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We are all unique beings from different cultures with different ideas and experiences. Everyone is endowed with wisdom and takes a different approach to a problem. Working with a team entails respecting each other's ideas, even though we can agree or disagree at a point. From my experience so far, diversity, in my opinion, has helped a lot of teams produce better results, although there's a time when it could turn out to be a hindrance.

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##### The time when diversity of opinion worked out well for my dental team

When I worked at Zenith Dental Laboratory in Abuja, the salary of the dental technicians wasn't fixed. It's a private dental laboratory, and the boss made us understand that salaries are based on the number of patients we handle per month, and thus a percentage of the patient's bills determines our salary for the month. Initially, we were having lots of patients, including white people who came to Nigeria for business, and each month, the salary kept getting better. I wouldn't know why the boss took such a decision about salary tactics, but one thing that made most of us, the staff, stick around, whether good or bad, was the experience in the lab. It's quite different and better than what we learned in school. The lab has more improved equipment and advanced practices than what we learned in school, and so some of my friends were even begging to work with us without pay as they needed the practical experience. 

So at a time, we were running short of patients, and it affected our salaries. This is where diversity of opinion came in. Our team of dental staff began to brainstorm on ways to get more patients into the lab. Some suggested that we print a flier and visit some clinics in Abuja that don't have dental laboratories but only clinics. In that case, whenever they have dental laboratory work, they take the impression of the patient's oral cavity and send the model for us to work with. This idea sounds great. Another person suggested that we carry out an outreach and create awareness. Others suggested that we share the fliers with hotels around the location of the laboratory. Within an hour of this meeting, ideas were flowing based on people's experiences from where they had worked before. Surprisingly, we implemented them all, and it was quite effective and helpful. The turnout of the great opinions by our team almost doubled our previous salary till I relocated back to Lagos State and left the work. Indeed, teamwork is amazing, especially with a team that allows understanding to flow amongst themselves.

![pexels-kindel-media-7688161.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/nkemakonam89/Eou9jNDUNK1d9VcvcbRYRsrXTzH8H6HtQV24gVMxecBmhh4SFZtEoMvoyzJJGi52HDe.jpg)
[Source](https://www.pexels.com/photo/group-of-people-putting-up-their-fist-7688161/)



##### The time when diversity of opinion turned out to be a hindrance to me and some women in a group


I have known that working with my fellow genders sometimes could turn out to be the hardest things to do. Everyone with their weird kind of decision ,  slowing down plans with lots of disagreements. I joined this group with the plan of buying some food ingredients in bags for sharing. Ingredients like stockfish, dry fish, crayfish, etc. are better bought in large quantities considering the cost around herr, thus my decision to join. However, when contributions are made, the decision of which market to use and which people to buy the stuff is always a problem I couldn't imagine prior to getting involved. This issue can be dragged on until we miss an opportunity to buy when the market price is still a bit affordable. Talk about the sharing aspect. Women will come with different opinions that look tiring and waste lots of time and energy.

To handle this, I pulled out at a point and found a way of getting those things myself without getting involved with those sets of women anymore.


*However, with a good team like my first experience above, diversity of opinion is something great to embrace as people share their different viewpoints and provide innovative ideas for problem solving*.


*This is my response to the #HiveLearners Community Contest on the topic titled* **Diversity of Opinion**.


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