Now you can make diversity an asset, not a liability. This book is invaluable for manager, trainers, consultants, and HR professionals, Diverse Teams at Work, is an authoritative, how-to guide for team building into today's complex workplace. Lee Gardenswartz and Anita Rowe make innovative contributions to both diversity and team dynamics and demonstrate how a wide range of diversity factors help or hinder teams.
The book distills the authors' 25 years of real-world experience in helping solve diversity and team-building challenges. Among the tools:
Real-world examples of how diverse teams have built strong relationships, resolved conflicts, solved problems, and performed far more productively than homogenous work groups.
56 reproducible worksheets to guide introspection and discussion on the assumptions team members make about people and how those assumptions affect team relationships.
Bulk discounts are available: A major corporation recently purchased 500 copies to give to all its managers.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Lee Gardenswartz, Ph.D. and Anita Rowe , parnters in Gardenswartz & Rowe, began helping organizations with diveristy in 1977, working witht he Los Angeles Unified School District during mandatory integration. They have helped regional and national
clients to build productive and cohesive work teams and to create
inter-cultural understanding and harmony. Their books include
Managing Diversity, The Managing Divesity Survival Guide and The DIversity Tool Kit.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
E Pluribus Unum
Myths and Realities of Diverse Teams
Team Building with a Diverse Staff: How Is It Different
Ten Characteristics of an Effective Pluralistic Team
Similar Differences: The Power of Infinite Variety
The Four Layers of Diversity
Personality: The Unique Core
How Internal Dimensions of Diversity Shape the Team
How External Dimensions of Diversity Influence Team Behavior
Organizational Dimensions that Make a Difference on the Team
Describing Your Own Filter
Keeping Your Own Filter Clean
How Diverse Teams Work
The Four Dimensions of Team Building
Assessing Your Team's Functioning
Diversity Variables that Impact Team Functioning
Task Accomplishment: The Raison D'etre of Teams
Values: The Critical Underpinning
The Team's Mission: A Compass that Charts Its Course
Goals: Clear, Collective, and Compelling
Relationships: The Times that Bind
Building Trust: The Foundation for Productive Team Relationships
Self-Disclosure: One Avenue to Developing Trust
Generating Commitment to Each Other
When Problems Rear Their Ugly Heads
Balancing Individual Freedom and Join Accountability
Creating an Inclusive Envioonment on Your Team
Shoulder to Shoulder: In the Trenches Together
Preventing the Ghettoization of the Group
Guidelines for Structuring Work-Related Interactions
Vehicles and Variations for Bringing People Together
Focus on Common Goals and Build Shared Experiences
When Taking Two Steps Back Doesn't Seem like Progress
Peer Teaching and Coaching
Group Process: Human Engineering to Keep the Team on Track
Ego and Affiliation: The Universal Needs
The Human Dynamic: Creating an Inclusive Environment
Task and Maintenance Behaviors
Overcoming Diversity Obstacles to Problem Solving and Decision Making
Assumptions and Blocks: Sublte Saboteurs
Decision Making onthe Team
Consensus: A Prime Decision-Making Tool
Conflict: Variations on a Human Theme
Where Do You Begin?
Options in Selecting Functional Team Members
Assessing Where the Team Is and Where It Needs to Go
A Sequence of Team Building Activities
Diagnosing Problem Spots and Redirecting the Team
Integrating New Team Members; Phasing Out Longtimes
Appropriately Acknowledging Completions and Moving On
The Critical Role of Leader
Variables Impacting Leadership
Qualities of Effective Leadership
Leadership: An Evolution
Making Team Building Pay Off: Considerations, Challenges and Caveats
