Cognitive Diversity

Back in 2017 I saw a presentation by Michael Davis (MBA, MAPM) on a subject known as Cognitive Diversity.

I planned to attend this presentation as I had been working in the IT department within an Engineering & Construction company, now whilst I don’t personally buy into old biases and generalisations, I would say that my personal experience supports the general opinion that IT and Engineering and Construction are Male Dominated occupations.

That isn’t to say there aren’t a lot of women in those groups, there are, and some of them have a far greater skill-set than their equivalent male colleagues. However, I did work in what is generally thought to be male dominated industries, the actual team I was in (Project Management) had a minority male workforce, the majority of the roles were filled by women and I could see some clear differences in how we approached things, so at an almost purely academic level, I decided I’d like to see if there was some science behind these differences and gladly signed up for a space in the audience.

The Whole Brain Model

One of the first things that Michael wanted to inform the group was that this work is ongoing and was part of a research piece. The research was being based on something called The Whole Brain Model which is a test that’s been around for the last 35 years or so. The validity of the test has worldwide acceptance and the answers should be brain based / results based rather than personality based.

The idea behind The Whole Brain Model is that you answer a number of questions and depending on how you answer those questions, the results can help you understand where you fit into this model. You receive a number of scores:

3 – You Actively avoid thinking this way
2 – You can get by, you can think in this way if you need to
1 – You have a strong thinking preference in this direction
1+ – You have a very strong thinking preference and it is probably known by those around you

So for example if your score has a 1 in the Strategic element, then your strengths are in the Strategic Arena.

The Whole Brain and the PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge)

What Michael did next was to divide each of those PMBOK areas across the Whole Brain Model, now this part is of course personal interpretation and I’m not sure if his research will expand further on this, but he suggested the areas of the PMBOK can be split as shown to the left.

As you might expect, the majority of PMBOK areas fall under Organisational skills.

So how do Men & Women differ?

Well this is where it started to get interesting and controversial. In terms of research (and at the time of the presentation, this was not a finished piece of work, so there may be changes in the final study) testing shows the following results:

Men score higher in the Definition (Analytical)
Women score higher at People Management (Interpersonal)
Men score higher in Concepts (Strategy)
Women score higher in Execution (Organisation)

Typically this shows that Women tend to score higher in the lower quadrants of The Whole Brain Model and Men tend to score higher in the upper quadrants.

When considered against Michael’s interpretation of the PMBOK split in relation to The Whole Brain Model, more than half of the PMBOK guiding processes fall into the lower half of The Whole Brain Model which supports the argument that Women are more suited to being Project Managers than Men are.

Entertainment…

As the presentation came to a close, the floor was opened for questions and those questions were generally negative in my opinion. Most people were quick to point out that it is these ‘girls are better at…’ and ‘boys are better at…’ statements are the very things that, perhaps innocently, make their way into a developing child’s mind so that by the time a person is old enough to take this test, their thought processes have already been skewed to support the expected answers. This, of course, is difficult to prove either way, but the point seemed to be made repeatedly by different people in the audience.

I want to highlight that this wasn’t a men against women, or vice-versa, argument, the first person to ask a question was a man that wanted to raise the point that studies like this continue to reinforce attitudes and opinions that are seeded and developed in the minds of young girls, so much so, that by the time they are adults, they subconsciously make decisions that support this type of research.

I think it fair to assume that if there are biological differences between the genders, then how the brain operates could also be different in many, probably most, cases. That said, I wouldn’t dare suggest that one gender is better suited to a particular job than another is. I wouldn’t say it because I don’t believe it and because I don’t want to face the wrath of what might come as a result of such a bland and unsupportable opinion.

Following the research…

Obviously this research has some way to go before being signed off by the author, but I would genuinely recommend that you keep an eye out for it as I think it will be truly interesting and there’s no denying that this is a topic that is going to make people talk.

My Opinion

First of all, my opinion piece isn’t directly related to the presentation. This is just a chance to drop an opinion. I absolutely believe that there are people that make recruiting decisions that simply shouldn’t be made, such as hiring a pretty girl, or a hunky guy, to serve as some kind of eye candy. Equally I’m quite convinced that some recruitment decisions are made as a result of reverse discrimination, however, I’m pleased to say that I haven’t been party to, nor witnessed, these kinds of decisions within the employers I’ve worked at. I know of many instances where someone ‘got the job’ because they knew a guy (or gal) and having the right connection was more important than actual knowledge or skills. I’d like to say that is rare, but I don’t believe it for a second. I actually think this kind of decision is far more common than choosing to hire a particular gender for a particular job. We’re a long way from some kind of a utopian society.