Positively Powerful Insights » Diversity

Diversity: You may not like it but know it.

Joel Martin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Skrillex in Concert - Photo by Vincent Mo

One of the diversity challenges many people are dealing with today are the four or five generations we have in the workplace. (If you don’t have different generations in your organization you might be missing out on a competitive advantage.) I’m one of the Baby Boomers who fit the research findings in refusing to retire quietly and ride into the sunset. I delight in learning about trends, music, art, people, cultures and the like so when I happened upon this article in the NYT I was totally engaged and listened in. Perhaps you will be too.

Manic Peter Pan Rules Dance Clubs. Consider the numbers: He’s a DJ (a title that minimizes his creativity as far as I’m concerned), nominated for five 2012 Grammy Awards. “In 18 months he has gone from being an obscure D.J. in the Los Angeles club world who played parties for 500 people to selling out 5,000-seat clubs across the country. At a show in Puerto Rico this month he drew 12,000 people.“ He’s gone viral with more than 59 million people listening to his most popular single, “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites,” on YouTube.

Click here to view the embedded video.

He is a Gen Y Millennial, a generation that for the most part is tech savvy, diverse, demanding equal treatment for those who are different and unique, possessing great multitasking abilities, confident and hopeful. (Source: Global Consortium LLC).

He is Skrillex, an artist who is fantastic in producing electronic tracks. Listen for his lyric, “You don’t need to hide my friend ‘cause I’m just like you.” If that’s not a comment endorsing diversity and inclusiveness, I don’t know what is. Let’s learn more, listen to each other, appreciate our differences and dance to the music.

If you have a comment on the differences between generations. Please post. And if you would more information or I can assist you in crossing the generational divide, let me know.

Diversity and Inclusion – They are not the same.

DB — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Observing the some organizations are saying about diversity it seems as though diversity and inclusion are the same and interchangeable. Not so. Diversity is difference and inclusion is how the differences between people are embraced. This speaks to the culture, the context, the environment within which people work, live and play. Two examples, both have the same workforce demographics using any of the diversity dimensions you can imagine. I realize that this is highly unlikely but work with me. In one organization, people are empowered and trained in personal, interpersonal and corporate alignment to vision, values, ethics and what it means to be a change agent. I admit it, these words have begun to sound like cliches HOWEVER… there are companies that are walking this talk. (Contact me if you’d like to know who I am referring to if interested) There is another company, in this one there is a lot of covert communications going on. Maybe the environment is not quite hostile but it’s questionable. Which one is more productive? Which one is truly inclusive? They are both diverse – but unequal.

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You Must Define “Professional”

Joel Martin — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:55:51 +0000

It’s great being liked by those you are managing but not at the expense of your customer, team or company. As the expression goes, “you pay your prices now or later with penalty and interest”. Once your direct reports realize that you have a higher calling – insuring that everyone has a job because the business was not put at risk by their actions – they will shift and get with the program. And isn’t that what you want anyway?

How are you doing separating the personal from the professional? Let me know if I can support you in being heard and getting people to respond in the way that you would like. Coach J.

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Corporate Comfort Zone vs Leadership

Joel Martin — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 13:37:01 +0000

Organizations have as their goal becoming mature, well managed companies delivering consistently on the service or products for which they are or wish to become known. They use branding and taglines to assist them with that figuring that customers will come back time and time again for the what these lines advertise. Consider the following as a few examples:

“All the News that’s Fit to Print” , (New York Times)
“ It takes a licking and keeps on ticking” (Timex)
“Where vision gets built”. (Lehman Brothers)

Wait! Time and time again? Times have changed. You can now read the NY Times online, “print” hmmm not. Our watches are digital or on our phone. “Ticking” if you have the app. And Lehman Brothers is gone having declared bankruptcy.

If a company has an entrenched hierarchy, an HR director without vision and a passion for their people (Only “20% of workers are passionate about their jobs”… The Deloitte Center for the Edge: The Shift Index”), you can bet in time they’ll be experiencing high turnover of good management talent, a loss of intellectual capital a loss in consumer/client trust and a brand image that is passe.

