Our Approach to Diversity Training

We define diversity in a way that includes, but goes well beyond, race and gender.  To us, diversity includes age and generational differences, disability, religion, language national origin, culture and cultural norms, marital status, sexual orientation, union and non-union, differences in personality style and many other characteristics. In short, diversity is any difference that can make a difference at work.

All of our diversity training programs include an extensive discussion of the business case for diversity. We examine recent demographic trends and future demographic projections and apply them on an industry-specific basis to your organization's work. In particular, we examine the impact of diversity on: recruitment, hiring and retention, customer service, communication and teamwork, productivity and ultimately, bottom-line profitability. The goal of this discussion is for participants to understand how harnessing the power of diversity can create a competitive advantage for their organization.

The strength of our program is that it makes people aware of their hidden biases through a series of fun and engaging exercises.

By demonstrating how people's attitudes towards others' differences are translated into overt behavior, we encourage people to examine and change their behavior. Our attitudes towards people's differences are often shown through overt behaviors. Using a five-point scale, we divide the class into five groups and assign each table one of the categories (appreciation, acceptance, tolerance, avoidance or repulsion). Each group is then asked to discuss what kinds of behaviors might be directed towards a person who was placed in that category by their manager or co-workers. (For example if a person was a new employee, had a success at work, asked for a favor or made a mistake.) How productive could people be if they were appreciated or accepted instead of tolerated or avoided at work?

By examining some of the erroneous assumptions that people make about others we can teach them to be more understanding and less judgmental.

New research shows that most human bias is unconscious. Teaching people about the nature of bias helps them move beyond guilt to understanding. We then discuss how personal, cultural and organizational biases can affect recruitment, hiring and retention decisions/practices. "The Set Up to Fail Syndrome" is a psychological phenomenon in which a person's performance begins to suffer because of the low opinion or low expectations set by those around him/her. (See Harvard Business Review, March-April, 1998). According to research by Manzoni and Barsoux, 90 percent of managers treat some employees as members of an "in" group while relegating others to an "out group". "The Set-Up-to-Fail-Syndrome" occurs when the boss determines that his/her subordinate's performance is not up to par for reasons unrelated to the employee's actual performance. At that point, the manager reacts by stepping up supervision -- requiring the employee to report to him/her before making any major, job-related decisions. The employee, in turn, reacts in one of two ways. Either the employee tries to do too much, too soon in a desperate attempt to recapture the manager's confidence or the employee becomes depressed and withdrawn, doing less. Either strategy is likely to fail, further justifying the manager's perception and creating a recurring, cyclical pattern. This research is particularly important because studies show that managers' expectations have a critical impact on employees' performance. Further, studies show that employees don't leave their "jobs", rather they leave their managers.

We strongly encourage people to take the Implicit Association Test (IAT) as a required, post-class activity. The Implicit Association Test is a psychological tool to evaluate unconscious attitudes that are based on strong, automatic associations that people may have. Developed by two psychology professors (Professor Anthony Greenwald of the University of Washington and Professor Mahzarin R. Banaji of Yale), the test can be used to measure bias or prejudice on the basis of age, race and gender. It is available online at http://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/. Each version of the test takes less than five minutes to administer and test-takers receive their scores online.

Finally, we examine key cultural values, comparing American values to those of other cultures in order to anticipate the potential sources of cultural misunderstandings. With more and more immigrants and refugees in our workforce, good managers will seek to anticipate and avoid potential culture clashes. This segment of the class shows them how to do it.

We understand that adults learn in different ways. That's why our diversity programs are highly interactive and use a variety of verbal and visual means of communication. Some adults are verbal or auditory learners. Others learn better visually. Still others are kinesthetic (experiential) learners. Some people are extroverts and enjoy large group discussions while others require smaller groups to feel comfortable. Our programs combine all of these learning modes to touch the minds and hearts of thinkers and feelers alike.

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