Advantages And Disadvantages Of Group Diversity

I think diversity is great for teams and individuals. Most recently, when I began my current job, I went from a suburban environment to an urban environment. Working downtown allows for a more diverse workplace than in the Parma suburbs. I have learned so much from the ladies I work with now and feel like I now take in their experiences and knowledge when making decisions, either personal or work. In the beginning, there was a clash between each other but as we began to know more about and learn from each other, our team effectiveness grew and we became a well-oiled machine.

This in turn can increase the creativity and innovation within organizations. As well, individuals from diverse backgrounds are able to provide companies with insight into foreign business practices, translation assistance, and offer detailed information to assist in market penetration. A diverse working team can also improve decision making by providing different perspectives on problems. Individuals embrace working alongside other cultures, as it is a personal learning process that will prove useful in the future.

Diversity is vital in today's workplace. Having a diverse workforce opens up a wealth of possibilities and helps to encourage creativity and innovation.

The positive impact of cultural diversity on group behavior can contribute creativity to a high-performance team. Membership diversity offers a rich pool of information, talent, and varied perspectives that can help improve team problem solving and increase creativity (Hunt, J., Osborn, R., Schermerhorn, J., 2005). Cultural diversity contributes various group input and group dynamics to the team. These two factors are essential in the high performance of a team. Cultural diversity can develop a high-performance team by allowing the diverse potentials of a team to operate. The negative impact of cultural diversity on group behavior can develop numerous of conflicts between team members. Conflicting interaction can limit or decrease the effectiveness and efficiency of productivity. There should be an awareness of the diverse culture values in order to prevent these conflicts.

Benefits of a high workplace diversity environment is it not being stuck to conformity in group thinking, or being narrow-minded with similar thoughts and having preference to only be around people who think like you do which is known as the “diversity paradox”. According to a quote stated from Friedrich Nietzsche, Hackett (2014) “The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently” (p. 415). Instead, it reiterates the importance of having a diverse workplace because it constructs better ideas, coming from different minds, and build upon each other through brainstorming. However, a poor workplace diversity can also adversely affect one’s motivation, which leads to overall job dissatisfaction and demotivation. When there is poor workplace diversity, you can see less communication barriers and cultural resistance, but it also makes it harder for individuals to get used to working with others that aren’t the same as them. This can become a form of adversity for businesses if their employees cannot develop a strong skill set to adapt with not only coworkers but also customers in the environment. Therefore, better communication and interaction skills are essential to promoting a business and making it successful.

Diversity within a team is beneficial as each person brings together their own unique views and ways of working. When managed effectively this can help bring together different ideas and build a strong team. By having a diverse team there is opportunity for views / ideas to be seen that could help make the business better. This is due to each person seeing the task/ result from a different light. By listening to all people you can gage a better understanding of the end result.

When diversity comes to the table it generally promotes superior decision making and more extensive examination of the facts given to them in the group. Groups tend to be better at innovating because the inputs from the diverse individuals. With diverse inputs it will provoke a considerable variety in different course of actions. Diverse influences, in my opinion, becomes augmented in a jury room, as

First off, the population of the world isn’t just one type of people therefore having a diverse work group will allow for business to be conducted with a wider segment of the population. Being able to provide a goods or a service to a wider segment of the population directly impacts sales and company profits especially when starting to cut out its own niche’ in a new market. Having a diverse group of people working for you translates into a larger customer base and a larger language ability as well as knowing customs and traditions of other groups of people. Repeat business will increase as ones customer base increases. Being a diverse company is simply good

* Greater diversity leads to greater innovation and productivity which is crucial in being successful on the market. It encourages different perspectives and ideas whilst fostering innovation as well as ability to come up with wider range of solutions to a business problems and challenges. Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/fred.zimny/forbes-innovation-through-diversity?related=1 (Accessed:13th October 2015)

Diverse people tend to have more diverse thinking styles, backgrounds, viewpoints, and values tending to create a more effective unit.

Diversity is what makes people different, not just culturally but in human differences. Having a multitude of differences in the workforce gives an organization the ability to use many ideas to reach a common goal. A person could say that a diverse group of people together in one room can accomplish greater achievements than a room filled with the same types of individuals. Managers understand the concept of diversity, and how important diversity is to the success of a company’s ability to implement programs that continue to develop a harmonious and diverse workplace. The recognition that diversity is a reality in the workforce has generated an enormous amount of activity over the years among leaders in business, government, and civil

Diversity is important to companies because with a diverse environment people can benefit and learn from others' ideas. Other reasons for the importance of diversity to many organizations are the recognition of differences as prerequisites for high performance and continuous improvement, enhancing the effectiveness and creativity of the organization, and valuing conflicts as opportunities for more effective decision-making and problem solving. Diversity has a major impact on our behaviors in the work place.

The first thing to acknowledge about diversity is that it can be difficult. In the U.S., where the dialogue of inclusion is relatively advanced, even the mention of the word “diversity” can lead to anxiety and conflict. Supreme Court justices disagree on the virtues of diversity and the means for achieving it. Corporations spend billions of dollars to attract and manage diversity both internally and externally, yet they still face discrimination lawsuits, and the leadership ranks of the business world remain predominantly white and male.

With the changing demographics of the U.S. workforce (Ng & Burke, 2005) and the need for organizations to continually innovate their products and services to remain competitive, embracing diversity and the benefits its brings is going to be key to driving a successful organization

Organizations have been becoming increasingly diverse in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality. This diversity brings substantial potential benefits such as better decision making, greater creativity and innovation, and more successful marketing to different types of customers. But, increasing cultural differences within a workforce also bring potential costs in higher turnovers, interpersonal conflicts, and communicational breakdowns. The utilities of diversity training and the essential managerial skills required for effectively managing diversity will also be discussed.