Everyone’s talking about diversity these days. However, in most instances, diversity conversations rarely transcend ethnicity, gender, and race. No doubt, these socio-demographic differences are important, but, there is another side to diversity that’s just 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. The reason why cognitive diversity requires our urgent attention is because it sets organizations up for failure; it makes them weak and increasingly vulnerable to threats posed by changing customer, competitive, and technological environments.
In this insightful and provocative webinar, Gaurav Bhalla, reveals why everybody thinking the same way is a competitive liability, not an asset. Accordingly, the webinar explains why cultivating and nurturing cognitive diversity is mission critical for growth and success in a VUCA world – Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous. The webinar amplifies the importance of cognitive diversity and the need for variety in thinking and behaving through stories of businesses that ignored cognitive diversity and paid the price by losing their market leadership position. Finally, the webinar also discusses the “how,” and reveals several human-centric strategies that businesses can adopt and implement for harnessing and unleashing the strategic power of cognitive diversity.
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I have come to understand through speaking and learning from Guarav, that the next frontier for my own growth towards becoming even more understanding and empathetic as well as persuasive and influential is embracing our intellectual and cognitive differences. Pre-Guarav, I put diversity solely in the category of cultural differences and external dissimilarities. I studied emotional intelligence as a means of becoming a more effective communicator and a happier, steadier contributor to life. But neither of those “buckets” taught me how to understand cognitive diversity as a point to be embraced for greater effectiveness.
Now, I’m beginning to understand that the most influential leaders also embrace our cognitive differences and use this knowledge to build a bridge between where we are and where we need to be, to make the most of our organization and our lives.
One of my favorite Martin Luther King Jr. quotes is “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”
A key to improving our effectiveness as a leader and our ability to inspire, motivate, and persuade is learning to set aside our individualistic beliefs (knowledge and the things we think we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt) and open up to what we can learn from seeing the situation through another’s lens - our cognitive differences.
- Anisa Aven, NLPC, BCC, CEO of TurnKey Coaching & Development Solutions & Webinar Emcee
Cognitive Diversity: Mission Critical for Business Success In a Complex and Uncertain World
Participants will learn:
1. Why Cognitive Diversity is mission critical in today's uncertain and complex world
2. Consequences of ignoring cognitive diversity; why consensus is a strategic liability
3. Human-centric strategies for cultivating and nurturing Cognitive Diversity
Gaurav Bhalla
About our Guest Speaker, Gaurav Bhalla, Executive Coach, Master Trainer, Training & Development Program Consultant
Gaurav Bhalla is a strategy, innovation and marketing professional with global experience and worked on three continents with over 20 countries. Since the mid-70’s, he have been associated with the business world as a consultant, executive, entrepreneur, and academic/executive educator; in 2016 he got a global executive education award.
In his previous incarnation he was the Global Innovation Director, at Kantar-TNS, one of the world’s largest market information and insight companies. Additionally, he also held positions in corporate strategy, brand management, sales management, and market research, at companies like Nestle, Richardson Vicks, and Burke; and worked with some of the largest brands in the world, such as GlaxoSmithKline, Bristol-Myers Squib, Amgen, Astra Zeneca, Pfizer, HP, Microsoft, IBM, Motorola, Samsung, Hughes Electronics, Seiko Epson, Coca Cola, P&G, Heinz, Capital One, Wachovia, and NASDAQ.
Looking for on-site Diversity Training, or Leader as Coach training or leadership coaching? We provide customized webinars, on-site workshops and enterprise solutions. Visit our Customized Employee Training Programs for more information. Seeking something one-on-one for a HighPo employee or leader, see our Coaching Programs.
Interested in learning more about how to avoid the two most common pitfalls of cultivating a coaching culture, here's an article you may find interesting.
Turnkey Coaching & Development Solutions is a Training, Coaching, Employee Assessment & Organizational Development firm company based in Houston, Texas with satellite offices across the US and key locations around the globe. The company was founded in 2004 to help corporation, non-profits, governmental organizations and academia drive business results and succeed by preparing their future leaders and developing their workforce strategically.
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