“I don’t care if you’re black, white, straight, bisexual, gay, lesbian, short, tall, fat, skinny, rich or poor. If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you. Simple as that.” ― Robert Michaels
Organizations avow by diversity – this is one of the pure democratic ideals that our societies are founded on. Appearances don’t matter – the inner core of a person is what is important; her values, beliefs, thinking approach, action due diligence.
Decades ago, man tried figuring our nature and character on the basis of shape of ears, or shape of skull (phrenology), or palm length or feet size – all that medieval days’ alchemy has now died out. Nevertheless, myths still operate, and the feudal mindsets are difficult to kill. Bosses and employers still swear by complexion of skin of an employee, or “looks”, or height/ weight. Heads and hearts are poisoned by invalidated biases & prejudices. Silly people!
Thus, it is settled, that diversity is welcome – it enriches the workforce. One has to be a true equal opportunity employer. But there is a catch.
Most firms try to raze to nil, the differences that emanate from differential diversity. They try to force the typical American process-oriented thought on all employees – they forget, intuitive abilities are also an asset in good thinking. They forget that different cultures tune people for different levels of intuition.
It’s known that women think differently, more holistically, carrying the 30,000 feet view with ease. But trying to impose the alpha-male aggressive role model on women erases this advantage.
Diversity ought to be kept meaningful, i.e. not snubbing a particular cultural preferences for a uniculture model. In fact, the differences need to be accentuated, only then thinking and action capabilities of the teams with diversity would be multiplied into larger quotients.
Ponder.
