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World Class Diversity Management: A Strategic Approach - Hardcover

Thomas, R. Roosevelt

 
9781605094502: World Class Diversity Management: A Strategic Approach
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1605094501 ISBN 13: 9781605094502
Verlag: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

Globalization is transforming the very nature of our business relationships, decision-making processes, and interactions, making world-class diversity management more needed than ever before. But until now, the field of diversity had no established standard for evaluating best practices, or even agreement on fundamental philosophies, principles, and concepts. In this pioneering book, the world’s leading diversity authority proposes a framework that will facilitate the development of a truly world-class standard for diversity management.

R. Roosevelt Thomas begins by laying out his Four Quadrant model, which encompasses all core diversity strategies: managing workforce demographic representation, managing demographic relationships, managing diverse talent, and managing all strategic diversity mixtures. He analyzes the goals, motives, approaches, accomplishments, and challenges associated with each quadrant, as well as the paradigm or mindset that lies behind each quadrant’s express purpose.

Having laid out this broad range of strategies, Thomas shows how to realize them through the Strategic Diversity Management Process™, by far the most effective method for implementation. A detailed case study of CEO Jeff Kilt—a fictional composite of the many executives Thomas has worked with—effectively illustrates the complexities encountered when working with each of the Four Quadrant strategies in the real world.
This book offers a comprehensive blueprint that will enable leaders to address any diversity issue (not just race or gender) in any setting, anywhere in the world. Most important, it proves that a world-class standard of diversity management is indeed a possible and achievable goal.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

R. Roosevelt Thomas, Jr., is CEO of Roosevelt Thomas Consulting & Training, Inc., and is founder and senior research fellow of the American Institute for Managing Diversity. Recognized by the Wall Street Journal as one of the top ten consultants in the country and cited by Human Resource Executive as one of HR’s Most Influential People, he is a sought-after speaker and the author of several books, including Building on the Promise of Diversity, Beyond Race and Gender, and Building a House for Diversity.

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INTRODUCTION

As I begin this introduction, I have been reflecting on previous situations where I have seen accelerated learning and growth through quality dialogue. The situations have been varied, but they have shared one characteristic: Before the discussion began, time was taken to establish a context for the discussion. Often that time was used to establish agreed-upon definitions.

Given the wide variety of perspectives on “diversity” and my experience in working with senior organizational leaders, I propose that we seek some common ground around definitions—if only for the purpose of discussion. Toward this end, I offer a set of definitions for the diversity-related terms that I have used throughout the book.

BASIC DEFINITIONS

Below are definitions that will make the reading of the book more enjoyable and profitable:

Diversity— the differences and similarities, and related tensions and complexities, that can characterize mixtures of any kind. When you speak of diversity, you are describing a characteristic of a collection or mixture of some kind, such as employees, customers, vendors, functions, organizational participants in an acquisition or merger, citizens, family members, or congregants in a religious setting.

This means that when you talk of a group’s diversity, you have to specify the dimension. In the United States, when someone says a group is “diverse,” he typically means with respect to race, gender, or ethnicity. In reality, the dimension possibilities are enormous, thus the need to specify.

In addition, with diversity (differences and similarities) come tensions and complexities. The greater the diversity, the greater the likelihood of tension and complexity.

Diversity tension— the stress and strain that come from the interaction and clashing of differences and similarities.

Complexity— that which makes something difficult to explain.

Diversity management— the ability to make quality decisions in the midst of any set of differences and similarities and related tensions and complexities.

Complexity management— the ability to make quality decisions in the midst of factors that make something difficult to explain.

Capability— the wherewithal to think through diversity issues of any kind in pursuit of quality decisions that support an entity’s overarching objectives. A critical assumption is that the individual or organization (represented by its leaders and managers) can be the actor.

Achieving this wherewithal requires understanding and operationalizing concepts, principles, theories, and paradigms; developing and mastering skills and competencies; and sustaining a high level of craftsmanship through continuous learning and introspection.

WORLD-CLASS DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT

Defined

Practicing World-Class Diversity Management means operating at a level that is the best in the world with respect to diversity management. At a minimum, it suggests the use of state-of-the-art strategies and approaches for addressing any diversity issue in any setting in any geographical location.

Achieving this status doesn’t require an enterprise to operate beyond its country’s borders. It might practice diversity management at a world-class level within its community, state, regional, or national boundaries. The determining factor would be that the quality of its practices cannot be beaten anywhere in the world.

Consider the realm of baseball. The “World Champion” New York Yankees may never play a team from outside the United States; yet, because of their understanding—rightly or not—that United States baseball is the best in the world, they can claim that winning the World Series entitles them to say, “We are world champions.” As the quality of professional baseball outside the United States grows in perceived excellence, World Series winners will not be able to claim “We are the best in the world” without engaging in some competition to prove that point.

With respect to diversity management, we still have to define the game and then determine what it means to play at a world-class level. To date, practitioners and managers have expressed relatively little interest in establishing and pursuing the standards that would allow us to do that.

Writing on the meaning of World-Class Diversity Management has brought to mind my first encounter with World-Class Manufacturing and Total Quality Management (TQM) in the mid-eighties, when the emphasis was on achieving world-class status in manufacturing. One of our first diversity clients placed great stock in being world class. The company viewed world class as the gold standard against which any self-respecting manufacturing organization must mea sure itself. As this company expanded its global manufacturing operations, its managers found that being competitive required familiarity with the best philosophies and practices of TQM and other manufacturing philosophies and tools. This was true for other corporations with global operations and for some with domestic sites only.

This reality led our client to send groups of its managers to attend seminars on different manufacturing approaches, to visit the sites of enterprises that advocated innovative strategies, to invite leading practitioners to tour and assess their facilities, and to devour books on various methodologies—TQM and others. Our clients and other corporations did make significant progress toward world-class status and touted that progress widely internally and externally.

As we began our diversity management work with the organization, its representatives told us that they wanted to be world class in diversity as well as in manufacturing. Given the embryonic nature of diversity at that time, we could not guarantee that our offer was world class. We were comfortable, however, in saying that our approach had the potential to become world class. We also gained credibility by relating our diversity approach to the company’s World-Class Manufacturing practices and philosophies.

My point here is that being world class had become a way of life for our clients wherever they operated a manufacturing facility in the world. As these manufacturing managers interacted with global functions, they often cited manufacturing philosophies and principles. The notion of world class had become ingrained in them.

The diversity field has not progressed to this point. We in the field have neither established what world class is nor specified how it might be achieved. Further, we lack agreement on our most fundamental philosophies, principles, and concepts, as well as consensus as to what best practices are. Indeed, it is not clear that we want to be world class. Some feeling exists that because the field is diversity, practitioners should be diverse (fragmented) in their thinking.

Requirements

Several elements must be in place if we are to establish and achieve world-class status in the diversity arena. These include the following:

Universal philosophies. We must have sets of universal theories, principles, concepts, and frameworks that can be applied to any type of diversity mixture at any geographic location. Aspirants to world-class stature need universal tools as a basis for world capability and applicability. Such tools are not currently readily available in the diversity arena. This book is intended to be a step toward filling that gap.

An approach that fosters ease of comparison, discussion, and analysis across the globe. This data gathering capability will be key to establishing the meaning of World-Class Diversity Management. Diversity means different things to people in different countries. This can...

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Verlag
Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Erscheinungsdatum
2010
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1605094501
ISBN 13 
9781605094502
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
312
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Berrett-Koehler
https://www.dc.com/tv

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