EDI Is A Solution For Your Innovation Goals

I have worked in higher education for over 20 years. One positive change I have noticed is much more collaboration between disciplines. It is exciting to see teams that bring together sciences with humanities or law with theatre. These teams mix not only disciplinary diversity and perspectives but also different worldviews and background experiences. Students and the academy are benefitting from these diverse teams.

As leaders, we recognize the importance of being self-aware and knowing where our strengths and areas for improvement lie. Being aware of our gaps allow us to identify areas we need to fill with our team members. Often we seek teams that can help us problem solve, be creative and most importantly innovate in order to grow, be successful and stay relevant. If this resonates with you as a leader, a way to approach this is through embracing the power of differences.

Research consistently shows that fostering teams that are diverse and inclusive are more innovative. Why is that? Having team members that offer diverse skills, competencies, and lived experiences, are able to look at issues from different angles and are less at risk of groupthink or creating echo chambers.

I could not agree more with the research and have seen having diverse team members really help us create better resources and services in my organization. A recent example, which stands out for me, was when we hired an instructional designer, Farrah (pseudonym) who lives with visual impairments and neurodiversity. We have always worked hard to ensure our learning resources for faculty and students were accessible, but relied on accessibility standards and guidelines, really following “rule books” and checklists based on accessibility standards. What happened with having Farrah join our team was that she pushed us to go beyond meeting standards and to think more about the impact and the learning experience for our students and faculty who have diverse needs. This meant we went beyond fulfilling the minimum standards and deeply considered the learning experience a student or faculty member would have with our resources. This helped us consider going beyond just thinking about accessibility but also consider how we might create a better experience and engagement by being innovative!

Keep in mind that just having diversity on your team may not ensure innovation unless there is a strong sense of inclusion. This is where a leader needs to establish a strong foundation of belonging. Building that foundation can be done by:

·        creating a shared list of values and principles

·        being clear on purpose and goals

·        providing space and time for team members to learn about each others unique skills, backgrounds and experiences

·        ensuring opportunities for co-creation and collaboration where diverse skills and perspectives can be highlighted as complementary to each other

Where would you like to be more innovative and how can you embrace differences to co-create something even better because you were inclusive with your team composition?

Written by : Shailoo Bedi, Associate Coach, Inspired Results Group