As we have seen in the previous blog (exploring diversity), diversity is very important and we can see that it is present in many aspects in our life. We have seen the different kind of diversities that we can find (gender, age, religion, etc).
Now we are going to study how these differences can affect our work and how can we manage them in order to obtain benefits instead of problems. Since we will focus on the diversities at work we will have to recognize that there are other kinds of differences that we can find. We will see workforce diversity (diversity in the recruitment, development, etc), workplace diversity (organizational insights, work/life integration, council and affinity groups, etc), and marketplace diversity (industry partnerships, supplier diversity, franchise diversity, etc).
We should not mix the concept of management diversity with trying to give equal opportunities to everybody. The latter can bring problems that could even reinforce the differences. Managing diversity is about recognizing that there are differences but positively dealing with them.
An effective management of the diversity can be a very important source of competitive advantages in aspects such as costs, resources acquisition, marketing, creativity and problem solving, flexibility and change management. These advantages would lead to benefits like higher creativity in the decision making process, better understanding and serving of customers, more satisfied workforce, lower litigation expenses (due to lower legal problems), leading finally to an overall higher company performance.
Let’s think for example in a marketing group composed by a diverse group of four people, two men and two women form different ages and cultural background. They can think in several different options for promoting a product and in this way the campaign would attract a bigger share of the market than another campaign directed by a homogeneous group. Nevertheless this case would be successful only with an efficient management of diversity (if not the result could be just the fights and differences of opinions between the group).
But it is not easy to achieve this good management level. It has to go through some difficult challenges. Similarity attraction phenomenon for example is very common. It is the tendency of getting related with those who are similar. This phenomenon can lead to several problem making a group of those with similarities and maybe excluding the different people, it can prevents highly qualified individuals that are different to enter the organization or to feel comfortable in it. Faultlines (an attribute that divides the group into subgroups) is another challenge that can reduce the cohesion of a team. Finally another big challenge to face are the well known stereotypes, that can conclude in hostile relations or the inexistence of those relations due to prejudices for a specific person with specific values or traditions.
It is not easy but is extremely important to surpass these challenges in order to obtain all the benefits mentioned above. So if understanding the differences of a diverse world is important, it is equally important to know how to manage them in order to take all the advantages that it can bring us.
References:
Class presentation
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