如何打造最優的多樣化團隊大綱

As more women rise higher in the workforce and evidence grows of the value of diverse teams, an odd and important management paradox is arising: mixed teams can be hell to manage.

隨着越來越多的女性擔任較高級職位，同時有更多證據表明多樣化團隊的價值，一個奇怪但重要的管理悖論開始浮現：混合型團隊可能很難管理。

It is perhaps more elegantly summarised by Rich Karlgaard and Michael Malone, who examined the research for their book Team Genius: The most successful teams exhibit diversity in their ranks, but [diverse] teams face serious structural challenges regarding motivation, integration, and co-ordination.

裏奇.卡爾加德(Rich Karlgaard)和邁克爾.馬隆(Michael Malone)所作的總結或許更爲精闢，倆人爲撰寫《團隊天才》(Team Genius)一書開展了相關研究，他們認爲：最成功的團隊表現出成員多樣性，但（多樣化）團隊面臨着與積極性、融合和協調相關的重大結構性挑戰。

The process of assembling, running and developing a team is difficult enough without the additional obstacles thrown up by diversity.

即便沒有多樣性帶來的額外障礙，組建、管理和發展一個團隊就已經很困難了。

The temptation for team leaders is always to look for ways to reduce any friction that might hamper progress towards a collective goal.

團隊領導者總想設法減少任何可能阻礙團隊實現共同目標的摩擦。

So how should managers strike the balance?

那麼，管理者如何找到一個平衡呢？

The first step is to understand when a diverse team works better than a more homogeneous group.

第一步是瞭解多樣化團隊在什麼情況下表現會好於同質化的團隊。

Unsurprisingly, a diverse team will be better placed to devise and sell products to a similarly diverse group of customers.

毫不令人意外的是，多樣化團隊更適合面向同樣多樣化的客戶羣體設計並銷售產品。

A survey for the New York-based Center for Talent Innovation looked at public companies that had two-dimensional diversity — that is, by race, gender, sexuality or other inherent traits on the one hand and acquired diversity, such as language skills or a global mindset on the other.

一項爲總部位於紐約的人才創新中心(Center for Talent Innovation)所做的調查着眼於具備二維多樣性的上市公司，這類公司的職員不僅在種族、性別或其他遺傳特點方面存在多樣性，而且還具備後天多樣性，例如語言技能或國際化思維等方面。

The survey found employees at 2D companies were 70 per cent more likely to report capturing a new market in the past year than those at less diverse companies.

調查發現，與多樣性較弱的公司相比，在二維多樣性公司工作的員工報告過去一年成功開闢新市場的可能性要高出70%。

More broadly, diverse teams can outperform even star performers from similar backgrounds because of the power of collective intelligence,

從更廣泛的意義來說，由於集體智慧的力量，多樣化團隊的表現甚至可以超過由背景相似的優秀成員組成的團隊。

identified by researcher Anita Williams Woolley at Carnegie Mellon University and others.

卡內基梅隆大學(Carnegie Mellon University)研究員阿妮塔.威廉姆斯.伍利(Anita Williams Woolley)和其他研究員發現了這點。

Collective intelligence turns out to trump the average intelligence of individual team members and is enhanced by the presence of more women in a group, whose social sensitivity helps the team cohere.

事實證明，集體智慧會超過團隊成員個人智慧的平均值，如果一個團隊中有較多女性成員的話會更有裨益，因爲女性成員的社會敏感性有助於增強團隊凝聚力。

On the other hand, teams from similar backgrounds or of the same gender perform better at tasks that involve implementing existing solutions.

另一方面，成員背景相似或性別相同的團隊在執行有現成解決方案的任務方面表現更爲出色。

In her new book What Works, Iris Bohnet, the author and behavioural economist, includes a cheat sheet — based on classroom discussion on how to form effective groups — that starts with the insight that if a task involves co-ordination, say the provision of a public good like clean water or better healthcare, homogeneous groups can be helpful.

行爲經濟學家艾里斯.博內特(Iris Bohnet)新書《What Works》中加了一條備忘錄（基於就如何組建高效率團隊的課堂討論），其開頭就提出一條觀點：如果一項任務需要協調，例如提供潔淨水或更好醫療服務之類的公共品，同質化團體可能很管用。

If the team is solving individual problems, she advises, take account of the influence of different groups.

