Re-framing Diversity through the Lens of Star Trek: Voyager
Deck
slides.com/fmitchell/drupalgovcon2023-diversity-startrek
Star Trek: Voyager
Diversity
Demographic
Experiential
Cognitive
Bias
Thinking Fast
Thinking Slow
Mental Models (How to Think)
Inversion
Prove me wrong vs. What am I missing?
The Map is not the Territory
There will always be flaws and nuance
Circle of Competence
Being right vs. Being successful
Perspective
How one looks at a problem
Heuristic
How one searches for a solution
Re-Framing
IQ
- Intelligence Quotient
- Ability to learn, not what you know
- Doesn't change much after childhood
EQ
- Emotional quotient
- Ability to recognize one's own emotions and others
- Changes over time
Emotional Intelligence of Groups
- Source (HBR): bit.ly/ei-hbr-2001
- Teams who develop greater emotional intelligence (EQ) boost their overall performance
- EQ: Trust among members, a sense of group identity, and a sense of group efficacy
- At the heart of these three conditions are emotions, like the ability to listen
What do you hear about great groups? Not that the members are all really smart, but that they listen to each other.
Anita Wooley, Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon
What is the logical solution?
Tuvok
On the contrary, the demands on a Vulcan's character are extraordinarily difficult. Do not mistake composure for ease.
How do we evaluate talent?
B’Elanna Torres
If I sprain my ankle, at least I feel something […] I'm not trying to kill myself! I'm trying to see if I'm still alive.
I want to hire the most qualified
How do you define
most qualified?
Hint: What is your perspective and heuristic?
Perspective
How one looks at a problem
Heuristic
How one searches for a solution
You must change your perspective to arrive at a new heuristic
Innovation
Consider this...
Why do diverse teams outperform?
- The Out-group Advantage (Northwestern 2010)
-
Teams focus on facts
- Alter the behavior of a group’s social majority
- Facts processed more carefully
-
More innovation
- Dodge the costly pitfalls of conformity, which discourage innovative thinking
The Difference
- Scott Page
- Professor of Complex Systems, Political Science, and Economics
- Published 2007
- bit.ly/scottpage-difference
Diversity Trumps Ability Theorem
Conditions
- The problem must be hard
- Each solver has a local optima to the problem
- An improvement can be made to a non-optimal solution
- Large pool of solvers to form a decent-size collection
Diversity Trumps Ability Theorem
Mathematical simulation models
http://bit.ly/div-v-ability
Counter
thecollegefix.com/post/20375/
ams.org/notices/201409/rnoti-p1024.pdf
Counter-Counter
bit.ly/1juIvFI
ams.org/notices/201501/rnoti-p9.pdf
What the model tells us
Think of people as collections of tools
Ability is a reflection of the applicability of those tools to a given set of problems.
Problem solvers with diverse perspectives may have trouble understanding solutions identified by other agents.
Dr. Scott Page, Professor at Univ. of Michigan
Seven of Nine
But that is irrelevant.
EQ
What if...
Open source could make the world a better place by requiring
equity and emotional intelligence
integral to its interoperability
Mental Models
Inversion
Prove me wrong vs. What am I missing?
The Map is not the Territory
There will always be flaws and nuance
Circle of Competence
Being right vs. Being successful
Common-Knowledge Effect
A decision-making bias where teams overemphasize the information most team members understand instead of pursuing and incorporating the unique knowledge of each team member
nngroup.com/articles/common-knowledge-effect
What's the catch?
Not Efficient and More Difficult
Lots of time and practice and mistakes
Miscommunication
Things get missed, especially remotely
Vulnerability
Failures may hit deeper
Most Common Pitfall
Hanlon's Razor
Assumption of nefarious intent
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by a mistake."
Captain Janeway
Keep your shirt tucked in; go down with the ship; and never abandon a member of your crew.
To Solve Difficult Problems
Ability - people with lots of tools
Diversity - people with distinct tools
Nurture emotional intelligence
To Effectively Collaborate
Re-frame the perspective
Sources
Groups are smarter with women - http://hbr.org/2011/06/defend-your-research-what-makes-a-team-smarter-more-women/ar/1
EQ (HBR link) - http://www.mindsetmatters.com.au/Portals/0/dox/building%20emotional%20intelligence%20of%20groups.pdf
Group Intelligence Correlates More with Social Aptitude than IQ - http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/10/collective-intelligence-and-th/
Being an Ally as a Person with Privilege - http://www.scn.org/friends/ally.html
Risk of Speaking Up - http://www.ashedryden.com/the-risk-in-speaking-up
21st Century Talent Spotting: Potential Trumps Brains, experience, and competencies - http://www.egonzehnder.com/files/_b_77ddd4d.pdf
Mathematical Model of Diversity - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/science/08conv.html
Scott Page: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Schools, Societies - http://vserver1.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~spage/thedifference_content.html
Diversity Trumps Ability - http://www.crowdsourcing.com/cs/2008/05/chapter-6-the-m.html
Scott Page, Lu Hong Research - http://www.pnas.org/content/101/46/16385.full
http://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/now-voyager-the-least-beloved-star-trek-offered-some-of-the-franchises-strongest-feminist-messages
http://www.startrek.com/page/star-trek-voyager
https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/20375/
https://www.knightfoundation.org/articles/having-uncomfortable-conversations-a-new-communications-imperative