Building teams: Productive discomfort

← Leadership is a condition of an organisation, not an individual

Central idea:

Insisting on variety and disrupting conversation status quo creates discomfort. However this feeling is part of embracing diversity in order to enable learning and change. We call this “productive discomfort”.

← Leadership is a condition of an organisation, not an individual Current diversity and inclusion initiatives can work against productive discomfort, particularly those that seek to promote integration (which aligns with a desire to fit in, to adapt to surroundings, and to reduce discomfort). If we recognise the need to change (to update our goals against our reframed purpose) then we need to find a way to embed it in our goals, and to embrace an adjusted framing of what a diverse and inclusive environment might feel and behave like. We need people who can lead with friction, those with the skills to hold people in productive conflict and harness the creativity that comes from this process of learning and exploration of multiple perspectives. Facilitating complex exchanges and processes for learning from and with others is thus fundamental to organisations effectively innovating to manage change.38