Harnessing Diverse Thinking to Speed Delivery

The Hidden Cause of Project Delays

When major projects stall, the default explanations are familiar: scope creep, approvals, resourcing or stakeholder complexity. Yet across many industries, another cause consistently sits beneath the surface, teams that think alike.

Homogeneous teams move quickly at first. Decisions are easy. Agreement comes fast with no conflict. But as complexity increases, blind spots emerge. Risks can go unnoticed. Options can narrow too early. Bottlenecks can form around the same few decision-makers. The result is slowed delivery, not because the team lacks capability, but because the team lacks cognitive range.

In large, multi-stakeholder environments, speed doesn’t come from uniform thinking. It comes from deliberate diversity of thinking, well led and well linked.

Why Similar Thinking Slows Complex Work

Teams dominated by one style of thinking tend to over-index on certain activities while neglecting others:

• Idea-driven teams generate momentum but miss operational realities
• Risk-focused teams protect quality but delay commitment
• Action-oriented teams push delivery but overlook emerging opportunities and threats

Research continues to show that cognitively diverse teams make better decisions and adapt faster, but only when that diversity is intentionally structured and led. Without leadership skill, diversity creates friction. But with collective awareness and deliberate actions, diversity becomes a performance advantage.

Recent enterprise research* confirms that organisations delivering complex programs at speed are not those with the smartest individuals, but those that combine different perspectives early to surface risks and options before acting on decisions.

Speed Comes from Complementary Thinking

One of the most persistent myths in project leadership is that alignment requires consensus. In reality, consensus often slows delivery by suppressing dissenting views … until it’s too late.

High-performing teams move faster because they:

• Explore more options early
• Identify risks sooner
• Resolve tension up front rather than downstream

This only happens when leaders actively harness differences in how people:

• Generate ideas
• Assess risk
• Evaluate evidence
• Commit to action

The leadership task is not to eliminate difference, but to link it together.

TMS Insight: Seeing the Whole Thinking System

The Team Management Systems framework makes visible what often stays implicit in project teams: how different people prefer to think, decide and contribute. When leaders understand the spread of work preferences across a team, they can deliberately design how thinking is used at different stages of the project, rather than letting one dominant style shape every decision. 
Tools such as the Team Management Profile (TMP) and Opportunities-Obstacles Quotient (QO₂) Profile help leaders see whether their team has sufficient diversity to generate options, test risks and drive outcomes, and where gaps in thinking may be quietly slowing progress.

High-performing teams move faster overall because they deliberately draw on different thinking styles at different moments. They invite challenge early, surface risks before commitment, and aligning people around clear decisions where everyone has a valued insight so tension is resolved upfront rather than emerging later as delays, rework or resistance.

TMP supporting the Front Loading of Pre-work

You’ll notice this means more time is deliberately invested in “slower” pre-work. High-performing teams don’t rush straight to action, they move methodically through the early stages of projects. Using TMS theory you can use the Type of Work Wheel to check all the steps you should be moving through: Advising, Innovating, Promoting, Developing and Maintaining to ensure the right information is gathered, options are explored and risks are tested before commitment. This may feel slower upfront, but it creates momentum later.

When teams reach Organising, Producing and Inspecting, execution accelerates because decisions are sound, roles are clear and rework is minimised. In practice, speed in delivery is a consequence of readiness. This readiness is built by giving thinking the time it needs before action begins.

Mapping Thinking Gaps with TMP

TMP provides leaders with a clear picture of how thinking is distributed across a team. In major projects, delays often correlate with missing roles or specific types of works at critical phases:

• No Promoting to sell the idea
• Too little Developing to test implications
• Insufficient Maintaining to check how previous projects landed and learn from experience.

By mapping work preferences, leaders can deliberately rebalance teams across project phases, rather than relying on the same voices throughout.

QO₂: Balancing Opportunity and Obstacle

Decision speed improves when teams contain both:

• Pathfinders who see possibilities and momentum
• Risk spotters who surface obstacles and failure points

QO₂, the TMS Risk Orientation Profile, highlights how individuals and teams distribute their energy between seeing opportunities and seeing obstacles. Projects dominated by one orientation either rush into avoidable issues or stall under excessive caution. Balanced teams move faster because they decide with eyes open.

The Leadership Skill That Makes Diversity Work

Cognitive diversity only accelerates delivery when leaders apply behaviours that integrate people, tasks and direction (what TMS calls Linking Skills), particularly:

• Strategic Thinking - integrating perspectives into a coherent direction
• Team Relationships and Participative Decision Making - ensuring the right thinking is present at the right time

Enterprise studies* repeatedly show that leaders who actively connect diverse viewpoints outperform those who default to similarity, even under time pressure.

Put simply, diverse thinking without managerial linking capability can slow teams down as it might bring in conflict, while diverse thinking with awareness and linking capability speeds them up.

Practical Moves for Faster Delivery

Leaders, or coaches working with executive and project teams, can immediately lift delivery speed by:

• Mapping team thinking patterns using a profiling tool such as the TMP
• Increase self and team awareness of opportunity–risk balance with QO₂ before key decisions, informing project team composition
• Structuring meetings to sequence thinking (research → options → risks → decisions  → planning) rather than debate everything at once
• Rotating leadership emphasis across project phases instead of relying on one dominant style

Map your team’s thinking diversity with TMP and QO₂ and identify gaps in your project delivery.
Or check your Leadership capability with LLP|360 report to know exactly what development area you need to target.
Contact us for your customised solution and quote.

References:

• McKinsey & Company (2023) Diversity Wins: How Inclusion Matters
  
• Boston Consulting Group (BCG) (2022) How Diverse Leadership Teams Boost Innovation and Speed
  
• MIT Sloan Management Review (2023) The Performance Benefits of Cognitive Diversity
  
• Project Management Institute (PMI) (2023) Pulse of the Profession: Power Skills, Redefining Project Success