A diverse team ensures that better decisions are reached, was the consensus at a recent Women in AV meeting.
Hosted by Polycom, at its central London offices, several senior women from the AV vendor revealed their key to attracting and retaining diverse talent.
Lynn Gilligan, VP Marketing Strategy & Operations, Polycom believes that diversity leads to stronger, all-encompassing, strategies.
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She explained: “My global team is made up of all ages, genders and languages so they can see things through different perspectives and different lenses. This means they are not only a better team globally, but all locally relevant.
Inclusion means changing your mindset. Some people think that womens gain mean mens loss – this is not the case. Having diversity in your team ensures you make better decisions.”
Andrea Kolstad, Senior Director Digital Experience, At Polycom, said she has a very diverse team who manage 27 websites in 19 languages.
She said: “My team needs to be diverse to better serve the people coming to our sites.
Everyday my team looks at these sites and how they perform and depending on location there are drastically different results.
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You have to ensure that those looking at the stats are techies but all non-techies, that they are from different backgrounds and are not misinterpreting the data.”
Kolstad noted that having a diverse team is one thing, but ensuring they are heard is another.
“You also need to ensure that your diverse team is heard. Everyone has different communication styles and it is important as a leader to understand that and to listen to everyone,” she added.
“In some countries management hierarchy can get in the way of people expressing their views, whereas millennials prefer to brainstorm. I ensure my team is diverse and that everyone is heard, as this is critical to my team’s success and to Polycom’s success.”
