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

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Done for me.

" I have completed the following lessons of A team meeting about diversity . The level that I chose was Intermediate B1 Listening.

I live in a country which has a lot of diversity. for example we have different regions, weather, dialect, food, cultures and customs from our country and others from inmigrants. But even when there are some charter that said that it is requiered to respect others' customs and cultures. I think there is needed to socialized and create workplaces to motive people to joing and share their own culture.

I still on high school, where are many people,we have different phisical features, but diversity Is not related at all with that, the people just for being humans, have different ideas, ideology, a differen way to see the world, we are differents even the way that we talk, and I think diversity is so cool, because as I have hear from the television and people older than me...the world would be boring without that diversity, and I'm totally agree with that.

This listening help me, i can answer the questions

i recently finished a book named "a fraction of whole" by steve toltz , i read something there that made me think,it says that people usually read books that adopts their their thinking and beliefs,it means that we mostly just read things that empowers what we think and not to challenge them, i think that s true and since then i try to put myself in positions and do things to challenge my basic and new beliefs,so this is where diversity can really help , the best way to break your imagine of everything , of every law ,to regenerate them and achieve something closer to truth is facing different people with different cultures and behaviors. nothing beside this can improve our thoughts , because we as humans are highly social creatures and we just do things in interaction with other people by engaging our feelings and emotions .

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.