To which degree do you appreciate contributions of people who are different than you are?

In a previous posting, I embedded an interview with Mr. Vijay Govindarajan who mentioned that to create an innovation mindset, companies need to bring in new voices. I’d like to ask you to which degree the companies, you work for, do that regularly? In other words: Do you work for companies for whom it is important that people think and behave in the same way? Or do the people, for/with whom you work, welcome diversity, new ways of thinking, new ways of doing things that could increase customer satisfaction and bring down costs? Do they appreciate contributions of people who are different than they are? And how about yourself?

Considering the fact that people - thanks to for example Web 2.0 technologies - increasingly work across a number of borders, for example across functions within a company, across companies, across markets and national cultures, I believe it will be increasingly important to appreciate contributions of people who think and behave differently, i.e. for example try to learn to see things from new perspectives. And there’s a big bonus for a company that welcomes diversity: The people working for the company will train their innovative thinking competencies. And that again will increase the company’s competitiveness.

I came across this 3 minute video through this blog posting.