Diversity of opinions, skills, backgrounds, interaction styles, problem solving styles, decision-making styles – all very useful.

The “optimal mix” is likely to never be achieved, but I will also say that with a handful of “thinking tools” – you can easily ramp up the innovation, inventiveness or “creativity” of nearly anyone – and THAT is far easier to accomplish than to find sufficient diversity in a moments notice.

Begin with empowering individuals, move to building better small teams (by assessing the individuals and assembling the best team rather than “whoever happens to be around”), then magnify on and out to entire organizations, customers, suppliers, partners, and the world. How? By taking “thinking tools” and magnifying the capabilities of the individuals with appropriate technical tools (i.e., software), to make innovation useful, sustainable, and with the best possibly outcomes.

This is not theoretical, I’ve seen and helped companies do this time and again – and it’s entirely possible to make team selection, for example, much closer to a science than an art.