Mumbai, July 13 -- Chuck Robbins, the chairman and chief executive of Cisco Systems Inc., believes that having a diverse workforce improves business outcomes.

Robbins, who was raised in Georgia, shared the example of Jeetu Patel, the company's president and chief product officer, who grew up in India, and said their different life experiences mean they think differently, and diversity of thought often leads to great ideas, which is just the "power of diversity".

For Chuck, it's not about metrics, numbers, or programmes, but about building teams of people who look at problems differently so that he gets two creative solutions.

"I want a room full of people that give me four different possible ways to solve a problem or tackle an opportu...