Civilizations should be measured by "the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained."

W.H. Auden, 20th-century English poet

IN THIS ISSUE

1. Recent Poll Results

2. Recent News

3. My Issue For This Issue - Diversity, "I wil NEVER attend diversity training"

4. Books on the Subject of the Diversity

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1. Recent Poll Results

We were a little short on participants this month, so we only have two polls that had significant response. We hope you enjoy the time and effort we put into coming up with polling questions. If there is a question you would like see polled, please email it to: poll@employeedevelopmentsolutions.com

My organization views failure as a way to learn and improve.
	Very True	25.93%
	Somewhat True	7.41%
	Somewhat False	29.63%
	Very False	25.93%
	I donit know	11.11%
	Respondents = 27

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2. Recent News

Since we have begun providing by-the-minute HR news, I have stopped trying to read every HR-related news article. To stay in touch, bookmark our news feed page with updated, by the minute HR-related news. Follow the link:
www.employeedevelopmentsolutions.com/hrnews.htm.

Interesting News...

CGI Partners with Yellowbrick

We have recently partnered with Yellowbrick, Deliver the Promise.  Yellowbrick provides employee development solutions for organizations of all sizes, particularly in the areas of retention, orientation and mentoring and coaching.  Although there are many organizations that are adept at coaching, ours included, Yellowbrick excels in developing large-scale programs for these areas as well as providing excellent products for individuals such as:

• How to be a Great Mentor™...in under 30 minutes
• The Complete Guide to Mentoring and Coaching
• The Complete Guide to Orientation and Re-Orientation
• The 'Deliver The Promise...' Retention MasterClass

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THE HP-COMPAQ DEAL
Losing their Way? Some fear deal threatens HP's culture
Benjamin Pimentel, Chronicle Staff Writer

After announcing Hewlett-Packard's proposed purchase of Compaq Computer, HP Chief Executive Officer Carly Fiorina called the deal "a catalyst that would rejuvenate the HP Way."

But what is the HP Way?

The HP Way is about innovation; trust and respect and integrity; contribution to community; and performance," said Carla Fiorina.

For more than 60 years, the revered ideology of HP's late founders, William Hewlett and David Packard, was the management mantra that helped define Silicon Valley. But like the Bible, the philosophy that stresses treating employees like one happy family has been subject to conflicting interpretations.

Read More...

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Team You
Personal coaches can help clients rethink their lives, careers to reap rewards
Diana E. Kapp, Special to The Chronicle

Exorcise your gremlins. Get into your flow. Achieve synchronicity.

Are these exhortations part of a New Age elixir? The 12-step program for a spiritual awakening? Sort of. This is the language of personal coaching, and lawyers and laid-off dot-commers alike are listening closely.

Personal coaching is the self-help technique of the moment. For most, its mantra is: I want a great life now, not at 65. It involves an hour a week in pursuit of the meaning of life, or, at very least, that deserved promotion, and it's got plenty of converts.

Approximately 20,000 coaches are keeping themselves busy in the United States -- more than 600 in the Bay Area. "The Bay Area is definitely the fastest-growing area for coaches," says Heather Davis, head of the first Bay Area Coaching Conference.

Read More...

If you are interested in speaking with a personal coach, The Carter Group, Inc has several fantastic coaches to choose from. Please contact us for more information.

 

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3. My Issue For This Issue -- Diversity, "I will NEVER attend diversity training!"

Based upon recent events and one particular email I received, I thought that spending a little time with diversity is a very good idea. 

"I refuse to attend diversity training.  I will not sign any resignation papers because of this.  Anyone trying to force me to go will have to fire me.  If I am subjected to the kind of abuse that others have been through for the BIG LIE that only Whites are ever racist, that scene will soon look like the aftermath of Columbine High.  Therefore, it is in my company's best interest to excuse me from this "Get Whitey"nonsense, which is all diversity training ever is.  Only Blacks are ever defended, and I am sick of it.

I am encouraging other workers to revolt as well because I do union work for industries I am not even employed in."

Sound encouraging?  Stand up and take notice.  This is one person's view, but MANY people have been affected in this way from past experiences of 'Diversity Training'. A 'force-fed diversity' backlash, if you will.

Although the reference to Columbine is reprehensible, you have to take this perception into consideration when beginning a diversity initiative within your company. There will be *these* people within your organization. Take care to acknowledge this point of view and create an initiative that will help this person understand diversity better.

One way to accompish this is to focus on the most difficult type of diversity -- personality. If you have 100 men in Alabama gathered for a highschool reunion, you will have diversity. If a person can be competent recognizing and celebrating this type of diversity, racial, age, gender and other types of diversity are a snap. What are we talking about? HUMAN DIVERSITY.

More than ever, it is important to distinguish between cultures and individuals, generalizations and stereotypes, facts and perceptions. Here is an article written by Mark Parham that hits right on the mark and answers the unasked questions above; Can diversity training help?

