 When I work with different organizations, it always amazes me how frequently I hear an expression like this You know, why don't we have any fresh ideas? We can't come up with any new perspectives You can't you know come up with anything innovative And then I look around and everybody there's basically the same the whole organization They've hired a bunch of people that are just like themselves and so they don't have any diversity there And so that's my first comment is well You don't have any fresh ideas because you all have the same perspective and it may be a good perspective But you need some diversity in here of all sorts. So in this video We want to talk a little bit about working in diverse teams because that's what we should be looking for is Involvement engagement in diverse teams which comes with lots of benefits and also some challenges So let's address all of that and discuss why this is important and what we can do to enhance our ability to work in diverse teams So first of all, let's define group diversity real quick Diversity is just a group diversity is persons with varying characteristics Including cognitive skills personality traits and factors that shape our identities such as race, age, gender, religion, sexual orientation, cultural background, etc So when we say diversity automatically a lot of times we think you know race and ethnicity and certainly that is diversity And that's those are important perspectives as well as you know, age gender knows those different kinds of characteristics are important That we have diversity in that regard in our group because you know people from those different backgrounds come with different Perspectives and we should want that we should want, you know different viewpoints and different people with different Experiences to bring different ideas and so yes absolutely that is a part of group diversity And if you look around and everybody in the group looks just like you then that's that's going to be a problem But that's not the only way we can define diversity and should define diversity Diversity includes things like cognitive skills or just different ways of thinking, you know, some people are more Straightforward and and you know kind of in the way that they process information and some people are more creative You know that whole idea of left brain right brain, which is kind of coming to question But you get the idea that so we want people with different cognitive skills We want people different personality traits Because mixing all that together is where you start to find ways to complement one another and fill in those gaps That you may not have as an individual or as a certain type of person But you can fill in those gaps by bringing in people from other backgrounds. So your group ideally should be as diverse as possible That's what you want. I was thinking this too in terms of sports So in basketball, for example, you can have one player kind of take over the game and professional basketball in particular But in baseball, I love baseball and I love the St. Louis Cardinals in particular go Cardinals But but I love baseball because it takes an entire team. You need that diversity, right? You can't just have a team of great hitters and just the worst pitching ever and still expect to do well on vice versa You know, you got to have you got to have enough hitters solid hitters But you also have to have a great pitching staff you have to have people who can play in the field well and And so you need all of that diversity and different personalities and different things in the clubhouse all the Kind of off the field stuff too. You need people to fill those roles So you need a lot of diversity to make, you know, a really good professional baseball team Which one of the things I love about the Cardinals they do a great job of putting together these teams And win every year obviously, but they win plenty You know, especially in comparison to the Cubs, for example They win plenty of World Series, but every year they're competitive It seems like very few years in there competitive because they understand the importance of a diverse Team in in all regards on the field off the field in all aspects of the game So in your group, we ought to be looking for that diversity somebody who sees M But also somebody who sees W, right? We want that kind of diversity and to bring a completeness to our team So what does that do for us? We know that there are a variety of impacts from diversity positive effects that come from diversity Starting with the fact that diverse groups are more effective in decision-making and problem-solving Can you bring all those different perspectives together? You bring all those different viewpoints together and experiences and just all of that together And you're gonna get more effective at decision-making and problem-solving in the long run Let me let me you know that comes with an asterisk. This is after you've come together as a team now That can be a challenge and we'll talk about that in in just a moment But but when you get together as team when you put all the pieces together and things are running smoothly Then we know that that diverse teams are more effective in decision-making and problem-solving than homogenous teams So the other thing that we know about diverse teams is that that we see an increase in innovation right when you have these homogenous teams these teams that look alike and think alike and and We see this in organizations historically you look at organizations that that oftentimes fail in the long run They'll have this enormous surge and they'll think oh well This is who we are. This is what we ought to do. So we hire a bunch of people that are just like us Because we want to keep that going right But then it gets stale and you don't think outside the box and you you know We end up falling off right so think about like IBM back in the day IBM was a huge organization But they got to be so big that they got to be so homogenous that there was very little creativity and they were very much You know not to use a cliche but inside the box thinking right so that when Steve Jobs brings them Apple computers And see was neck bring them Apple the idea for Apple they say no no no that's not what we do That's