Diversity
An element of that inclusiveness is paying attention to diversity when putting a collaboration together. We have the tendency when choosing people to work with to choose people who are like us—people with the same values, the same color, the same socio-economic status, and the same education. Perhaps they even live near us. We’re often most comfortable with homogeneity.
The most effective teams, however, bring together people with very different views and skillsets representing the broad range of stakeholders for a project. Diversity goes far beyond race, which is its common interpretation. It might mean that you include representatives of the clients you are serving with your collaboration. For example, if you are working on a collaboration which addresses the health needs of a section of your community, include people who live in that community in your collaborative effort.
THIS QUOTE FROM THE CHAPTER IN THE BOOK BY DR. VIRGINIA CAINE EXPLAINS WHY INCLUDING DIVERSITY IS SO IMPORTANT IN COLLABORATIONS: AND DIVERSITY TAKES MANY FORMS
So a lot of times, when you have a collaboration, you invite the people that you know and you’re comfortable with. You’re not always looking for diversity in these collaboration processes.
And so, if you get like-minded people that think the same way as you, and there’s no diversity in their perspective or their thoughts, you’re never going to come up with any innovative solutions. You’re just going to get the old, traditional, routine interventions where, wow, you may not be getting the outcomes you wanted to see.
“We feel more comfortable if we are interacting with someone that’s just like us, talks like us.
If you get like-minded people thinking the same way as you, and there is no diversity in their perspective, or their thoughts, you’re never going to come up with any innovative solutions.”
—Dr. Virginia Caine
