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Managing diversity in teams (Growing relevance of diversity in…
Managing diversity in teams
Team diversity
Demographic
Psychological
Diversity of professions and status
Example: Medical teams
Different professions
Strong status differences
Dynamic and high-risk tasks
Problems for using diversity
Culture of implicit coordination
Strong divide between different professions
Status differences impede speaking up
Growing relevance of diversity in organizations
Demographic change
Globalization of business
Increasing service orientation
New concepts of organization
Diversity Management
Managing diversity = anti-discrimination programs?
Have been introduced over past 50 years
Equal opportunity
affirmative action
general support for minorities
Baisc approach
#
avoid negative consequences
Gained interest since 200
Deliberate attempts to increas diversity
selection
team composition
organizational networks
Generally expressed assumption
Multi cultural organizational and societal environments is positive use of diversity
Basic approach
Seek diversikty as competitve advantage
Instruments
training
feedback on behaviour
direct exposure to other cultures
building minority networks
Results/Effects
Positive relation between age/gender diversity and firm performance
Mixed results on relationship between team diversity and team performance
Increas uncertainty
Information/Knowledge
Team decisions assumed to be better with more perspectives
However
Team decisions are rarely better than individual decisions
Available knowledge pool is rarely fully used
Possible reason: Inadequate management of information sharing
Inadequate information sharing
Possible reasons
Stochastic: the more people have a particular piece of information the more
likely it is that it gets mentioned
Information assessment: we assess information more positively that concurs
with our own judgment
Groupthink: Information exchange aimed at consensus building
Ownership bias: we trust our own knowledge more than others' knowledge
Measures to imrpove
Leadership style
Mostly participatory leadership, directive leadership only if leader has crucial
information
Expert roles
Assign expert roles and promote knowledge about specific expertise
Diversity of opinions
Promote conflict as part of constructive dialogue
Training for speaking up
Setting that supports psychological safety
Discussion of actual events (simulator trainings)
Moderation techniques that foster learning orientation
Humble inquiry
Encourage perspective taking
Guided team self-correction
Moderation
Introduce „Advocatus Diaboli“ and clear structure in discussion