18
01, 2018
9
03, 2012
Executive Attitudes Drive Success or Failure of Diversity Initiatives
(A full presentation on the Strategic Matrix for Diversity & Inclusion Initiatives is available free at http://bit.ly/v3o6jM )
Executive attitudes toward, and priorities for, diversity are the most important variables for what can successfully be accomplished in improving an organization’s value for diversity and leveraging diversity for organizational success. Executives operate in an environment where they are subject to a wide variety of pressures and perceptions that affect how they react to diversity in the workforce and customer base and impact how the instrumental value they assign to diversity for achieving their personal and organizational goals.
9
03, 2012
Should Diversity Training Include Ex-Felons?
It’s an interesting question. My first reaction is that I’m not as much interested in focusing on ex-felons in diversity training as I am in making sure they are fully included in recruiting and hiring. Once they are in the door, their past mistakes shouldn’t (based on a normative hope that the information is not shared in the organization until they personally choose to reveal it) have anything to do with how people treat them in the workplace. So, although I suppose this is a form of closeting, I’d rather let them show their value to the organization first, then deal with people’s misconceptions about their legal past. As we get more successful at getting ex-felons employed, then we’ll have the foundation for talking about all that in the training room and begin to initiate conversations about the diversity aspects of the question. Truth is, given who we are incarcerating in this country, racial diversity in the workplace is still apt to be the topic that many organizations need to work on first, to get folks in the door and fully included and engaged.
The real work is at the front end, getting the initial screening, testing, and interviewing to focus on their potential to contribute, rather than on the stories in the heads of the HR and hiring authority folks. Truth is, we’ve jailed so many people in this country that we could soon find ourselves in the position of hiring an ex-felon or leaving the job vacant, which would be both mean-spirited/ignorant and bad business.
9
03, 2012
Observers believe that those who don’t act to stop bullying and discrimination support that behavior.
Observers believe that those who don’t act to stop bullying and discrimination support that behavior. From the point of view of the victim, particularly, inaction is interpreted as agreement. Otherwise, any decent person would intervene, they say.
Do bullies also believe that passivity on the part of observers denotes acceptance or approval of their behavior? That is exactly what we found over and over in industries (e.g., oil, chemicals, manufacturing, +) where women were entering “non-traditional” jobs and received intense bullying, hazing and disrespect from a few men. The other, observing but not interceding, men were often horrified to learn that they were tarred with the same brush– that the women believed that they were fully in support of the ugly behavior. Once that conversation was opened up, the rules of engagement rapidly changed. The observers now stood to be personally blamed for what they allowed to go down.
28
02, 2012
Leading Multicultural Teams: Authenticity+ Permeability+ Contingency+ Consistency
I recently came across a question in LinkedIn about leaders adjusting their style to work with different cultures. What is raised for me is the dilemma of authenticity + permeability + contingency + consistency. As our teams grow increasingly diverse, we are all challenged to find a way of colleagueship and leadership that is open to other ways of seeing the world, approaching problems, and formulating solutions. At the same time, we also need to be true to ourselves and the strengths we bring to the party. This argues for an openness to growing through our daily interactions, generally through an action/reflection learning cycle where we are openly engaged in considering how we manifest our own cultural set and exploring with others their alternative values and approaches. If we engage in this collaborative exploration with our colleagues, we can move toward greater understanding of each other’s styles, as well as how we each can draw on the other’s strengths and perspectives for team and organizational success.
12
03, 2011
Why I Fear Fear-Mongering About Muslims
My cousin recently forwarded me a really nasty piece of business fomenting fear about a radical Muslim takeover of America, where women will be treated as they are by the sickest of the Taliban, as the law of the land. My first reaction was sheer disgust and anger. Knowing that I had something to learn here, I walked away from it for a bit, then sat down and looked at my cousin’s fearful reaction AND my desire to lash out.
We’re most susceptible to fear and nasty stereotyping when we know very little about the people in question. In this case, we simply don’t know enough regular, peace-loving Muslims to see that they make up at least as big a majority of their population as peaceful folks do in ours. I think that extreme radicals are definitely scary. For instance, I firmly believe that the bombing in Oklahoma City demonstrated that the U.S. could be bombed. Without that, I would argue that it would have been many more years before outsiders would have felt confident that they could successfully attack the U.S. We were undone by radical Christians who showed others what could be done.
20
09, 2009
20
09, 2009
Diversity and inclusion is much more than bias and privilege, continued
I’ve been proud to be part of an extended team that has embodied a commitment to honoring the individuals we work with, believing we have as much to learn from each of them as we have to share. Often, the real challenge is in helping the organizational sponsors raise their sights above the level of “minimum acceptable behavior” to envision a workplace where employees are eager to learn about others and to discover their own gifts in the process. Facilitating that kind of climate is the work I love. I’ve come away spiritually deepened and enormously optimistic about the potential for the human race.
My disappointment is, in part, seeded by anticipating working with big organizations who could do so much better for their employees and communities than they are aiming for. Some of these organizations have a lot of pain inside and dragons at the gate. They are missing an opportunity to do well while they do good, and I always have hopes for such organizations to achieve their highest potential in that regard.
Truth is, in a healthier economy, I didn’t respond to such RFP’s. We had as much work as we could properly handle and our clients shared our vision of corporate citizenship and human potential. Today, I’m taking time to look at those kinds of requests I could pass on before, and I’m really saddened to discover how many organizations are still operating in a mindset reminiscent of the late ’70s and early 80’s. At some level, I had come to believe we’d made more progress. Finally, I guess I’m also coming to grips with the fact that there is so much more to be done and the length of time we may still need to work to bring our vision to fruition.
Ah well, no rest for the wicked!
20
09, 2009
Too many Diversity & Inclusion initiatives are stuck in bias and privilege
Too many Diversity & Inclusion initiatives are stuck in bias and privilege, rather than helping people envision and enact an ideal workplace culture. I recently responded to a disappointing Diversity & Inclusion RFP that was stuck on bias and privilege, when it should be focused on helping people envision and build a workplace culture that encourages and empowers their highest possible individual and group contribution. The operating assumption, hearkening back to the ’70’s and ’80’s, seems to be that we just need to get people to stop being jerks. —-
If we can’t reach for something higher than that, we should all just go home.
Diversity and inclusion work should be inspiring; it should facilitate us in drawing on all of our individual and group resources to learn how to make extraordinarily positive teamwork the new norm, and then build upwards from there. Instead, too many organizations are treating D &I trainees like kids in detention– drilling stale definitions and business case arguments into them, pushing them to own up to their biases and then wondering why people try so hard to avoid the classes. Almost makes you wonder if they actually want their initiatives to fail. More likely, someone has made the assessment that the people in their company are so dense, so retrograde that getting them just to be nice to people is the best you can aim for. And, in some cases, the desire to get majority group members to pay for their oppressive behavior/unconsciousness/privilege leads to training designs that are basically punishing.
I’ve never worked with a group whose members couldn’t hearken back to a time when they had a really good experience working with someone different than them. They not only can remember such a time, they can identify what made that experience work out so well and can name ways to apply that learning to their present workplace. They want a healthier work climate, they want to have positive, productive, even fun relationships across difference. Now THERE’S a change objective we can all get behind.
