Denise Morris Kipnis
CHANGEFLOW CONSULTING
Session Objectives
 Cool theory
 Practical skills you can apply to your own systems
 Decrease discomfort with the topic
 Increase self-efficacy (self as instrument) by getting in
touch with comfort/discomfort
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What problems does this
session address?
 Organizational effectiveness in a global/multicultural
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world demands flexibility, plurality, and meeting
customers (both external and internal) where they are atincluding culturally
“Managing” Diversity is a common organization challenge
OD practitioners able to do what diversity practitioners
usually cannot: integrate efforts with the core of the
business
Answers demanded to do more with less—to increase
employee engagement, contribution, and performance
It’s the right thing to do
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Top 5 things you need to know
as an OD Practitioner
1. OD’s roots are in diversity and inclusion
2. Diversity awareness and actions develop on a
continuum: Think diversity learning capacity, not
competency
3. Diversity “management” is a sophisticated change
effort
4. You are already influencing others about diversity
5. You already have the tools and expertise to intervene
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Expected take-aways
 Diversity is not someone else’s problem
 What we do in systems has an impact—implicitly or
explicitly
 We are trained to do part—not all—of this work
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OE is OD is Diversity
Organization
Effectiveness
Diversity and
Inclusion
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Organization
Development
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OD & Diversity
 Understanding the history of diversity and inclusion efforts is critical
to framing where we are today and why a leap is needed. The roots
of diversity and inclusion efforts are intertwined with the roots of
organization development. The founding of National Training Lab’s
(NTL) approach to T Groups in 1947 began as a result of a
conference focusing on issues of race and anti-Semitism.
 Katz & Miller (2007)
 The principles of diversity—broad and meaningful participation by
all members of a system in order to maximize available creativity
and energy for organizational learning and effectiveness—are
fundamental to OD. Attentiveness to diversity is critical for: (a)
taking a systems perspective; (b) using the OD process; and (c)
maximizing stakeholder participation.
 Greene & Berthoud (2007)
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What is Diversity?
 Diversity includes human differences, aspects of human
experience, and elements of culture. These diversity
measures apply at individual, group, organization,
community, nation, and world levels of human systems.
 M. Brazzel (2007)
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Diversity Wheel
Functional Level/
Classification
Geographical
Location
Management
Status
Marital
Status
Ethnicity
Parental
Status
Race
Appearance
Age
Union
Affiliation
Gender
Personality
Work
Experience
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Personal
Habits
Recreational
Sexual
Habits
Orientation
Religion
Physical
Ability
Educational
Background
Work
Location
Work
Content/
Field
Income
Seniority
Division/
Department
Unit/Group
*Internal Dimensions and External Dimensions are
adapted from Marilyn Londen and Judy Rosener.
Workforce America! (Business One Irwin, 1991)
Managing Diversity in Health Care Manual by Lee
Gardenshwartz and Anita Rowe.
Copyright © 1999 by Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA
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Diversity ROI/The Business Case
for Diversity
 Organizational culture
 Demographics
 Workforce Profile
 Accountability
 Productivity
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 Growth and Profitability
 Diversity Leadership
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Commitment
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Representation
Workplace Climate
Learning & Growth
Diverse Customer /
Community Partnerships
Financial Impact
Etc.
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What inhibits progress on
diversity efforts?
 Wide understanding of the importance of diversity and
inclusion
 Assume good intentions
 But…
 Organizations and people may not know where to begin
 Time/Energy consuming, and time is money
 Usually requires transformational change
 Need to drop down to the group and personal levels to
look at behavior as well as policy and process
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Diversity capacity, not
competency
 Not about mastery but continual commitment to actively
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learning and building the skills and behaviors to work
outside of your comfort zone
No right answers; willingness to experiment
As people change and evolve, so does diversity
Human interaction—personal and professional—evolving
Drivers for increasing diversity and inclusion
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Theory: learning continuum
 Thomas & Ely’s (1996) Learning Paradigm
 Bennett’s (1998) Six-Stage Model for Understanding
Cultural Differences
 In organizations…
 In teams…
 As individuals…
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Discussion: Tell your diversity
story—professional
 Introduce yourselves
 What’s the practical situation you’re working on?
