Productivity and diversity of perspectives

This week’s Global Business on BBC World Service was about developing effective teams. (The podcast will only be available for a week or so.) Professor Lynda Gratton of the London Business School talked about the key ingredients – which don’t include mandatory team building!

Like James Surowiecki in his excellent book The Wisdom of Crowds, Professor Gratton argues that diversity of perspectives results in creative tension and from that great ideas. She suggested that productivity in the UK would improve if corporate boards had a better gender balance.

That logic applies to the public and third sectors – and other perspectives: culture, belief, disability ethnicity.