Locked lesson.

Upgrade

About this lesson

Understanding and leveraging diversity can improve project team performance in many situations. An interesting aspect of diversity on projects that it includes both cultural diversity and technical diversity. Both of these should be actively managed.

Quick reference

Diversity and Inclusion

Given the characteristics of today’s business environment, it is likely that you are working on a diverse team.  Project managers should recognize the benefits and challenges of diversity and inclusion in order to improve team performance and lower risk.  

When to use

Virtually all project teams now have some type of diversity.  Whenever a team is formed or team members changed, the diversity issues should be acknowledged and addressed.

Instructions

Diversity and inclusion have become major themes throughout many societies today. Our focus is not on the cultural impact of diversity on society, rather it is on the project impact of diverse project teams. Diversity can be an advantage for project teams.  Diverse points of view can improve team creativity and risk management as different people interpret the facts and circumstances within the project.  In addition, diverse teams who are aware of their diversity and proactively managing the team will often find that project team members are more careful to clearly and explicitly communicate.  There are fewer assumptions about what others say or think; instead, there is greater emphasis on understanding each other.  This emphasis on facts can lead to better decisions and greater team awareness of risk.

By the same token, greater diversity will increase some of the workload on project management. Encouraging open communication can require longer meetings for each person to share their unique insight on a situation.  Also, it will typically take longer to make decisions since there are more viewpoints and options to consider before the decision is made. Finally, there are some aspects of diversity, especially race and religion, that are highly charged emotional issues and it may not be possible for some people to set aside their emotions.  When that happens it clouds their judgment and can create unnecessary conflict.

Hofstede Dimensions of Cultural Diversity

Dr. Geert Hofstede conducted research on the impact of culture within the business environment.  He studied individuals who worked for a prominent multi-national company that had a strong internal corporate culture.  He measured cultural attitudes and norms of company employees from over 75 countries.  He found that there were strong cultural differences between individuals from different countries.  The impact that this has on projects is that many project teams have individuals who are natives of different countries.  Based upon their home country’s culture, they will have expectations for other team members and will approach challenges and risks differently.

Hofstede’s six dimensions were:

  • Power/Distance: The degree to which inequality exists with respect to power.
    • High power/distance individuals will defer to project team authority figures much more readily than those with low power/distance scores.
  • Individualism: Affiliation and integration of individuals into primary groups.
    • High individualism team members will put personal goals and objectives ahead of team cohesion and low individualism team members will value team cohesion more highly.
  • Masculinity: The value placed on traditional male & female roles.
    • High masculinity individuals will have expectations of roles and competencies based upon gender, low masculinity will not.
  • Uncertainty Avoidance:  The degree of anxiety when in unknown or uncertain situations.
    • High uncertainty avoidance individuals will not be willing to take a great deal of risk, low uncertainty avoidance individuals will take more risk (and therefore fail more often).
  • Long-term Orientation: How society values preparing for the future.
    • Individuals who are high on this dimension will be more focused on the ultimate results of the project than on current performance.  Individuals who are low on this dimension will be more focused on short-term performance and expectations.
  • Indulgence Restraint: Encouragement of gratification of natural desires
    • Individuals who are high on this dimension are more likely to be workaholics on project work, which those with low restraint are more likely to be spontaneous and fun.

Technical Diversity

The other type of diversity that regularly affects project teams is technical diversity, or teams that are comprised of individuals from multiple technical departments.  The strength that comes from the multiple technical viewpoints can lead to project result that is more robust and likely to succeed within the business. However, challenges can arise because of different perspectives on what is most important and different metrics and KPIs.  In addition to the different perspectives each discipline brings to the team, many times different disciplines will have their own culture and associated roles and authority.  This too can create conflict as some team members are decision-makers and others are just messengers back to their department.

