
It's not about right or wrong, but about seeing each other's perspective. We always experience it when working with teams: diversity adds tremendous value. Diversity in how people see things, how they communicate, what they consider important, and how they take action when something needs to be conceived, to be done, or to be resolved.
The more diversity is utilized in a team, the more innovative and successful the team is in everything it does.
However, dealing with those differences is often challenging. Friction can easily arise between team members, and it always costs something, even if it's just time and energy to get back on the same page.
One of the key success factors for leaders and teams is to understand themselves and each other. Being able to empathize with others and thereby establish a genuine connection with each other and with different ideas. Or, as Covey beautifully puts it in the fifth habit of effective leadership: 'Seek first to understand… then to be understood.'
Noortje Bloch & Heleen Prakke