A featured contribution from Leadership Perspectives, a curated forum for enterprise technology leaders, nominated by our subscribers and vetted by the CIOApplications Editorial Board.
CIMA+
The Magic of People and Teams
Sure, there are people with higher IQ / EQ / SQ / AQ and it could really be an asset to have some of these high-scoring individuals on your team. No doubt, they are an essential part of success, but high scores alone won’t get you all the way to bright. You have all been witnesses of these sports team filled with superstars not being able to reach for the title.
So, let’s step back and talk about great people and great teams.
In essence, I believe that everyone has the potential to be great. I also believe that to have a great team, with great people, it takes a couple of key ingredients, namely care and diversity. Care. My reference is how my parents took care of me when I was young and foolish. I have been blessed with great parents giving me an environment where I could develop, learn, make mistakes and progress, with feedback, encouragement and love. Taking care in the context of business is not so different. It is putting together an environment for the team that provides safety and opportunities to grow. A team that values promoting speaking up and listening, leveraging conflicting perspectives by giving it a constructive tone, that demonstrates that one’s contribution to the success of the team is recognized, valued and respected. It also requires feedback, positive and corrective. Done the right way, it will be a contributing factor to long term success.
Diversity. Let’s talk about what I mean in this context. I am not only referring to different origin or gender or physical appearances but also to people with different perspectives coming from various realities, no matter what they are.
Much smarter people than I have created reference models that attempts to classify certain type of personalities to bring light to different ways of looking at things. For example, take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) which is a personality questionnaire that categorizes people into 16 personality types based on four dichotomous scales: Extraversion/Introversion, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling and Judging/Perceiving.
People with certain conditions such as ADHD or dyslexia that have developed individual coping strategies bringing in yet a different perspective. When we embrace such diversity and use it to its full potential, we have a recipe for richness and success
When we embrace such diversity and use it to its full potential, we have a recipe for richness and success.
I have a good example of diversity of perspective right at home. My wife and I see things very differently at times. She has a condition called Dyslexia. Sometimes it’s a curse but often times it’s a gift. I will let you read on the topic if you wish to understand the curse part but let me talk about the gift part. It makes her see and approach things differently. The thought process that she goes through is very different from mine. Although sometimes it irritates me, when she explains me how she comes to it, I can see things that I did not consider, a path that has other values and perspectives.
Imagine, we come from the same background, the same culture, the same city and we have been living together for 36 years. Still, we see things very differently. Think about the power of perspectives when you assemble a team, from different realities.
Of course, being in IT for my entire career, I have to add a little bit of technology to my story. Therefore, to further enrich diversity, let’s insert a radically new team member. An AI virtual person. We can add a perspective to discussions by including, deliberately positioned, a new AI profile that would fill a non fulfilled perspective in a group.
Take an experienced team brainstorming a new product introduction plan, trying to think of all steps and actions required to launch a new product. In the group, you have different personalities, coming from various education and backgrounds. You end up with a solid plan and think you covered.
Now, use your favorite GenAI tool and position the same questions you used in your work sessions but initiate the prompts with “imagine I am a marketing professional with 20 years experience in products launches, from (pick your country to ensure you cover a different culture), that graduated with a philosophy master (or pick any very different diploma than marketing) from (pick another country from a different part of the world). Play with those parameters so that they provide a very different but useful profile. Would you get a different perspective? Would you get additional actions? Would they lead to anything different in your plan?
You could even combine a method I have used in the past called the Six Thinking Hats with your virtual AI person. The method forces you to assign 6 different thinking roles (hats) to an individual or individuals and go through the discussion or thinking process always keeping that hat. You could use the virtual AI person with the same question every time but framed with a different hat and you would get a much richer solution at the end.
I started saying that real success comes from working with great people and teams, not using great technologies and I stand by that hard and strong. Leveraging great technologies, such as AI, can make people and team excel at an even higher level.
