Diversity, Teams, and Training

The Challenge
One of the great challenges facing organizations is getting all employees,
from the CEO to the hourly workers, to realize that to become the best, they
have to embrace diversity.

Why Must We Embrace Diversity

Diversity is about empowering people. It makes an organization effective by
capitalizing on all the strengths of each employee. It is not EEO or Affirmative
Action. These are laws and policies. While on the other hand, diversity is
understanding, valuing, and using the differences in every person.

Simply enforcing government regulations will not get you to the best. To
obtain that competitive edge you need to create great work teams by using
the full potential of every individual. Teams are much more than a group. A
group is collection of individuals where each person is working towards his or
her own goal, while a team is a collection of individuals working towards a
common team goal or vision. This helps to create a synergy effect with
teams...that is, one plus one equals more than one. An individual, acting
alone, can accomplish much; but a group of people acting together in a
unified force can accomplish great wonders. This is because team members
understand each other and support each other. Their main goal is to see the
team accomplish its mission. Personal agendas do not get in the way of team
agendas. Personal agendas are a huge waste upon an organization's
resources because they do not support its goals.

By using the synergy effect of teams you create a competitive advantage

over other organizations who are using people acting alone. You are getting
more for your efforts!

If team members do not accept others for what they are, they will not be
able to use the abilities of others to fill in their weak areas. Hence, the team
effort will fail. Their only goal becomes the ones on their personal
agendas...to make them as an individual look good while ignoring the needs
of the team and the organization.

Embracing diversity is the first item for building teams. Every team building
theory states that to build a great team, there must be a diverse group of
people on the team, that is, you must avoid choosing people who are only
like you. Choosing people like yourself to be on teams is similar to inbreeding
- it multiplies the flaws. While on the other end of the continuum is having an
assorted group of individuals which diminishes the flaws of others. Diversity
is what builds a team...a team will not be built if every member of the team
does not embrace diversity.

Why Is Embracing Diversity A Challenge?

Our bias and prejudice are deeply rooted within us. From the moment we are
born, we learn about ourselves, our environment, and the world. Families,
friends, peers, books, teachers, idols, and others influence us on what is right
and what is wrong. These early learnings are deeply rooted within us and
shape our perceptions about how we view things and how we respond to
them. What we learn and experience gives us our subjective point of view
known as bias. Our biases serve as filtering devices that allow us to make
sense of new information and experiences based on what we already know.

Many of our bias are good as they allow us to assume that something is true
without proof. Otherwise, we would have to start learning anew on
everything that we do. But, if we allow our bias to shade our perceptions of
what people are capable of, then the bias is harmful. We start prejudging
others on what we think that they cannot do.

When people communicate, they also use these biases or filters. For
example, if you know me as a heavy drinker and I tell you I was in a fight last
night, then you might draw a picture of me in a bar-room brawl. On the other
hand, if you knew me as a boxer and I told you the same thing, then you
would probably visualize me in the boxing ring. Where these bias become
destructive is when we prejudge others.

Simply giving a class on diversity will not erase these bias. Indeed, even the
best training will not erase most of these deeply rooted beliefs. Training can
only help us to become aware of them so that we can make a conciseness
effort to change. Training diversity is more than a two-hour class; it involves
workshops, role models, one-on-ones, etc. But most of all, it involves a heavy
commitment by the organization's leadership. Not only the formal leadership
but also the informal leadership that can be found in almost every
organization.

Embracing diversity is more than tolerating people who are different. It

means actively welcoming and involving them by:

• Developing an atmosphere in which it is safe for all employees to ask

for help. People should not be viewed as weak if they ask for help. This
is what helps to build great teams - joining weakness with strengths to
get the goal accomplished.
• Actively seeking information from people from a variety of
backgrounds and cultures. Also, including everyone on the problem
solving and decision making process.
• Including people who different than you in informal gatherings such as
lunch, coffee breaks, and spur of the moment meetings.
• Creating a team spirit in which every member feels a part of.

Why Do We Need To Become The Best?

