Blog
Author encourages leaders to leverage existing diversity
- By: ASNE staff
- On: 09/19/2011 13:46:00
- In: Leadership in diversity sessions
NEW YORK -- Frans Johansson, author of the groundbreaking bestseller, “The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation,” encouraged those at the “ASNE Leadership in Diversity: New Models for Growing Audience, Talent and Revenue” summit to leverage their existing diversity. “We are attracted to people similar to ourselves. So we need to make new combinations occur,” he noted. “It's easier to come up with creative ideas if you surround yourself with people who are different from yourself.”
NEW YORK -- Diversity leads organizations to intersections where more, and better, ideas originate.
That's the message highlighted by Frans Johansson, author of the groundbreaking bestseller, “The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation,” during the second “ASNE Leadership in Diversity: New Models for Growing Audience, Talent and Revenue” summit at The New York Times Conference Center.
Some 80 news leaders and executives and diversity advocates were registered to attend the two-day session focusing on revenue potential for reaching markets of different types.
During his session, Johansson challenged those at the conference to “find inspiration from fields or cultures other than your own—and dare to explore them.” He pointed out how fast things change by noting that the average life cycle for a company on the Standard & Poor's 500 list fell to a10-15 year period, down from 30-35 years.
Companies know the importance of differentiation, he said. But to survive and grow they need to change the rules and break new ground. “That's where differentiation happens,” Johansson said. The “Medici Effect” identifies three diversity facts that make for more fruitful opportunities, Johansson noted:
Fact 1: All new ideas are combinations of existing ideas.
Fact 2: People that change the world try for new ideas.
Fact 3: Diverse teams can unleash an explosion of new ideas.
Johansson provided examples of how new ideas emerge by showing connections between different words how they led to new ventures. For example, the word bikini combined with the word burqa led to a new type of swimsuit for Muslim women. Cement and wedding gifts prompted a cement manufacturer to market cement as wedding gifts in communities that could use cement to build homes.
Johansson encouraged those at the gathering to leverage their existing diversity.
“We are attracted to people similar to ourselves. So we need to make new combinations occur,” he noted. “It's easier to come up with creative ideas if you surround yourself with people who are different from yourself.”
Johansson's presentation was sponsored by the Gannett Foundation.