Practical Coach: Management Skills for Everyday Life, The

Part I: Diverse Teams

In their Training and Development magazine article, “Diverse Teams: Breakdown or Breakthrough?” Lewis Griggs and Lente-Louise Louw point out:

Forming a cohesive team from relatively similar individuals is hard enough. The difficulties are multiplied when team members come from different ethnic or national cultures. They not only come to the group with their own individual ways of being, but they also bring cultural or national dictates about the proper ways to do things. As a consequence, diverse teams require more skill facilitation than homogeneous groups, especially in the early stages.^[1]

Team diversity, of course, goes beyond ethnic and national culture. Today's team members are likely to differ from each other on ...