Team Dynamics: Diversity
Sarita Bolleddula
Warner Pacific College
Bus/Soc 100 Team Dynamics
September 27, 2011
Professor Deborah Banks
Diversity
As children, we are curious of our surroundings, the people in our lives, and live as if the world revolves around us. There is no end to our curiosity and there is no concept of what makes each person unique. Our main priority as children is to be cared for, to eat when hungry and play with our friends as much as possible. The diversity of our friends circle is not the main focus, having a good time is. If diversity did not exist boredom would set in and ideas would remain monotonous. We should embrace every opportunity given and ask yourself, “What can I learn from an individual who is different than me.”
According to Guion (1999), “Diversity is a mosaic of people who bring a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, styles, perspectives, values and beliefs as assets to the groups and organizations with which they interact” (p.2). We live in a time where we are almost forced to interact with people who are from all different walks of life. Some people truly enjoy the experience, where others may want to stick with people who are similar to them. We can all choose to embrace diversity or fear the unknown.
Growing up with a family from India integrated various traditions, values, and morals. It is through the high school years that the realization of being different occurred to me. The thought prior to high school was that everyone was pretty much the same and that they had the same surroundings I had growing up. I found out quickly that was far from the truth. Being introduced to group activities is where all of the different types of personalities really shined through and disagreements were inevitable. It did not make sense as to why “we just could not get along,” but apparently dissention arose most when being in a team environment.
According to Beebe and Masterson (2009), “When comparing homogeneous work groups with diverse work groups, researchers find that diverse work groups often have more trouble initially, but over time they become more productive that homogeneous groups. This makes sense. We are more comfortable with people whom we think are similar to us. This makes for easier interaction in the initial stages of group formation. With a little effort, though, diverse groups can find the common ground to make interaction work; their diversity often produces more flexibility, more options, and more ways of looking at a problem (p.65).
Diversity in teams is inevitable but the goal is to focus on the various characteristics that will enhance the team’s success. When working with a team we all bring our own ideas and what we expect from the members of our team. Each of our ideas is generally based on previous experiences with other people. Just because someone may be different than you, it does not mean that your opinion is held at a higher regard than theirs. Essentially, the different members of the team can produce various, ideas, thoughts, and concepts. It is like having different ingredients for a meal; just imagine if we used one type of ingredient for a meal, we would not have a meal. The same goes for teams, having similar types of people in a team will have a harder time producing a variety of ideas. It is the different elements that produce a well-developed product.