Cooperative Diversity

The major goal of this month’s Inspiring Innovations LEARNING MOMENTS podcast is to more creatively and purposefully harness the potential of Cooperative Diversity! 

Too often, as we work with people… we overlook the LEADERSHIP… INNOVATION… COMMUNICATION and PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT learnings that exist in a cooperating diversified group. Effectively nurturing the unique input and likewise managing the progressive outputs of co-workers, colleagues, Board members, and friends as part of standard company/organization operating procedures… can truly build unlimited growth value going forward. 

Plan to listen to this special podcast more than once. I believe there are multiple LEARNING MOMENTS.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello again, and welcome to the February 2025 Inspiring Innovations Learning Moments Podcast. As always, this is your regular discussionist host, Marv Pickla. And I have to say that especially during these cold, uh closed-in winter months in northern Michigan, it's fun to think about all the different areas of our worlds that I get to share ideas and thoughts about leadership and innovation and communication and professional development with a bunch of fun listeners that like to log in. I really appreciate that. And I don't say it often enough, but really I enjoy hearing back from all of you out there all the time. And I always wonder who's out there and who's really listening. So I got to tell you, it I thank you for the notes of encouragement. But let's get on with this month. This month, we're going to talk about a special kind of topic that requires a little more explanation and a little more day-to-day application examples to make sure everybody really gets it and its overall value. This month. This month we're going to talk about cooperative diversity. Cooperative diversity. And see, I told you that you would need to pay a little bit closer attention. First, don't try and look up cooperative diversity, you know, with Google or wherever else, because all you'll get is information about blending different antenna systems, you know, in order to increase the number of channels you can get. All right, that's what you'll get if you try and uh look that up. But instead, rather for today, our definition for cooperative diversity will focus on working with people and the tremendous professional advantages you'll realize if you use it, cooperative diversity correctly. Okay? So think about working with people. Do you want them to only think about doing business the same every day? Do you look past that everyone learns a little bit differently? Do you not talk about client and customer product and service needs and changes that happen regularly? Or instead, do you take, do you take and your group take full advantage of the cooperative diversity of new ideas, thoughts, and information that often in a meeting or wherever is sitting in the room right there with you? All of that diverse ideas and thoughts and information is right there in front of you. Do you think about it? Are you thinking about it now, about the unplanned potential that may be building at every meeting that you participate in? Do you think of that? And be it with co-workers or business reps or your board or council or committee members, or just even a small group of customers. The professional development advantages could, would be great in that cooperative, you know, remember, it's it's cooperative diversity that we're talking about, okay? So as you're thinking about it, is planning and group action easier if it appears everyone thinks the same? Sure, of course it does. Is it easier to think that most client customers all want pretty much the same stuff? Yep, it's pretty pretty easy to think that. But it is also true that age, gender, and work experiences can cause some kinds of unique professional discomfort when embracing a cooperative diversity approach. Yeah. But realize too that a good form of growth, stability, growth stability, will come around when there is cooperative diversity in your business or organization, and inputs are provided regularly from everyone. Okay. As we're getting past this month's time to talk about cooperative diversity, I want you to think about for today the high value of recognizing cooperative diversity as you work with people. Think about things like idea generation. Think about the benefits of their historical perspectives, okay? Think about changes in our clients and our customers that are walking through the door. They're not the same. Ages and gender and all those make a difference every day. Think about cooperative diversity in terms of mistake avoidance and resource opportunities, and just the fact of personnel, the people you're talking, working with, their personal ownership of what happens afterwards. Okay? Diverse people working well in a cooperative manner can only result in professional and organizational progress. Every time, diverse people working well together in a cooperative manner will lead to professional and organizational progress. Please share this podcast with your colleagues. I hope that they get something out of it. That's my goal every month. Thanks for listening, and you can bet we'll discuss more stuff next month.