Keurig - Café Culture (Fostering Thought Diversity)

In this wrap-up of the limited-run series, host John Palumbo is joined by SVP and General Manager at Keurig Dr. Pepper, Phil Drapeau and the two recap the season and discuss some of the things they learned, including the insights and strategies that surprised them most.

In this Break Room, host John Palumbo tosses out a few simple approaches your company can take to foster thought diversity including what he calls “Ride Alongs,” which brings different departments together…creating a “Guest Office,” where outsiders can “co-work” from your space…and even “Reframing Resumes,” which will help you start hiring and finding more diverse talent. 

If you’re going to foster thought diversity and bringing different minds together at your organization (which you NEED to do), you need to be prepared for some debates and disagreements. Of course, these are things that make some companies and leaders uncomfortable, but they’re necessary and you need to embrace them.

In this episode Harvard Business School Professor, Francesca Gino, discusses the ways companies can get comfortable with the “conflict” that’s essential in fostering thought diversity.

In this Break Room, host John Palumbo discusses why it’s important for organizations to create casual or spontaneous collisions at their workplace, which is when employees run into one another and discuss ideas or projects or problems they’re trying to solve. He even discusses ways your company can make collisions happen!

When it comes to creating a thought diverse Café Culture dynamic, some co-working spaces seem to have it figured out - their members come from all different fields and backgrounds and the spaces themselves are designed to create spontaneous “collisions” among members. 

In this episode, founder of the co-working space Common Desk (which was recently acquired by WeWork), Nick Clark discusses co-working best-practices and strategies that any company can use to bring Café Culture to their organization.

In this Break Room, host John Palumbo discusses how social media and its AI and algorithms are designed to feed us information that mirrors our own values and opinions and we end up in a sort of echo chamber, which is the opposite of what thought diversity is all about. So, what should organizations and leaders do?

In this episode, author of the article, “3 Powerful Ways to Improve Diversity of Thought On Your Team,”  Kate Gerasimova discusses strategies that every organization can use to bring a thought diverse Café Culture to their organization, including hiring outside the box and how to brainstorm differently. 

In this Break Room, host John Palumbo discusses one of the most important elements of thought diversity – DOT CONNECTING, which is making connections between everything we learn from the diverse perspectives around us and the problem we’re trying to solve…or skills we’re trying to build…or objectives we’re trying to meet. 

In this episode, the head of marketing at Panasonic, Brian Rowley, discusses some of the benefits and results his organization has experienced by encouraging different teams to collaborate and come together. He even talks about how he has invited some unexpected outside perspectives to help his team build crucial soft skills. 

In this Break Room, host John Palumbo discusses a strategy that will help open your eyes to some of the more diverse and disparate people you might want to collaborate with or spend time with, to get some inspiration for a problem you’re trying to solve or an objective you’re trying to meet. It’s called REFRAMING, and as you’ll hear, it’s an approach you should start practicing now!