Dealing with Difference

Understand how difference can benefit or fragment a project team. Take a strategic approach to harnessing the power of difference.

Description

Successful collaboration and team functioning hinges on attaining an understanding and respect of difference and diversity. Difference can be at the national, personal, or cultural level, and managed well, can be a tremendous asset to a project team. This course explores the ways in which differences can create disconnects within a team and how those disconnects can be overcome. The best project leaders are well versed on the issues that can fragment a high-performing project team or undermine the group’s collective intelligence, and knows how to deal with them effectively.

This course focuses on the three main areas of difference – national and functional culture, personality, and learning style – and how different perspectives can create misunderstanding and misalignment issues within a project team. Particular emphasis is placed in diagnosing and overcoming the challenges associated with these differences among team members. A variety of frameworks and toolsets are provided to build bridges of understanding and develop processes to overcome actual and potential disconnects including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to identify and overcome personality differences.

Difference is an important component of any team. Taking advantage of the collective intelligence by tapping into diverse thoughts and expertise is one of the key roles of a project leader. This course will teach you how to master these skills.

This course is anticipated to be approved for approximately 6.0 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from the Project Management Institute (PMI).

Who Should Take This Course?

This course is essential for Project Management Professionals (PMPs), project managers, and functional managers charged with leading a cross-functional or project team to success. It is appropriate for business leaders, mid-level managers, and project managers who need to learn the critical leadership skills necessary to ensure the high performance of a project team.

Course Format

eCornell takes a problem-based approach to learning, and our courses are built around realistic case studies and scenarios. All courses are self-paced, and are facilitated by an eCornell instructor, who leads the online discussions and is available to answer any questions about the course content.

This course contains the following modules:

• National and Functional Culture
• The Importance of Difference
• Defining Culture
• Diagnosing and Overcoming Cultural Challenges
• Personality
• Defining Personality
• Overcoming Personality-Related Challenges
• Learning Styles
• Defining and Overcoming Challenges Related to Differences in Learning Style
• Difference and the Project Manager

Benefits to the Learner

Learners who complete this course will be able to:

• Analyze project teams for potential disconnects as a result of cultural, functional, personality-related, or learning style differences
• Minimize the negative effects that difference has on a project team

Authoring Faculty

Frank J. Wayno, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer

Sponsoring School

Cornell University’s College of Engineering

Total Learning Time

Approximately 6 hours over a period of two weeks.

Certificate Information

This course can be applied toward the following certificate:

• Project Leadership

HRCI Recertification

This course been approved for six (6) recertification credit hours toward PHR, SPHR, and GPHR recertification through the Human Resource Certification Institute. Please contact the Human Resource Certificate Institute (HRCI) for further information about certification or recertification.