如果團隊解決的是個體問題，她建議應考慮不同羣體的影響力。

So, for instance, boys benefit if they are in a class with an over-representation of girls, who are more likely to apply themselves and less likely to disrupt the lesson.

例如，如果班內女孩數量過多，男孩就會受益，他們更有可能專心學習，不大可能擾亂課堂。

Conversely, collective problem-solving can require a heterogenous group, Ms Bohnet writes, with women often providing vital listening and bridge-building skills.

反過來，博內特寫道，集體解決問題可能需要一個異質化團隊，女性通常提供關鍵的傾聽和搭建橋樑的技能。

Her caveat: mixed teams work only when a critical mass of the minority is present — perhaps making up at least a third of the group.

她告誡說：只有當少數成員達到一定比例時，或許至少要佔到三分之一，混合型團隊才能發揮應有作用。

If you start out with a population of, say, 20 per cent men and 80 per cent women and then want to create work teams, do not allocate people proportionally, she writes.

她寫道：假如你手下員工20%爲男性，80%爲女性，你想組建幾個工作團隊，那麼不要按男女比例分配人手。

Instead, form a few balanced teams and assign the rest of the women to all-female groups.

組建幾個男女搭配平衡的團隊，然後將剩下的女員工組建爲純女性團隊。

Such design problems are hard to correct in large organisations.

在大公司，這種設計問題很難修正。

The CTI research on 2D diversity and innovation found that even when diverse teams came up with innovative ideas and products, they were often stifled by more homogeneous groups that persisted higher up in the organisation.

上述人才創新中心對二維多樣性和創新的研究發現，即便多樣化團隊提出有創意的構想和產品，也經常會被更同質化的上級團隊壓制着。

If this were not complicated enough, emerging research suggests that even these established studies of diverse teams may have been skewed by our inability to assess diversity accurately.

如果這還不夠複雜的話，最新研究顯示，即便是這些有關多樣性團隊的成熟研究成果也可能因爲我們無法準確評估多樣性而有失公允。

Participants in an experiment run by Stanford researchers judged their team was more gender-diverse if its members were wearing different coloured T-shirts.

在斯坦福大學(Stanford)研究人員展開的一項實驗中，如果團隊成員穿着不同顏色的T恤，實驗參與者就會判斷他們的團隊性別多樣性程度較高。

The catch was that all the teams had the same male-female mix.

問題是所有團隊的男女比例都是一致的。

This matters, because a manager who thinks for the wrong reasons that his or her team has differing skills, attitudes and backgrounds, may assign it a collective or creative task that it is ill-equipped to carry out.

這很重要，因爲如果管理者出於錯誤的原因認爲團隊成員擁有不同的技能、態度和背景，他可能會派這個團隊執行某項他們其實並不擅長的集體或創造性任務。

Even those who advocate a more gender-balanced workforce suggest that team formation will involve a trade-off between tension among members and improved performance.

甚至連那些支持職場性別均衡的人士也認爲，組建團隊需要考慮成員間的緊張關係和如何提升績效，對這兩個問題進行權衡。

Mr Karlgaard and Mr Malone refer to the cost-benefit analysis team leaders need to make as they try to enhance teams while avoiding the risk of friction.

卡爾加德和馬隆指出，如果想提高團隊績效同時避免成員間發生摩擦，領導者需要進行成本效益分析。

In the same vein, Ms Bohnet writes that for gender diversity to increase group performance, you need team members whose different perspectives add value while keeping the cost of co-ordination as low as possible.

博內特寫道，要通過性別多樣性增強團隊績效，你需要能夠從不同視角看問題、從而提升團隊價值的成員，同時你也要儘可能地降低協調的成本。

What seems clear is that as teams become more diverse, and more willing therefore to express their sometimes conflicting views, organisations will need to develop better, more active, more sensitive managers to run them.

有一點看來是明確的，當團隊變得更富於多樣性、也因此更樂意表達有時候相互矛盾的見解，組織必須培養更優秀、更積極主動也更能體察下屬的領導者來管理團隊。