1. Interview top management about their opinions on diversity. Use the assessment to identify allies.
2. Perform a cultural audit of the organization to assess hiring, retention, and promotion practices and demographics.
3. Compile data about complaints, potential lawsuits, and hiring, retention, and promotion problems, current and projected customer demographics.
4. Find the links between diversity and other organizational initiatives, such as top-quality management, self-managing work teams, or career development.
5. Develop organization-specific arguments for diversity.
6. Create tools to communicate the data and arguments.
7. Understand the diversity politics of the organization enough to describe the dynamics.
8. Consider whether or not to hire an outside consultant to effectively manage the initiative.
9. Develop a strategy and plan for presenting the data and follow up.
10. Present data to top management, including the board of directors.

Twelve Steps Toward Diversity and Inclusion

1. Commitment to a Long-Term Change Effort
2. Commitment to the Time, Money, and Emotional Energy Needed
3. Obtaining Support From the Top (This is Critical)
4. Offer Only What Can Be Fulfilled
5. Expect the Discomfort that Comes with Change
6. Be Clear About the Depth and Breadth of the Effort
7. Work to Modify the Systems of Exclusion the Organization Has in Place
8. Help Employees Understand the Big Picture and Get Beyond Individual Needs
9. Set Measurable Goals.
10. Show that the Changes Lead to Something Better than the Existing State of Affairs
11. Recognize that Training is Necessary but Insufficient alone
12. Recognize that An End Point Does Not Exist.

Top Ten Organizational Diversity and Inclusion Beliefs

1. Exclusion and other forms of oppression affect all people and systems.
2. Exclusion has effects that hurt all individuals: Whites, Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans, Gay-Lesbians, Physically-Different, etc.
3. Exclusion decreases productivity.
4. It is possible to develop an inclusive organization and thus change the current cultural norms.
5. Identifying the steps involved in developing diverse systems gives people a road map to follow.
6. Organizations move through cycles. Achieving inclusion is not a linear process.
7. Developing diversity entails an organizational and cultural effort to change.
8. Developing diversity causes people and systems to be upset.
9. When organizations reach a point of change, its members may get stuck, feel frightened, or feel they have completed necessary changes. These reactions limit their ability to move forward.
10. To achieve the maximum benefits of change, the process must be managed and designed strategically

1. The leadership must understand that a diverse workforce will enrich problem-solving and embody different approaches to work. The end result is a more productive and creative institution.
2. The leadership must recognize both the learning opportunities and the challenges that different perspectives offer the organization.
3. The organizational culture must promote an expectation of high standards and excellence.
4. The organization must achieve a critical mass of employees with different perspectives.
5. The organizational culture must stimulate personal development.
6. The organization must encourage openness and trust.
7. The culture must make workers feel valued.
8. The organization must have a well-articulated, widely understood, and inclusive mission.
9. The organization must have a relatively egalitarian, nonbureaucratic structure.
10. The organization must model and reward inclusive behaviors.

Top Ten Questions for A Staff Diversity & Inclusion Focus Group

A Focus Group is the collection of information in a group setting. For example, a group of employees and a facilitator discuss the cultural climate of their organization. Focus Groups have distinct advantages over other Diversity Audit tools. One advantage is that it permits clarification and explanation of the information being discussed. It is also more personal than surveys. Asking the right questions to receive information about diversity and inclusion is important. Below are ten crucial questions:

Top 10 Reasons Diversity OD Efforts Fails

Starting a Diversity Organizational Development effort is difficult. One way to increase the probability of success is to learn from the mistakes of others. Below is a list of sources of failure.

13. Failure to tailor the effort to the jointly analyzed needs of the specific organization

Can you think of anything else to add to this list? If so, please send your ideas to us so we can share them.

Don’t let all these negatives make you feel like the job is too big. Simply being aware that certain negative behavior patterns have the potential to negatively influence success can help avoid such behaviors.

The Diversity Training Challenge

One of the most challenging series of programs was an oil company that wanted a program for a functionally diverse group, including managers, engineers, drivers, and other support personnel who had contact with service station owners.

The service station owners were more diverse as a group that consisted of recently arrived immigrants–Turkey, Korea, Armenia, and Cuba, for example. Each training required different content, depending on the particular cultural group our trainees were encountering. But, that wasn’t the most challenging. We discovered that an overlay of corporate culture issues would surface as these different functional groups came together for the first time. It required a change of approach on our part. We learned to step back and let these corporate issues get worked through by participants before we went on with the content. A lot of the participants’ communication was aimed at the key people in the room.

After the first couple of training classes in this project, we decided to work with the client to actively engage these issues. We did an up-front survey of participants, to minimize surprises.

These initial interviews were often educational for the client. Then we brought Human Resource and other managers into the training sessions so we could get a discussion going. After the corporate culture issues were considered, we could proceed to general intercultural strategies and specific cultural formation.

The key was to strike balance between general intercultural information and tangible specific strategies for handling conflict–How do you tell when conflict is brewing under the surface? What do you look for so you can diffuse a situation? And finally, as part of the wrap-up, we had participants look at how they were going to apply what they’d learned–What are you going to do with this? How is it going to help you tomorrow?

Bausch & Lomb’s Strategic Diversity & Staffing Office found the above information company along with the DTUI e-Newsletter so helpful in the implementation of their strategic initiative that they wrote the following:

DTUI information has been extremely useful in improving Bausch & Lomb’s diversity initiative and results. The creative and insightful concepts outlined by DTUI makes the very critical link between diversity interventions and business results. Access to DTUI’s information is critical to achieving our results–Clayton H. Osborne, Director, Strategic Staffing & Diversity.

As if these powerful words were not enough, Bausch & Lomb contributed $300 to DTUI’s work. This money will help a needy student who aspires to become a diversity trainer.

By coupling what this information contains with your own resources, you can make similar things happen in your workplace or organization.

You can also benefit from our expertise. Taking a DTUI course will give you the expertise to meet the demands of the complexities of developing and implementing a strategic diversity initiative. Click Here to learn more.

Bibliography
Kreicker, Noel and Frank Pasquale (1995). Diversity Training Challenges, In Cultural Diversity at Work, May (7:4), The GilDeane Group (206) 362-0336. High Impact Diversity & Inclusion Consulting (2004). DTUI Publications: San Francisco.Gardenswartz, L. & Rowe, A. (1993). Managing Diversity: A Complete Desk Reference and Planning Guide. Irwin Publications. The Managing Diversity e-Coach Book (2005), DTUI Publications: San Francisco.