Hints & tips

  • Diversity issues are real and should be acknowledged.  Ignoring them often leads to frustration and anger, not to mention the loss of the valuable diverse perspective.
  • Diverse teams take longer to make decisions.  If the project is a highly urgent one, beware of introducing unnecessary diversity.
  • Over time, as team members work together on one or more projects the diversity differences are understood and normally become less of a challenge and more of an asset to the team.
  • Be careful not to assume your culture is correct and all others are wrong.  The Hofstede dimensions will help you understand the different perspectives, but normally it is not a good idea to try to coerce someone into abandoning their culture and forcing them to accept yours.
Login to download
  • 00:04 Hello, I'm Ray Sheen.
  • 00:05 In the world we live in today, the topics of diversity and
  • 00:09 inclusion have become significant elements of organizational strategy.
  • 00:13 They can have an impact on your project also.
  • 00:16 I want to start by talking about diversity, in particular, the pros and
  • 00:20 cons of diversity on your project team.
  • 00:23 First, let's acknowledge a reality,
  • 00:25 diverse teams will operate differently than homogenous team.
  • 00:29 This can be either good or bad, but obviously,
  • 00:32 we want to be discussing best practices, so let's discuss the positive impacts.
  • 00:36 One of those is improved communication.
  • 00:38 Now, that may seem counterintuitive, but when participating on a diverse team,
  • 00:43 team members often are a little more careful about what they say or don't say.
  • 00:48 This helps everyone in the communication process.
  • 00:51 Another impact that I've observed is a great emphasis on facts.
  • 00:55 The teams can't rely on tradition or groupthink when making decisions,
  • 01:00 since there are normally only a few, if any, common traditions, so
  • 01:04 facts come to the forefront.
  • 01:06 The benefit of a diverse teams then are different points of view, which when
  • 01:11 the team is working collaboratively will often lead to better project results.
  • 01:16 The different individuals will process the facts from a different perspective and
  • 01:20 with a different lens or filter,
  • 01:21 which means that they will see things that others miss.
  • 01:24 This leads to better innovation and creativity.
  • 01:28 But there are also some challenges with greater diversity.
  • 01:30 It will often take longer to analyze a situation.
  • 01:34 Each of the different viewpoints needs to be expressed and
  • 01:37 assessed by the entire team, and that takes time.
  • 01:40 Not only longer to analyze, if the team decision making process is
  • 01:43 consensus-based, it will normally take longer to reach consensus.
  • 01:48 And let's face it, some of the cultural divides are so deep and
  • 01:51 entrenched that trying to bridge them is more than a project can take on as part of
  • 01:56 its project goals and objectives.
  • 01:59 There are two types of diversity that can cause an impact on a project
  • 02:03 team's performance and norms.
  • 02:05 The first of these is cultural diversity.
  • 02:07 Cultural diversity is a term used in pop culture frequently, but
  • 02:11 it's often left undefined.
  • 02:13 In our case, we'll be looking at cultural diversity based upon research done by Dr.
  • 02:18 Geerte Hofstede.
  • 02:20 This research was based upon the differences in culture norms and
  • 02:23 expectations among people from different countries who worked for the same company.
  • 02:28 That company had a relatively strong corporate culture,
  • 02:31 which served to eliminate some of the noise factors in the data.
  • 02:35 What was left was how the worldview of people from 75
  • 02:38 different countries differed.
  • 02:40 The reason this is of importance to us is that many of our projects
  • 02:44 are international.
  • 02:45 And even if they are domestic,
  • 02:47 they will often have people raised in other cultures.
  • 02:50 Understanding their differences makes it easier to understand their perspective.
  • 02:55 Hofstede identified six dimensions where there are significant differences.
  • 03:00 In his evaluation, he found different countries were at a high level or
  • 03:04 low level on the dimension.
  • 03:06 You can study his work and find out about the culture of individuals on your team,
  • 03:11 but let's at least take a look at the six dimensions.
  • 03:14 First was power/distance.
  • 03:16 This is the degree to which inequality exists with respect to power, and
  • 03:20 whether the acceptance of that inequality is considered normal or not.
  • 03:24 Are there elite classes in the organization and worker classes?
