HRM textbook

58 PART 1 INTRODUCTION
FIGURE 2-6 What the
Manager Can Do to Overcome
Barriers to Inclusion
Inclusive Strategies
[T]]Personal Level
Barriers to Inclusion
Source: Norma Carr-Ruffino, Making
Diversity Work (Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Pearson Education, 2005), p. 104.
Become aware of prejudice and other
barriers to valuing diversity
Learn about other cultures and groups
Serve as an example, walk the talk
Participate in managing diversity
Stereotypes, prejudices
Past experiences and influences
Stereotyped expectations and perceptions
Feelings that tend to separate, divide
Interpersonal Level
Facilitate communication and interactions
in ways that value diversity
Encourage participation
Share your perspective
Facilitate unique contributions
Resolve conflicts in ways that value diversity
Accept responsibility for developing
common ground
Cultural differences
Group differences
Myths
Relationship patterns based on exclusion
Organizational Level
All employees have access to networks
and focus groups
All employees take a proactive role in
managing diversity and creating a more
diverse workplace culture
All employees are included in the inner
circle that contributes to the bottom-line
success of the company
All employees give feedback to teams
and management
All employees are encouraged to
contribute to change
Individuals who get away with
discriminating and excluding
A culture that values or allows exclusion
Work structures, policies, and practices
that discriminate and exclude
Developing a Multicultural Consciousness
In July 2009, after a heated exchange on his doorstep in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
police arrested Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., a nationally known African-American
Harvard professor, for disorderly conduct. Professor Gates initially accused the police of
racially profiling him. The arresting officer (who his department had appointed as a
trainer to show fellow officers how to avoid racial profiling) denied any racial motives.
President Obama, at a news conference, accused the Cambridge police of using less than
good judgment. Whatever else one can say about the episode, it seems that three people
who should know quite a bit about multicultural consciousness differed dramatically
about how culturally sensitive the other person had been.
Being sensitive to and adapting to individual cultural differences is apparently
easier said than done. Sometimes it s not easy for even the most well-meaning person
to appreciate how people who are different from us may be feeling. This suggests that
it s useful to take steps like these to develop a personal diversity consciousness : 122
1. Take an active role in educating yourself. For example, develop diverse
relationships, and widen your circle of friends.
2. Put yourself in a learning mode in any multicultural setting. For example,
suspend judgment and view the person you re dealing with just as an individual
and in terms of the experiences you ve actually had with him or her.