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Success predictors
 Have progressive diversity perspectives
 Have high ethnic identities
 Use contingent approaches to relationships and performance
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evaluation
Model diversity leadership and practices
Favorably link racial and ethnic differences to group, organization,
and client outcomes
Have had diversity training that specifically addresses behavior
Are engaged in self-discovery and continual learning about diversity
Hold diversity perspectives that are aligned with or more
progressive than their organizations’
Promote commitment to diversity
 Morris Kipnis (2008)
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Identity theory
 Culture map
 You may have many filters but…
 You don’t use the same filter all the time
 You act from one filter at a time
 People in your organization are making these choices
constantly, mostly unconsciously
 Positive identification with difference predicts positivity
towards difference in others Chrobot-Mason (2004)
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Discussion: Your diversity
story—personal
 How much of this applies to you?
 Consider Schein’s comment about everything being an intervention
 What is it you do now in regards to organization effectiveness and
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diversity?
What are you committed to do?
What will you do now, as a result of this discussion?
What past opportunity to facilitate diversity did you ignore?
What would it really take for you to be a facilitator in the advanced model?
Who suffers or what is lost in the organization because you’re afraid to
have the diversity conversation that needs to happen?
What are the values that you bring that prevent it from happening?
What story do you tell yourself about why you can’t or shouldn’t facilitate
diversity?
What is your opportunity now?
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We’re uniquely qualified to
help
 We know human behavior
 We know how to facilitate difficult conversations
 We facilitate strategy and organization design
 We’re often in a “superior” position with an opportunity
to speak Truth to Power
 Superior/subordinate relationships Helms (1984) /
Thomas (1993)
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Tools at the Ready
 Johari Window
 Building a positive self-identity around your own difference
 Deepening awareness of your own biases
 Active listening
 Giving and Receiving Feedback
 The Way We Intervene
 What we say about ourselves and what we model
 Who we bring into decision making
 Whose voices we lift up
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Specifically about Diversity
 “Will what we’re about to do perpetuate a bias?”
 Your [Insert Diversity Dimension here] Autobiography
 What percent of your life is affected by [race, class, gender,
or…]?
 Facilitate discussion about responses
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Negotiating Reality
 Negotiating reality involves surfacing the tacit knowledge and assumptions
of the parties involved and bringing this knowledge to bear in the service
of addressing a particular issue or problematic solution.
 Friedman & Berthoin Antal, 2005
 To engage with dissimilar people, must first be willing to confront your own
cultural and ethnic perspectives and acknowledge how these perspectives
affect your own behavior, recognize that the other person is going through
the same thing, and then nurture conditions such that a shared reality can
be negotiated through open dialogue
 Assumes differences are differences as opportunities for learning, not
sources of conflict
 A framework to achieve intercultural competence
 Anticipates the possibility of not getting cross-cultural interaction right the
first time and suggests how to move forward
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Courageous Conversations About Race*
(G. Singleton, 2005 )
Four Agreements
Six Conditions
 Stay Engaged
 Personal, Local, and Immediate
 Experience Discomfort
 Isolate Race
 Speak Your Truth
 Normalize Social Construction
 Expect/Accept Non-Closure
and Multiple Perspective
 Monitor Agreements and
Establish Parameters
 Establish a “Working
Definition” for Race
 Examine the Presence and Role
of Whiteness
* I believe this framework can be
adapted for other diversity dimensions
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Acknowledgments
 Matt Auron, my design partner
 Terri Egan, my thesis advisor
 The diversity trainers, thesis interviewees, and others
who made my thesis possible
 My Ukrainian-American spouse
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For more information
 denise@changeflowconsulting.com
 http://www.changeflowconsulting.com
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