The Diversity Bonus: How Great Teams Pay Off In The Knowledge Economy

E-Book Overview

How businesses and other organizations can improve their performance by tapping the power of differences in how people think

What if workforce diversity is more than simply the right thing to do in order to make society more integrated and just? What if diversity can also improve the bottom line of businesses and other organizations facing complex challenges in the knowledge economy? It can. And The Diversity Bonus shows how and why.

Scott Page, a leading thinker, writer, and speaker whose ideas and advice are sought after by corporations, nonprofits, universities, and governments around the world, makes a clear and compellingly pragmatic case for diversity and inclusion. He presents overwhelming evidence that teams that include different kinds of thinkers outperform homogenous groups on complex tasks, producing what he calls “diversity bonuses.” These bonuses include improved problem solving, increased innovation, and more accurate predictions―all of which lead to better performance and results.

Page shows that various types of cognitive diversity―differences in how people perceive, encode, analyze, and organize the same information and experiences―are linked to better outcomes. He then describes how these cognitive differences are influenced by other kinds of diversity, including racial and gender differences―in other words, identity diversity. Identity diversity, therefore, can also produce bonuses.

Drawing on research in economics, psychology, computer science, and many other fields, The Diversity Bonus also tells the stories of people and organizations that have tapped the power of diversity to solve complex problems. And the book includes a challenging response from Katherine Phillips of the Columbia Business School.

The result changes the way we think about diversity in the workplace―and far beyond it.


E-Book Content

THE DIVERSIT Y BONUS Earl Lewis and Nancy Cantor, Series Editors Other books in this series: Earl Lewis and Nancy Cantor, editors, Our Compelling Interests: The Value of Diversity for Democracy and a Prosperous Society THE DIVERSITY BONUS HOW GREAT TEAMS PAY OFF IN THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY SCOTT E. PAGE PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON & OXFORD Copyright © 2017 by Princeton University Press and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR press.princeton.edu Jacket image courtesy of iStock. Jacket design by Faceout Studio, Tim Green All Rights Reserved ISBN 978-0-691-17688-8 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017938361 British Library Cataloging-in- Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Sabon and Trade Gothic Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To Pat Gurin, for helping so many of us think in deeper, more complex ways. Great ideas push the world forward. And they can come from anywhere. At Apple, we rely on our employees’ diverse backgrounds and perspectives to spark innovation. So we’re hiring more inclusively, choosing partners who make diversity a priority, and creating opportunities for the next generation. APPLE We should understand that diversity and inclusion are not “something nice” to do in addition to our “real work,” but are central to mission success. CHARLES F. BOLDEN JR., NASA ADMINISTRATOR Encouraging a broad range of opinions, ideas and perspectives helps us drive creativity and innovation across the company. THE WALT DISNEY COM PANY The issues we face demand sustained effort and insight from a broad
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