Article: Team Diversity

Diversity is such an important force in the world. How boring a place, the world would be if we all were the same, had same interests and saw things from the same perspective.

Creativity would be lost, uniqueness and all of those great things that makes life so beautiful and colorful would seize to exist, because diversity makes all of these wonderful things possible.

Humans are the most diverse, dynamic and intelligent set of beings on the Earth you know, and this is one of the forces that makes us so powerful and special.

Every day, we meet new people and we sometimes are quite amazed by how different they are from us. Their unique abilities, experiences, interests, skills, heart and the beauty of who they are and their personalities just simply shines through.
So, diversity is quite important and the world is so much better for it.

When it comes to the workplace and team formation, diversity plays a huge role on the strength of a team and so, I’ll be sharing on its importance, impact, and why we should have an open mind by embracing the concept of “Team Diversity” in all spheres and walks of life.

Here are six things worthy of note regarding team diversity and why you should embrace this great culture and belief system.

A Pool of Knowledge and Ideas

Applied knowledge is power and when you have a diverse gathering of people, great ideas and solutions are bound to emerge from such places. Ideas that stem from diverse work experiences, backgrounds, sources, and network of these dynamic individuals.

Diversity of Skills and Uniqueness

When it comes to vision, execution and posterity, structures and people are always the solution. With a diverse team comes diverse skills sets and perspectives for delivery.
When you have sameness in a room or gathering, it’s always difficult to think outside your own “Outside The Box” ideas, but with diversity, you would come to experience new mind shifts and experiences that can help you accomplish so much for vision actualization and sustainability of your businesses and goals.

The Strength of Divide and Conquer

The Lion remains king of the Juggle, capable of operating alone, but he also understands when the strength of the Pride is needed. Pride of Lions operate by the strength of divide and conquer, and sometimes may come together to focus on a prey, depending on how challenging it may be or what their target is.

Diversity of teams helps you to be able to collaborate to divide and conquer territories that may be unfamiliar to you, but may be accessible and familiar to others onboard.
This is the reason, some businesses are capable of expanding and spreading to other regions of the world.

If your focus remains on sameness and exclusivity of certain people from your circle or group, those you may have placed in a category mentally, then you just may be placing a cap on your ability to know and achieve greater things.

End to Racism and Discrimination by Acceptance of People’s Uniqueness

Racism and discrimination is such a terrible mindset. It destroys and robs people of the chance to come to know the beauty and brilliance that resides in many others that are very different from themselves.

Beyond the global scale of the “Black vs. White” or the “Everybody Else vs. Racists” protest movements know around the world, grassroots and local levels across all Nations also have their own fair share of this big problem, and they come in forms like tribalism and social exclusivity and stereotypical assumptions.

Racism and Discrimination is such a terrible mindset that has been passed on from an older generation with grudges and wrong beliefs, forcing the younger generation to develop hatred for something or people, picking on and continuing battles that sometimes have existed before their birth.

Some with structures that have encouraged the continuity of brutal and systemic racism and discrimination, which have place some minorities in a perpetual state of struggle and poverty.

The moment, we begin to embrace the uniqueness of others and incorporate such diversity in our organizations, businesses and wider communities of influence; with structures that encourages diversity and aids in the success of those who are often excluded: groups, people and tribes, only then will we begin to see positive shifts regarding the end of racism and discrimination.

The great news is we can begin from where we are, with our own organizations and businesses, reorienting those within our sphere of influence about the importance of embracing humanity and diversity. While opening doors of opportunity for others to advance in places where there has been unjust exclusiveness, barriers and hindrances.

End to Inequality Including Gender Inequality

In many businesses and organizations, for years, most industries have been mostly male dominated, and this transcends leadership opportunities as well as strategic roles that are core to the growth and development of many communities as well as nations.
However, this norm is beginning to experience a shift with global and glocal efforts towards closing the gender and inequality gaps.

When we have a healthy mind shift and perspective that embraces and encourages team diversity, we begin to think about all aspects of this. Bringing onboard all those that should be on some tables of influence, leadership, service or power.

This is achieved by taking into consideration, first the humanity of all people, secondly the need to foster great team strength for posterity by developing tolerance and respect for the uniqueness and preferences of others, especially when those things do not put anyone else in harm’s way.

Lastly, their value, namely: experience, merit and skills, a very important factor that should qualify anyone to be a part of anything great and worthy of attention, irrespective of who they are.

As it is in the world today, there is a lot of unjust actions to many who by merit should have access to or be on board certain teams or have access to some opportunities, but have been hindered.
This will always be wrong. So to see change, there is a need to start with ourselves, and the teams within our sphere of influence.

This simple action is capable of widening our team’s scope of experience that comes from collaborating with different people. Only then will we come to appreciate the beauty of diversity, and this can cause a ripple effect that can ignite the positive change we need to see regarding bridging the inequality gap.

The Humanity Factor and Love

When you see people, it is my hope that you first see humanity, before a person’s race, origin, background or the color of their skin.
I hope you see someone living and breathing the same air just like you, with the same red blood flowing through your veins.
Someone with a heart and heart-beat just like yours, showing up every day, in efforts to make their own lives, families and communities better.
Someone with great dreams, desires and aspirations, just like you, someone with a brilliant mind and a good heart.

I hope you see humanity first.

I hope you give them a chance when opportunities of life for great things and collaborations come your way, especially when those opportunities accessible to you or are within your power for decision making.
I hope you see the beautiful human before you and you can respond in love to them, just as you would love yourself and in the same vein, respond to others you love.