Diversity and Team Building are Key to Success in Today’s Economy
October 19, 2006
Today’s economic challenges are causing firms to operate more cost effectively. As a result, we are seeing business solutions such as international outsourcing, company mergers, and facility closings. The U.S. workforce is now more racially and religiously diverse, including a higher percentage of women and older workers.
Although diversity offers unlimited opportunities to enhance an organization’s performance, it also brings new challenges that must be handled properly. These include the need to appropriately value diversity, find the balance between individual needs and group fairness, handle resistance to change, cultivate teamwork, and communicate openly. At the same time, your managers must stay focused on performance, retain valued employees, and leverage opportunities.
With the growing global economy, issues such as knowledge, service, and valuing employee competency has created a need for flexibility to drive the competitive edge. One of the great advantages of the global economy is the new breed of virtual worker and global virtual teams which leverage both competencies and skills from anywhere in the world at any time. As a result, many of these teams have a greater capacity to solve problems and create new solutions targeted at strategic goals. But, in the face of these synergies also come cultural differences and the need to establish trust and rapport. Competitiveness can make or break preparation for future growth. Competitiveness has become one of the most prominent business concerns in today’s economy. Organizational responses to dealing with these challenges sometimes place greater stresses on employees struggling to understand their role inside the strategies.
Two areas that can improve organizational success are becoming more proficient at interpersonal skills and team building . Solving issues quickly and effectively can create a greater satisfaction within the workgroup. This requires a great deal of listening, clearly articulating the issues, asking questions, providing answers, and creating solutions. The key to creating a competitive work environment is through an effective management team. Effective managers should be able to accept crisis as an inevitable part of all work situations, and deal with it an order that maintains individual and team focus and productivity. He or she will also recognize the positive and negative impacts of cultural differences, and leverage that to benefit the team and the organization. 
Through effective communication and team building techniques, managers can help individuals understand each other and become successful as a team. Today’s managers and supervisors are often overextended and too busy to attend training courses. Using learning instruments such as the Discovering Diversity and Team Dimensions profiles is an effective way to help your management team create a successful workgroup in today’s competitive market place.
Sources:
Gómez-Mejía, Luis R.; Balkin, David B.; Cardy, Robert L. (1995). Managing Human Resources, Prentice Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
Lockwood, Nancy R., Global Virtual Teams, Society of Human Resource Management Research. Accessed: February 27, 2006, www.shrm.org.
Resolving Conflicts (2005) Supervision Series, Vital Learning Corporation, Omaha, Nebraska.
Roper, Greg (May, 2005), Managing Employee Relations, HR Magazine, (50)5, http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3495/is_5 _50/ai_n13721394.
Stoner, James A.F.; Freeman, A. Edward; Gilbert Jr., Daniel A. (1995). Management (6th Ed.), Prentice Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
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