Harnessing Cognitive Diversity
We’ve long been introducing participants in our Strategic Doing trainings to the idea that harnessing cognitive diversity can be a team’s superpower. I just returned from Suzhou, China, where the University of North Alabama has an Executive MBA program. I had the honor of introducing the tool we use to measure cognitive diversity – the AEM-Cube – to a whole new group of leaders.
What Is Cognitive Diversity?
Cognitive diversity has to do with the way each of us thinks about the world and the work that we do. Much of that mindset is hardwired in us from a very young age. It has almost nothing to do with the demographic categories we associate with diversity (age, gender, ethnicity, etc.). It can be the source of frustration in a team when we find ourselves disagreeing about what direction to take or how to get a task done. Yet, especially when we’re focusing on a complex challenge, it is often the most important asset we have.
Introducing the AEM-Cube
The AEM-Cube is a short, online assessment that anyone can take to uncover their own preferences and how they can most optimally contribute to a team and an organization. When it’s taken alongside others, it can also be used to create a composite image of a team’s collective cognitive preferences, to answer questions such as “What kinds of work do we excel at?” “Where do we struggle?” “Should our next hire help us fill a cognitive gap in our team?” “Are we well-balanced not just for what we’re doing today, but the next challenge?”
Expanding Access: AEM-Cube in Chinese
We worked with our colleagues at Human Insight – the developers of the AEM-Cube – to offer the instrument in Chinese for the very first time: both the questionnaire as well as the reports participants receive. In the class sessions, students grappled with the implications of cognitive diversity and how to harness its potential as well as mitigate the ways in which our teams can be vulnerable when they are not diverse enough.
Learn More
The Lab has several team members certified to administer and interpret the AEM-Cube. Find out how it can benefit your team by getting in touch with us.
Liz shepherds the expansion of the Lab’s programming and partnerships with other universities interested in deploying agile strategy tools. A co-author of Strategic Doing: 10 Skills for Agile Leadership, she also focuses on the development and growth of innovation and STEM education ecosystems, new tool development, and teaching Strategic Doing.