What Is Public Relations

The 1988 Los Angeles Dodgers was a team that defied the odds against two teams that should have beaten them. On paper they were the weaker team compared to the more athletic New York Mets and more powerful Oakland Athletics. Yet, the Dodgers excelled because they were playing as a team with everyone contributing to the cause. They also had a strong leader in Kirk Gibson, who courageously led the Dodgers to their last World Series championship. Having the best players on a team does not guarantee success (case in point, the New York Yankees). What creates a high performance team is a strong leader who can bring out the best out of each person, using each of their skills to the fullest capacity to reach a goal. This paper will examine how a group can become a high performance team and how demographic characteristics and cultural diversity impact them.

Building a High Performance Team

The 1988 Dodgers were a rag-tag team made up of cultural diversity and demographic characteristics. There were players from different countries (Dominican Republic, Mexico, U.S.), players of different ages (from 20 to 43), and all had a special talent (Baseball-Reference, N.d.). Just like the 1988 Dodgers or any other championship team, organizations strive to build a winning team.

In order to build a successful team, a leader must carefully choose individuals whose talents will fit the needs of the organization and be able to work with other skilled people effectively (Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, 2005). The team assembled must be committed to the task or goal assigned to them. The following are other essentials for a leader to create and maintain a high performance team: establish and maintain a sense of urgency, set reasonable ground rules and ensure they are adhered to, offer constant, positive feedback, and lead by example (Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, 2005).

Cultural Diversity

When building a high performance team, a leader must be aware and knowledgeable of the many diverse cultures around him or her. According to Schermerhorn et al. (2005), a person must be careful not to fall into either of two pitfalls. First is parochialism, which occurs when a person believes his or her cultural ways is the only way things are done. The other is ethnocentrism, which has a person believing that his or her cultural ways is the right