Q.4 Did the experience of diversity (cognitive, demographic etc.

) have any impact on your groups

functioning? Explain with examples.

Answer: Our group comprised of people with sufficiently diverse backgrounds, a fact that actually
proved to enhance the overall functioning of the group. 2 of our members, Tatsat and Pratibha were
participants of the IPM program meaning that they had been a part of the system for the past 3 years
and also helped us to understand it in better and faster way. Another two of us, Dhaval and Ishani, were
from hardcore commerce background, Dhaval being a Chartered Accountant and Ishani already having
completed the level 1 of CFA. This fact proved to be of utmost help sometimes. For example: In one of
the assignments of Marketing-I, we had to prepare an extensive cost benefit analysis of the organization
for the recommendations we were making, which was not an easy task for the rest 5 of us who were not
so skilled with the financial knowledge as these two. But for them, it was a piece of cake. They did it
within an hour and we also received appreciation from our faculty upon the submission.
Also, the fact that a majority of our group (4 out of 7) comprised of people who had work experience
played an important role in the functioning of our group. Ashish, Dhaval, Paresh and Sahil had a
combined work experience of more than 6 years and were more aware of the real life scenarios while
analyzing different cases and assignments. Their views were always very insightful and helped us analyze
the marketing cases in a much better way than had they not been so experienced.
Also, in our group, there existed a diversity regarding the capabilities and skills which at times proved
beneficial for the group as a whole. For example: Dhaval was better at using Microsoft excel than most
of us and always came to the rescue at the times of any quantitative analysis. Ashish and Paresh were
well versed with the Powerpoint and Paresh even had some experience with animation and made our
presentations more lively and interesting. Tatsat, for instance, was well equipped in writing capabilities
and proved useful when we had to frame our insights into proper words and sentences during a case
analysis. Ishani, Pratibha and Sahil, being more of a creative type, were always there to analyze any
marketing case in the wildest way possible. I.e. provide insights that wouldnt have been thought by the
rest of us normally.
Yes, there were times when these diversities actually led to conflicts among the members while doing
an assignment, but they were sorted out with mutual respect and understanding after proper
discussions. For example: during one of the case analysis, Ishani and Dhaval, being well equipped with
financial knowledge (as mentioned above), insisted on analyzing the case from a financial perspective,
while the rest of us insisted on doing it more from a general perspective as we believed that the case
required more of that. After an hour of proper discussion, we decided to concoct a mixture of both the
sides which actually helped us prepare a much better analysis than we would have prepared had we
remained stuck with our original arguments.
Thus, as we can see from the examples above, there existed a very healthy diversity among our group,
both in terms of cognition and demographics, and which had a very positive impact on the overall
functioning of our group.