture of diversity as we try to get people to work together to make the best decisions for our organizations. Right now, we tend to put everyone in the same bowl and turn on the mixer. We may get a nice composite but we fail to take advantage of the differences in that diverse group. Is it possible that the senior engineers who know the history of the business might think differently from the millennials just entering this world? Is it possible that the men in the group might see things differently from the women? I think so.
Then, perhaps you need to mix these ideas together at the right time in the recipe. Perhaps it is time to recognize that the result from the group will be far different if it is approached this way rather than just taking everyone into the discussion and hoping that the average of those opinions is best.
Celebrate the diversity of your teams by honoring the unique contribution they each can make.