Diversity as a Barrier to Effective Teamwork: A Critical Analysis

This essay explores the complex relationship between diversity and effective teamwork. While diversity is often lauded for its potential to enhance creativity and problem-solving, it can also create barriers to collaboration and communication. The essay examines various types of diversity, including cultural, gender, age, and knowledge-based differences, and analyzes how these differences can lead to misunderstandings, conflicts, and ultimately, ineffective teamwork. It also discusses strategies for managing diversity and fostering a more inclusive and productive team environment.

Essay
Diversity is a barrier to effective teamwork
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Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
Main Body:......................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................9
References:....................................................................................................................................10
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Introduction:
The essay is based on diversity in the workplace. Effective teamwork is very much necessary for
a company to gain all organisational goals and objectives. Communication is necessary for the
team to get a broader collaboration and higher sense of liability. In the essay, the importance of
teamwork and the barriers that can lead to ineffective teamwork will be discussed. There are
diverse barriers to effective teamwork and diversity can also be one of them which will be
conferred below. The job and the organisational flow can get smooth if there is nurturing prolific
teamwork.
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Main Body:
The chief purpose of creating a team with diverse background, cultures and beliefs is to form a
creative group which can solve all types of problems raised by the organisation. The merging of
diverse individuals, gender, race, culture and experience can make a team fruitful. Diversity in a
team is an example of a heterogeneous team. Diversity in teamwork can’t be fully a barrier as the
teams with the same group of people can be less creative and can lack limitations in the ideas
and viewpoints (Boet, et. al, 2014). Diversity means differences in race, sex, ethnic, nationality
and so on. Without diversity in knowledge and experiences, the vital process of information in a
team can’t be gained. The differences in the viewpoints and the decisions can assist the team
members to take the task collectively and complete the task productively.
The complicated and novel issues in the organisations are to be solved rapidly for which the
firms are now made in such a way that there is diversity among the group. Many individuals
think that diversity is just simply the demographics of colour, age or gender but the teams can be
varied in many ways. Diversity can also be based on the knowledgeable differences, which can
reflect an individual’s experiences and the educational background (Williams, et. al, 2014). The
barriers in the teamwork can be of poor communication which can be a bulk barrier to the
fruitful work of the team, if the team members won’t be able to communicate properly or are
ignorant of the proper communication to be utilized in the team it can lead to break down among
the group another barrier ineffectual teamwork is of unclear goals, the main aim of a team is to
achieve the objectives of the organisation but if the team is unclear about the goals of the firm
then the goals will remain unachieved.
The goals of a firm can be of accomplishing the specific areas or about an on-going project
which defines the responsibilities and roles of the team members in a team. The diversity can
lead to certain conflicts in the decisions of the team as not having similar viewpoints can prime
to struggles among an effective team (Tenzer, et. al, 2014). Differences in the ideas may create
dissimilar decisions which may lead to ego problems in the organisation. If the members of the
team are not working for the general profit of the team then it will have difficulties in the process
of decisions. The members of the team need to be aware of their roles and responsibilities which
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are assigned to them as per their diverse experiences, age, educational background and other
varied skills. If there is lack of managerial development then it can also be a barrier to an
effective team.
Managers develop a team based on the diversity among their employees so that they can achieve
the determined goals and objectives. Each team requires members who are diverse so that they
can work to achieve certain goals which require innovative and creative decisions. The most
indispensable piece of the team building puzzle is diversity among the team members as a
heterogeneous team can achieve the efficacious goals (Al Sayah, et. al, 2014). A diverse team
invites alterations like language and beliefs from which the language can be a barrier for an
effective team as if there is unclear communication within a team it can raise the conflicts and
also lead to negative decisions of the team. If the diverse beliefs and viewpoints are taken
positively in an organisation then it can develop a high-performance team.
A diverse team has the aptitude to adopt the varied physiognomies and utilize them all to profit
the team. Each of the individual from diverse background possesses an exclusive set of skills and
issues which can assist to understand the different problems of the firm (Weller, et. al, 2014). For
taking decisions in a team the board needs to understand the differences among the market and
the consumers, who are of different culture and backgrounds, so having a team with diversity
can assist in taking the decisions which are required to understand such kind of diverse market.
Diversity can help the firm in cracking new zones of the market and increase the innovative and
fresh ideas in the workplace.
Diversity can directly influence the performance of the group, if there are collaboration and
respect of viewpoints and diverse backgrounds of the team members then it can remove all the
barriers in the team but if the diversity is taken in a negative way then it can lead to varied sort of
struggles among the team members which will directly impact the overall performance of the
team. The type of the problems that firms has to face and the way the team members use
diversity among them to solve the issues can determine how effectively diversity among the
team can benefit the companies (Körner, et. al, 2016). In certain cases, the diversity among team
can lash up international level conflicts which can cause great destruction to the financial profits
and the image of the company. The thinking that the person with the varied background will take
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the wrong decisions or their decisions and viewpoints will not benefit the company can lead to
ego among the associates of the team and can completely destroy the efficiency of the group.
Another diversity among the team which can influence the team is on the basis of the goals and it
can also lead to certain kinds of skirmishes, this is the furthermost hypothetically affecting of all
the sorts of diversities.
