Recently, I’ve been collaborating with Lynda Gratton of London Business School on a large research study of team behavior. As the Right Brain-Left Brain folks knew, diversity can in theory be very beneficial to team performance, particularly when innovation is the goal. However, to get the benefits of diversity, the team members must work well together. Our data, gathered from more than 50 teams around the globe, show that diversity often is not positively harnessed -- and, as a result, actually represents one of the most significant impediments to performance in many teams. The research makes clear that diversity along almost any dimension, absent explicit conditions to engender collaboration, actually limits the exchange of ideas among team members.

Many of the conditions we found that support collaboration within diverse teams relate to forming strong personal relationships and fostering trust among team members. For more on the ways we found to create environments that effectively harness diversity of all types see “Eight Ways to Build Collaborative Teams” from the November 2007 Harvard Business Review.

And here's a story to illuminate what we've learned about team behavior:

A number of years ago, my husband and I attended a seminar on “Right Brain, Left Brain.” The course had been designed to help companies compose the ideal teams for innovation by selecting people who approached problems from different perspectives. My company was thinking of offering it to help with our internal team formation and, as an incentive to get me to give up a Saturday to check it out, paid for Tom to attend, as well.

A few weeks before the session, we each filled out a questionnaire on our preferences and various habits.

Almost as soon as we arrived that Saturday, the instructor announced that two teams of people were to be sent out of the room to do a special exercise. As it happened, Tom and another guy were one team, while I was on the second team with another woman from the class. We were given our tasks and off we all went.

What we didn’t know then was that while we were out, the instructor explained to the remaining class members that one team was comprised of the two most left-brained people in the group, while the other had the two most right-brained individuals. He then went on to explain the expected characteristics of left- and right-brained folks.

When the allotted time for the assignment was up, Tom and his partner returned promptly to the classroom. They had done the assignment exactly as requested and carefully rehearsed the presentation they would make to the group.

The instructor had to send someone to track down my teammate and me. We’d forgotten all about the class -- never did do the assignment -- and, by then, were deep into gales of laughter at all sorts of shared stories.

We were a bit astonished to find the class in laughter, too, when we finally made it back to the room. What was so funny?

Despite our lack of preparation, we comfortably ad libbed a response to the assignment, enthusiastically building off each other’s ideas in real time, only mildly distracted by the continuing laughter of the class. What was their problem?

Of course, as the instructor eventually pointed out, the two groups had just put on a perfect display of the extremes of right brain (me and my partner) and left brain (Tom and his) approaches. The theory was that, brought together within a team charged with problem solving and innovation, these different approaches will help stimulate new thinking -- assuming they are able to work together!

When Tom and I told him we were married, the instructor’s surprise tipped us off to the difficulties of getting diversity to work. He said he’d never had a married couple be in the two extreme groups: “You two don’t even speak the same language!”

Maybe true, but over the years we have made a good team, filling in the gaps in each other’s interests and capabilities. It's an example of the benefits of team diversity, positively harnessed.

What has your experience with diversity been like? Have you been part of a team -- in any aspect of your life -- in which the differences among members were harnessed as strengths?

Read all of Tammy Erickson's "Across the Ages" posts.

MORE ON TEAMS:
Eight Ways to Build Collaborative Teams (HBR Article)
Bridging Faultlines in Diverse Teams (SMR Article)
How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight (HBR Article)
Make Your Good Team Great: Increase Group Emotional Intelligence to Increase Group Results