Assemble a Diverse Optometry Team

Diverse divisions and teams typically outperform homogeneous groups. This has been shown by many pieces of research and studies at Stanford University and Cornell University. At the University of Michigan, Professor Scott Page emphasized that even a group made of the most capable members cannot outperform a diverse group.

In a previous post, we emphasized the importance of encouraging intrapreneurship in Optometry practices. As the practice starts growing and the number of employees starts to increase, it is important to foster a culture of intrapreneurship providing associates and employees with the opportunity to discover gaps in the organization and come up with solutions to overcome problems and close that gap. Intrapreneurs are the entrepreneurs that are identified among employees within the organization and they create business solutions to their organizations that were never possible unless the company would acquire or merge with another company.

Among the six corporate strategies identified by Ernst & Young that underlie the most successful intrapreneurship efforts is to “assemble and unleash a diverse workforce”. Statistically, diverse viewpoints resulted in better ideas and better products. Higher levels of innovation correlate with higher levels of cultural diversity. Teams made by people with different specialties worked more effectively with other teams in the organization and exhibited a higher rate of innovation.

Two kinds of diversity should be evaluated and taken into consideration in a practice that wants to benefit from diverse viewpoints to create innovative solutions. First, Inherent diversity, pertains to traits people are born with like gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Second, Acquired diversity, pertains to traits people acquire through experience, like working in another country helping people appreciate being culturally different. Experiences a male salesman can acquire by selling to women or vice versa. Indeed researchers found that employees of firms with at least three inherent and three acquired diversity traits are 45% likelier to report a growth in market share over the previous year. Moreover, those firms are 70% likelier to report they captured a new market.

To increase innovation practice managers should create teams with equal proportion of men and women, diverse cultural background, different nationalities, different age levels, etc. At the same time acquired diversity should be taken into consideration building multidisciplinary teams. This strategy will benefit from the most diverse pool of viewpoints and perspectives that lead to exceptional creative thinking that may not happen otherwise.