Diversity Dialogue

December 2004 • PUBLISHED FOR THE DIVERSITY PEG OF THE NATIONAL SPEAKERS ASSOCIATION

From the Editor:

This fall, I inquired about submitting an article to the Diversity PEG newsletter. Little did I imagine where that would lead. Our new Diversity PEG chair, Ted Chambley, had a proposition for me.

So here I am, a relative newcomer to NSA, but a fan already because of the warmth and generosity extended to me, especially by my own Colorado Chapter members. Ted’s specialties are performance management and customer service. I could swear he’s got a graduate degree in sales.

My goals for the newsletter are to resume quarterly publication with articles and information that contribute to and enhance the work of Diversity PEG members. Suggested guidelines for submission are found at the end of this newsletter.

With holidays upon us, we start this issue with my own article on religious diversity. Then, Amy Tolbert describes an assessment tool she co-authored to “jump start” diversity education. Victor Gray contributes his insights on generational diversity in an article previously published in the Institute of Management Journal. Susan Keane Baker announces a multi-language health history form for dentists. At the end, I pose questions for you. Your answers will guide coming issues of this newsletter.

Let me know if I can answer your questions. If you are interested in sharing your expertise, please send articles! I look forward to getting to e-know more of you.

Jody Alyn

jody@bethechange.biz

www.bethechange.biz

The religious landscape of the U.S. has changed. Whatever our faith tradition, many of us are becoming more religious. Islamic mosques, Hindu and Buddhist temples and other centers of worship are intermingled with churches and synagogues in many major cities. A 2004 Pew Center survey on religion and public life found 18 different religious groups that were large and distinct enough to matter in the presidential election. Ten of these groups were white and Christian.

Good diversity practices include all people and all groups. Yet “not all differences are created equal.” Racial and religious tensions may be the biggest threat to our communities and our world today.

Religious discrimination is one of the fastest-growing complaint areas for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The nature of these complaints is expanding. Hate crimes are on the rise. How do we, as professional speakers, contribute to a process of engagement among these many different groups so that we both honor differences and build a shared workplace and society?

The workplace answer starts with a written policy that includes personal days that can be used for any reason, flexible time for prayer, zero tolerance for any religious bias, and a clear process to hear and address concerns. Once that is in place, then the difference between a person’s right to their individual beliefs and their workplace responsibility to recognize others, cooperate respectfully and get the job done must be plainly defined.

The speaker answer starts with acute self-awareness and unwavering commitment to serving our diverse audiences. We must look closely at ourselves and our content to balance individual beliefs with platform responsibilities.

An accomplished professional NSA member rose to introduce the next guest at the chapter meeting. After listing the guest’s many professional accomplishments, this member said, “and now let me say publicly, in front of everyone, that I know God brought her to me and I thank God for her presence in my life.”

The guest speaker talked about 20 years of accomplishment in her management field and listed lessons of value to those wanting to improve their business. Perhaps inspired by the introduction she’d been given, the speaker concluded her speech with a personal story about an earlier point in her life when she asked God, on the Christian Bible, for a sign that she was headed in the right direction and received what she felt was a direct answer.

To those who shared the speakers’ faith tradition (currently estimated at 20 – 25% of the U.S. population), these comments might seem not only appropriate, but inspiring. However, those who do not share that faith may feel themselves suddenly excluded by the reference. If we apply workplace principles to our speaking practice, we can see that the right to individual beliefs on the part of these speakers collided with the responsibility to recognize that others in the audience might not share those beliefs.

This does not mean we never share stories from our own faith traditions. It does mean that we choose stories to fit our topic, benefit our audiences and meet the clients’ goals. The speaker might have prefaced her story with something like, “My background is in the Christian faith, and that’s where I turn when desperation overtakes me. I expect most of you will relate in some way to what happened next, whatever your source of inspiration.” This type of acknowledgement maintains connection with the broader audience by honoring differences.

Religious beliefs and practices differ greatly between groups. Those who don’t subscribe to a religion, or even a deity, also have a broad range of beliefs. However, almost every philosophical view and religion agree that people, as humans, have equal rights to decency, compassion and respect. It’s called the “ethic of reciprocity”. Perhaps the best way to honor the distinctive identities of our different groups is to openly own and practice the ethical principles that we have in common.

Best Practices

The winter holidays are here. It may be a good time to find out what religions are represented in your workplace and community. How are your employees, coworkers, constituents, audiences, clients, customers or students included by the things you say and do?

When you decorate an office, plan a celebration or prepare public remarks, consider recognizing the variety of winter traditions in the United States. For some, the holiday season is a time of celebration and feasting. For others, it is a time of contemplation and fasting. Even within a “majority”, there are differences that affect how your message is received. (Example: Many Christians hold Christmas as the holiest of days and find the commercial aspects disrespectful. Others enjoy an almost secular celebration of Santa and snowmen. Snowpeople. Christmas celebrations—even the dates it’s observed—differ among cultures and nationalities, and some Christians like Jehovah’s Witnesses do not celebrate at all.)

