Hey podcast family welcome back to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. This is the podcast that adds value to leaders who will multiply value to others.

If you're joining us for the first time we're so glad that you are here. This week we are finishing our series on building a diverse team.

Now let me pause right here and if you are new let me tell you you need to go back to part one. It was a raw vulnerable in-depth look at how leaders can remove barriers to creating diversity in their thinking, in their team and in their effectiveness with the people that they are designed to serve.

So go back and listen to episode one maybe even right now before you continue today. This week John will be teaching on the benefits of building a diverse team.

There are so many leaders who would rather build a team of people who look, think and act like themselves.

But building a diverse team will always take you further. It will make you better and it will increase your reach.

So after John's lesson my co-host Chris Goody and I will explore John's teaching together and offer some ways that you can enjoy and apply this lesson to your own leadership.

If you would like to download our free bonus resource which is a fill in the blank PDF that accompanies John's lesson, please go to MaxwellPodcast.com.

forward slash diverse and click the bonus resource button. All right, let's get ready. Grab the pen, grab the paper. Here is Dr. John C. Maxwell.

Let me give you some benefits of building a diverse team because there are some wonderful things that happen.

Once you commit yourself to diversity, there are some wonderful things that happen. Number one, a diverse team will fill in the knowledge gap.

We all have a knowledge gap and that is none of us know enough. In fact I put in here, it is important to know what you don't know.

And know those who do know so you can focus on what you do know. Now that's when you need to look at a couple times. All right, you need to go over that statement but just trust me on this.

Here's what I'm saying. There are a lot of things I don't know as a leader. And I depend on people around me to know those things because I don't know them.

And I not only don't know them, I don't particularly want to know them because it'll keep me from knowing what I need to know.

You have to start with this premise. You can't know everything. So you have to know what you need to know.

And what you need to know as a leader are the things that are basic to success and leading.

And there are a whole bunch of things that are important to know but they're not basic to the success of leading. But what you have to do is you have to have people around you that can help you in those areas.

And the key is, in diversity, is that when you get the right team around you that they have knowledge that you don't have, it really begins to fill in the knowledge gap.

So the knowledge gap really gets filled in when you've got people around you that proceed differently, see differently, think differently, feel differently. That's huge.

The second thing you fill in with the diverse team is the perspective gap.

And let me just take you through this little sequence right here because I've got perceived, believe, receive here in the lineup. You can see how this is working. And there's sequence I want you to get.

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