Diversity is commonly defined as knowing, perceiving, tolerant, valuing, and celebrating variations between individuals with value to sexual category, rank, culture, age, bodily and intellectual capability, race, sexual orientation, religious practice, and civic support standing (Esty, et al., 1995). I write this piece principally to educate business owners and managers since there can learn a lot on or after reading this paper.
Because major developments have taken place in the work place, business owners and managers are the main focus of this paper. In view of the fact that diversity management continues to be an important challenge in organizations, managers ought to be trained in management skills desired in a multicultural labor setting. Flagg (2002) explained that both supervisors and managers need to be ready to educate themselves and others in their workplace to know the worth of multicultural variations in both employees and clients so as to facilitate everyone’s treatment with self-respect.
At Present, a substantial advancement is going on in organizations these days. Employee’s homogeneity, that some time ago dominated the workplace is at the moment extremely rare to come across as globalization involves the coming together of individuals who are from different nationalities and diverse racial settings to begin with (Devoe, 1999). It is a universal thing to come across individuals who are from diverse societies and ethnicity, socioeconomic setting, and even persons who are from different settlements labor on the similar task as there are improvements in machinery and immigration.
Globalization has cemented the substantial gaps linking racial background, geography, and physical layout. Though the substantial distance can be seen to have been cemented, At hand more needs to be done on socio-cultural identity which have resulted to conditions that are not favorable. This seclusion of societies from one another usually thwarts organizational work force especially if need arises for different races to come together and join forces in order to make the desired ends meet. But reverse is the case (Koonce, 2001).
For example one particular case regarding the failure of an organization to decide solutions or arrive at excellent thoughts from a joint effort of individuals that are from a different setting took place at my earlier job. I was given an assignment to take a position as a junior manager to the project director and one of my jobs was to be present at meetings among the individuals who were concerned in the preparation and promotion of a product which is new and was due to be released in the market.
There were about seven main employees concerned with the preparation and promotion of the supposed products; four were White Americans, two Asians, and the other one a Black American. In one group there were three members while the other group contained two members which do not have a managerial position. There was also a great difference in age among the groups in view of the fact that one of the groups contained employees who were about 50 years and above; four who were about 30-50 years; and some of us who were less than age 30, so one have the thought of somewhat varied project improvement and promotion group.
The leader of the project was a white male who was 58 years old and he dominated every discussion and coverage on meetings in the group. He at all times proved a point that he is a superior associate of the group and he desires each one of us go after and concur with his thoughts. The group is preparing as regards to the marketing strategies for the product that is soon to be at large in the market; that is a detergent product for social classes C and below but it did not resulted to an excellent plan due to the leader’s doggedness to his thoughts.
The project leader’s intentions was that good looking White females to come into sight in the commercial of which the female members as of that time refused based on a claim that there were females and the members of the group comprising of different races objected citing unfairness. The most important thing is, the group was in chaos since they think that carrying out only what the project director want would not offer the most excellent outcome for the organization since there was inequality among the common feelings conveyed by the commercial advertisement and the target sell of the product.
Due to a great deal of misunderstanding in the initial group, the project director decided to create a new group that was more homogenous. Some days afterward, the commercial ad that the project director sought after was released in one of the local TV stations and in news stands.
Predictably, the ad on no account captured the target sell and sales never reached the expected target for the subsequent three or six months. Due to this outcome, the initial group was for a second time assembled and was permitted to give sincere evaluation of the project result. The leader of the project was as well replaced for the reason that he was bias and had a strong predisposition to categorize his members.
With the initial group and their serious thinking in addition to the fact that the group was made up of individuals from a very varied setting, a new ad was released which had features of women from different societal standing and ethnic background who bought the product and enjoyed the benefits they had from it. Interrestingly, the target sell began capturing audiences and there was an increase in sale proportionally.
The project director of the initial group later offered apologies because the thoughts of the group had gone successful. He gave learning lessons which he missed through the previous discussions held. Here are a few of what he said he learned from us:
- Within an organization, a varied labor force offers extra benefits compared to a homogenous workgroup because of the amount of thoughts they can offer and contribute to each other.
- Working with individuals who are from diverse walks of life and from a diverse social standpoint is elevating since the idea of communicating, perspectives, principles, and concerns in a group cracks down the wall called biases.
- Bringing diverse thoughts from individuals who have different standpoints collectively and ethnically can be helpful to the organization due to the stimulating potentials their thoughts can fetch.
What the earlier project director has learned is correct in a number of contexts. He was always been incorrect in thoughts that just because his group members had views that were not similar from his, his ideas were more better to what they have. Base on what is seen in this situation, combined effort from individuals who are from different backgrounds worked wholly in achieving the purpose an organization. In the broad-spectrum sense, homogeneity is no more the norm of organizations and biasness is deliberately eradicated in the place of work.
References
Devoe, D. (1999). Managing a Diverse Workforce. San Mateo, CA: InfoWorld Media Group.
Esty, K., Richard, G. & Marcie, S. (1995). Workplace Diversity: A Managers Guide to Solving Problems and Turning Diversity into a Competitive Advantage. Avon, MA: Adams Media Corporation.
Flagg, A. (2002). Managing Diverse Workgroups Successfully. United Behavioral Health website (members only section). Web.
Koonce, R. (2001). Redefining Diversity: It’s Not Just the Right Thing to Do; It also Takes Good Business Sense. Training and Development.