If an organization does not take on this challenge, it will soon become extinct
or left far behind. There are too many competitors who are striving to
become the best. They know that customers will not tolerate lackadaisical
service. Those that are the best must continue to fight to be the best or they
will soon be overtaken. You need to strive to be the best in one or more areas
such as the fastest, cheapest, most customer oriented, etc.

Great companies who remain competitive in one or more areas do not sit
around patting themselves on the back, for they know that there are dozens
of others who want to take their place. They do, however, celebrate
accomplishments and achievements. This celebration is important because it
shows the employees what success looks like. When tough goals are only
partly met it is also important to celebrate - setting a difficult goal and not
reaching it is far more important than meeting a mediocre goal. These tough
spots of difficult goals provide learning experiences that cannot be taught in
training classes. And they provide opportunities for leaders to install new
character into their employees...do not let them revert back into old
behaviors!

Although most companies will never become the best at what they aim for,
they must compete to do things better than their competitors. This not only
allows their employees to grow, but also lets their customers know that they
are willing to go out of their way to serve them in their area of expertise.

What Has This To Do With Human Resource

Development (HRD)?
Most problems in the work place are not that people cannot do their jobs. It
is that people cannot get along with other people. People are hired on the
premise that they can perform the job, or with a reasonable amount of
training, be coached into performing the job. Except for some basic courses
about the organization and perhaps a course or two on safety and computer
networking, most training given to new hires involves on-the-job (OJT)
training. Normally, this involves very little effort from HRD as OJT is
conducted by supervisors, leads, peers, etc. Although, HRD should become
more involved in the OJT process, e.g. providing coaching classes for the
trainers and creating training aids. Otherwise, people spend wasted hours in
OJT and do not learn the needed objectives because their trainers have not
received basic training, coaching, and learning skills.

The role that HRD needs to excel in is by making greater efforts in effectively
training the soft skills. This includes such subjects as diversity,
communication, and people skills that allows people to understand each
other and develop good team skills. Every team member must not only be
able to understand and work with all the other team members, but they must
also want to. This should be HRD's number one priority, to build real teams,
not just groups of people with titles called Teams.

What Exactly Does Diversity Include?

Diversity is not only black and white, female and male, homosexual and
heterosexual, Jew and Christian, young and old, etc.; but the diversity of
every individual, slow learner and fast learner, introvert and extrovert,
controlling type and people type, scholar and sports-person, liberal and
conservative, etc. Although it includes gender and racial differences, it goes
beyond that to touch on the fabric of our everyday lives.

This is where HRD needs to focus its efforts...helping people to realize that it
takes a wide variety of people to become the best and that they need to
have the ability to be able to rely on everyone on their team, no matter how
different another person may be. A organization needs controllers, thinkers,
dreamers, doers, strategizers, analyzers, organizers, and team builders to
reach the goals that make an organization the best. It does not need people
fighting and distrusting other team members!
Organizations need an extremely diverse group of people on each and every
team. For example, having a group of team builders will get you nowhere, as
everyone will be out trying to create a team. Likewise, having a group of
doers will get you nowhere as everyone will be trying to accomplish
something without a clear goal or vision to guide them. Most organizations
picture diversity in very limited terms. The essence of diversity should NOT
be to picture diversity as race, religion, sex, age; but to picture it as the
uniqueness that is built into every individual. Only by accepting the
uniqueness of others, will people want to help the team as a whole to
succeed.

How We Tend to Categorize People

Personal Traditional Differences

Worker Characteristics
Characteristics Characteristics
Seniority Sexual orientation Race
Position level Physical status Gender
Experience Ethnic background Age
Union or Non-union Religious background
Salaried or Exempt Club associations
Education Socioeconomic status
Training Place of birth
Culture
Experiences
Married or Single

It is these characteristics and experiences that makes a worker unique.

Diversity occurs when we see all these unique characteristics, and realize
that workers are more valuable because of their differences.

Why Does Culture Matter?

