Theme 2 : The Challenge of Managing Diverse Team

Diverse team is basically a collective of people with variety of differences brought together to work and achieve a single goal. These differences may include: gender, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, experience, ability, characteristics and background (Hannah, 2015).

(Chad, 2013)

There are various advantages of a diverse team as compared to a homogeneous team. A team with diverse people will be smarter since they have a wider range of knowledge and different perspective on an issue. A study conducted in US and Singapore asked group of financially literate people to price stocks in simulated market. The result shows diverse team is 58% more likely to price stock correctly as compared to a homogeneous group (Sheen, 2014). Besides that, a diverse team is also more innovative compared to a homogeneous team. Another study conducted in Spain analyse the gender diversity in research and development team in 4,277 companies. The result shows companies with more women are more likely to introduce new innovation to the market as compared to a homogeneously man research and development team (Cristina, 2013).

On the other hand, disadvantage of diverse team is communication issues. Different culture has different way of communicating even through body language, for example in Western culture when someone nod, it indicates they agree to the statement, however in other culture, a nod is rather an acknowledgement rather an agreement (Shina, 2015). Besides that, another disadvantage of diverse team is discrimination issues. Unfair treatment between manager and subordinate may occur due to the difference between them, which leads to stress among employees and causing poor morale (Neil, 2018). Ultimately, the negative effect of a diverse team will only arise due to poor leadership. Hence the manager has a crucial role in managing a diverse team to produce better results.

A great example of a successful company that place the importance in diversifying their workspace is MasterCard. The company is rank number 4 top company for diversity in the world by DiversityInc (DiversityInc, 2018). The CEO of MasterCard Ajay Banga have stated diversity is very important in any organization, and prioritizing it will allow their company to differentiate themselves from competitor by coming out with better insights, better decision and better products (MasterCard, 2018). Ajay Banga also pointed out a group of persons from the same background will have the same blind spots and miss the same trends during the World Economic Forum in Davos (Arun, 2017). Having a diverse workforce, MasterCard is able to have unique perspectives from there employees that allow them to deliver innovative product and solutions that are as diverse as the consumer MasterCard serves around the world (Nicole, 2014).

Ajay Banga, CEO of MasterCard (SiliconIndia, 2013)

As a manager, the Tuckman 1965 Model of Team Development as shown below can be used as a helpful way to explain the stages of team development and behaviour. During the Forming stage, the manager can utilise the Nine Belbin Team Roles as a reference to identify the strength and weaknesses of each member (Werken met Teamrollen, 2008). Besides that, individual task and responsibilities can be given according to their identified roles. The following stage Storming will be hard especially for a diverse team. This is where the communication gaps and different perspective between each and every member starts to distract the team from focusing in achieving the goals. The manager has to be attentive to each member opinion, however the manager must stay neutral and place priority on the benefit of the team as a whole. If there is member who could not corporate well with the team, the manager should remove the member to avoid more conflict between the member which may lower the morale of the team. The next stage Norming where each member starts to unite as one sharing the same goals and accepting each other flaws. During this stage, the manager can engage the member with some fun and social activities to get the member along better. The 4^th stage Performing, is where each member is able to perform individually without interference from other team member. During this stage the member is fully focus on completing their delegated task. The manager should have a bird’s-eye view on each member monitoring to avoid them from any mistakes. Lastly, Adjourning where the task is completed successfully and every member move on to a new thing. The manager has to give recognition to those who did well, whether in form of reward or even word of encouragement. This will allow the member to feel appreciated and will contribute more in their following tasks.

(PM Excellence Services, 2017)

As a conclusion, diversity is very important to any organisation. It allows different ideas from different perspectives and background to come together in solving or achieving a single goal. However, without proper management, a diverse team will cause chaos and inefficiency to the organisation.

 

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References:

Arun Sudhaman (2017) ‘Mastercard CEO: diversity required to handle business disruption’. Holmes Report [online] https://www.holmesreport.com/latest/article/mastercard-ceo-diversity-required-to-handle-business-disruption [8 October 2018]

Chad Brooks (2013) ‘Creating diverse workforce requires strategic hiring’. Business News Daily [online] https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5407-workplace-diversity-hiring.html [8 October 2018]

Cristina, D (2013), ‘Gender diversity within R&D teams: its impact on radicalness of innovation’, Innovation, 15:2, pp.149-160

DiversityInc (2018) ‘Top 50 companies for diversity’. [online] https://www.diversityinc.com/st/DI_Top_50 [8 October 2018]

Hannah Weiss (2015) ‘What is workforce diversity and why does it matter to your business?’. Workology [online] https://workology.com/what-is-workforce-diversity-and-why-does-it-matter-to-your-business/ [8 October 2018]

MasterCard (2018) ‘Leading our diversity efforts’. [online] https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/about-mastercard/who-we-are/diversity-inclusion.html[8 October 2018]

Neil Kokemuller (2018) ‘Negative effects of diversity in the workplace’. Chron [online] https://smallbusiness.chron.com/negative-effects-diversity-workplace-18443.html [8 October 2018]

Nicole Ward (2014) ‘Diversity, inclusion create Mastercard’s innovative culture’. [online] https://newsroom.mastercard.com/news-briefs/diversity-inclusion-create-mastercards-innovative-culture/ [8 October 2018]

PM Excellence Services (2017) ‘The most important preparatory document in a cross-cultural project team context’ [online] http://www.pmexcell.com/important-doc-in-cross-cultural-project-team-context/ [8 October 2018]

Sheen, S (2014), ‘Ethic diversity deflates price bubbles’, PNAS, vol. 111, pp. 18524 – 18529

Shina Neo (2015) ‘4 types of communication challenges in multicultural organizations’. Training Industry [online] https://trainingindustry.com/blog/workforce-development/4-types-of-communication-challenges-in-multicultural-organizations/ [8 October 2018]

SiliconIndia (2013) ‘Indian americans who enjoy whopping salary packages’. [online]  https://www.siliconindia.com/news/usindians/Indian-Americans-Who-Enjoy-Whopping-Salary-Packages-nid-152963-cid-49.html [8 October 2018]

Werken met Teamrollen (2008) ‘Belbin Team Role Model Management’. [online] http://www.werkenmetteamrollen.nl/Werken-met-Teamrollen/The-9-teamroles.asp#.W7s5OWgzZPY [8 October 2018]