Student Booklet

This colorful booklet uses facts and research to convey the message that respecting differences is important to success in life. It effectively addresses diversity within the context of exploring attributes of successful teams. Comic strips and quotes emphasize key points and keep the reader highly engaged. A self-administered roommate activity agreement is offered in the appendix to further benefit college freshmen taking the program.

 Key messages: 

1. No matter what you do next in life you will likely interact with an increasingly diverse set of people.

2. Employers and post-high school educators are increasingly having people work in teams.

3. Team performance is driven in large part to how much trust is developed between members. And trust significantly depends upon developing respect for team member differences in capability, style, perspectives, and team-based norms.

4. People of diverse identity groups tend to hold their own definition of respectful behavior. Communication and other behavioral norms tend to vary between generations, genders, ethnicities, work styles, and other identity groups. Understanding these generalities will enable you to work more effectively in team settings. To be nice towards others is good for teamwork, but it is not sufficient.

5. Developing trust in a team is also tightly linked to being effective at Team Brainstorming, Conflict Management, and Creative Dialog. All of these attributes require skill with suspending judgment on the ideas of others. To learn how to suspend judgment is to display another form of showing respect to team members.

6. It is natural to view right and wrong from your own perspective, your own world view on acceptable and unacceptable behavior. This tendency, when inflexibly applied, can create barriers to fully engaging with others.

7. Developing team skill requires practice. Education helps, but experience is the best way to develop this skill. Our Suspending Judgment activity is a small step in the right direction. Participating in student organizations and other team-based activities at your school will accelerate the development of teamwork and leadership skills.

Register with us and you can view and print the booklet’s first 10 pages!