not us and they let him go and they so they have no stagons and then eventually IBM has fallen off They're no longer one of the biggest companies no no no longer hold that importance because they saw that decrease in innovation diverse teams Bring an increase in innovation when you bring in different people different perspectives different experiences Then you bring in different ideas different ways of doing things and you continue to innovate in that way So diverse teams see an increase in innovation Diverse teams also see a decrease in group think we're gonna talk of just for a minute here about what group think is But you know to start with it's bad group think is bad And so when you have a homogenous team you start to see more group think diverse teams see the last group think so What is group think? Well group think is the practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages Creativity or individual responsibility so group think essentially says that okay. We're gonna go along We're gonna you know We just get caught up in the in the momentum in the flow here We're gonna we're gonna do things the way that that the leader says we should do them or the way that the group seems to be Trending despite the fact that we may have these voices in the back of our head saying no this is a bad idea This is I have questions about this or I think there's a different way of doing this that might work out better But I don't want to say that because I don't want to be the standout in the group You know the there's an expression in Japanese that says the nail that stands out gets hammered right? And I don't want to be the nail that gets hammered I'm just gonna go on so we get into group think and then we all end up just falling off the cliff together, right? Because we're just following along. We're not really thinking so we just okay Well that person involved clip so I must supposed to be fall falling off the cliff as well, right? One example of this that we see in fairly contemporary history is in 2003 the US invasion of Iraq Is an example of growth group think a classic example of group think you had this kind of momentum First of all people were feeling pressure about You know we need to to respond to 9-11 we were already in Afghanistan And so there's this pressure that things aren't happening quickly enough And so people are feeling pressure to make things happen and and get things done in the wake of 9-11 And so we get this whisper of weapons of mass mass destruction in Iraq And so then everybody grabs onto that and says oh, this is something we can do and and should do and you know All along you hear from people all the time who were saying for example secretary then Secretary of State Colin Powell has said in a book I had I had reservations I had concerns about whether or not our intelligence was accurate and I kind of think but he readily admits them to that but I didn't say So loudly enough and it didn't object because I went along I just thought this is what we're supposed to do So he got caught up in that group thinking everybody did we ended up then starting a war in Iraq Expanding the war in the Middle East to Iraq Over something that wasn't there has been determined that there were no weapons of mass destruction Like we thought that where that was false information and but people got so caught up in that that's an example of group think It's sort of in more modern context. We can see this in With the way we view cable news right Fox News and MSNBC both not to pick a side in fact, I'm not really Crazy about either to be honest But Fox News and MSNBC are examples of group things in in some ways You know in some ways they're news organizations and they provide effective information and things like that But in other ways if their examples group think because people just stop Questioning the accuracy of things and stop questioning. You know, are they telling us the right things? Are they being honest with us with you know, and we know now and today and so they're making this video We're just coming off the settlement of the Dominion voting machines lawsuit against Fox News Claiming that Fox News knowingly lied about and put people on the air who lied about what was happening in the voting machines during the during the 2020 election presidential election, right? And we know from texts and and emails and different things like that that the personalities of Fox News knew that this was false For sure right and they've said, you know, this was false We we we put these people on knowing that it was crazy. They said it was literally said it was crazy All of this just came out right and yet you hear people Fox News people not not Fox News Personalities but people who watch Fox News still saying I don't care. They're they're mice. They're my station I'm you know, I don't care that they knowingly lied to us for for the last couple years and that kind of thing But we're just gonna keep following along that is group think my friends that is group think people do it on both sides People do it with MSNBC as well, although we haven't had reports and MSNBC is Just out lying about things in the same way that we have about Fox News But so you get the idea that we get in these echo chambers we get This momentum of following these things and then we feel like personally it might cost us more to be wrong about that So we just we just go along with it and we buy into it even more we double down and that's group think and that's that's an issue So Diversity in a group Decreases that because people are more willing to say now they're willing raise your hand say no I don't think that's the right thing to do Let's we ought to look at it from from this perspective or in a different way and try it in a different way When you have diversity in a group you see the decrease of group think within that group Which is critical now this is none of this is to say that Diversity is easy in groups diversity is something we should want and should strive for It also presents a number of challenges within a group as we as we look at group work So let's take a look at what some of those are first of all you see when you bring diverse people together You're going to see different styles of communication. They're coming from