Impact of Diversity on Group and Team Dynamics
Globalization has made the world look like a global village. People are able to move to any part of the world to study or conduct a business. The result has been that people have been able to come together irrespective of their culture, race, sex or social status. As a student, I have found myself in a situation where I have to work with people from different cultures. Born in Kuwait, I was motivated to go to the United States to further my education where I met people from different countries. According to what I have experienced, diversity in any setup, be it in education or other organizations, promotes flexibility, creativity, problem solving and reduces promotes high performance from the group members. Additionally, diversity promotes the sense of acceptance, unity, and love among team members.
Heterogeneity is an important factor while making a decision. Having a bounding decision is never easy when everyone in a team thinks in the same direction or has the same life experience. Diversity adds an important factor in a team since it brings people from a different direction in life to come up with a decision to a problem. However, it is always advisable that during the decision process that involves heterogeneity, everyone’s suggestion must be considered. When one’s ideas are not considered in a diverse team, they might feel out of place leading to poor team output. Personally, I have witnessed where a team of people from different backgrounds fails to achieve their goals because they despised some of their team members because of their color.
Problem solving
Having a solution to a problem is always the central goal of a team. People, therefore, form teams because they want to solve an assignment or produce the best product in the market. Problems to be solved require variant ideas and suggestions from different ways of thinking. According to Kirton (2015), diversity in a team brings the required heterogeneity necessary for problem solving. In a contemporary society, people have different abilities. What person X can do best, maybe person Y is very poor at it. It requires the combination of person X and Y to form a team that will provide the most efficient solution to a problem. In a class setup, for instance, there are those students who are good at Sciences but poor in Art subjects. On the other hand, there are those students who are good at Art subjects but poor at Sciences. A combination of the two students in a team will provide an irresistible force where one side will assist the other in their weaknesses. This example can give the picture of the world in reality. People must understand that what a woman is good at; maybe a man cannot be able to do it better. It will need to have both men and women in a team to make sure that different genders provide their support in the areas where they are good at to ensure that the scoring rate of the team is high.
Creativity
Creativity can be defined as the art of coming up with a new way of solving a problem. Creativity is an important tool for a team as it saves time another costs such as money and can be a business opportunity for the team. However, it is never easy to achieve creativity in a homogeneous environment. It needs the effort from people of different backgrounds to come up with a creative idea that will solve their problems quickly. Diversity in a team provides the perfect heterogeneous environment required for creativity. When people of different backgrounds come together, they bring different ideas into a single pool. Apart from the idea, they carry plenty of knowledge and experience from where they come from. A team which embraces diversity will come up with a better way to solve a problem that touches a wider community. The difference between a creative idea in a homogenous and heterogeneous team is that the former will only focus on the problems facing the people of the same background hence not applicable somewhere else with different culture or way of life. The latter, however, will touch people of a wider range opening the possibilities of it becoming a solution to many people. In other words, to ensure that teams come up with a solution such as software, they need to embrace diversity to be able to learn from others.
Show of Seriousness and unity
The seriousness of a team can be judged by its diversity. A team made that embrace diversity will be viewed as serious and get high reputation from the people it addresses. On the other hand, a team made of people from the same culture, sex, age, or social status will be viewed as discriminative and hence may lack importance. Additionally, diversity in a team can promote respect among the team members. Respect among the team members is important to ensure that the team remains within the timeline of its course. Having a homogeneous team can promote laziness as members will have little or no respect from other team members. From a personal point of view, I have noticed that I become more serious when I am working in a team that embraces diversity. I find it very challenging to beat the deadline when working with my peers since we all have the same way of doing things and there is no enigma that drives us to work harder to be a better team.
It can be concluded that the effects of diversity in a group and team dynamics are very positive. A team stands a better chance to be more successful when they embrace diversity. Therefore, it is suggested that all teams must uphold diversity and ensure they involve people from different backgrounds in their activities to achieve the highest scores.
Reference
Kirton, G., & Greene, A. M. (2015). The dynamics of managing diversity: A critical approach. Routledge.
