Team diversity: impacts on collaboration and performance

Team Diversity

Discuss the three diversity types (gender, ethnicity and differences in skills and abilities) that will have the greatest positive impact on the effectiveness of the team. This discussion should cite why these diversity types will impact the team effectiveness in a positive way. Cite specific examples to illustrate this positive impact.

Imagine this scenario -- a marketing team is creating an Internet website to pitch a new site designed to attract sports-minded young men, Although the designated marketing team is predominantly made up of young males, the single female who is part of the team at one point shakes and laughs -- "Do you think if you have a beautiful model posing near those athletic shoes that any teenage guys are going to remember the brand name of the product? Or will they just remember the girl's face? What are we selling here? Not only might a mother shopping for sneakers for her teenage son find this offensive, but it won't achieve our marketing goal." This is just one example of how having a team with gender diversity can bring a multiplicity of perspectives to the table, as can ethnic diversity. An African-American man or a Japanese-American woman might be able to provide insight about local culinary or product loyalties to a team, and thus enable a more effective regional distribution plan for perishable foodstuffs. Differences in skills and abilities can also enriching and necessary for a team as a more introverted and quantitatively skilled individual might provide vital insight regarding numerical data, while a more extroverted and verbal person can 'pitch' the final solution achieved by the team to management.

Discuss the three diversity types, (personality traits, age and geographical differences-rural vs. urban; inner city vs. suburban) which will have the greatest negative impact on the effectiveness of the team. This discussion should cite why these diversity types will impact the team effectiveness in a negative way. Cite specific examples to illustrate this negative impact.

However, in terms of personality types and traits, a more studious and introverted person might not take a loud and extroverted person seriously. Likewise, an older man might tune off to a younger woman's authority, however confidently expressed, because of his generational bias related to age-old instilled negative assumptions about female competence. It might even simply threaten his ego and personal confidence in his past experience to see a younger person in a leadership role. Geographical differences can grate, as the Southern 'genteel manner' might seem 'fake' to an brusque urban dweller, and a self-identified 'city kid' might look down on a suburban dweller as 'out of the loop' of what is new and cutting edge.