In the past it took fifty years or more to get to this point in an organization’s life cycle, now it is taking less then ten years for companies to find out that they are no longer relevant, that their products or services are not answering the needs of the public, and that their brand slogans no longer create the progressive images intended.

Somewhere along the road to becoming a less innovative customer adverse organization, companies stuck with their top down directives rather than adapt “interactive communication” as pointed out by Stephen Denning in “Radical Management. Often the answer to how an organization can manage the future and changing times is an employee “sitting in the room”, not being listen to and asked about what they see. Why? Generational differences, non-inclusive staid corporate culture, lack of engagement, lack of leadership and vision. And maybe the complaint “I just don’t have the time.”

In today’s environment buying in to the plan falls well short of owning plan. Owning the plan can only occur when there is totally openness and everyone has the opportunity to contribute.

Older Organizations, Big Challenges Ahead

Joel Martin — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 13:11:27 +0000

In my work with several mature organizations, I have found that challenges exist that unless tackled, have the potential to create gridlock, stagnation, lose of intellectual capital, employee disengagement and insufficient personnel to run them in the future. These challenges put an organization at risk. Now is the time to be proactive and yield to change. These companies have been the bedrock of industry. In speaking to some of the leaders within them, many are ready for change. Employees are either dug in, ready to take the leaders’ “hot seat”, or breathing a sigh of relief that maybe now their ideas, their brilliance, will create the legacy they see as they consider retirement.

The opportunities I advocate to and with leaders include creating an aligned, engaged and empowered workforce for current and future generations, welcoming diversity and inclusion, mastering new technologies, being a mentor and accepting reverse-mentoring.

On diversity – all leaders know The Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” A newer rule that I include in trainings is The Platinum Rule, “Do unto others as they would have you do unto them”. With cultural competency, communication assessments and plain old “mother wit” comes the recognition that everyone does not think alike. Older companies that aren’t diverse and if they are diverse aren’t inclusive, stand to lose some valuable opportunities. Like failing to attract the best of the best candidates who are women and people of color. And if they attract them as employees, have the challenge of retaining them.

Top-down and bottom-up communication and strategic thinking on the future. Assure a continuance of the company. Protect your assets and intellectual capital. Use technology to face the challenges. We either meet the challenges or are beaten by them.

What Is Social Media?

Joel Martin — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:25:17 +0000

At our most recent “Conversation on Leadership” breakfast workshop, there was the beginning of a lively discussion on “Social Media” and the question of whether we were we losing human contact by spending so much time “liking”, “texting” and connecting online etc.

When many new technologies are introduced, many of us want to believe that they will take us away from the things that we love and dissolve the relationships with the people we want to connect with.

1040AD Movable Type - China

For instance, we bemoan no longer receiving letters in the mail and cry that the art of penmanship has suffered, yet we are gleeful that we no longer need to suffer trying to find something quickly in the yellow or white pages. We rejoice openly that we are beginning to save tress by getting our news from Twitter (especially since that is where it seems CNN and other media are getting their news). Progress and change are always challenging and inevitable, plus we never want to go backwards.

Social Media has given rise to a revolution that has us rethink how our institutions work. Kirsten Winkler‘s recent post on “The Big Think, Disrupt Education” highlights how school teachers have found numerous ways to use Social Media and the Internet to improve on what it is that they love to do, and that is to teach. They have formed communities over the web and coached each other, created best teaching practices, learned how to incorporate video and continue to refine how they learn and teach, all without the heavy hand of non-teachers, politicians , administrators etc.

Social Media gives everyone a voice. Admittedly, not all of us have pleasing voices yet there is enormous amount of “good stuff” out there that results in the forming of new and dynamic communities that we can graciously live in with those whose voices we find a bit unsettling. Social Media give us a set of tools that help to make better what we have always done and have yet to do.

Make Room For Dad!