  • 03:28 Or is everyone viewed as being approximately equal?
  • 03:31 Next is individualism.
  • 03:33 Is it important to be known to be part of a group?
  • 03:36 Or can someone easily remain an autonomous individual?
  • 03:40 How important is affiliation to overall success?
  • 03:44 Next is masculinity.
  • 03:46 This is the value placed on traditional male and female roles in the workplace and
  • 03:51 society.
  • 03:53 Uncertainty avoidance is an interesting one for projects.
  • 03:56 It is the degree of anxiety within a group or culture when faced with unknown or
  • 04:01 uncertain situations.
  • 04:03 Now, keep in mind, all projects have elements of uncertainty.
  • 04:06 Those cultures with high uncertainty avoidance are very
  • 04:11 risk adverse on projects.
  • 04:13 Next is long-term orientation.
  • 04:15 This characteristic is how society values preparing for the future.
  • 04:19 This does not necessarily mean risk avoidance, but rather is the idea
  • 04:24 of valuing long-term investments, both in assets and in cultural priorities.
  • 04:29 The last one is indulgence restraint.
  • 04:33 This is the extent to which the society encourages gratification of natural
  • 04:36 desires.
  • 04:38 It is a lowering of inhibition and embracing an anything goes attitude.
  • 04:43 Please note that I've not said that it is better to be high or
  • 04:47 low on any of these dimensions.
  • 04:49 You may have thought to yourself, as I was describing them,
  • 04:52 that the best position on a particular dimension is very high or very low, but
  • 04:56 that is your cultural biases coming through.
  • 04:58 We all have them, and that is the point of this analysis.
  • 05:02 We all have them and they are different.
  • 05:04 We can condemn everyone who doesn't think just like we do and
  • 05:08 create conflict which will erode team performance.
  • 05:11 Or we can acknowledge that different people may see things differently and
  • 05:16 learn from them using those to strengthen our team decision making.
  • 05:21 The second type of diversity that affects projects is technical diversity.
  • 05:25 This is a diversity of frameworks for planning and evaluating project work.
  • 05:29 Project teams are often cross-functional.
  • 05:32 Individuals from different technical disciplines will likely look at the same
  • 05:36 problem from different perspectives.
  • 05:38 The salesperson on a team may perceive an issue as an opportunity.
  • 05:42 The finance person perceives it as a risk, and
  • 05:45 the operations person just sees it as another headache they have to resolve.
  • 05:49 Just like cultural diversity, technical diversity has benefits and challenges.
  • 05:53 All of those different perspective just listed are true and
  • 05:56 should be considered when making decisions.
  • 05:59 That is one of the reasons for having a cross-functional core team,
  • 06:02 to get all the perspectives on the table before a final decision is made.
  • 06:07 Watch out for one function dominating in all the decisions.
  • 06:11 This danger is increased when the project manager is also a functional department
  • 06:15 core team member.
  • 06:17 Different business functions or
  • 06:18 disciplines tend to place higher value on different project impacts.
  • 06:22 It's helpful when there is a diversity of opinion about a decision to refer back to
  • 06:27 the project goals and objectives as stated in the project charter.
  • 06:31 Different business functions also have different KPIs and
  • 06:34 metrics that they focus upon.
  • 06:36 Many times a decision that optimizes one metric
  • 06:39 will have a negative impact on another metric.
  • 06:42 As we have stated before, when facing conflict, I use the grippy approach.
  • 06:47 And one of the first questions I ask in the P, procedures portion of grippy, is
  • 06:51 what are the metrics that we are concerned about and how are they being measured?
  • 06:56 This may be an area that will require some negotiation to resolve on your team.
  • 07:01 Finally, different business functions may have different levels of authority within
  • 07:05 the organization.
  • 07:07 Each organization has its own internal politics.
  • 07:09 And based upon those, one function may have more pull than another.
  • 07:14 Part of understanding and accommodating the technical diversity
  • 07:17 is to recognize the internal politics and how they will impact decisions.
  • 07:22 Diversity is real.
  • 07:23 It can be a benefit on your project, but it must be managed.
  • 07:26 And there are multiple types of diversity.
  • 07:28 So don't just focus on one, consider all and manage them all.

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.

PMI, PMP, CAPM and PMBOK are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

Gift this course