In 2000, Joseph Distefano published a paper on working in diverse teams. His team found that homogenous teams are more effective than poorly-managed diverse teams, but well-managed diverse teams are most effective.

In one of the paper’s appendices, Distefano shares a story.

Before the paper’s publication, Distefano and his team visited the offices of large organisations to see how their teams worked, what worked well, and what didn’t. One day, they were sitting in a bank in downtown New York, in a room filled with the bank’s top managers. The topic of discussion was how well they made decisions.

One manager remarked, “I think we make really good decisions here. We always ask around for everyone’s input. We hear everyone and always come to a decision.”

Another manager agreed, “Yes, there’s always room for improvement, but we always ask if everyone agrees, and we get an agreement before we move on.”

A few people gave their own examples supporting the quality of their decision-making.

A woman, who was originally from Korea, was sitting at the corner of the table. Physically, it was hard for her to lean in and be heard. She spoke with difficulty too, and cleared her throat before she said, “Well, this is not true for me. When I want to speak, I have to rehearse everything I want to say. I think about it over and over. By the time there’s space for me to say it, you already want to move on, so I’m only listened to partially. When I’m not heard, I have to recover inside, so I’m not listening to whatever else is said in the room.”

She continued, “My feelings aren’t the point. You’re not getting the best out of me, the best ideas out of me.”

There was a shocked, 20-second silence.

A man from Indonesia who was yet to speak added, “I have all these ideas that you often come to weeks after we have a discussion. I make observations that you only come to weeks later, that I don’t share for the reasons mentioned.”