Having multiple people work together as a team enables bringing in expertise that can be directed towards problem-solving. A large team that is diverse has a powerful mechanism for problem solving. However, teams that are big and diverse can also come with several challenges such as administrative costs and communication problems. A trade-off should thus be arrived at when choosing size and diversity of a team. Managers should also be at the forefront of ensuring that a team benefits from diversity. Managers should analyze the trade-off when selecting large and diverse team and integrate strategies that can ensure the success of diverse teams.
Trade off in Choosing a Team’s Size and Diversity Level
The size and diversity of a team are two factors that should be put into consideration when developing an effective team. The trade-off when choosing the size of a team and the level of diversity would be communication and coordination challenges. Larger teams can find communication challenging especially when a framework of sharing ideas among the large group has not been well-established. Diverse teams can also experience communication challenges because the different team members may not be speaking the same language. Individuals of different cultures may face challenges when communicating.
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Coordination challenges is also a trade-off that should be analyzed when choosing large and diverse teams. Social loafing can occur when managing large teams. Social loafing is a situation where an individual in a team does not exert the appropriate amount of effort and their work is based on other team members (Shih & Wang, 2016). Members of a diverse team can also interact and converse more with people that are similar to them leading to homophily (Chancellor et al., 2017).
When considering the trade-off, one should look at the advantages that come with large and diverse teams. Larger teams that are more diverse teams are able to bring in additional resources, knowledge, and contacts (Guillaume et al., 2017). The improvement in knowledge and sharing of ideas should result in an improvement in productivity of an institution.
How Managers Can Effectively Manage Diverse Teams
Managers should make use of several strategies to ensure that their team can reap advantages of diversity while also avoiding some of the challenges that come about with diversity issues. The first step that managers should undertake is through the process of hiring. The manager should find people that have the right kind of attitude, are open-minded, and are positive towards other individuals that may have a different way of thinking (Rock & Grant, 2016). Once the right team members are in place the manager should be able to create an environment that encourages diversity. An open and safe work environment should be established to ensure that employees are comfortable when sharing their ideas and voicing their opinions. No one should be ridiculed by other team members or even the manager because they have different opinions.
In order to solve some of the challenges that come with a diverse team, policies should be made to show team members that there is no tolerance of any issues that show lack of respect to any individual (Galinsky et al., 2015). Such policies will ensure that instances where there are communication challenges can be solved easily. The policy should go ahead towards building a culture that fosters respect and understanding among team members.
Conclusion
When considering the creation of a large and diverse team, managers should consider the trade-off and how to reap full advantages and overcome some of the challenges. While such teams can create improvement in resources, ideas, and knowledge, it can result in several challenges such as administrative costs, communication challenges, and coordination challenges. Managers should ensure that a team can reap full advantages of diversity through the process of hiring and formulating policies that can counter any challenges that arise from diverse teams.
References
Chancellor, J., Layous, K., Margolis, S., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2017). Clustering by well-being in workplace social networks: Homophily and social contagion. Emotion , 17 (8), 1166.
Galinsky, A. D., Todd, A. R., Homan, A. C., Phillips, K. W., Apfelbaum, E. P., Sasaki, S. J., ... & Maddux, W. W. (2015). Maximizing the gains and minimizing the pains of diversity: A policy perspective. Perspectives on Psychological Science , 10 (6), 742-748.
Guillaume, Y. R., Dawson, J. F., Otaye ‐ Ebede, L., Woods, S. A., & West, M. A. (2017). Harnessing demographic differences in organizations: What moderates the effects of workplace diversity?. Journal of Organizational Behavior , 38 (2), 276-303.
Rock, D., & Grant, H. (2016). Why diverse teams are smarter. Harvard Business Review , 4 (4), 2-5.
Shih, C. H., & Wang, Y. H. (2016, July). Can workplace friendship reduce social loafing?. In 2016 10th International Conference on Innovative Mobile and Internet Services in Ubiquitous Computing (IMIS) (pp. 522-526). IEEE.
