What is the difference between diversity and multiculturalism?
While multiculturalism focuses on understanding cultural
differences, diversity has a more tangible aim: to recognize
that people are different and to build effective communities
out of these differences and potential conflicts (not despite
of them).
More so than multiculturalism, diversity can be called an
industry. Within this industry are diversity trainers, diversity
coaches and diversity consultants; one can study online through
the Diversity Training University International (yet many
consultants and trainers do hold PhD’s in education);
and many organizations, recognizing the trends of workforce
demographics, employ the expertise of trained diversity professionals
as a way of adapting to the changing realities of the workforce.
Employers can no longer hire people of the same race, gender
and nationality and expect to be a leader in their industry.
Take a look of Longo Toyota in Los Angeles. Buyers of all
nationalities and races – many of whom are immigrants
- do business with this dealership where the staff speaks
more than 20 languages and dialects, from Arabic to Vietnamese
to Punjabi.
How successful is this strategy? The dealership came in
first on industry tracker Ward's 2004 list of top-selling
dealerships, and last year sold an average of 56 cars and
trucks every day.
Other car dealers target the region's growing base of immigrant
and minority customers, but no dealer has done so on Longo's
scale. Two-thirds of Longo Toyota's managers are minorities,
a record unmatched by many large corporations with affirmative
action programs. Many of the supervisors are also immigrants.
As writer Peter Y. Hong states in the LA Times, “Longo
Toyota looks every bit like a bulwark of suburban consumerism,
and not at all like an agent of social change. The look fits.
Longo Toyota was integrated not by social engineering, but
the invisible hand of the market.”
The dealership has no affirmative action program. Its staff
simply evolved to serve its customers. Longo’s president,
Greg Penske, saw a way to capitalize on the demographic shifts
in his market and started to build up Longo's bilingual staff
in 1987, placing ads in Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Spanish
and Farsi.
"A lot of people in business don't like change. I love
change, " he told the LA Times. "I saw it coming
and I went after it."
While Longo is a story of business success as a result of
capitalizing on diversity, it does not reveal the complexity
in how a group of racially and culturally diverse people
establishes ways to communicate with each other.
Diversity brings increased opportunity, yes, and also increased
challenges, for the very point of diversity is that people
will have different points of view about how to solve problems
and complete tasks. In an organization where people from
different cultural backgrounds are employed, it is likely
that diversity-related problems are either waiting to happen
or exist under the surface. The increased number of multi-million
dollar harassment and discrimination lawsuits reveal attest
to this.
This is where diversity trainers, consultants and specialists
come in: the ubiquitous diversity industry.
Since the 1980’s, workshops and training seminars
dealing with race have multiplied exponentially, yet none
more so than diversity training.
Melvin T. Williams, a black accountant who decided that
he had to do something about changing how he saw white co-workers
treat people of color, started Delphi Consulting Group Inc.,
one of the first diversity training businesses in the early
80’s.
Later in the decade, in 1987, the Hudson Institute, a conservative
think tank commissioned by the US Department of Labor to
study workplace demographic shifts, published Workforce 2000.
This report predicted that by 2000, only about 15 percent
of those entering the workforce would by white native-born
males. Diversity training was triggered on a national scale
as organizations realized that this would not just change
the workforce, but also the makeup of consumers.
Daisy Hernandez, from Color Lines Magazines, writes: “Within
the corporate sector, diversity is often talked about as
a resource and source of profit, if managed right. Diversity
training is seen as a means to a stronger team, organization
and product.”
Bringing in the professionals
Many organizations hire diversity professionals to resolve
a conflict between co-workers and/or supervisors; to develop “intercultural” awareness;
to prepare employees for foreign country work; to prepare
the organization for increased racial, cultural and gender
diversity and to provide training for managers within the
organization.
Rohm and Haas Texas Inc., a Houston based chemical company,
wanted to become more effective by “cross-pollinating” employee
ideas, values and perspectives. To do this, it designed employee
teams comprised of individuals who held diverse roles within
the production process. Yet, as it discovered, the diversity
that makes teams so successful can also create roadblocks
and become dysfunctional.
What the company discovered was that, instead of accepting
their new team assignments, Rohm & Haas employees started
to naturally migrate to teams composed of members which
whom they felt they had more in common. Often, these were
drawn along racial or cultural lines, as well as age, gender,
religion, and even differences in communication styles.
This was a slow and subtle process, yet within three years
the original-member teams were replaced by teams with like-minded
members. The difference of experience and perspective the
company hoped to gain was lost as the teams increasingly
became more homogenous.
Realizing that the deliberate reorganization of teams signaled
deeper problems, the company introduced diversity-awareness
training. Working with an external diversity trainer, Rohm & Haas
set-up awareness seminars funded by the HR department. The
training emphasized that, while homogeneous team members
will come up with quick, easy solutions because members think
alike, innovative solutions can only come from teams in which
members view things differently. It therefore benefits the
company when employees – in all levels of the organization – can
handle diversity and understand that people see the world
differently.
Was the training for Rohm & Hass successful? The company
polled every employee immediately after the workshops, and
then again six weeks later. The data was consistent: employees
viewed the initiative as positive.
What will a diversity trainer do?
Diversity education is an ongoing process, and it takes
work to draw out the benefits. Each trainer or organization
has it’s own specific method.
The Diversity Training University International’s
philosophy is based on the Socratic teaching method, the
focus being on asking the student insightful questions to
ponder, rather than seek particular answers.
Another approach, used by the National Conference for Community
and Justice, is designed in the form of an interactive “privilege
walk.” In this, participants line up and take steps
forward or back by answering questions. Having gone to college,
for example, might be two steps forward.
Personal storytelling, discussions, role-playing, and exercises
in which members list their expectations of each other are
other techniques used in diversity workshops.
A specific criticism levied against the diversity industry
is that, by operating and accepting the goal of ‘getting
along,’ training sessions can degenerate into ‘band-aid’ solutions
that fail to acknowledge the subtler dimensions of diversity.
At the same time, diversity practitioners are conducting
work within institutions that are profoundly effecting people’s
lives.
While diversity training certainly can’t be expected
to do it all, it does provides a good model and starting
point for discussion of understanding differences and self-awareness.
And, as the saying goes: it is better to do something, then
nothing at all. Diversity issues are only going to increase
as the population changes and demographics related to our
communities, our workforce and the marketplace inevitably
shift.
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