‘The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies’ by Scott Page
In his quite thorough book, Scott Page opens up the term ‘diversity’ into concepts and perspectives and interprets them through the eyes of modern society, human philosophy and history. This book began as an effort to explain to members of academia, major corporations, and whomever else was reading, that diverse input produces more successful results in projects than input from a single perspective of excelling abilities (or as he says, “Diversity trumps ability”). With countless examples and vignettes of subjects ranging from human cognition to trigonometry to Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, Page sets out to explain the power and potential of diversity through his background in teaching complex systems, political science and economics.
Viewing each of us humans as a toolbox, each containing a different number and variety of tools, Page delves into the benefits and downfalls of heuristics, diverse perspectives, interpretations, and predictions. He illustrates that although diversity draws betters solutions, contributes to productivity, and enables crowds of people to predict values accurately, diversity of preferences can frustrate the process of making choices. He continues to divulge topics such as the unbeneficial processes of group think and identical perspectives, and warns of this potential in small groups such as management teams, hiring committees, boards of directors, and so on. He also explains that when members of a group are not keenly selected, ability can trump diversity through clashes in perspectives and understanding causing an overall hindrance of productivity.
With factors working against the advancement of diversity in our everyday lives such as discrimination and lack of engagement, Page encourages a personal diversification of fundamental preferences, identification of fundamental vs. instrumental diversity and encouragement of interdisciplinary efforts and diverse citizens.
For a crash course in the power and potential of diversity in our societies and personal lives, this book is an excellent choice with in depth, descriptive, and at times, humorous narration. -PH
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