ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how all backgrounds are important contributions to a creative team. It states that we are all creative persons but that we need a context and a culture that can make our creativity flourish. It describes how difference in culture and background can make a group more creative. But it also shows how people are overlooked or feel unwelcome depending on their background. Since people need to feel safe and at ease, these issues need to be addressed. Any abuse needs to be stopped. Diversity and gender issues need to be handled in groups. The different perspectives enhance creativity, but they also create conflicts. Examples are again both from my own experiences as a researcher and from industrial examples as studied in the management literature. Examples of collaborations that sparked important innovations from Sweden, Germany, Japan, and the USA are described. The chapter also describes some of the peculiarities that are typical for researchers and inventors. It describes how we can understand the peculiarities and thus have better success at handling them. Heterogeneous groups often have conflicts, but if these conflicts can be managed, the questioning of ideas can help clarify and refine the ideas.
