ev5757

Diversity I can be successful without compromising important aspects of my identity or culture.

Survey Domain: Employee

Survey Theme: Citizenship

Understanding the Issue: The first step is to understand the issues behind the survey performance scores. Unless you are absolutely sure that you understand the issues related to a particular survey item, the best place to start is identifying them, and the section Understanding Issues can help you do so. The activities described in Understanding Issues can be used for any of the survey items.

The most productive teams are those in which coworkers are comfortable sharing their full professional selves, meaning all aspects of their identity and/or culture. When team members feel that aspects of their personhood are not accepted or valued, they are likely to spend time concerned concealing personal aspects or resenting the environment in which they work. This may lead to an unproductive and unsatisfied employee, which may impact retention. The goal is creating a team in which all members are comfortable and able to share important aspects of their identity or culture with other team members.

Improvement ideas:

1. Examine the ways in which you interact with team members unlike yourself.

   1. Demonstrate flexibility in accommodating individual needs and styles. Different work and personal styles can lead to the same successful outcome.

   2. Encourage diverse points of view in meetings and group interactions. When discussing issues, solving problems and developing opportunities, ask for and reward thoughts that reflect differences in identity, culture, background, etc.

   3. Model openness and comfort in hearing and accepting points of view different than your own cultural norms.

2. Invite Diversity & Inclusion to hold a diversity workshop with your employees. A well-run cultural diversity and cultural competence workshop can create awareness and educate people about various perspectives held by employees from different backgrounds. Often this heightened awareness helps sensitize people to other views and produces a greater willingness to listen to different perspectives.

3. Implement in your work unit a "zero tolerance" policy for disrespecting any employee. Be alert to anyone who shows disrespect for others. If the offending person works for you, coach them on the expected proper behavior. Tolerate nothing less than respectful treatment of all employees. Hold others immediately accountable for behavior that is not respectful. Model the behavior you expect from others.

4. Spend quality time with each individual employee. Get to know team members' backgrounds, goals and ambitions, perspectives, etc. Engage in 1X1 meetings. Show interest in their well-being beyond the work they produce.

Resources

• Crucial Conversations, a product of 'Vital Smarts', www.vitalsmarts.com

• Harvard "Implicit Association Test" https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/

• Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands, 2nd Ed., Terri Morrison and Wayne A. Conaway

• Leading in Black and White: Working Across the Racial Divide in Corporate America, Ancella B Livers and Keith A. Carver

• Micro-Messaging: Why Great Leadership is beyond words, Stephen Young

(MI 5757)