Diversity As a Critical Factor in Building a High-Performance Team
Diversity means something different for everyone. Diversity provides much-needed insight into the needs and wants of the organization’s customer base, not just small parts (2). Diversity helps to build an effective team, a team that operates with the same commitments and purpose. When diversity is within a team, it empowers the people in the team to be able to communicate effectively by being able to collaborate and share different ideas. Diversity can produce a positive and negative impact between management and team members, and the impact can cause conflict while giving conflict resolutions based on the unique life experiences, expertise, and background found in diverse teams. Challenges when aligning a team in a diverse environment are communication barriers, less trust, stereotypes, and cultural conflict. Rick Yvanovich states, “Thanks to technological developments and globalization, people nowadays are more connected than ever before. Therefore, the workplace becomes increasingly diverse in terms of nationality, culture, gender, experience, personality and more (3)”. Leadership must try to create an inclusive workplace where employees feel appreciated and empowered.
One of my experiences working in a diverse organization as an African American woman originally from Chicago involves being stereotyped. When I get on a team working with other people, and they get to know where I am from originally, I get judged just based on the place. Sometimes, people did not want to work with me because they had this view of how people in Chicago are and act. This made it very hard for me to do my job effectively. Instead of people getting to know me as me, they judged me. I was working in an environment where I felt isolated and very uncomfortable. Regardless of the knowledge that I brought to the team with my experience, none of that mattered since they had already painted this bad picture of me due to stories they had heard about Chicago and the people in Chicago.
References
Herminia Ibarra, Aneeta Rattan, & Anna 2018. Satya Nadella at Microsoft: Instilling a growth mindset London Business School
M Shemla. 2018. Why Workplace Diversity Is So Important, and Why It’s So Hard to Achieve.https://www.forbes.com/sites/rsmdiscovery/2018/08/22/why-workplace-diversity-is-so- important-and-why-its-so-hard-to-achieve/#4ac36c123096
Rick 2020. 5 Diversity and Inclusion Challenges in the Workplace and How to Overcome Them. https://blog.trginternational.com/challenges-diversity-workplace-how-to-overcome
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Question
After reading the case Satya Nadella at Microsoft: Instilling a Growth Mindset and this week’s readings on diversity, share your perspective on how diversity can be a critical factor in building a high-performance team. Cite examples from your own experience, either as the team leader or a team member. Also, consider the challenges of aligning a diverse team around a common mission when trying to lead a large-scale change initiative.