American writer H.L. Mencken once declared that, for every complex problem, there was a solution that was simple, neat, and wrong.
He may have been on to something. New research from the University of Waterloo has revealed that organisations might be over-estimating the value of mixed skills in finding solutions.
The researchers said it was typically assumed that building teams with diverse expertise resulted in strong, creative solutions.
This latest study found that such teams came up with unique solutions, but they may not be practical to implement.
“Our study challenges the trendy belief that teams with diverse expertise always boost creativity,” Adam Presslee, a professor from the School of Accounting and Finance at Waterloo, said.
“While teams with differing skill sets and perspectives tend to come up with more original ideas, they also face friction when trying to turn those ideas into practical, implementable solutions.”
As part of the study, teams made up of members with different areas of expertise were tasked with finding creative uses for an unused university space.
This revealed that the teams with a mix of skills generated more unique proposals, but their ideas were often less useful than those from groups with same expertise.
Brain scanning showed that when team members’ brains were more synchronized in certain areas, it influenced their ideas’ uniqueness or usefulness.
“While diverse expertise enhances the uniqueness of team ideas, it reduces their usefulness – leading to a complex balancing act for managers,” the study report said.
“Ultimately, skill diversity in teams can be a double-edged sword in terms of its effect on creativity.”
Professor Presslee said companies needed to think carefully about the nature of the output they want when teams are put together.
Diverse expertise was effective for “out of the box” ideas but uniform teams may be better for practical, usable outcomes.
The study, “The Effect of Functional Diversity on Team Creativity: Behavioral and fNIRS Evidence,” is published in Management Science.
