Managers are often confronted with the challenge of leading an increasingly heterogeneous team that is diverse along the lines of age, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability and ethnicity. Research suggests that Diversity can lead to lesser commitment and more conflicts in teams, and reduce organizational commitment. Yet, there is evidence that increased diversity bolsters learning potential of teams and hence helps in unleashing creativity and innovation. Some organizations are trying to frame diversity as a process to be leveraged rather than a problem to be solved. Inherent in the diversity management agenda of these organizations, is the assumption that talented and creative employees come from diverse backgrounds. This approach helps facilitate producing the requisite people behaviors, attitudes, and mental models that are necessitated by the demand of employee engagement, and high performance work systems so as to realize the company’s business strategies.
Managing diversity in teams is more than simply acknowledging differences in people. Hence it’s required to support planned and positive diversity management practices in sync with the organizational culture to capitalize on its benefits.