Organizations have to realize that the cultures of the world are their potential
customers. Not too long ago, many business focused on the young and/or
middle age white classes. This was where the money was at. Now, thanks to
great efforts towards recognizing the many facets of diversity and the good
that it brings us, more and more money is starting to be in the hands of
people from a wide range of diverse backgrounds. In order to attract this
wide variety of cultures, organizations must truly become multi-culture
themselves. They can no longer just talk-the-talk, they must also walk-the-
talk. Organizations that only employ "people of their kind" in leadership and
high visibility positions will not be tolerated by people of other cultures.
These cultures will spend their money at organizations that truly believe in
diversity. Embracing diversity has several benefits for the organization:
 • It is the right thing to do.
• To attract good people into their ranks, organizations must take the
moral path. Good organizations attract good people, while bad
organizations attract bad people.
• It helps to build teams which create synergy...you get more for your
efforts.
• It broadens their customer base in a very competitive environment.

What Goals Does HRD Need?

There are two main goals for HRD to achieve. The first is having all leaders
within an organization become visibly involved in programs affecting
organizational culture change and evaluating and articulating policies that
govern diversity. To do so displays leadership that eradicates oppression of
all forms. The result is enhanced productivity, profitability, and market
responsiveness by achieving a dynamic organization and work force. This is
the first goal of HRD, to train the leadership.

The second is inspiring diversity in the work force. Workers want to belong to
an organization that believes in them, no matter what kind of background or
culture they come from. They, like their leadership, want to be productive,
share in the profits, and be a totally dynamic work force. Almost no one sets
out to do wrong. If HRD trains the leadership, this goal will be relatively easy.
It is much easier to train people when they have role models to base their
behaviors on. Also, you will have the backing from the very people who can
support you in your efforts.

How Does One Go About Training Diversity?

The training of diversity is considered a soft skill. Unlike hard skills, soft skills
are relatively hard to evaluate. For example, "Using a calculator, notepad,
and pencil, calculate the number of minutes it will take to produce one
widget." This hard skill is easily measured not only in the classroom, but also
on the job. Now, consider a soft skill, "After the training period the learner
will be able to work with others as a team." This cannot easily be measured
in the classroom. Its true measure must be taken in the workplace, and this
is also difficult to measure. This is because this type of training falls more
under development, rather than training or education. For a quick review of
the three programs of Human Resource Development:

• Training is the acquisition of technology which permits employees to

perform their present job to standards. It improves human performance
on the job the employee is presently doing or is being hired to do.
• Education is training people to do a different job. Unlike training, which
can be fully evaluated immediately upon the learners returning to
 work, education can only be completely evaluated when the learners
move on to their future jobs. We can test them on what they learned
while in training, but we cannot be fully satisfied with the evaluation
until we see how well they perform their new jobs.
• Development is training people to acquire new horizons, technologies,
or viewpoints. It enables leaders to guide their organizations onto new
expectations by being proactive rather than reactive. It enables
workers to create better products, faster services, and more
competitive organizations. It is learning for growth of the individual,
but not related to a specific present or future job. Unlike training and
education, which can be completely evaluated, development cannot
always be fully evaluated. This does not mean that we should abandon
development programs, as helping people to grow and develop is what
keeps an organization in the forefront of competitive environments.

Soft skills often look as if they might fit within all three terms. Using the team
training example, we see that it has these characteristics:

• Training - it will be used to increase performance on the present job,

that is, being able to perform as a team member.
• Education - it will be used to increase performance in a different job,
instead of being a group member, the learner will become a team
member.
• Development - it will be used to acquire a new viewpoint so that the
organization can become more competitive.

It is this vagueness with soft skills that make them so hard to train. Are we
training, educating, or developing? It does mainly fall under development
however because it is difficult to measure - how do you evaluate "works as a
team member." In order to prove that our training is effective, we must be
able to evaluate it. We have no way of knowing if the learning objectives
were met if we cannot measure the task being used on the job, hence, we
have no way of knowing if our training is of any value to the company

Also, soft skills generally fall under the domain of attitudes. When we train a
task, we are teaching a person to perform a new Skill (psychomotor), learn a
new body of Knowledge (cognitive), and display a new Attitude (affective)
(SKA). The type of task determines what percent of the SKA is devoted to
each domain.

