Experts have a clear understanding of the potential advantages that diversity brings to teams and organizations.
APM acknowledges that diverse teams generally outperform homogeneous ones. This correlation is increasingly evident in the performance and financial outcomes of organizations.
Does this align with your personal experience?
In a previous section, you explored exceptional and high-performing teams. Based on your own observations, do you see a connection between diversity and performance? Do teams with greater diversity produce superior work? Additionally, what challenges arise when working in highly diverse teams?
We are genuinely interested in hearing about your experiences and thoughts regarding these questions in the discussion section.
While working in diverse teams can be challenging, I believe the benefits far outweigh the difficulties. Diverse teams have consistently produced higher-quality work and more effective problem-solving in my experience.
JESUDIMU OPEYEMI
COHORT 16
TEAM 5
Diversity in the team.
Diversity is an aspect of the project in which the project team members are working together for the first time, this will bring about the following.
1. Mixed skills and experience
2. Gender Equality
3. innovation is high to achieve
4. Making a good decision will be easier.
5. Diverse background.
Diversity can be a very big advantage for a good project performance if they embrace there diversity as strength, put in their best and work with one another. As a medical laboratory scientist I have colleagues from different schools and people that were trained outside this country, this has really increased our laboratory performance and even results. It brought about so much innovations, creativity and has made work more flexible. But some of the challenges we are still facing with this diversity include:
1) Language barriers which can lead to communication issues and misunderstanding.
2) Ethnicity issues: especially when choosing higher roles.
3) Bring them to work as a team can be very different.
4) Racism etc
As a project manager, you are faced with working with team members from various backgrounds. Team members produce more results if they are from different backgrounds because they have this idea of doing their best to leave the best impression, which can be quoted in their favor in another project.
Diversity means broader skills, ideas,human capital etc and it therefore means a wider means to reach project goals and outcomes with less inputs
Diversity is a significant advantage in any project, fostering growth and improvement within the team. When team members from diverse backgrounds feel excited to contribute their skills, their expertise is recognized and valued without discrimination. This recognition ensures that everyone is respected for their contributions. Although the planning process and aligning everyone’s ideas can be challenging due to the influx of diverse perspectives, this diversity ultimately leads to better project outcomes.
Afolabi Isaac
Cohot16 Team2
Diversity in Teams
In my experience of events projects I’ve worked in as a member, diversity in most cases has been the major reason for our high performance. The more diversity we had, as I’ve observed, the more options/ solutions we had. The challenges however, was that it slows us down a bit at the planning stages due to too many ideas. Once events projects kicks off, details are hardly missed. And if there’s any omission, it is easily resolved due to our diverse composition which helps us create a solutions out of almost nothing.
Wale Oyegunle
Team 8 Cohort 16
Understanding the uniqueness of a diverse team and inherent skills/values that such brings on board its vital to a project manager. Diversity its not only about gender, sex, race, culture but also intrinsic values, personality which helps brings diverse unique skills, creativity, improved decision making and ability to solve problems that often needed in handling complex/iterative project when compare to simple/homogenous team.
Furthermore, a diverse team will have the benefits of different perspectives which it’s not hinder having not worked together previously.
However, it’s important to ensure that the project manager effectively utilize communication and collaboration skills to keeps the team cohesive to avoid possible disadvantages that occur from cultural or language barriers
Ibilola
Diversity i team can more the team become better equipped , improves productivity, better financial results
Diversity gives room for high performance rate.
Aminah Yusuff
Team 2 Cohort 16
Yes, teams with greater diversity produce superior work. Diverse teams perform better because diverse team members bring unique perspectives and ways of thinking, which allows them to unlock new ideas and enhance everyone’s capacity for innovation and creativity. Other benefits of diverse teams include
– Increased innovation and learning
– Creation of a more inclusive and safe environment
– Retention of top talent
– Acceleration of complex problem-solving
– Enhancement of morale through greater belonging
Some of the challenges that arise when working in highly diverse teams include
– Biases in hiring and retention
– Biased systems that self-perpetuate
– Active resistance from some individuals who are enraged and affronted by diversity efforts
– Less comfort and more friction among team members