Diversity

"In embracing the diversity of human beings, we will find a surer way to be happy" (Gladwell, 2006)

It is so much easier to communicate and collaborate with people who agree with us or are at least willing to listen to our opinions and perspectives without argument or disagreement. Yet, we cannot simply exclude those who disagree with us from our lives. Often, they are family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and people we supervise or who supervise us. At times, they may even be the same person, on our side on certain topics and strongly "against" us on others. At other times they may be individuals with whom we must work closely for short periods of time. As a non-tenured beginning faculty at a university there were often senior faculty who did not agree with me (Barrera) or see things as I did. I wanted to keep my job; at the same time I did not want to lose my voice. The tension between these two goals inspired the early development of Skilled Dialogue. I wondered if it was possible to honor my own views without disregarding others that seemed to contradict them.

Were most of your words negative or positive? Were words like "enriching" or "connecting" on your list of words? Why or why not?

Diversity of perspectives, opinions, beliefs or values all too often tends to be associated more with division and diminishment than with connection and enrichment. Yet, how we respond to diversity in any given interaction is more the function of how we understand it than of the presence of differences. Two aspects in particular are important to the understanding of diversity: what we believe to be its nature and what we believe are its roots or source. How we address these can determine whether our dialogue with others is skilled enough to enrich and connect us across our differences or not.

The nature of diversity

Diversity is commonly thought of as an objective attribute. In reality, however, diversity is a relational attribute. That is, it does not exist within a person (e.g., this or that person is diverse) but rather lives in the relational space between persons (e.g., that person is diverse from me).

People (or communities) can only be diverse in reference to a designated group or individual who is also of necessity diverse from them. A man, for example, would be considered diverse (in regard to his gender) in comparison to a woman or group of women. On the other hand, he would not be considered similarly diverse in comparison to another man or group of men. "In a galaxy, the space between two flickering stars ... contains a gravitational pull that shapes their relationship" (Shapiro, 2017, p. 9). Anagolously, it is how people perceive and experience the differences between them that consequently shapes their relationship.

It is only in relationships that diversity's riches can be unleashed and harvested. Diversity is not about "that" person(s) independently of who is interacting with that person; it is and can only be about that person(s) in relation to another. Naming another as diverse simultaneously also names as diverse those who are doing the naming. That is, when I name an individual or group as diverse I am simultaneously also naming myself as diverse (from them). My own views and beliefs become diverse as I encounter views and beliefs different from my own. Diversity is, thus, never about who they are; it is about who we are.

Sources of diversity.

There are, of course, many sources of diversity, not all of which are of similar importance. Some are relatively unimportant, presenting little if any challenge to either communication or collaboration. What foods you eat or whether you believe strongly in set bedtimes for children, for example, makes little or no significant impact on communication or collaboration outside of specific contexts (e.g., if we're planning a joint dinner party or if as a teacher I believe set bedtimes are critical to children's abilities to concentrate).

Other differences, however, have a much stronger impact on communication and collaboration. These are differences that, typically, tend to be associated with social markers such as culture, ethnicity, religion, or lifestyle. These larger differences are typically assumed to be reliable markers of challenges to communication and collaboration. They are not, however, the reliable indicators of diversity's challenges that we believe them to be. While I may be from one culture and you from another we may, for example, have few other salient differences. We may speak the same language, have similar occupations, belong to the same church and participate in the same social activities. On the other hand, we may have the same cultural affiliation yet find significant interpersonal differences disrupting our communication and collaboration. I may, for example, adhere to the traditional values and practices of a culture while you may hold to that same cultural affiliation yet hold values and practices less in conformity with its traditional values and practices. Or, we may belong to different religions and hold very different values.

The authors have found that several sources of differences tend to be more reliable predictors of challenges to communication and collaboration than simple cultural affiliations and other similar external markers (Barrera, Corso, and Macpherson, 2003). They are, consequently, the sources that Skilled Dialogue addresses: funds of knowledge, sense of self, and perceptions and understandings of power.

Funds of knowledge. The first major source of diversity is differences in funds of knowledge; that is, in the knowledge a person brings to specific interactions, particularly that knowledge they believe factual. This knowledge may or may not be directly tied to culture, religion, gender or other such markers. When there are unacknowledged or unrecognized differences between people in the knowledge they believe essential to operate in and make sense of the world, the likelihood of miscommunication and failed collaboration is high regardless of differences in gender, cultural affiliation, religion, or other such categories.

All of us have built funds of knowledge composed of the information we have acquired about (a) the nature of the world around us (e.g., cooperative or not, containing abundant resources or only limited resources); (b) how it works (e.g., what signals opportunity and what does not);...