For example, training someone to operate a forklift requires about 80% skill
(eye hand coordination, deftness with controls, etc.), 10% knowledge
(location of controls, rules, etc.), and about 10% attitude (eagerness to learn,
concentrating on precision movements, etc.).
Training someone to set up formulas in a spreadsheet might require about
20% skill (typing, using a mouse, etc.), 70% knowledge (procedures, reading
and interrupting formulas, etc.), and 10% attitude (how hard they believe the
task to be, will it help me do my job better, etc.).

Training a diversity topic would require about 15% skill (interacting with
others, soliciting input, etc.), 10% knowledge (knowing culture differences,
knowing the terms, etc.), and about 75% attitude (responding to others,
changing a deeply held belief, etc.)

How Do Attitudes Affect Training Diversity?

Soft skill training is mainly changing attitudes - a persisting feeling or
emotion of a person that influences her choice of action and her response to
stimulus. It is defined as a disposition or tendency to respond positively or
negatively towards a certain thing (idea, object, person, situation). Attitudes
have been defined in a variety of ways, but at the core is the notion of
evaluation. Thus, attitudes are commonly viewed as summary evaluations of
objects (e.g. oneself, other people, issues, etc.) along a dimension ranging
from positive to negative. Attitudes encompass, or are closely related to, our
opinions and beliefs and are based upon our experiences. Training that
produces tangible results starts by changing behavior...which ultimately
changes attitudes.

Since our attitudes are deeply rooted, they are very hard to change.
Attitudes are latent constructs and are not observable in themselves. That is,
we can infer that people have attitudes by what they say or do. And what
they say or do are behaviors. The training developer must identify some sort
of behavior that would seem to be representative of the display of the
attitude in question. This behavior can then be measured as an index of the
attitude construct. For example, if you are training diversity, you cannot be
sure that you have eliminated prejudice from a learner. Therefore you have
to measure behaviors, such as showing respect for all cultures.

This does not mean you cannot go after changing attitudes. It some cases it
is a must. For example, the 1997 Texaco headlines about the racial slurs of
its leaders show that attitudes must be changed. If you only rely upon the
correct behaviors being displayed without attitudes being changed, then
expect to see a headline like this about your organization. When we attempt
to display behaviors that do not coincide with our attitudes, then expect to
make big mistakes. As stated earlier, training diversity is about 75%
attitude. Attempting to change only the other 25% will not work. That 75%
attitude is just too great of a number to ignore.
Another example is safety. Being able to perform safely in the work
environment is not just about knowledge and skills. It also requires the
correct attitude. For many, doing something the safe way requires more
effort or work. Employees must have the correct attitude towards safety or
when it counts the most, they will relapse back into the faster or easier
method...and this is not right for all the coworkers involved. They deserve a
safe working environment!

Can attitudes be changed? In a experiment by social psychologists Wells and

Petty (1980) (1), students were asked to assist in testing the quality of
headphones while the listener was in motion. Three groups of students put
on headphones and listened to music and an editorial about tuition. One
group, told they were acting as controls made no movements while listening.
The second group moved their heads up and down, while the third group
shook their heads from side to side. Afterward, the students rated the quality
of the headphones and judged the material that they had heard. Among the
questions was one about tuition. Half the students had heard an editorial
suggesting that tuition be raised to $750 while the other half heard that it
should be drooped to $400. The editorials by themselves were persuasive;
they influenced students who listened without moving their heads. However,
movements made by the students as they listened had a strong effect on
their opinions.

When asked what tuition would be fair, those that heard that it should be
raised, thought, on the average, that it should be $582. Those that heard
that it should be lowered, thought that a fair price would be $412. The
involvement of body movement had a striking effect. Students who nodded
their head as they heard the $750 editorial thought a fair tuition would be
$646, while those that shook their heads thought it should be $467.

These motor responses that signal agreement or disagreement had a

profound affect on attitudes...effects that are not trivial.

To train soft skills, HRD practitioners must picture themselves not only as
trainers, but also as educators and developers. To do so, requires a different
sort of mind set. With our greater preoccupation with human relations, the
affective domain (attitudes) cannot be ignored, regardless of the difficulties
encountered.

