Debugging Diversity in Teams

Let’s be honest. Being part of a truly diverse team is tough.

Disagreements, tension, misunderstandings, feelings of frustration.

Sound familiar?

And yet, we know that diversity equals innovation, resilience, high results, and sustainability. As managers, we are responsible for cultivating high team performance, which means navigating the hard parts to get to the good stuff.

Beyond the Surface

At its core, diversity means difference. Diversity is more than a checklist of gender, race, neurotype, or any of the other labels that you'll find on a survey. Those labels can help to identify traits, but they don't tell the whole story. People love to quote stats like: "Diverse teams perform better." And they can, but the reality is more nuanced. Our brains default to “everyone thinks like me,” so misunderstanding is common, and without effort, can lead to low team performance.

It’s not just about getting the mix of people right. It’s about getting the mechanics right: how team members contribute, how decisions are made, and how conflict is handled.

When Diversity Gets Real

My first time managing a culturally diverse engineering team in London: six countries, five native languages, endless perspectives. We began happily, daily smiles and laughs. But then debates got heated, people shut down, and one meeting ended in a dramatic blow-up. I was upset. What happened to my team harmony? Then, a thoughtful engineer reassured me, “Gabi, it’s okay. We’re a diverse team. This is normal.”

And it clicked. Culturally we were on different wavelengths. That realisation helped me shift my mindset from harmony to understanding. We started investing in learning backgrounds, values, and quirks. Conflicts didn’t disappear, but they became less personal and collaboration flowed. My greatest learnings and growth have come from working in diverse teams.

Merging Conflict

Here’s a truth we often fail to see: conflict is just disagreement. Conflict is neither good nor bad. Innovation needs tension before alignment. We grow by challenging ideas, not avoiding friction. We don’t get better solutions by nodding along in agreement.

The key is remembering that conflict is neutral. It's how we respond to disagreement that determines whether it becomes destructive or positive. Instead of avoiding it, we can cultivate it by creating the conditions for healthy dissent, listening generously, and getting curious before getting defensive. 

In teams, we often treat conflict as a bug, not a feature. It’s uncomfortable. It slows things down. It feels unkind to disagree. But Tuckman’s team performance model highlights conflict as a necessary input for the storming stage, a precursor to a team's state of high performance. Admittedly, not everyone reacts positively to being disagreed with (as I have often discovered!) so be conscious of your use of language and tone, and aim make the disagreement collaborative instead of combative.

Easier with Empathy

Empathy is the foundation of trust and psychological safety in teams. We are naturally empathetic to those similar to us, so empathy for those unlike us takes work. Building empathy can be as simple as trying to understand and validate someone else’s feelings or perspective. You don’t have to fully “get” their experience, but showing you care makes all the difference. Like any complex system, the more we know, the easier it is to work with.

Popular frameworks like MBTI, Big Five, or the Insights (colours) method aren’t perfect, but they’re great conversation starters. The first time I took the Myers-Briggs test, I thought it was interesting but a waste of my time. Until I saw how it helped my team understand each other’s traits and discuss them using a common language. I’ve seen debates about these tools: some call them pseudoscience, others swear by them. My opinion? They’re less about scientific accuracy and more about sparking self-reflection and honest team dialogue.

Try low-pressure connection tools like "either/or" icebreakers, experience bingo, or coffee chats to build trust. These simple moments help us connect as humans, not just coworkers.

Build Inclusion In

Seeing conflict as healthy and building empathy is a great start, but it’s not enough. People often have different ideas about how to participate in and make decisions. Set clear expectations early—how you work, give feedback, and make decisions. Team charters help create shared understanding, and discussions can be facilitated for inclusive collaboration. The easier it is to do, the more likely it is to happen.

When I design for inclusion, I value:

• Transparency: Make information available for everyone.

• Explicitness: If in doubt, over-explain.

• Accessibility: Design contribution processes for the quietest team member.

(My guide to inclusive hybrid meetings)

Clarity Is Inclusion Clear norms help people speak up, especially those from underrepresented groups. Over-communication builds inclusion and prevents confusion. In practice, this might mean slowing down, documenting decisions, or repeating information, even if it feels like overkill. Assuming “most people get it” can leave key voices out and damage trust.

Code Is Binary. Humans Aren’t.

Engineering teaches binary logic (1 or 0, right or wrong), but people aren’t that simple. Better ideas come from navigating grey areas and tradeoffs together. There’s rarely a single solution. Engineering teams benefit from differing perspectives in implementation. One dev may prefer a monolith, another microservices. Each view brings tradeoffs. It’s the debate and tension between those perspectives that produces better design. Diverse teams yield better outcomes when we learn to navigate our differences.

Making It Work: Practical Steps

So how do you turn diversity from a headache into a team superpower? Here’s what’s worked for me:

• Cultivate Empathy

  Invest in personal connection; curiosity creates understanding.

  Use frameworks to facilitate team discussions.

• Build for Inclusion

  Clarify how work and decisions happen; make norms explicit.

  Use facilitation methods like silent brainstorming to encourage contribution.

• Normalise Conflict

  Encourage and set ground rules for debate.

  Highlight healthy and valuable examples by others.

  Have open discussions about the value of diversity.

It’s still tough. People are complex and messy and frustrating! But when diverse teams work, the results are pretty fabulous.

Gabi Tang is a seasoned Engineering Manager and Agile coach, with experience working with teams in international companies including Buffer, Booking.com, and ASOS. She is also Managing Director of SheSharp, and is actively committed to supporting underrepresented talent to grow in the tech industry.