Welcome to the Davies-Black Business Blast

In today’s multicultural, multiethnic workplace, diversity training is no longer just an option. Implementing strategies to attract, build, and leverage a diverse workforce is a must if organizations want to get the most value out of their human resources and gain competitive advantage. This issue of the Davies-Black Business Blast is dedicated to providing you and your company with fresh insights into what it takes to effectively hire, train, and manage within this complex business landscape. We hope that the key fundamentals discussed—diversity and inclusion—as well as actionable strategies for developing critical competencies bolster your efforts toward success.

—The Davies-Black Publishing Team

Expert Q&A

Q&A with Steve Long-Nguyen Robbins

Steve Long-Nguyen Robbins is an in-demand keynote speaker, consultant, trainer, and author of What If? Short Stories to Spark Diversity Dialogue. Robbins has worked with the likes of Toyota, Honda, Boeing, Microsoft, McDonald’s, PepsiCo, and many others to help them learn fresh ways take advantage of their diverse human capital in order to boost innovation, solve problems better, improve productivity, and tap hidden talents within their organization. He shows how you can make use of the many perspectives—what he calls “cognitive tools”—in your workforce to create the smartest, most innovative organization possible.

How can one tap into his or her company’s cognitive toolbox?
The traditional way to approach diversity and inclusion is to talk about an individual’s identity: race, gender, class, age, and so on. I like to emphasize a brand-new approach that stresses a “cognitive toolbox framework”—that is, using your people’s experiences, perspectives, ideas, and different ways of seeing and understanding problems and solutions as tools to make your company more competitive. Everyone has a set of unique experiences that give them a relatively unique way of seeing and approaching problems, and thus one person may see solutions when others can’t.

Can ethnic celebrations do more harm than good?
Many of us today learn about diversity and multiculturalism through celebrating differences. I call this “tamale talk.” It sends a one-sided message of diversity as celebratory, but doesn’t touch on the conflict, pain, and challenges inherent in emphasizing differences. There is nothing wrong with celebrating diversity, as long as you also teach people how to navigate the non-celebratory aspects of diversity. We tend to do more of the former and less of the latter.

Why is modeling inclusion beneficial to your company?
As the saying goes, “actions speak louder than words.” Being open-minded and seeking multiple perspectives—and asking your employees to do the same—are ways leaders can model inclusion in their leadership style. . If they are not willing to engage in entertaining novel ideas, people and ways of doing, then there should be little expectation of that behavior among others in the organization.

Why is erasing biases unrealistic?
You will never really be able to erase the “bad” information in your head—such as racial, gender, and class stereotypes based on childhood experiences or cultural myths. It’s burned in there permanently, like tracks on a CD. But you can train yourself to be more mindful of how that bad information affects your daily actions, reactions, and decision making.

Is an unfriendly work environment depleting workers’ energy?
A workplace culture plagued with intolerance creates a stressful environment. The stress will eventually take its toll in the form of inefficiency, poor performance, absenteeism, and even declining health of its workers. In the same way, stress filled environments can create further intolerance as people who are under stress tend to resort that that which is comfortable and familiar.

How do faulty assumptions negatively influence thinking?
I liken preset assumptions and biases to a map that lacks detail. When you’re trying to navigate in today’s diverse workplace landscape with a bad “people map,” you will make mistakes, work less efficiently, miss opportunities, and generally be working below your potential. Bad assumptions generally lead to bad thinking and behaviors.

Excerpt

Working on a Global Team

Multicultural teams present a critical challenge for global organizations. Although such teams play an increasingly vital role in accomplishing corporate business objectives, teamwork is not easy for a diverse group whose members may bring with them very different viewpoints and assumptions.

Without special attention, the performance of such teams often falls short of company and team member expectations. On the other hand, when multicultural teamwork is cultivated in a conscious way that balances both performance outcomes and team member relationships, the creative potential exists for results that far exceed those of a single-culture group.

