"The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions." Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love this Emerson quote.  Ever have one of those experiences? 

I did at the Society of Actuaries meeting last week.  The keynote speaker was Scott Page who spoke on the topic of “Cognitive Diversity.”  Professor Page is the author of the book The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies. 

Professor Page is focused on the differences in how people think – cognitive diversity, not our typical corporate definition of diversity. He shared with us the actual math that proves how superior results can be achieved where teams are “cognitively diverse.” (Side observation: I guess you can successfully add equations and mathematical proofs in your PowerPoint when the crowd is comprised of actuaries!)  He illustrated this with an example of how teams used a variant of crowdsourcing to win the Netflix prize  (https://www.wired.com/2009/09/how-the-netflix-prize-was-won/). The winners attributed their success to collaboration, diverse ideas, commenting that it was not “some touchy-feely, unquantifiable, ‘when people work together things are better’ sort of way.”

Page also shared a striking example of where cognitive diversity improved one profession – economics. He noted how historically, “women’s work” was not counted in calculating gross domestic product. Using the example of someone like Ma Ingalls, of Little House on the Prairie fame, her cleaning, pie making, tending of the animals wouldn’t have been counted. He noted that when women came into the economics profession, they recognized there was a lot of GDP in there.  “So, when you only had men thinking about the economy, they were ignoring the productivity of half the population. By including the perspectives of females, the estimates got more accurate. This was important for looking at the American past and for understanding contemporary societies like those in Africa, where the farmers are usually the women.”

Digging just a little, I enjoyed an article by Alison Reynolds and David Lewis in the Harvard Business Review, March 30, 2017:  Teams Solve Problems Faster When They’re More Cognitively Diverse (https://hbr.org/2017/03/teams-solve-problems-faster-when-theyre-more-cognitively-diverse).  They state in part, “Received wisdom is that the more diverse the teams in terms of age, ethnicity, and gender, the more creative and productive they are likely to be. But…we have found no correlation between this type of diversity and performance. …Some groups have fared exceptionally well and others incredibly badly, irrespective of diversity in gender, ethnicity, and age.  …If not diversity, what accounted for such variability in performance? …Our analysis (showed) a significant correlation between high cognitive diversity and high performance.”

The top takeaway?  When you are dealing with difficult issues, plan design, investment selection, etc. you may be able to improve your chances of achieving an optimal result if your team includes cognitively diverse individuals.