Is Monoculture Killing Your Ability To Innovate?

A recent Forbes article cites a study of 1700 companies showing companies that had diverse leadership teams produced 19% more revenues than non diverse teams. It stands to reason that having diversity of thought produces better innovation and is more able to identify blindspots in an organization. But that is the tip of the iceberg.

Monoculture is a term derived from farming where the planting of the same crop on the same piece of land over time renders the land infertile, encourages disease, and is unable to sustain continued growth. The same is true for our companies. Hiring the same kind of people for the same kind of positions to do things “the way that we do things here at company x” yields an environment where new ideas do not bloom, no new revenue streams grow, and where the company fails when environmental forces change. While telling leaders of a company that they have a monoculture is akin to telling a parent they have an ugly baby, a candid view of this topic may be the determine the survival of the company.

Keeping with the farming analogy, monoculture’s opposite would be biodiversity; a condition or ecosystem whereby the planting of different crops in close proximity promote the health of each crop, enrich the soil and lead to long term growth and sustainability.

How do you know if you have a monoculture?

• The company hires from traditional talent funnels
• The demographic makeup of decision makers lacks diversity
• Decision making processes are top-down
• There are no systems in place for constructive dissent
• Consensus building stresses finding agreement quickly rather than encouraging meaningful disagreement

Symptoms of a monoculture

• Relationships between personnel is overtly and covertly political
• There is widespread resistance to new ideas, business models and pilot initiatives
• Leadership is defensive of its record — not open to new ideas or outsider thinking.
• Lack of original ideas
• Employees are not engaged
• Innovation happens only on specified teams

Bluntly stated, companies that exhibit these traits and fail to address them fail over the long term. In an age of unprecedented change and uncertainty, doing more of the same and using the past as a frame of reference is insufficient to remain viable.

COVID has shown us a few things:

• The future is uncertain
• Our current systems are not designed for abrupt change
• Having teams that are adaptable and innovative is more important now than ever
• Preparing for an uncertain future will take new thinking and approaches

So what do you do if your company has fallen into the monoculture trap?

If you are a leader, the first step is to learn and understand how diverse thinking in teams accelerates the problem solving process and leads to better outcomes. From there, a new strategy needs to be created to bring cognitive diversity into areas of the organization that would make a difference. This may include redesigning talent funnels and hiring criteria, training executives and managers in how to facilitate and leverage diversity, and create structures that encourage new ideas, dissent and feedback so that good ideas from lower level employees can be expressed and factored in to the decision making process.

To shift away from a monoculture to a culture that is innovative and adaptable requires a new way of communicating (and a lot of it). It requires addressing long entrenched patterns and a visible commitment from leadership to create long term change. When people are empowered to bring their best selves (their ideas, passion and creativity) to their work and are confident that their efforts will be rewarded, people naturally show up more engaged, interested and excited. Conversely, when monoculture instructs them to be quiet, go along with the group, and don’t make any waves, companies stagnate and people either stay for security (getting by by doing enough to keep their job) or leave the company for more rewarding work. In this case, there is a collective brain drain that reinforces a monoculture.

Empowering people’s talents and giving them the tools to discover how to be innovative and creative is the single biggest gift a leader can give to themselves. When ideas and problem solving is empowered to from the bottom up, organizations can be responsive and adaptable when the landscape in the market changes.