Managing diverse team and the challenge

Managing diverse team and the challenge

As the degree of economic globalization increases year by year, multinational corporations full of employees who came from all over the world, which urge those companies needs to embrace and utilize this diversity to create more value in terms of become more successful. Many well-known companies such as Sony, Samsung and Adidas have made good use of the changes that cultural diversity has brought to their companies. Therefore, how to manage diverse team well become a subject for every manager or leader nowadays.

The theories

There have been many effective theories on the management of groups with different cultural background, among which Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory and Belbin’s team roles theory have attracted the most attention. Hofstede believes that members of every social group have a set of common behavior patterns, from the country, society to the small family and unit, which correspond to different levels of culture, including national level, racial level, religious level and gender level(Steel& Taras, 2010). Hofstede divided the differences between different cultures into six cultural dimensions, so that users can better manage and evaluate employees from different countries through his cultural dimension model(CFI team, 2022). At the same time, Belbin's theory pays more attention to the differences between individual functions of employees. He divides employees into nine different roles, which belong to three different groups: Action-oriented roles, People-oriented roles and Thought-oriented roles. Belbin's theory helps managers and leaders create more balanced and coordinated teams, where members complement each others weaknesses and better perform tasks to achieve team goals(Mind tools,2019).

The advantages

Diverse teams not only create more opportunities for the career development of employees within the company, but also help the team make better decisions. Research shows that diverse teams are better at making decisions than non-diverse teams in the most of cases(Green, K. A. et al.,2002). In addition, according to McKinsey's findings, we can find that in the case of cultural diversity, the profitability of the top quartile companies is 36% higher than that of the bottom companies. Those that have not embraced diversity show relatively steady growth and even signs of regression.(McKinsey, 2020).

Example of managing diverse team

Johnson & Johnson is the world's largest diversified healthcare and consumer care products company. Their vision for diversity and inclusion is exactly what they say it is: maximizing the power of diversity and inclusion and unleashing the potential of talented people in every corner of J&J. Johnson & Johnson first joined The Value 500, a group of 500 large companies that promised to better use the benefits of a diverse workforce to serve patients, consumers and customers(Barbara, 2021). In addition, J&J is leveraging its diversity through employee resource groups, mentoring programs and other initiatives that are incorporated into the company's daily work(Kiely, 2022).

The challenge of being inclusive and diverse

While being an inclusive and diverse company sounds great and does bring a lot of benefits, the process is fraught with challenges. Many multinational companies are faced with communication problems. Language barriers not only reduce the efficiency of direct work interaction among employees, but also may cause some unnecessary arguments and contradictions, and destroy the harmonious atmosphere in the workplace(Feely& Harzing, 2003). In addition, according to research, 61% employees had been experience or witness cultural misunderstanding and racial discrimination which can hurt employees engagement can not be ignored (Sapling).

Suggestion

In order to build an excellent and well-diversified team, leaders should be good at listening to the demands of employees, encouraging each employee to speak and share, determining the demands of each employee, encouraging employees to show their personality while trying to eliminate the differences between them, and promoting the progress of the company.

Reference

Steel, P., & Taras, V.(2010). Culture as a consequence: A multi-level multivariate meta-analysis of the effects of individual and country characteristics on work-related cultural values. Journal of International Management, (16)3, 211-233. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intman.2010.06.002

CFI team. (2022). Hofstede’ s Cultural Dimensions Theory. https://bit.ly/3d8Bg8b

Mind tools. (2016). Finding Your Team's Balance With Belbin's Model. https://bit.ly/3dbN0Xa

Green, K. A., López, M., Wysocki, A., & Kepner, K. (2002). Diversity in the Workplace: Benefits, Challenges, and the Required Managerial Tools: HR022/HR022, 7/2002. Edis, 2002(2).

McKinsey& Company. (2020). Diversity wins: How inclusion matters. 

https://mck.co/3BNu0IX

Barbara,B. (2021). 3 Ways Johnson & Johnson Is Proud to Support People With Diverse Abilities. 

https://bit.ly/3vIAnJF

Kiely, K. (2022). 6 Examples of Diverse and Inclusive Companies. Business News Daily. https://bit.ly/3vGWhgA

Feely, A.J. and Harzing, A. (2003), Language management in multinational companies, Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 37-52. 

https://doi.org/10.1108/13527600310797586

Sapling. (2021). Top Challenges of Diversity in the Workplace—And How to Address Them. 

https://bit.ly/3vH1QLI