Multicultural workplace education, ten years later
In my NASA days, I was exposed to an organization-wide required training course entitled "New Leadership Strategy." It was intended to be a marriage of diversity awareness training and Total Quality Management [tm]. As it happened, what we got was not "New" -- we'd had it before. It wasn't "Leadership" -- we were all given responsibility for it, with no clear evidence that it was applied from the top down, except for "target goals" in hiring and promotion. And it wasn't "Strategy" either -- because what we saw was just another training class. But that was a long time ago. What I want to summarize now are the lessons I learned then that are still applicable now:- Such training drags us away from "real work." I don't buy that and I never have. Our ability to recognize, understand and relate to customers and colleagues IS "real work." We need to come to terms with this, and have that knowledge periodically refreshed. At NASA, the job was to "sell technology" to the American public, and to the world. It isn't now, nor has it ever been, to have our heads down over our desks, just handling our own small piece of things. It's real work if it contributes to the mission. (If you don't have a mission, well, that's another thing.)
- Who's willing to take personal responsibility for a lack of diversity, or a diverse but ineffective workplace? It's like, "hey, I just work here, I never screwed anyone myself, why should I be made to bear this burden?" My response, which has been shown to generate little enthusiasm among white males I have worked with: "because we are products of a racist system and as such have benefited from it." We all have to come to terms with that knowledge as well. Our job security and satisfaction are purchased from society and carried on the backs of others.
- Several people in my organization for whom English was a second language brought up the subject of poor English speakers in the workplace. Each of them, having started at LeRC as poor English speakers themselves, agreed that they were open to being asked to repeat or clarify what they say. They took ownership of problems of communication as their own both as speakers and listeners. Nearly everyone I mentioned this to later was touched by this display of openness and trust. And some of us felt guilty because of our lack of willingness to take on personal responsibility for making it easier to communicate with our co-workers. We are all of us responsible for communication with each other.
Labels: education
posted by Ron @ 11:05 PM
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1 Comments:
Hi Ron,
Thanks for taking on a bot-button issue. I remember going through those training sessions, too, when I was at Bell Labs. I was involved in planning one of those annual AA programs as well. There were some difficult conversations on all sides, but I agree with you that it's necessary work if you are going to build a competitive team. Given the role that countries such as China and India are now playing in the global economy, I think that people who are attuned to the competitive marketplace recognize that diversity matters. Caring about these issues for social justice reasons and not just for economic gain -- that's a harder sell.
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