Diversity is a Powerful Business Process
Businesses are learning that diversity training programs can have deeper purposes than merely preventing compliance problems with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or other employer-liability issues. Diversity training activities can be used to enhance team creativity, build stronger relationships and improve problem-solving results.
Diversity can mean different things to different people. For the purpose of this Insight, diversity is also defined as a business process. Diversity matters to business because it encompasses people’s opinions and how those opinions affect their abilities to get along in the workplace. Diversity can also be powerful because people who get along better will help a business solve problems and successfully reach its goals.
Businesses employ people who possess individual differences. For example, diversity means recognizing human differences in the following areas:
- Communication and language
- Cultural
- Ethnic
- Gender
- Generational
- Racial
- Religious
Everyone works and communicates differently, which too illuminates unique or distinct differences among employees. It is this diversity that makes each one of us unique. When this uniqueness is allowed to flourish in our workplaces, we are often rewarded by higher degrees of creativity, improved relationships and problem-solving contributions.
To help illustrate, I’ll share a ‘real-life’ example.
I recently worked with a chief executive officer who had a serious concern with a director. The CEO was concerned that the director’s teams were in a rut. They were generally unmotivated, constantly complaining and resistant to change. In addition to that, they were operating in a ‘silo mentality,’ whereby their focus and communications were mostly inward.
In the beginning, it was like pulling teeth to dig deeper down into the issues. At first, they would insist that they had no problems. But once we got beyond those initial surface responses and we started working with the individual teams we realized (1) yes, there were issues; and (2) they were working in silo modes. Basically, this organization ran and managed 12 to 13 programs, and employees all worked on their own individual little pieces. They never came together and collaborated on any common problem-solving issues.
When we got them together at the table, they also brought along their collective creativity and ideas for process improvements. As it turns out, after we brought in all the players, they were surprisingly unaware of the different organizational programs. Ironically, their creativity and brainstorming sessions were even more productive, because they started from a place of knowing nothing.
All in all, their diversity was the catalyst for greater problem-solving and creativity. Although they had all worked together for years—but not in a united problem-solving way—this experience brought them closer together. During a period of about a year working together on this project, the employees started enjoying lots of laughs and connecting with a sense of total ownership.
Of course, the CEO is totally satisfied with the results. The director’s teams have moved from positions of asking permission in order to get things done to, "This is what we’re doing and these are the positive results."
It’s been gratifying to see that through our coaching efforts, the diversity program is succeeding. The employees are empowered to make decisions and they are accountable for results. The entire culture has changed. They are motivated and receptive to making changes; and they are no longer working in ruts or silo modes. On top of that, the CEO is enjoying more time and flexibility to work on more strategic issues.
As you can see, diversity is powerful and matters to business because it can serve to bridge and empower people’s opinions to help a business solve problems and successfully reach its goals.