In Working GlobeSmart: Twelve People Skills for Doing Business Across Borders, Ernest Gundling presents an invaluable guide that delivers strategies for success on the global stage. To learn his strategies for building successful global teams, read on. >>

News From Davies-Black

Spring Conference Wrap-Up

Davies-Black Publishing kicked off its conference season this year at BookExpo America. Held in late May at the Los Angeles Convention Center, the conference combined the largest selection of English-language titles on the planet with special industry and author events as well as unparalleled educational content to create a dynamic environment for networking, sourcing, and relationship building.

From Los Angeles we moved straight to San Diego, where the ASTD International Conference & Exposition was once again a premier event for workplace learning and performance professionals. Attendees came from more than 70 countries. The conference featured more than 200 educational sessions from industry leading experts, plus a world-class EXPO filled with the latest products and services available from top suppliers.

Two weeks later we were off to Chicago for the SHRM Annual Conference & Exposition, which shows off one of the most comprehensive and relevant professional development programs in the country. Attendees of the conference had the chance to improve their knowledge, skills, and abilities as HR professionals.

Our team will be back on the road this August to attend the Academy of Management Annual Meeting in Anaheim, California, and then again this fall to attend the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Annual ICF International Conference. If you’re going to be at any of these events, make sure to stop by our booth and say hi!

Featured Book

HR and the New Hispanic Workforce

Louis Nevaer and Vaso Perimenis Ekstein, authors of HR and the New Hispanic Workforce, say it may be advisable to confront the myths and realities of diversity in planning or presenting training programs. The idea of diversity as an objective to be fulfilled by HRM continues to evoke strong passions, particularly when it is associated with affirmative action programs. The subtext for many people remains that affirmative action is in reality an attempt to place minority individuals in positions for which they are not qualified, primarily at the expense of white men. Nevaer and Ekstein discuss a range of myths/realities concerning diversity, including the following:

MYTH: Diversity is a problem
REALITY: Diversity is an opportunity. The purpose is to allow individuals to contribute to an organization in ways previously unavailable to them. Diversity is about enriching an organization’s workforce to reflect the greater demographics that characterize the nation, and through this process it promotes better customer service and establishes competitive advantage.

MYTH: Diversity is the responsibility of HRM.
REALITY: Diversity is everyone’s responsibility simply because it is a way of helping each person grow through learning about and from other people with a different heritage and different life experiences.

MYTH: Diversity is about race and gender.
REALITY: Diversity once was primarily about those two factors, but now it has expanded to include cultural, social, and ethnic heritages that enrich the nation and constitute the consumer and client base for every organization’s goods and services. Without diversity, customer bases diminish simply because the organization is out of touch with its clients’ wants and needs.

MYTH: Diversity is exclusive.
REALITY: Diversity is inclusive. It gives an opportunity for everyone to learn about others. The notion that diversity training boils down to sensitivity training for white men is mistaken, simply because every individual stands to benefit by learning about others. The ultimate goal of diversity is to empower a culture wherein each individual can thrive and contribute to the organization.

Explore more tips and key action strategies to address diversity-related issues challenging corporate America in HR and the New Hispanic Workforce. >>

Events & Conferences

Davies-Black Author Events

• July 17, Washington, DC
  Mitchell Kusy, coauthor of Manager’s Desktop Consultant
  Speaker, Treasury Executive Institute
• September 8, Chicago, IL
  Joseph Daniel McCool, author of Deciding Who Leads
  Speaker, Onrec.com 2008 Conference & Expo
• September 17, Washington, DC
  Terry Bacon, author of What People Want
  Speaker, the Executive Forum of the Department of the Interior

View a complete listing of upcoming author events >>

Conferences

• Academy of Management Annual Meeting – August 8-13
• Frankfurt Book Fair – October 15-19
• ICF Annual International Conference – November 12–15

Let us know if you're going to be at any of these conferences — we'd love to meet you there.
E-mail us at db_newsletter@cpp.com.

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