Diversity & Inclusion Leadership Style Team Success

Forging New Trails

Kirsten Wolberg

11.08.21

A native Alaskan, Kirsten has always felt like she brings a fresh perspective to the workplace. She encourages her team to tap into their own backgrounds and bring something unique to the conversation, highlighting diversity of place and experience.

Summary:

A native Alaskan, Kirsten has always felt like she brings a fresh perspective to the workplace. She encourages her team to tap into their own backgrounds and bring something unique to the conversation, highlighting diversity of place and experience.

Thuy

You intentionally build very diverse teams, gender, racial background experience. And so what is it about that that you think makes it so powerful for the performance of a team?
Kirsten_Wolberg

Kirsten Wolberg

We all have read and seen all of the studies around the performance, the stock performance, the execution performance when you have the diversity of thought when you have different people bringing different skills and different backgrounds to bear. I grew up in Alaska so, I always am like okay, I'm sure there's no one on this team who's bringing the Alaskan perspective to this particular problem. And growing up in Alaska, everyone's a pioneer. I grew up during a time period where people were forging new trails. And that I think gave me this growth and learning mindset, always trying new things and realizing the value of teams. In Alaska if you pull off to the side of the road in your car, because the car is broken down, the very next car to go by pulls over to help you. You know in California, if you do that, you pull over to the side of the road…

Thuy

Good luck.
Kirsten_Wolberg

Kirsten Wolberg

Everyone is squeezing by, I'm so glad I got you. And so, that sense of having a diverse team, people with a lot of different experiences, they can bring that, Hey, listen, I learned the value of never letting that car sit by the side of the road. And I bring that into every team that I'm in. And every single person from their different backgrounds can bring in their gifts and their skills. And it truly does bring a wider array of ideas and with a wider array of ideas, you're going to get to better outcomes. You're going to get to greater levels of execution.