different cultures and different communication backgrounds So you see for example high context and low context communicators high context communicators tend to look Beyond the verbal expression So let me start with this low context people look more at the verbal expression and they take people at their word And they say well, that's what they said so that's what it must be And they just kind of it's like looking through the peephole of a door right instead of it You know opening the door and seeing the whole perspective You're only looking at that one specific and you know defined area low context communication looks specifically at Verbal communication and goes from there high context communicators though will take a look at other aspects of communication They'll take more They'll put more into the non-verbals and different things like that of of the communicator and the history between the two and what their Position is and all of those types of things they will look at at Different contexts again, they broaden their context and look at different things outside of the verbal aspect of things So when you have people from both of those different backgrounds Then you have to figure out okay, who's who and how does that impact? How do I need to adjust how I hear what this person says and the input they they provide and how I communicate with this person based on The differences in our views of you know high context or low context communicators So we have to adjust our communication styles overall and be more aware of those types of things We'll also look at accents and fluency if you're if you're dealing with people who aren't speaking the same primary language Okay So if I'm English is my primary language and I speak a little bit of Spanish But not much but if I'm working with somebody whose primary language is you know Chinese and they speak English So we may communicate in English, but I also have to understand that that may be more challenging for them And they may have trouble expressing their ideas the way that they want to and so we may have to be more patient with that It's not that their ideas don't have merit or that they're not smart enough or whatever It's just that you know They're having to work harder to put those ideas into a language that I can understand Because we're speaking different languages literally so accents fluency those types of things we have to take that into account and You know in some ways set it aside and remember that it's the idea that matters and not you know Whether or not they have more trouble expressing it or I have more trouble understanding it because of those different different aspects as well We may have different attitudes toward hierarchy. Okay, so people from a high power distance culture put a lot of regard into To the placement of Somebody within that organization for example, and so if you're a leader of a group, they're not going to challenge you if the leader of the group says Well, this is my thought and this is my idea They're probably not going to challenge that because they come from a society where that's not encouraged in the United States That's not the case. We have a very low power distance culture here where we question people all the time You know, it doesn't mean we can be disrespectful, but but we can question people There's no we don't see a specific you know inherent difference between some between us and somebody else just because they happen to have This job or that role or whatever We're going to question those things regardless and be more comfortable doing so But we have to recognize that if we're working with somebody who's from a different culture like that They may not be as willing to speak up We may have to draw them out a little bit more and say hey, it's okay We want ideas just because I said this and I happen to be in a higher position Doesn't mean that's the end of the discussion I need you to Contribute in the challenge and so we need to be sensitive to those things and then the decision-making norms, you know Some societies are going to be more you know in the United States we were Democratic Republic right so we're used to more consents or more more Voting and you know consensus and majority rules and that kind of thing type of a decision-making as opposed to We're going to say people from cultures that are more That are more used to Autocracy for example or for for my again if they're from a low power to our high power distance culture excuse me They may be used to people just saying well This is what we're doing one person's making the decision the others are following along and they may have some input and things But but one person is going to make the decision so they may be waiting for somebody else to kind of speak up and say This is what we're doing. They may not be as comfortable with the whole idea of voting and and majority rules and things So we need to consider that there are different decision-making norms for people from different cultures as well We need to understand all these things and manage them though Understanding that the payoff again for diversity is well worth the effort that it takes to to manage these things and to really Consider these things and keep them in mind and we consider the benefits of diverse groups They far outweigh any of these challenges which in the end are manageable If we just have to be aware of them as well as other things and manage those things And then we can get the the benefits of that diversity in the group So we should be looking for as diverse a group as possible whether it's a work team whether it's you know Whatever kind of team we're putting together that diversity is only going to help us once we learn to Manage those challenges and come together as a group That that diversity is going to pay big big dividends for so it's well worth our time and energy to figure out They have most effective ways of working in diverse groups putting together and working in those diverse groups If you have questions about about group diversity or small group communication in general Please feel free to email me. I'd love to hear from you there And in the meantime, I hope this gives you a new perspective on the importance and the benefits of diversity in small groups