In the absence of value-goal homogeneousness, a team will only be able to achieve a lesser
amount of profits. If a team with miscellaneous members finds out the goals and accepts them to
achieve their certain objectives then it will diminish the goals and the problems will be much
calmer to handle. If the persons in the team are able to know the intentions of the other team
members then the diversity among them won’t affect their performance and they will be able to
work fruitfully (Körner, et. al, 2016). The influences of diversity in a team can be more
pronounced at the time of solving complicated tasks which will be requiring sovereign work of
numerous clusters. The teams that are having people from diverse backgrounds and beliefs can
modify the behaviour of the group mainstream which can lead to more precise group thinking.
If the diversity in a team is ignored then it can create barrier among the process issues which will
weaken the output of the team. Utilizing diversity can infuse to exceptional sorts of contributions
and skills of all the members which can simplify the entrustment of the responsibilities. Conflict
management is a skill that not only inflates the diversity realization and the occasions of victory.
It takes a specific amount of time and effort and a vast assortment of skills to mature the trust
and cohesiveness for sympathetic the standards of the team (Weller, et. al, 2014). There are
certain steps that are to be taken so that the diversity among the team can be used to remove the
barriers in achieving the goals of the team; the first step is to know all the members of the team
before initial of any task so that the team members can understand all the interests and talents of
the varied team members so that it can pledge the process of launching the comfort zones of the
team associates.
The team members of diverse background scan spend the time to know about the common
visions and viewpoints so that they can know the capability of each other while working on the
projects. There should be a mutual respect among the team members for each other’s beliefs,
caste, religion, gender, knowledge and interests so that the barriers in the team of diversity can
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be detached. In a team with diversity, the members can utilize the strengths of each other to solve
the complex problems of the firms. If the team members work as a team after dangling their
attitudes it can lead to a developing team (Tenzer, et. al, 2014). The different sorts of diversity
occurring in the team can be of gender where men and women are working equally with their
respective knowledge and attaining same sorts of benefits from the work. Gender diversity faces
many issues but as per the researchers, the firms where men and women are treated equally tend
to perform more profitably. Another diversity that can occur in a team is of domestic cultural
which means having the superiority of various cultures; there are many separate societies that are
occurring all over the globe which differ from each other, the most obvious differences among
the team members can be of language, traditions and beliefs.
Age diversity is another term that can affect the performance of the team as many people believe
that the individuals with younger age group are more productive as they are confident and full of
energy whereas others believe that people having older age are more productive due to their
experiences. Having greater diversity can also lead to influence the way in which the team
processes its data which is required to take effective decisions (Williams, et. al, 2014). The firms
need to keep on making new and innovative ideas to stay up in the competitive market and
having people with diversity can invite new ideas and viewpoints which will assist the
companies to innovate in terms of their products and services. As per the researched uplifted
diversity in the team is gain to the innovation.
As per the surveys of 7,615 firms, the one which had greater diversity in their team members
were able to take much better decisions and provide a higher amount of innovative ideas. To
boost up the firms joint rational budding it is vital to augment the pool of employees with
diversity in their cultures, age, nationality and the beliefs. Having certain conflicts within a
diverse team it can directly or indirectly influence the members of the team with rifts of lesser
productive work. The managers of the firms having diversity among their team members need to
motivate their team members so that they can keep the ability fiction low (Weller, et. al, 2014).
Managing the diversity among the team members can develop a larger harmonious workplace
but there must be also creative profits to the members of the team.
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Diversity among the team members can lead to positive as well as negative impacts on the
teamwork, if seen at the positive points then it will be uplifting the creativity, flexibility and the
innovation of the organisation. In the negative ways, diversity can lead to some sort of
misunderstandings, confusions and conflicts among the team members (Körner, et. al, 2016).
The teamwork can be enhanced and the team can work productively as well as smartly by
utilising the diversity in the positive way to diminish their barriers of the firm.
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Conclusion:
As per the essay above, it can be concluded that diversity in the teamwork can have both positive
as well as negative impacts where it can solve all the problems of the firm to assist them to
achieve their desired goals. Positively thinking diversity is not a barrier to the effectual
teamwork. The members of the team having diverse backgrounds can help in providing diverse
ideas to the issues which will enhance the working of the organisation. In the above essay, the
different sorts of issues in teamwork are discussed along with the different kinds of diversities
that exist in a team.
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References:
 Al Sayah, F., Szafran, O., Robertson, S., Bell, N.R. and Williams, B., 2014. Nursing
perspectives on factors influencing interdisciplinary teamwork in the Canadian primary
care setting. Journal of Clinical Nursing, Vol. 23(19-20), pp.2968-2979.
 Boet, S., Bould, M.D., Layat Burn, C. and Reeves, S., 2014. Twelve tips for a successful
interprofessional team-based high-fidelity simulation education session. Medical
teacher, (Körner, et. al, 2016) Vol. 36(10), pp.853-857.
 Körner, M., Lippenberger, C., Becker, S., Reichler, L., Müller, C., Zimmermann, L.,
Rundel, M. and Baumeister, H., 2016. Knowledge integration, teamwork and
performance in health care. Journal of health organization and management, Vol. 30(2),
pp.227-243.
 Tenzer, H., Pudelko, M. and Harzing, A.W., 2014. The impact of language barriers on
trust formation in multinational teams. Journal of International Business Studies, Vol.
45(5), pp.508-535.
 Weller, J., Boyd, M. and Cumin, D., 2014. Teams, tribes and patient safety: overcoming
barriers to effective teamwork in healthcare. Postgraduate medical journal,
pp.postgradmedj-2012.
 Williams, C.L., Kilanski, K. and Muller, C., 2014. Corporate diversity programs and
gender inequality in the oil and gas industry. Work and occupations, Vol. 41(4), pp.440-
476.
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