This blog analyses the Ibarra and Hansen 2011:71 statement on how a team brings people from different cultures, backgrounds and displines together and leverage all they have to offer.
The blog provides answers to the questions such as;-Is managing diverse teams important? How can leaders use knowledge of diversity to produce better results?
Research states that dissimilarity between members of the team cause challenges as well as opportunities for the team functioning (Liu n.d). This justifies the description of diversity as a ‘double edged sword’ as it has both advantages and disadvantages. (Choi, 2011)
The bad thing about diverse teams is that it leads to unnecessary fighting and misunderstandings as each team member from different backgrounds would have different thinking which may not work out. Therefore trust has to be made between the team members by a team leader which may not be an easy task for the leader. The leader should also possess conflict management skills so that they can lead the team a manner as to achieve a desired result. (Andre 1995)
A manager in Air India aviation that People in top leadership positions misuse their great amount of motivating power. Lohani went ahead and made his target of turning a net profit by the year to March 2019 which is three years ahead of the current schedule. (Travel and Tourism, 2015)For example during my group team challenge, we had a leader who guided us on when to meet and discuss about our presentation. Therefore he used his power of motivation (Travel and Tourism,2015).
The following are the importance of managing team diversity:-
The schedule advantage, here the team has to commit some time to do some specific tasks.(Cheah,2013) For example during my team challenge, as a team we suggested to complete our presentation four days before the presentation day and of course we did it because we focused since it was our target. Therefore it’s very important for teams to set targets because it helps them to aim higher (Cheah,2013)
Adaptation, here team members will adapt to different circumstances since they are from different cultures and backgrounds (Johnston, 2016). For example while doing my group challenge, we were members from different countries and this helped us to complete our challenge. Therefore when a team is combined with members from different countries and backgrounds, it helps them to explore by exchanging different ideas to boost the group accordingly (Johnson,2016).
However, perfect teamwork would not become reality if perspective of members could not be tuned. A team will become only a group of people who just join together with some similar attitudes. In other words, group members might only aim at achieving general purpose because individual purpose is more important. Meanwhile, team members will response to their roles in order to achieve the team’s purpose.
Belbin (2000) defined six differences between a team and a group in the table below. Generally. In addition, perfect teamwork is supported by the different job role comprised in a team. Belbin (2013) also stated that each team has to be composed of different characteristics to take responsibility in different roles. Therefore everything to be perfect will have to take action. You can turn something bad into something better. But you can’t turn something left undone into anything (Belbin,2013).
How to use diversity to produce better results
Since a team involves many different types of people, making the best of everyone’s talents promotes diversity in a team. For example in my class group challenge, we had a member has ever worked and wish to work in aviation again. This made my group presentation easier. (Kokkong, 2016)
Finally,teams should have different people from different parts of the world in order to attract different customers. Therefore diversity should be led towards the achievement of organisational goal by knowing the value of each member in order to make a greater team and the uniqueness of each specific ability in order to do better in the organisation.
REFERENCES
Belbin (2013) Method, Reliability & Validity, Statistics & Research: A Comprehensive Review of Belbin Team Roles (online) available http://www.belbin.com/content/page/5596/BELBIN(uk)-2013-A%20Comprehensive%20Review.pdf<(29.Feb.2016)>
Kokkong (2016) HR in the aviation industry time to develop a new generation of leaders (online) available http://www.egonzehnder.com/us/leadership-insights/hr-in-the-aviation-industry-time-to-develop-a-new-generation-of-leaders.html<(2.March.2016)
Travel and Tourism News (2015) Air India boss bets on power to fix ailing carrier (online) available http://www.ttnonline.com/ArticleTA/292385<(2.March.2016)>
Cheah (2015) why workplace diversity is important for every organisation (online) available http://mystarjob.com/articles/story.aspx?file=/2013/4/20/mystarjob_careerguide/12948229&sec=mystarjob_careerguide<(2.March.2016)
Johnston (2016) the importance of diversity in management (online) available http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/importance-diversity-management-20971.html<(2.March.2016)>
basajjas 
Great job! I can see that you have clearly outlined what is required in managing diverse teams. If, scrach that, when I’m a leader then in my organisation, should I actually consider all these models when managing a team or the world is evolving and slowly the cultural distinctions that identify an individual from a particular region will be erased? What do you think?
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Thank you @culcnwachuki,
you should follow action centred model because you will have to define task,you have to plan,create the team,organise your team,motivate your team accordingly.
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well done ,this topic gave me a more precise knowledge on the effect and importance of diversity in the workplace, such as the coalition effort by team work, however if communication seems to be the persistent problem in the work place what would you recommend?
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Thank you Charles,well if you are a leader in an organisation,you have to show trust to the employees and making the business family friendly.In that way communication will be smoothly solved.
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This topic has given me a broad understanding of the schedule advantage as a great importance of managing diversity teams because you have showed that it leads to setting of targets to be achieved in a given period of time thus effectiveness and efficiency of the team. Thank u Basajja
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@Deborah you are welcome and thank you for appreciating.
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Hello basajja and hope all is well.
I have taken time and read through your blog but somehow felt that there some important issues that cause or bring challenges in a diverse work environment that your haven’t pointed out. For example in our work environments, we have many different ethnic groups, different age groups,religions and other differencies. Along with these differences come a variety of communication styles which in a long run has led to poor communication between employees where by someone can easily misunderstand a colleague which has also leads to misinterpretation and poor office relationships. How would your try overcoming such a challenge? JAYMO
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Thank you JAYMO,
In that case,since being ethical is about honesty and fairness therefore you have to convince such people inorder to be on the same level and sometimes retreats and seminars should be considered because that’s when most employees get chance to unite and exchange ideas accordingly. Hope has answered your question.
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i like the blog , very good example and point.
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Thank you @culcfangl10 for your critical reading
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