diversity

18 01, 2018

The Epic Face-Off: A Vision of Humanity’s Collective Potential vs. Bigotry/Xenophobia

By |2018-01-18T16:17:46-07:00January 18th, 2018|Tags: , , , , , , , , |

We are definitely in it, this contest between progressive advancement of society and deeply entrenched fears and animosities. Some days I wistfully remember that, 30 years ago, I believed that this aspect of our work (diversity, inclusion and equity) wouldn’t really be needed by this late date. I was optimistic, and choosing to ignore the fact that society just does not change quickly, no matter how reasonable, sensible, ethical and practical the desired shift, more’s the pity. Homeostasis, even when it is miserable, is preferred by the human collective over change. It’s actually a hard-wired aspect of who we are. In the face of that, it can be hard to take solace in “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it aims toward justice” when we are living in the middle of that seemingly interminable arc.

Today, we are in yet another moment when we need to keep our eyes on the prize. When we allow ourselves to deeply, fully, joyfully envision the future for humanity that is our dearest hope, we are lifted up, renewed and invigorated in our pursuit of a human existence that is caring, just and equitable for every one of us. We have, every day, evidence that we are capable of moral greatness as individuals and as a species. We see it in acts small and large, from kindness to a stranger to entire countries welcoming refugees of war and disaster. Our capacity for goodness is astounding. As Desmond Tutu has said:  “We have seen some wonderful human beings –– Mahatma Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa. What that says is that ultimately good prevails. It is a moral universe, despite all appearances to the contrary. Hahahaha! It is that… there’s no way in which evil will ultimately triumph.”

What does this mean on a daily basis? It directs us to live in this moment with conviction that we are ultimately on the right path. We have the mountaintop in our sight and know where we are headed on our journey, even as we slip into deep crevasses and slog through swamps and contest with misguided souls who stand in our way. One step at a time, always toward our goal, with firm determination grounded in inspired hope.

As has been recently observed, Trump and his ilk are a vaccination against the disease of electoral complacency that we have been lulled into. We now are powerfully reminded of the vital importance of being in action to drive toward our image of healthy democracy. When we keep our beautiful vision in mind, we naturally move toward it. We are inoculated against despair and empower ourselves to live into the dream.

In the corporate world, the confluence of regressive politics and demographic change is turning out to be quite the bracing tonic. It is clear to most of us that a positive future for humanity (and for business) everywhere will depend on a foundation of deeply effective equity and inclusion, one that allows the genius of our highly social species to bloom for our collective success. Our potential for living into the dream is magnificent.

Yes, the messes we’ve made will take a painfully long time to clean up, from post-colonial cultural dissolution to post-industrial economic disenfranchisement, but we have to keep on. The alternative is failure of this brilliant, beautiful, and terrifying evolutionary experiment of homo sapiens. I’m not going there, as a matter of conviction, faith, and sheer stubbornness. I’ve bet all my stake on our better nature winning out, in the end. How about you?

9 03, 2012

Executive Attitudes Drive Success or Failure of Diversity Initiatives

By |2017-01-13T11:27:41-07:00March 9th, 2012|Tags: , , , , , , , , |

(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.

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9 03, 2012

Should Diversity Training Include Ex-Felons?

By |2012-03-09T21:29:12-07:00March 9th, 2012|Tags: , , , , , , , , |

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.

By |2017-01-11T21:14:23-07:00March 9th, 2012|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |

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.

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28 02, 2012

Leading Multicultural Teams: Authenticity+ Permeability+ Contingency+ Consistency

By |2017-01-13T11:27:51-07:00February 28th, 2012|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |

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.

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12 03, 2011

Why I Fear Fear-Mongering About Muslims

By |2017-01-13T11:28:19-07:00March 12th, 2011|Tags: , , , , |

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.

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20 09, 2009

Diversity and inclusion is much more than bias and privilege, continued

By |2017-01-13T11:28:52-07:00September 20th, 2009|Tags: , , , |

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

By |2017-01-13T11:29:01-07:00September 20th, 2009|Tags: , , , , |

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.