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.
AMARACHI UKAEGBU
COHORT 7, TEAM 2.
Diversity brings about different ideas from their experiences in formal projects. Meaning they have work and see things and able to know the way forward to any project that comes up. Sometimes we say, familiarity brings about unseriousness in the mind of people.
Diversity may have little risk because you are working with unknown teams, but its more better, than known teams who may have a score to settle, which may delay the project because of past grudges.
Working with people with different skills and knowledge helps to achieve more as everyone tends to put in their best using their area of expertise.
In my experience, the work tend to go faster when people are different because the familiarity atimes in homogeneous situation tends to slow down the work process.
Afeikhe Glory. Team 4
In my work with excellent
and high-performing teams, I have seen that more diverse teams tend to do better
work. They are more creative, innovative, and better at problem-solving. They are also
more likely to be able to see different perspectives and come up with more
comprehensive solutions.
There are a few reasons why diversity can lead to better performance. First, diverse
teams have access to a wider range of knowledge, skills, and experiences. This can
help them to come up with more creative and innovative solutions to problems. Second,
diverse teams are more likely to have different perspectives on issues. This can help
them to see problems from different angles and come up with more comprehensive
solutions. Third, diverse teams are more likely to be able to build trust and rapport with
each other. This can help them to work more effectively together and achieve their
goals.
Of course, there are also challenges to working in highly diverse teams. One challenge
is that it can be more difficult to reach consensus. When people come from different
backgrounds, they may have different values and priorities. This can make it more
difficult to find common ground and agree on a course of action. Another challenge is
that it can be more difficult to manage conflict. When people have different
perspectives, they may be more likely to disagree and argue. This can lead to tension
and stress within the team.
Despite these challenges, I believe that the benefits of diversity outweigh the risks.
Okochua Uchechukwu
Cohort7, Team 10
Working with diverse teams gave me the experience of learning languages, i lost it at a point during a given project for the sake of language barrier which made me give in to learning in bits how to communicate in a different language to enable me an effective communication due to the region of where my running project is situated, it was a very challenging situation cos i had little or no more time to get to visibility for the sponsors and stakeholders to see, but putting in the complex method of approach i was able to surmount the challenge and pushed through the project.
There’s a relationship between diversity and performance in any working team. As a more diverse team according to research will work better together than a homogeneous team. These diverse teams bring a lot of benefit to the project and organization as a whole. Where potential risks can be easily identified, a broader understanding of the market is brought forward with a new level of creativity and innovation brought into the team asides many others.
But asides these benefits there are also challenges with these sorts of teams such as:
* cultural differences
*communication and language barriers.
*bias and stereotypes amongst others
Salam Abiodun Afeez
Group 1
I have worked with both homogenous and divert team. But I prefer divert team mostly than homogenous because of the following reason:
1. Everyone always work harder to achieve the goal in divert team
2. There is different group of people in term of culture, language, experience and exposure but work together to achieve great thing in divert team
3. Everyone free to express their opinion when brainstorming.
My experience in a team of diversity and homogenous is quite different.
I prefer team diversity where we have diverse tribes, ethnicity, and different opinion to be heard and we brainstorm together and arrived at a given conclusion, due to the diversity we get different opinion and no one tries to outsmart another thereby making it more easier
unlike the homogenous team where I have to listen because I felt its a team work, they don’t even listen to your ideas believing yours won’t work out like their own suggestions.
We have to difference in almost everything making it hard for the team to achieve it’s team goals.
To me, diverse team yields more results than homogeneous team. Where I work presently, we have Igbo, Yoruba, and Hausa individuals working together on a project, and it’s moving fine…the goal is to get the work perfectly done regardless of the ethnic difference.
Here, everyone knows their roles, and are ready to work in harmony.
Unlike if it is homogeneous, we might divert from the main goal, and bring in delays which might affect the project…after all, we know each other, we might cover any slack from one person, which is not healthy for a project to succeed.
Okafor Innocent O..
Group 5
I once worked in a homogeneous team where problem -solving usually takes longer to resolve that most time we seek professional counsel from external team but when I moved into another organization where there exist diversity in workforce , I was amazed at how creative and unique these guys solved problems. The respect your ideas and ensure inclusiveness for all.
There was a particular operational challenge the organization faced which became a concern but by the time it got my my desk, I was already used to such challenges from my previous organization so I quickly diagnosed and made a presentation on how such challenges could be fixed without breaking the bank.
The diverse nature of any team could bring about success in brainstorming due to various background, culture, discipline,belief and unique colour associated with various tribes. The most important thing is to ensure the team of diverse persons understand the mission and vision of the organization they work for.
Certainly, I am from an engineering background and have worked in different teams and the only thing we have in common is the job. The beauty of being in a team of diverse talent is the beauty of making things work in real time without even breaking a sweat.