[MUSIC] Team composition, who should be in my team? This is a key question both for people in practice, but also for scientists. And one of that key concerns here is diversity. Should the people in my team be more similar, have similar characteristics, be the same in terms of, for example, demographic characteristics, be it gender, age, nationality or do I want my people to be more different from each other? So again we can think about the demographic characteristics, but we can also think maybe about more underlying personality characteristics. Are these people working in the same way? Do they have the same style of working? How do they relate to each other? And this is a question for which there is really no one best answer. I can already tell you that. But first of all, I want you to reflect on this question. What do you believe? Again, do you agree or do you disagree with this statement? A team that is more diverse will perform better than a team that is more homogenous. What do you think? Basically this is the key concern about teams right? Because often we put together a team of people because we hope, we believe that something in the diversity of the people in the different perspectives, in the different personalities, the different experiences, that people bring to the team, we hope that that group of people will in fact out perform either a single individual or a group of people that is more homogenous. However, as I mentioned already, the answer to this question is really not so straightforward. And in fact there's two perspectives on team diversity, and let me start with the positive one. This is called the perspective of information elaboration. Again remember the glasses, right? We're putting on the positive perspective on team diversity. This perspective says that If you put together a group of people that have more different experiences, insights, personalities, they will have a broader base of information from which to work in the team from which to take decisions. Positive outcomes will happen for the team. Including for example, better problem solving if you have more diversity of perspectives you can do more to solve your complex problems. More creative solution because people think from different perspectives. Better customer understanding. If you can relate to people from a variety of perspectives, for sure this should increase your collective, your overall understanding of your customers or the people that you work with. Mutual learning and respect, think about it. If you work together in a team in which people are equal, you all went to the same school, we did the same study, you work on the same organization. And now think about a team of people coming from different countries, different study backgrounds the learning that you can get in this second type of team is much greater. Because people have such a variety of perspectives. And with that, in fact, respect can also grow if people acknowledge that those diversity and those different experiences in fact all do contribute to the team. However, this is not the full story unfortunately. Because team composition can also work the other way. Or let's say team diversity can work the other way. Because what we also know and this is in fact a pretty robust finding from psychology and organizational behavior. We people we like to work with people who are similar to us. In terms of our demographic characteristics, in terms of our personality because we find it easier. We know what to expect, people confirm in a way implicitly or explicitly that the way in which we are doing things Is good, which is a pleasant feeling. It's always nice to get confirmation that the way we are and the way we do things, in fact, is a good thing, is a good choice. And by working with similar others, this is what implicitly happens. So this is in a way the negative perspective on diversity, because it implies that working with people who are different, working in a team of people that is more diverse creates friction, conflicts, frustration, waste of time and effort. And yes, this is what we see. So there is empirical evidence exactly confirming this hypothesis that diversity may have negative outcomes. So teams in which members are more diverse may have more difficulties understanding each other. They may have more difficulties n their communication because how do you align? How do you respect each other? As a result of course there may be a loss of productivity because in our diverse teams in which people are so busy getting to know each other, understanding each other, solving their conflicts, aligning their communication, this may all come at the expense of the work that the team is actually supposed to do. So we see a loss of productivity in the end. Also, it may lead to sub-groups in the team. So that is, within your team, people may still seek to work more, affiliate more, relate more, to that small group of people within the team that is more similar in the end. As a result, you may have a dividing line between different subgroups in the team, which in general doesn't really help the productivity or even the cohesion or the sense of being a real team altogether. So, all these phenomena really add up to the more negative perspective on team diversity. [MUSIC]
