The December 1, 1997 issue of Business Week included a supplement, which address
ID: 436882 • Letter: T
Question
The December 1, 1997 issue of Business Week included a supplement, which addressed the important issue of Global Diversity. It quoted Ron Baukol, V-P for worldwide operations at 3M, who succinctly and eloquently defined diversity as follows:“It all comes back to a fundamental issue that is the same everywhere: respect and dignity for each human being and the ability of each to express his or her own individuality.”
From an organizational behavior context, diversity really boils down to understanding differences. Individual differences exist and they impact the way we work and how we achieve our goals.
Why should managers take time to understand individual differences in the people with whom they work?
Explanation / Answer
The increasing numbers of people originating from different ethnicities are becoming the changing labor force and consumer market in the US. A commitment to lifelong learning and how to achieve global standards in a worldwide workforce is needed. International peoples are competing for American colleges and jobs as never before. Lifelong learning on the job can help American-born citizens as well as International peoples. It includes running day-to-day workplace operations with an awareness of their own personal and other cultural backgrounds. The experiences of managers, as well as those of workers, clients, and customers, need to be respected. Cultural values and beliefs are important, because they influence the formation of a person's identity. Most vital in this personality development is the native language. Language is part of one's personality. For example, there are concepts in French that cannot be translated into English and do not really exist in other languages and cultures. One of these is a term for a man that means approximately that his relationship with a woman is "less than a husband, but more than a friend" and that is still incorrect. Individual and language-based identity creates the type of manager or supervisor that the person will become. Such a leader must appreciate and understand his own culture as that of his subordinates and coworkers in order to supervise them humanely and receive good results from their work in order to meet company goals. A leader that understands cultural competency has skills in these areas: Self-awareness. Leaders know themselves and their own cultures. They know their own corporate culture. They know the expectations at work for employees and management staff and are able to enforce them. They know the usual workplace etiquette and the chain of command. They also know the rules and regulations. All of these factors help them to know how to interact with others, including bosses, coworkers, subordinates, vendors, and customers. People that consistently cannot interact appropriately are labeled with psychological problems, in America and in other societies. If this is a result of cultural incompetence because of innocent ignorance, then the individual may receive training to alleviate the problem.
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