As mentioned in response to one of Fred H. Schliegel‘s always thought-provoking comments, to a recent post, much of what has been written here over the past few months has had three purposes. One is to relate the topic at hand to its application at work; another is to consider the manner in which it is understood and manipulated by those of us who think about or attempt to act upon it; and the third is to offer a look at it with respect to its place in current events – especially political and social events particularly, but not exclusively, in the United States.
This can be difficult to do, of course, in a basically brief format like this. For example, a recent post about diversity attracted some interesting responses, both in the comment thread and directly. Most of them seemed to assume that the point of the post had to do with diversity as determined by ethnicity, race, gender, or similarly distinguishable characteristics. Many of these are highly charged politically, and thoroughly legislated (or, at least, litigated). But none of them were the principle subject of the post.
These forms of diversity and the issues that arise around them certainly can be contentious and warrant mature attention by management. But they are both largely a defensive issue and a most unfortunate one. Distinctions like these, as well as related ones such as nationality, creed, and the like, are the least important ones in a dynamic organization. That is to say that they, in and of themselves, are not necessarily productive, creatively conflicting, or inherently contributive to the progress of the business. They are an issue for reasons unrelated to their presence (or absence) in the organization itself.
The important and valuable forms of diversity needed by a business – and often most vigorously and successfully resisted – are those related to differences in personality, values, artistic or intellectual inclinations, trained skills, native ability, and even character traits such as energy, attentiveness, insularity or gregariousness.
One of the things the referred to post attempted to argue, largely ineptly, was that we need the second form of diversity, but will attain it neither by seeking it directly, nor by seeking the first form. Our attempts to attain the first form are largely a response to the requirements of the greater society, not of the business. If we forget that, and presume that we will successfully use our organization to achieve societal aims, or to attain the benefits of the second form of diversity, we are likely not merely to fail in those efforts, but to exacerbate the shortcomings we hope to relieve.
That is a conundrum faced by managers of all types at all levels, in business, not-for-profit, and government. We have requirements that are legitimately imposed on us from without, and that have no obvious relation to the needs of our organizations. But our failure to fulfill them can create that relation in a more-or-less negative fashion. And then, our efforts to remove the controversy from the issue by responding mechanically or according to a template of one sort or another can run the risk of generating unintended organizational entropy, rather than the intended synergy.
Like many issues in management, managers are left to sort out a wide range of matters of varying degrees of organizational relevance, any one of which’s relevance can dramatically alter according to how it is, or is perceived to have been, sorted out.
So, what to do? The fundamental point of the previous diversity post is that you should focus on the strategic aim, operational goals, and consequent values of the organization, and let the diversity form of its own accord around these weight-bearing columns of the group structure. This will help produce sustainably creative complementarity, rather than the sort of rigid and fundamentally irrelevant diversity that so often is actually self-destructive.
Tomorrow, we’ll take a brief look at another aspect of this issue. As always, your thoughts are welcome; stentorian proclamations of The Truth perhaps rather more warmly.
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Today’s tip: Cultural Offering has recently passed the important milestone of two years of continuous publishing of endlessly fascinating and rewarding material. Please help him celebrate by visiting – doing so will doubtless become an eagerly sought-after milestone in your daily reading.
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