Unfortunately, when one thinks of workplace diversity today, what leaps to mind is little more than a long series of Do's and Don'ts to be memorized and adhered to in the workplace. What we don't speak about nearly often enough when diversity is the topic is the matter of joy.

Joy at work is a very bizarre concept within the business vocabulary. Yet, oddly, joy at work fits most naturally in a conversation about workplace diversity. Being around people - and any time you are around people, you have diversity - can be one of the great joys of being human.

It's one of the great things about being at work. Even if you don't particularly love the work you do, sometimes you can enjoy the people and the relationships you have with the other people in your office. And, sometimes your can have a great job making plenty of money and still hate your job because you come home drained and spent every night from all the infighting, politicking and back-stabbing that goes on.

A great deal of what brings us joy at work is being in a place with great people and strong relationships, where we are allowed to learn and grow in what we do. We enjoy being a part of a wonderful team. We like being around wonderful people. And even though we may not always see eye to eye, when there is respect and mutual care about one another, then the workplace is a better place to be.
However, when we don't handle diversity well, bad events transpire that can destroy the best of workplaces and the strongest of relationships, especially in business.

So the task is to create a workplace culture where we experience the joy, which comes from being around other people, who have different perspectives, backgrounds, ideas, and joys. And to have a culture that gives its teams the skills they need to handle situations when the differences among people threaten to become distracting and harmful to the overall team spirit.
Diversity training can be so much more than race and gender training. Race and gender are crucial, painful issues and should not in any way be minimized or ignored. But wouldn't it be better to have diversity training that addressed those hard issues in the context of creating a more joyous, more effective workplace culture?

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