S 5. Diversity & Creativity in Teams

S 5. Diversity & Creativity in Teams

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  Diversity & Creativityin Teams PGDM (2013-15) Term-II Dynamics of Group Behavior Session-5 Dr. Vikramaditya Ekkirala
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  Diversity – Types& Problems Types of Diversity ¹ • Demographic: Gender, Race & Ethnicity, Nationality, Age, Religion • Psychological: Values, beliefs & attitudes; Personality, cognitive and behavioral styles; Knowledge, skills & abilities • Organizational: Status, Occupation, Department or division, Tenure Problems of Diversity: • Misperception: False stereotypes and prejudices of members • Emotional Distrust: Power conflicts create a climate of distrust and defensive communication • Failure to use group resources: Minority members reduce their input due to alienation. S-5: Diversity & Creativity in Teams - Dr. V. Ekkirala 2
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  Effects of Diversity •Performance of homogenous and heterogeneous groups depends on the type of diversity and tasks • Homogenous groups do better in the short run. • Diversity has positive effects for tasks and negative effects for group cohesiveness and conflict. • Cross-functional team is a diverse team created to deal with complex issues requiring varied skills • The impact of diversity depends on context – team’s purpose, members’ beliefs and the manner in which diversity is managed. S-5: Diversity & Creativity in Teams - Dr. V. Ekkirala 3
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  Factors limiting Creativityin Groups • Negative or critical communication climate • Interpersonal conflicts • Groups consume more time than individuals working alone • Conformity pressure and domineering members hurt creativity • Cognitive interference (disruption that occurs while one is waiting for opportunity to speak) • Evaluation apprehension (how others evaluate one’s ideas); • Social loafing S-5: Diversity & Creativity in Teams - Dr. V. Ekkirala 4
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  Factors enhancing GroupCreativity ² • Open expression & Dissent: Dissent stimulates divergent thinking • Diversity: Diverse groups generate more ideas & view issues from multiple perspectives • Process facilitator: Trained facilitators enhance brainstorming process • Effective Brainstorming: Avoiding disruptive communication and untimely evaluation • Autonomy & Empowerment: Freedom to do things differently, empower people to act on their ideas, reflect confidence • Intrinsic Motivation: Engagement for its own sake – not for extrinsic reward • Encouragement: New ideas need to be encouraged and supported • Suspend judgment of ideas: Practice of building on ideas rather than criticism S-5: Diversity & Creativity in Teams - Dr. V. Ekkirala 5
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  Skills relevant toCreativity • Divergent thinking ³: Creating unexpected combinations, identifying associations and transforming information into novel forms producing multiple alternatives – generates potential ideas, deferring judgment. • Convergent thinking: Analyzing and focusing on solutions. Focuses on arriving at single best solution after evaluating the alternatives. • Creativity heuristics: An unintegrated and incomplete set of suggestive rules of thumb that work in some cases but not in all (doing random or mechanical trial-and-error sampling). Heuristics are simple thumb rules for making judgments) • Productive forgetting ⁴: Abandoning unproductive ideas and keeping aside stubborn problems until new approaches can be considered. S-5: Diversity & Creativity in Teams - Dr. V. Ekkirala 6
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  References 1. McGrawth, J., Berdahl,J., & Arrow, H. (1995). Traits, expectations, culture, and clout: The dynamics of diversity in work groups. In S. Jackson & M. Ruderman (Eds.), Diversity in work teams: Research paradigms for a changing workplace (pp. 17-45). Washington DC: American Psychological Association. 2. Levi, Daniel. (2011). Group Dynamics for Teams. Thousand Oks, CA: Sage Publications Inc. 3. Runco, M.A. (1991). Divergent Thinking. Westport, CT: Greenwood. 4. Greenberg, J., & Baron, R. A. (2001). Behavior in Organizations (9/e). New Delhi: PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd. S-5: Diversity & Creativity in Teams - Dr. V. Ekkirala 7