A diverse team gives you a wide pool of skills and ideas from different perspectives. This can lead to enhanced creativity and better team decisions. But you need a proactive management approach to achieve these benefits, including planning for and committing to diversity as a core strength. Preparation can help your team achieve synergy, where the team is greater than the sum of the individual members.

Many managers – and team members – question their ability to manage diversity. When someone is different in looks, language, or actions, people may initially feel uncomfortable and wonder how to communicate. After all, the influences that make people behave and interrelate the way they do are complex, and someone unfamiliar with diversity may feel intimidated or confused. But building an approach based on awareness and understanding of the issues will enable you to lay the foundation for the effective management of a diverse team.

Three strategies can help you when preparing to manage a diverse team:

1. build diversity awareness – build diversity awareness by going beyond just considering the differences between team members
2. understand employees' diversity issues – understand diversity issues among your employees by identifying the values, perceptions, and expectations of team members
3. reinforce group norms – reinforce group norms, which are the rules and practices guiding the way the team generally functions

Building diversity awareness in a team involves two distinct elements: self-assessment and team analysis. Before you can manage people in a diverse team, you have to know what the values, perceptions, and expectations are – for yourself, and for them. Your team members need to know this as well. Only when you understand your own beliefs can you develop an awareness of other viewpoints and different backgrounds. Your feelings about certain differences might range from disapproval to complete acceptance.

A diversity self-assessment is a four-step process:

1. examine your response – examine your first response to someone who's different
2. review your assumptions – review your assumptions about the other person
3. check the reality – check the reality behind your assumptions, understanding that some commonly held ideas aren't true
4. find common ground – find the common ground that will allow you to build trust and rapport

A team diversity assessment can help a manager assess whether the team members can count on one another, no matter how diverse their backgrounds. In other words, the team environment supports diversity. The manager should note whether members have appreciation of the talents and skills of each individual, and if they feel comfortable bringing up problems and conflicts. The members should be open to differences of opinion, and be able to deal with interpersonal problems and conflict.

Understanding diversity issues

Self-assessment and team analysis build diversity awareness. But simply being aware of diversity isn't enough. You also have to examine the specific kinds of issues that can impact your diverse team. Most diversity issues fall into at least one of three common categories: values, perceptions, and expectations. Taken together, these three issues reveal important aspects of diverse cultures.

When team members are from diverse groups, they often have different sets of values. Values include work ethics; views of authority or individualism; and how feelings are expressed.

Your cultural values lead you to have certain perceptions about people and situations. One person's viewpoint can be opposite from another's in many areas:

1. age – regarding age, some people might perceive an older teammate as experienced and capable, while another might view the same person as rigid or conservative
2. accents – some people might perceive a person with an accent as slow or less intelligent, while a teammate with a similar accent would have no such perceptions
3. personal space – a person in a wheelchair might guard her personal space highly, and feel that someone leaning down to talk to her is a personal affront, while that person might just be trying to be polite

Just as values influence perceptions, varying perceptions can determine what team members expect from themselves and from others. Do you know how your perceptions affect your expectations? Do common stereotypes of cultural groups – or a limited exposure to differences – influence your expectations of people you've just met? When you're interacting with people who are different from you, pay attention to when you feel confused, anxious, frustrated, impatient, or angry. These emotions can signal a problem with expectations.

Reinforcing group norms

Team norms are the generally understood rules and practices that guide how a team functions. They may be implicit – evident, but not necessarily spoken about – or explicit – formally agreed to and documented. Norms arise out of any group's interaction, and reflect the way things usually happen in that team's interactions.

To reinforce positive group norms, help your team set ground rules, remind the team of these rules whenever necessary, and lead by example. When you lead by example – known as "walking the talk" – you can display and encourage positive norms.

Ground rules are like norms, but are more specific. They describe how to prevent problems with team interactions. Ground rules are usually in writing and are formally adopted by the team. Ground rules are preventive measures, and need the consensus of the team. When you involve your team in establishing ground rules, everyone understands them and adheres to them. You might set rules for conflict resolution, meetings, team behavior, or decision making. It's up to you and your team to decide what's acceptable.

Specific ground rules concerning diversity allow people from different backgrounds to understand each other and work cooperatively.

Diversity ground rules can cover various activities:

• all members must contribute – working out how decisions will be made – for example, by consensus or not – while emphasizing that all members must contribute and share ideas
• all members must discuss their values – specifying that all team members must compare and discuss their own values, perceptions, and expectations
• all members must help resolve conflicts – making it clear that all team members must help resolve any conflicts

Good managers understand and appreciate each person's uniqueness, no matter how diverse a skill set or background. Preparation will help you manage a diverse team. Such preparation includes building diversity awareness in yourself and your team, understanding the diversity issues your employees have, and reinforcing group norms. Group norms are the basic standards of conduct that reflect the way things usually happen in your team, and positive norms need to be reinforced.