4.7 Summary

Just as we all play different roles in our everyday lives, we similarly inhabit a variety of roles as a member of a work team. There is a natural diversity in every work team, since individuals bring their own interests and traits with them, and these can be either strengths or weaknesses. In order to tap into diversity as a resource, it is important to be aware of this in every team, and to reflect on how we can deal with these different competencies. Since we usually enjoy roles more when they play into our natural strengths and interests, we should also choose our tasks in a team according to this principle, wherever possible. For this reason it was important in this unit to gain an insight into our own profiles, and discover which competencies we bring to a team. Knowing our strengths and weaknesses also brings self-awareness, and encourages us to consider how we might deal with these attributes within ourselves. This process is also likely to promote more patience with regard to ourselves but also with respect to others, and prompt us to realise that nobody is perfect.

We also learned that we can use the concept of team roles to identify which competency we need for each functional role in our organisation. Instead of hiring people purely on the basis of experience and expertise, knowledge of team processes also helps us to recognise which competencies and roles are still missing in our teams.

However, it is also important to realise that diversity brings potential for conflict. We learned that the team members whom we find most irritating are often the ones that have strengths which actually complement our own weaknesses. It is therefore of crucial importance that we realise the need for people that are different from us in order to enhance team performance. A team that consists only of our own 'clones', so to speak, is unlikely to work as well as one in which we include people who complement us.