Today, conversations concerning diversity are ubiquitous. In most instances, however, this conversation rarely transcends ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, the color of one’s hair and skin. No doubt, these demographic and life-orientation differences are important, but, there is another aspect of diversity that’s at least as important, if not more, and which rarely gets any play. And that’s cognitive diversity – differences in how people think, process information, and respond through their decision making.
Both kinds of diversity are important, but the lack of the second kind makes an organization increasingly vulnerable to threats posed by changing customer, competitive, and technological environments. Because to thrive in a VUCA world – Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous – a company must match or exceed the complexity “out there” (market – customers, competitors, technology) with the cognitive capacity to deal with that complexity “in here” (within the company). Else, the company will miss, or dismiss, important signals of environmental change, and pay a heavy price. Accordingly, the main theme of the Webinar will be how embracing and implementing the ideas and practice of Soulful Leadership contributes significantly toward developing and nurturing diversity, and hence to a company’s survival and growth.