To be continued after this sponsor message from Yellowbrick, Deliver the Promise:

An amazing 83% of people interviewed say they would like to devote time to mentoring and coaching others. Yet, less than 4% actually do so. How To Be A Great Mentor™...in under 30 minutes comprises six unique 29-minute online training programs. Each session stands alone, and can be purchased individually, or you can take all six sessions at times of your own choosing. How To Be A Great Mentor™...in under 30 minutes is your key to learning everything you need to know to be a great mentor - quickly, simply and inexpensively. If you have busy managers that you'd like to see developing as mentors, then 'How To Be A Great Mentor...in under 30 minutes'is exactly the resource you need – view a free preview right now at Deliver The Promise.

Continued from above...

Can Diversity Training Really Help?
By Mark Parham

Are we a better company because we value diversity? Do we make better products? Do we provide better services? Is it a more joyous, fulfilling place for the employees who work here? These may be politically incorrect questions, but they are nonetheless valid ones.

Diversity training has, in many sectors of the business community, become to be a dirty phrase. It has become synonymous with quotas, Affirmative Action, "lowered standards." Its value as a business tool has come under fire, and the benefits derived from various diversity workshops have been called into question. And correctly so. When a company invests in training, it has a responsibility to ask: did we benefit from that investment?

At the same time the value of diversity workshops is being debated, companies are being held increasingly responsible for hostile work environments. In these instances, the workplace culture has given rise to organizational habits that make life miserable for many employees.

Whether these employees are male, female, African American, Asian, white, older, younger, gay, straight, support versus production, newcomer versus high seniority, Quality Assurance versus everybody else (or so it sometimes feels), the diversity of people and responsibilities in an organization makes it important that the organization treat everyone fairly.

Diversity isn’t solely a question of race and gender. One could have an all-Asian organization, or an all-female organization, or an all-white male organization and still have tremendous "diversity issues" because people don’t always think alike, even if they are the same race, or gender, or job function.

Diversity is, therefore, a matter of organizational culture. Because if there is a culture of fairness, communication, and a willingness to give and receive feedback even when you don’t necessarily like what you're hearing or what you have to say, then the differences between people - racial differences, job function differences, gender differences, seniority differences, whatever differences - can be handled more easily. The trick is to create an organizational culture that has good habits in how people treat one another - and then reinforce these habits.

Organizational habits, like personal ones, often go unnoticed, making them harder to identify. Just as people may unconsciously bite their nails and not notice they are doing so until someone else points it out, organizations get into habits from doing things a certain way for long periods of time, and may not notice these habits until some feedback mechanism points it out. This harms the organization in many ways, because the marketplace has no patience with organizations that are too set in their ways to understand that the world is changing.

It is the smart organization that self-consciously creates workplace cultures in which employees are trained to handle their diverse, internal relationship issues. Managing one's team culture not only prevents hostile work environment issues, but it also makes the team flexible enough to continually support one another personally while still succeeding, as a team, in the marketplace.

In this way, matters of race, gender, etc., are handled in the context of making the overall work culture more effective. An organization pre-empts potential problems while creating a work environment that is better for everyone.

It is crucial never to minimize the pain of the so-called "traditional" diversity issues. It is also important to realize that people can be miserable at work even if they are in a homogenous work group; so diversity training that focuses exclusively on racial issues, for example, won’t necessarily help overall organizational problems.

Once we contextualize diversity as a matter of organizational culture, it becomes easier to see the role it plays in developing a superlative organization. In other words, if one assume that a talented, well-designed organization will, over time, create superior products, services, and a workplace environment that people find it a joy to be part of, then it's easier to see why the organizational competency of effective handling interpersonal differences is valuable. Since all human beings are different, it follows that an organization that is not crippled by those differences, is in fact strengthened by them, is stronger than competitors who are hampered by those same, inevitable human differences. A training program that improves this competency would therefore have a clear strategic benefit to the organization.

Therefore, the best form of diversity training - i.e. one that delivers maximum value to the organization - is the one that combines organizational values with interpersonal relationship management skills. In this way, an organization creates two strengths with the same training, and the value of the diversity training is easier to determine.

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4. Books on the Subject of Diversity

Do your self a favor and go to half.com for books before you buy any. I have had fantastic results from purchasing from this website.

Voices of Diversity : Real People Talk About Problems and Solutions in a Workplace Where Everyone Is Not Alike
by Renee Blank, Sandra Slipp (Contributor)

The Tragedy in the Workplace: The Longest Running Show in the Country
by Danna Beal
This is a very different approach that I really liked. Pick it up in the bookstore and thumb through it before you buy and see if it resonates with you.

Action Dialogues: Meaningful Conversations to Accelerate Change (Diversity Breakthrough! Strategic Action Series)
by Debbe Kennedy, Sally K. Green (Illustrator), Frances Hesselbein (Foreword), Peter F. Drucker Foundations (Foreword)
I see this as a must have for any manager or individual interesting in diversity. It is a series of six booklet and also comes with cards that can be used alone or in conjunction. This may be a valuable resource for smaller organizations that cannot afford to have a diversity consultant live.

Personality and Diversity

Human Dynamics : A New Framework for Understanding People and Realizing the Potential in Our Organizations
by Sandra Seagal, David Horne

 

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