Formerly diversity coordinator for City government in a town once called “ground zero in the culture wars”, Jody just launched an e-newsletter for diversity leaders. Check it out at: http://www.bethechange.biz/home#signup.

Discovering Diversity: Setting Your Participants Up …For Success! By Amy S. Tolbert, PhD

Have you ever wondered what you could do as a diversity facilitator to break down barriers before your training session started? Do you need powerful pre-work as a set-up? How about a self-assessment for participants to complete?

As a diversity educator, I am often looking for new tools, ideas, and assessments to “jump-start” the education process. I want these tools to provide depth and breadth… to help us increase the effectiveness of individuals and, ultimately, the profitability of organizations. To that end, I co-developed the DISCOVERING DIVERSITY

PROFILE. This Profile is one of the only statistically valid and reliable diversity self-assessments available to practitioners. It’s part of the Inscape Publishing instrumented-learning tools.

The Discovering Diversity Profile (DDP) is a specific business-building tool for designing diversity education that affects one’s influence in the workplace. And, the best news is, dealing with diversity challenges doesn’t have to take weeks out of your clients’ already over-stuffed schedule.

Evidence suggests that diverse teams, with good working relationships, outperform homogeneous teams. The DDP is designed primarily for organizations and individuals who are interested in developing interpersonal relations between people of different backgrounds and cultures. This 80-item instrument takes about 30 minutes to complete and helps draw out knowledge, feelings, and understanding of the various human qualities basic to people with whom we work.

This Profile is intended to be used as part of a full-day or half-day diversity awareness seminar. A scripted seminar (created to accompany the profile) addresses the following key topics:

Diversity Awareness

Why should I be learning about diversity?

Where do I stand on diversity issues? (A personal self-assessment which includes completing the instrument in about one hour)

Perceptions

Managing Diversity in Your Life

Personal Action Plan for Development

The self-scored Profile measures an individual’s opinions and attitudes about workforce diversity in four areas: Knowledge (comprised of Stereotypes and Information); Understanding (comprised of Awareness and Empathy); Acceptance (comprised of Receptiveness and Respect) and Behavior (comprised of Self-Awareness and Interpersonal Skills).

The interpretation section of the Profile provides feedback on the respondent’s comfort level in the above areas and offers suggestions for improvement. Participants are then encouraged to develop a personal action plan to make the commitment to shifting perceptions and actions where appropriate. In pilot tests and train-the-trainer

sessions, participants felt that the results were accurate, the feedback provided insights and the learning was useful in diversity/personal development.

The DDP may be used as part of diversity awareness training sessions or in-depth training for diversity councils or task forces. It is also useful within work teams for team-building and development, with managers to assist in the coaching process and in community-building efforts where developing diverse perspectives is a goal.

By using a variety of tools to enhance our work, diversity professionals build competence, confidence and success. The DDP is a unique tool worthy of consideration as an essential in your diversity tool box!

Amy S. Tolbert is a principal of Effecting Creative Change in Organizations (ECCO International) and adjunct faculty at the University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management. She is author of the book, Reversing the Ostrich Approach to Diversity: Pulling Your Head out of the Sand and co-authored the “Discovering Diversity Profile” and the “Integrating Diversity Profile,” which assesses key areas for organizational diversity efforts. Amy will also present at the NSA Diversity PEG meeting in Atlanta (July, 2005). She can be reached at AmyTolbert@eccointernational.com or www.eccointernational.com.

Action Steps to Generational Diversity by Victor Gray

Revised and reprinted from MRA Institute of Management Journal, October 2004 with permission of the author. Selected content reprinted with permission from The Pfeiffer Library, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

When we think of diversity, our attention is often drawn to those characteristics which are most visibly obvious—gender, age and ethnic heritage.

The reality of today’s workplace and our business environments suggests, however, that much of the diversity that we must be sensitive to is, in fact, “invisible.” It cannot be easily detected or known in advance of our interactions with a particular person or group.

Values, both those we bring with us from our family of origin and those that we obtain through our socialization as members of society, are significant contributors to workplace diversity.

First, we need to recognize that we, as leaders, have certain values which influence and affect our view of the world, as well as our view of the people we work with and provide leadership to. While our values help define who we are, they can, at the same time, create unintentional “blind spots”.

Second, we need to be aware that generational values can have a significant impact on motivational factors with those we lead.

Industrial psychologist, Morris Massey, in his theory of values acquisition, proposes that values are programmed into each person. Massey says that programming begins around age ten. This is the age at which people integrate the cultural, family, media, and global influences around them. Massey also says that by examining the values and ideas that existed when a person was ten years old, one can fairly accurately predict what kinds of values that person will hold throughout life.

