As I mentioned yesterday, I spoke at a Marine Corps Birthday Ball this weekend. When the ceremony was complete and the dinner dishes cleared the DJ started up. I was reminded very quickly that I am out of touch. I used to pride myself on being at least familiar with what was happening in pop culture but I guess having children and my own business has pushed me away from that position.

I was talking to a young Marine and his date and asked them if they were going to dance. He smiled and said, “Absolutely Sir, in a minute or two they’ll play some country music.” While we were talking the DJ was playing hip-hop. A few songs earlier it was some hard core metal (do they even call it that anymore) and a few minutes later was some line dancing. I thought about all this and wondered if this was the toughest gig the DJ had to play. At least at a wedding you can narrow it down to what the old folks want and the young folks but at the Ball we are talking about young and old and every race, creed and color. So, I asked him.

I asked the DJ if this was the most diverse group he played for and he said it was. He went on to tell me that it was one of his favorite groups too because the Marines were all polite and tolerant of all genres of music he played. He said at some events people would boo, or worse, if he played something they didn’t like. Corporations make such a fuss about diversity and they should because it is proven that diverse teams can be more effective than homogenous teams. The military proves that. I admit that although the armed services are highly integrated racially it does not mean they don’t have work to do either. I do assert that they are among the most integrated units in our nation and they do a pretty good job of accomplishing the mission. And with that statement we get to one of the keys to success. Mission focus.

Diverse teams succeed because they have a singular focus on mission. They also have a common culture that transcends the personal cultures of the individuals on the team. This comes from solid leadership. We have talked about this in the past and it is called cohesion. Diverse teams succeed because they are well led. Instead of making a fuss about diversity, maybe corporations should just teach people to lead more effectively.

The results will speak for themselves – no matter what music is playing.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at 2:55 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.