What Are Some Pointers For Training

Attitudes?
Listed below are some helpful hints for developing, training, and evaluating
attitudes.
Training Development

As stated before, training attitudes is extremely difficult. At times we want to

change attitudes, at others, the best we can hope for or want to, is to change
displayed behaviors. The chart below shows attitude as running along the
vertical axis and behavior running along the horizontal axis:

| 9
A| 8
t| 7
t| 6
i| 5
t| 4
u| 3
d| 2
e| 1
| 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
______________________________
Behavior

For each degree that you want to change the attitude (vertical axis) of the
learner, you must come up with a training method that changes the behavior
an equal amount of degrees (horizontal axis). Methods will also have to be
devised to measure the behavior an equal amount. When training diversity,
you are going to want an attitude change along the scale of 8 or 9. This
means you need to make a heavy commitment to training because the
behaviors you want displayed will also be at the end of the scale - 8 or 9.

Some attitude changes do not require such a drastic change. For example,
when people are outside on break and they put their cigarette butts out on
the ground instead of the ash receptacle; calls for less drastic behavioral
changes. The effort (and the amount of effort that you would want to expend
towards the problem) to change their behavior would be on the scale of 1 or
2.

Training Techniques

See Changing Behaviors, Coaching, Implementing Training for some other

techniques.

Evaluating Diversity Training

There are five major approaches to collecting attitude data:

• Records - These include observed behavior such as attendance

records, anecdotal records, incidents, and interviews.
 • Self Reports - Such as inventories of employees reporting directly
about their own attitudes.
• Report of Others - These include information, rating scales, and
interview results of others reporting about the attitude of an employee
or team.
• Sociometric Techniques - Such as sociograms and social distance
scales in which members of a group report about their attitudes
towards one another.
• Projective Technique - Picture presentations and sentence completion
in which the learner supplies a response to the stimulus.

Steps for evaluating:

• Determine from the learning objectives what specific attitude (desired

behavior) is being trained.
• Determine the behavior (construct) that will best exhibit this attitude.
Concentrate on one or two specific behaviors during any given
evaluation period.
• Decide on the most appropriate way to get the information.
• Select or develop an instrument for collecting the information. Collect
only the information that will provide evidence of the desired behavior.
• Decide who will be observed and when. Obtain as many observations
as possible and review patterns of change.
• Confer with the learners to provide feedback.

Precautions In Attitude Measurement:

• Attitudes are impossible to measure directly. The evaluator is relying

on inference.
• Behaviors, beliefs, and feelings, are not consistent, even when we
assume they reflect a single attitude. The pattern of behavior may be
very complex and be a manifestation of more that one attitude.
• Attitudes do not stand still long enough for a one time snap shot
measurement. Frequent measurements at selected intervals will reflect
a more accurate representation of a consistent attitude.
• Certain attitudes do not have a universal agreement on their nature or
what the correct behavioral display is.
• Collection of certain types of personal data about learners may lead to
legal complications involving their rights to privacy.

Team Building

Team building activities have always been popular, but be careful that you do
not divide your workers! For example, one company Christmas party did not
work as it was supposed to. Because of accident liability, the company chose
not to serve liquor, but instead, let employees buy it at a cash bar. Many
employees only made slightly above minimum wage and found the charge
per drink high and consequently complained about the party. While the
employees from the higher socioeconomic levels did not find the drink
charge a problem. The two groups also approached the party attire
differently. The more affluent group enjoyed dressing up for the occasion
while the rest were annoyed about having to purchase a dress or suit. To
further complicate matters, the affluent group didn't anticipate the needs of
or even perceive the problems felt by their co-workers at the Christmas
party. A small third faction objected to Christmas altogether and stayed away
from the party. The result was groups of workers who became more distant
from each other. This distance further eroded the closeness necessary for
building teams. As a result, a company function that was designed to build
teams actually ended up dividing the employees into three camps.

Diversity Activities

See Leadership Diversity Activities.

References

1. Wells, G.L. and Petty, R.E. "The effects of overt head movement on
persuasion: Compatibility and Incompatibility of responses." Basic and
Applied Social Psychology, 1980, 1, 219-230.

Notes
Return to Big Dog's HRD Page.
Copyright 1997
Created August 13, 1997. Updated August 12, 2001.
donclark@nwlink.com