Cognitively Diverse Teams – Live from MTP Engage Manchester – Rakhi Rajani on The Product Experience

At MTP Engage Manchester (February 2020), Rakhi Rajani (Associate Partner at QuantumBlack) joined us for our first-ever live podcast recording. Talking to Rakhi we learned why Engage organiser Adam Warburton called her the smartest person he’s ever worked with as we discussed building teams, hiring at scale, when you need troublemakers, and why she had recruiters ask candidates what their teachers said about them at parent/teacher evening.
Quote of the Episode
To me a cognitively diverse team is one where you look for folks who process information differently. I’m looking for story-tellers, naysayers, people who are dreamers, reflectors, fighters. People who are approaching the world from a different point of view, people who think about information in different ways. And the ability to bring those people together in a team situation, where normally we just go “I just want cultural fit, find me people like that person over there”, which often ends up in stagnant teams.
Listen if you’d like to learn more about

* Cognitive Diversity
* Building Teams
* Human Behaviour
* Artificial Intelligence

Links mentioned in this episode

* Follow Rakhi on LinkedIn, Twitter and on her own site
* Rakhi’s talk at University of Cambridge Judge Business School – Slides

Hosts
The Product Experience is hosted by Lily Smith and Randy Silver.
Lily enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. Lily has spent 13 years in the tech industry working mainly with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She has worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank in Bristol, the Product Managers’ meetup with regular events and talks on Product now with 800+ members and growing. Now the Product Director at Symec, Lily also runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath.
A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy has been working as an interactive producer and product manager across the US and UK for nearly 20 years. After launching Amazon’s music stores in the US and UK, Randy has worked with museums and arts groups, online education, media and entertainment, retail and financial services. He’s held Head of Product roles at HSBC and Sainsbury’s, where he also directed their 100+-person product community. Now a trainer, Discovery and Leadership consultant, he’s spoken at Mind the Product Engage (Hamburg and Manchester), the Business of Software, Turing Festival, a number of ProductTanks (London, Zurich, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Oxford, and Brighton… so far!) and at conferences across the US and Europe.

Music
Our theme music is from Hamburg-based Pau, featuring ProductTank Hamburg’s own Arne Kittler on bass. Listen to more on their Facebook page
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