A team meeting about diversity

Listen to a team meeting about diversity to practise and improve your listening skills.

Do the preparation task first. Then listen to the audio and do the exercises.

Preparation

Transcript

Nina: As you know, our team has grown a lot in the past year and we feel we need to address the diversity in the team.

Brenda: How do you mean, 'address the diversity'?

Nina: Well, we all know that diversity in teams is a good thing, but it can also be a challenge for some people to respect and value people's differences. We've got a really diverse team here – people of different nationalities, backgrounds, religions, ages … and sometimes I don't feel we make the most of this.

Stefano: Yes, and even if it isn't specifically challenging, many people are simply unaware of the isolation that some team members may feel because they are different.

Brenda: So, what does this mean? What are we going to do?

Nina: Well, we need to create a workplace charter. You know, one that promotes equality, diversity and inclusion.

Brenda: That sounds like a good idea. But will people just see it as something the management team has created? Maybe they won't even pay attention to it.

Nina: I know. That's why we're going to involve everyone in creating it.

Stefano: That's a good idea. We could run some workshops and get ideas from the employees about how we can create a more inclusive workplace.

Nina: Exactly. I was thinking that before that we could run some team-building sessions so they can experience the value of diversity for themselves.

Brenda: Yes, I like that. Many people see diversity as something negative, often because there are different opinions or ways of doing things.

Nina: Yes, I know, but if there's no diversity, then the risk is that we all work in the same way, think the same and see the world the same. This makes it hard to be creative and to innovate.

Stefano: I completely agree, Nina. OK. So, what do you want us to do?

Nina: Stefano, can you look for a successful trainer who specialises in running workshops and team-building sessions on diversity and inclusion?

Stefano: Sure. I'll be happy to.

Nina: And Brenda, can you find a fun venue? Somewhere that is quite diverse itself. Something that's not the usual seminar-style environment?

Brenda: Sure. That'll be fun.

Nina: And I'm going to do some further research into how other organisations are benefiting from their diversity. I can share this with the whole team.

Task 1

Exercise

Task 2

Exercise

Discussion

How diverse is your workplace? How can diversity benefit your team?

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Language level

B1 Intermediate

Topics

equality and diversity

As you know, offering different ideas is vital in any management style, it helps to create innovation , it helps to make the place work progress in such a way that the workplace benefits the advantages of the favorite situation. In a workplace with diverse diversity the team mate discusses the ideas and beliefs, even despite the different religous ideas as the team mate are from different nationalities, and different gender and ethnic ideas so they can make a variety of optimal capacity ,as a result , while they can learn to accept and justify and clarify the ideas and beliefs from different point of views , follow the ideas and then they can get the best results, it not only needs a professional leadership, but it also requires respecting different cultures and opinions as well.

I'm from Russia but study abroad (South Korea). So that's why our university has the diversity in such things as a religion, a nationality, appearence, language, etc. In my case the diversity could help me (and others) to impove our non-native languages and to understand another culture.

How diverse is your workplace? How can diversity benefit your team? We had a little diversity in our workplace, because we had a few foreigners only and mostly local people involved in the team. In local group also we had a few different religions and races, but they didn't like each other that much, due to some racial and religions conflicts were existed in the past. So in our team, foreigners were the mediator between those two different races and religions background and set the common goals and targets to achieve. Anyway, that helped us somehow to progress our jobs further with different ideas and opinions. I believe diversity is a very good thing, when everyone can understand the common goals and better future to see the big picture.

well i can say that my university is diverse because we have people from all around cities we learn in peace that allows students to know new different things about other which is good for all

I work as a self-employed and my workplace is diverse because I meet diverse people with diverse characters. In my work I use diverse forms to contact with my clients and managers of translation agencies. Diverse is every day of my life.

I can see, my workplace is very diversity, because there are people of ages, regions and religions different. People of different regions of my country whose customs, language accents mark the differencies. Diversity benefit my team, because we learns, share, and we feel we must live together in peace.

Hello everyone! Recently i promote in a new position with a new role in my company. I have new challenges because my new position presupposes increased interactions with similar position from other countries, 7 in numbers. I'm the last member in this team and i'm a little bit nervous when i must participate at different workshop because there are a lot of diversity of culture, customs, different way to do things. Interestingly, all of them are man :), but i don't have a problem with this. My problem become of ENGLISH language and how i can use English language decently... I try to improve but sometimes i feel that the results didn't come so fast as i wish.

By talking about diversity, we normally speak about one of the most important thins needed for success. Because of that, my workplace aims always to promote diversity in the group, to listen to different opinions and most importantly to avoid all sorts of isolation. We can explain that by the fact that isolation could influence negatively the team. By other words, there would be less opinions and less reflections in the group itself which is so negative because diversity always encourages new ideas and new reflections that can benefit the team and that can help attending a good result at the end. So, we can conclude by confirming the fact that diversity always influence my team and so any other team because it is the main factor of expressing new ideas and it is considered the key of success in all workplaces.

Yes, I did