Even though expertise diversity has the potential to drive effective team functioning, this potential often remains untapped. In highly diverse teams, social categorization often results in low team cohesion, team learning, and team performance. In this study, we introduce collective strengths use as a novel factor that may determine the extent to which teams can leverage the benefits of expertise diversity. Collective strengths use consists of the three elements strengths diversity (the extent to which different strengths are represented in the team), strengths appreciation (the extent to which team members appreciate and trust in each other’s’ strengths), and strengths coordination (the extent to which tasks and roles are allocated based on individual strengths). To test the moderating role of collective strengths use in the relationship between expertise diversity and respectively team cohesion, team learning, and team performance, we collected team-level data among N = 453 employees working in N= 79 different teams. We aggregated data to the team level. Results revealed that collective strengths use weakened the significant, negative relationships between expertise diversity and team cohesion and between expertise diversity and team performance. No significant moderating effects were found regarding team learning as a dependent variable.