Question

There are many contributing factors that will determine the success of a group. These factors include group size, homogeneity or heterogeneity of group members, competition with other groups, perceived or measured success, and exclusivity. Craig Paiement also states that homogeneous teams are predicted to be more effective due to the commonalities that they share. However heterogeneous groups can improve effectiveness by encouraging mutual learning or increasing the group's variable strength. Please share a time when the above factors contributed to either the success or failure of a group you worked in within an office setting organization and explain why you believe those factors contributed to what happened.

Answer 1

The example I am going to give was during the first company I ever worked for. The team I was working for used to be a diverse team considering the approach we used to take to solve issues. It was a IT support team which used to receive issues from the customers to solve. Now once we receive an issue, it is accepted by the newest and least experienced members of the team to solve. Once they are not able to do that, it goes to the person more experienced. Subsequently it goes to the whole team. Here we used to get benefitted by the diversity in the team because each person having a different approach made sure that the issue is looked into from all different view-point. Whatever is observed by a member, used to be passed on to the next member. Also, as none of the team members were dependent on the other, the conflict hardly ever occurred.

Studies have stated that diversity across factors, such as education, functional expertise, or personality, can improve performance by enhancing creativity or problem-solving. In contrast, diversities which are more visible, such as gender, race or age, can affect a group negatively—at least initially. One ramification of the finding that diversity stirs up the pot in healthy ways is that managers need to rotate the composition of their groups periodically to keep things fresh. But new entrants to the team should be different in some particular way, be it in an area of level of education, expertise, manner of thinking, or some similar factor.

On a team which is homogeneous, people readily understand each other and collaboration happens smoothly, giving the feeling of progress. Dealing with outsiders causes friction, which feels counter-productive.

Diversity in the workplace can increase conflict. But research also suggests a contrast view that if teams lack diversity, they will be more susceptible to making wrong decisions. Many companies today realizably focus on workplace diversity — issues such as how to manage a diverse workforce, how to increase diversity, and how to foster sensitivity to it.

When the work involves innovation and out-of-the-box thinking, diversity is the way to go forward. But at the same time, it is important for the team members to respect each other’s diverse views. Because otherwise the team will not be able to work in tandem.