Joel Martin — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 11:08:56 +0000

Just ask Neil Tift, M.A. Male Involvement Coordinator of the Child Crisis Center in Mesa, Arizona to talk about the need for creating father-friendly environments, enhancing fathers’ role in community programs, teaching dad’s parenting skills and helping dads to build healthy relationship with the mothers of their children and you see a spark in his eyes and a passion in his voice. This ‘fire in the belly’ comes from Neil’s being a dad, a grand father, and working with fathers. He is committed to their right to be included in community programs and the well-being of their children.

This is Neil’s life’s work: Male Involvement Coordinator, Child Crisis Center, Mesa Arizona at Native American Fatherhood & Families Association, Male Involvement Coordinator at Child Crisis Center Director at Fathers’ Resource Center. (“If you have fire in your belly, you are ready to fight with energy and determination for what you believe is right.”)

For too long the stereotype existed that only the woman took care of the children, that dads were “bringing home the bacon”, that children automatically went with mom, that community programs having to do with children were for women only….not so any longer. Both parents are important. I was honored to have had this brief opportunity to speak with a man who is doing something about it.

I met Neil when I interviewed him on a program to be aired on Scottsdale’s Ch. 11 TV station. He’s going to be speaking at the City of Scottsdale’s Cross Cultural Communication Series produced by the City’s Human Relations Commission. His event (one of 5) will be on Oct. 6th at Noon and again at 6PM. The Commission was established to recommend ways to encourage mutual respect and understanding among people, discourage prejudice and discrimination and work towards cultural awareness and unity. For more info click here. “Father’s matter too” as Neil says. He’s got the commitment, tools and organizational backing to make sure they everyone gets the message and the education to make it so.

What a Year, so Far! What’s Next for You

DB — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:11:38 +0000

Our access to “up to the second” media can be overwhelming and is certainly challenging. We are in one moment enveloped in a crises, then elated about something unexpected, followed seconds later with another crises. That our brains (and heart) are able to manage the constant flood of information is incredible. August alone in Washington D.C. is an example of this flux we now live with.

Every new piece of information we receive is begging for us to make a decision, an up or down vote, as to what our next step should be. We used to be able to follow a plan, or a strategy linking our decisions to those that followed our planning, you know “staying course”. This is nearly impossible now for individuals and at best difficult for organizations. We’ve always known that plans are flawed (planned for what can be “control”) and we are beginning to understand that we don’t control much of anything. I’m not at all suggesting that we are unable to make a difference in world, in fact each of us has our version of the iPod embedded in us with a playlist ready to inspire us to make the most positive difference we can. The issue is how do we do this now as individuals and more importantly as communities? Just saying ” it’s not what I want or expected” is not enough. How do we together (all of us) create what we do want,What’s next for us?

Diversity and a Global Community

DB — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 16:08:05 +0000

We are confronted daily with concerns about the environment, health, water, food, safety and the economy, by big challenges, made more difficult by globalization and our lack of understanding of what it means to us personally. Globalization, once exclusively associated with world economic issues, has grown to include the understanding and integration of different cultures from all over the world.

True globalization or having a “Global Community” is a non-zero sum game, where trust, collaboration and cooperation across cultural and national boundaries leads to outcomes where everyone can succeed. Understanding cultural differences or diversity with inclusion needs to be something we challenge ourselves with to learn as much as we can about cultures that we don’t understand.

In some organizations Diversity Training is a requirement. We, individually, should take the radical step and advocate for it, practice it and share it. Diversity is the wave of the future and the future is within sight.

Restoring Communities Through Conversation

DB — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 17:56:13 +0000

Most conflicts originate out of misunderstandings escalated to an extreme. We all hear and understand differently. A way for us to get on the same page is to listen and expand the conversation so that the meaning and intent of what is being said is clear. Prepare New York / Intersections International continues their effort to expand the conversation and to rebuild the world community.

Tomorrow (Tuesday, June 14) at noon, there will be such an opportunity as Prepare New York holds its first on-line Lunchtime Chat with special guests Maria Ebrahimji and Zahra Suratwala, editors and contributors of the book, I Speak for Myself which profiles 40 American Muslim women under 40. In the rich diversity of these stories, stereotypes are shattered and new understandings emerge.

Click here to learn more about Intersections International.