Studies Say Women Make Start Ups Successful

What’s the Latest Development?

Diversity will prove a good investment for your start up, say a string of new studies, particularly if you are a small group of people that includes at least one woman. While you might assume that having a crack team of super-intelligent workers is the best path to success, a study recently published in Science shows that team performance correlates rather weakly with the average intelligence of its members. Much more predictive of success was a group’s ‘social sensitivity’, something at odds with autocratic authority in the workplace. 

What’s the Big Idea?

The studies show that diversity is not simply a social or political goal of a globalized world but that any monoculture of ideas is less likely to arrive at innovative solutions to tricky problems. A monoculture of women is not ideal, either. According to the study, teams composed only of women were consistently less aggressive in pricing and invested less in R & D, though they tended to invest more in social sustainability projects. If your goal is to attract women to your business, the study suggests you refrain from creating a hyper-competitive work environment. 

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