Massey developed his model of Value Programming Analysis by studying groups of people. In each group, the members were about the same age. Massey noticed that people who were near in age tended to hold similar values and world views, and he hypothesized that this was because they were imprinted at approximately the same time.

Massey found that people “. . . locked in on their basic gut-level values” at around age ten; this is the age when children truly begin absorbing the stimuli and messages of the world around them. Because groups of people were influenced in the same general way, programmed through the same activities, events, and experiences, we may look at a group and understand why particular clusters of employees in the workplace react as they do. If we can determine the basic core values held by the majority of the group because of their similarities in programming experiences, then we can gain a better understanding of what employees want from organizations and leaders.

Definitions of Today’s Generations (Howe & Strauss)

Generation’s Name	Years of Birth	Age in 2004
G.I. Generation	1901-1924	80-103
Silent Generation	1925-1942	62-79
Baby Boomers	1943-1960	44-61
Generation X	1961-1981	23-43
Generation Y	1982-2002	22 and younger

According to Dr. Carol Martin and Bruce Tulgan, in their book, Winning the Talent Wars, the action steps that leaders should take to make our workplaces more desirable are as follows:

• Silent Generation

1. Leaders should respectfully assert authority and demonstrate their own track records.

2. Teach Silents in a safe environment and engage them as teachers.

3. When Silents retire, re-hire them as part-time project leaders and coaches.

• Baby Boomers

1. Leaders should become coaches who facilitate, not dictate.

2. Offer Boomers flexibility, authority and respect.

3. Challenge Boomers to keep growing (in their own way).

• Generation X

1. Leaders should always be answering the GenX question: “What’s the deal?”

2. Manage Xers with coaching-style, fast feedback and credit for results.

3. Push Xers to keep learning “just-in-time” for every new mission.

• Generation Y

1. Leaders should get to know Gen Yers’ capabilities and put them in roles that push their limits.

2. Treat them as professional colleagues and they will act like professionals.

3. Keep Yers focused with speed, customization and interactivity.

In order to get the best from every employee, leaders should ask themselves, When was this individual “value programmed?” Considering the factors that influenced their upbringing may be important in how we choose to motivate them and in turn how they perform.

Victor Gray is a speaker, trainer and coach specializing in leadership and diversity. He can be reached at victor@fearlessleadershipinstitute.com or http://www.fearlessleadershipinstitute.com.

Announcements:

My name is Susan Keane Baker and I am a member of NSA. I am writing [to inform you of] a resource that could be provided free for members of the Diversity PEG.

The University of California and MetLife Dental have partnered to create a multi-language health history form for dentists to use when caring for patients who speak different languages. The history form is a standardized form, so a dentist who speaks Spanish, but is visited by a patient who speaks only Farsi can see at a glance how the question was answered by the patient. The health history form has been translated into more than 30 languages. The information is available free to anyone who visits the metdental.com web site. The idea is that the day that a patient who speaks another language arrives at the dental office, it’s easier to go to the web site and print off the needed language than it is to look for a booklet or CD rom.

The information is available on CD rom though – and one of the things I like on the CD is a listing of often used phrases in English and Spanish, such as “Please rinse your mouth” and “You are a good patient.”

If NSA Diversity PEG members send an email to MetLife, the CD would be sent to them at no charge. Email MetLife at: dentalquality@metlife.com

As President of the Connecticut chapter, I receive a lot of pitches, and look skeptically at most of them. There is no catch here. The University of the Pacific and MetLife would like as many people as possible to know about this, because the medical history is one of the most important parts of a dental visit, in order for safe care to be provided. I know how many people speakers reach and thought this might be of interest to your PEG especially.

Susan Keane Baker CSP

Author, Managing Patient Expectations

susan@susanbaker.com

www.susanbaker.com

D-PEG Q and A:

We welcome your submissions and plan to publish quarterly. If your submission is selected, we will happily provide a link to your website or e-newsletter should you so desire. We want to meet the needs of NSA diversity PEG members so please email answers to these questions (and your articles!) ASAP:

• What was effective about this Diversity PEG newsletter issue (12/04)? • What would make it more effective for you?

• What do you need (topics, tools, resources) from the Diversity PEG newsletter? • What would make you so eager to open this newsletter that you might consider reading it before any other?

Email answers and article submissions to: jody@bethechange.biz

Submission Guidelines:

Articles should promote and generate interest in diversity-related topics. The most effective articles offer practical tips and techniques that can be implemented easily and quickly by speakers at all levels. Some formats that have worked well for other NSA groups:

• Choose a single problem or concern such as a platform-presentation issue or a marketing question and offer three solutions.

• Create a list of quick ideas to address a diversity-related speaking issue. Present them in such a way that the reader can easily manipulate the ideas to meet his/her particular level and need.

It is not the intent of this newsletter to promote specific engagements, books, products or speakers. However, each article will be considered on its own merit for its contributions to the professional advancement, skill or integrity of Diversity PEG members.