Diverse Teams

Diversity or Diverse Teams

Diversity is critical for a team to function, but...

What is Diversity, why is it important, how can it help team to be successful, how can it go wrong?

Diversity generally perceived as gender, race, nationality. Diverse team is diversity in thought process, experience levels, capability and skill levels, age groups, characters...

It is important to have diverse team along with diversity for a team to function and be successful.

• A different thought process can produce out of the box ideas, someone who is always keen to grab attention can poke questions which has not been thought of!
• Someone who likes leading can be a good pick for mentoring/coaching team members
• There is always someone who does not like attention, but would like to silently go about the job. They are best for your deep complex problems to be solved.
• Experience, capability and skill levels - they typically provide maturity, ability to pick up challenging tasks
• High energy members - they can always be provided with additional responsibility of bringing the team together, drive team connects, outings. They thrive on such opportunities

What can go wrong? One size fits all can always go wrong. Identifying the team based on the diverse nature and character - assigning role based on this yields success. A small exchange can lead to big failure. A simple example - pick an introvert who does not like attention, but allow that person to drive team connects can go horribly wrong. This can even make the individual uncomfortable and out of place.

High performing teams are built on diverse characters, but needs careful role assignments.