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Diversity Management : A Perspective

Most people don’t want to think of themselves as biased. Most people, especially managers, want to believe that if they are just nice to people, no matter what their cultural backgrounds are, then they would never fall into the category of being labeled biased.

Not a bad belief, just a naïve one. Fifteen years as a diversity trainer with several Fortune 500 companies, and most recently as CEO of Creative Synergy Solutions, has taught me that it takes more than being nice to manage a culturally diverse workforce. It takes striving to be “culturally competent.”

To become culturally competent one has to be willing to see how one’s often unconscious beliefs about other people can create subtle behaviors that include some people and exclude others. Most people don’t consciously dislike certain people in their workplace, they just prefer others. In our private lives, we call this choosing our friends carefully.

In the workplace, this preference translates to: Giving constructive feedback to certain team members more often than others; Setting up project deadlines irrespective of certain religious holy days; Failing to mention long-term work assignment to older employees because they are going to retire anyway; Thinking that the employee with the British accent sounds more intelligent than the lady with a Southern twang so he or she gets the opportunity to speak at the executive luncheon.

These are just a few situations in which a manager’s assumptions, categories, and biases may impact professional behaviors and management decisions. A manager who is striving to create an inclusive work environment, however, will strive to create commitment, loyalty, and trust with people who often don’t look like, sound like, worship like, or think like they do. This means they will have to increase their personal awareness of their own cultural background, gain knowledge about other people’s histories, and fine-tune their ability to respond with integrity when their own beliefs and values are being challenged.

I’ve had the pleasure of teaching the Diversity Management Course at the Nyack DC campus for the last two years. This course helps students build their cultural competence via discussion of articles by theorists and practitioners, and analyzing real-world and hypothetical case studies. One of my favorite exercises is called Choosing the Board. In this exercise students are placed in small groups and given the power to choose executive board members for a nonprofit organization. Oftentimes students are surprised that their choices often reflect personal biases based on race, ethnicity, gender or even personality types, socio-economic levels, or political beliefs.

This “choice-making” exercise clearly illustrates for students how persons in positions of power often make decisions at the top which have ripple effects throughout an organization. These ripples can create grooves of access to power for certain people within an organization over others. It is worth noting that the students in the diversity classes at Nyack DC are often minority members making these choices.

It is not easy to look inside to determine if or how one’s own biases and or prejudices hinder one’s management decisions. Sometimes it seems like it would be easier to stay blissfully unaware. However, in today’s competitive global marketplace this lack of knowledge can kill an organizational team or even worse, position an organization for a lawsuit. The good news is that the sacrifice to become culturally competent brings the reward of being graceful, bold, and wise in many situations, which can only help the bottom line.

Professor Rattley teaches Diversity Management at Nyack’s DC campus.

For more info go to the information source: the Path : Nyack College Magazine



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