Building Diversity Consciousness

Building our diversity consciousness can be done by putting people in situations where they have the opportunity to learn about and experience the diversity around them. Within my organization there is not a lot of cultural diversity but there is a wide range of diverse personalities. We have had many situations where these personalities clashed and caused a ripple effect within the organization. Last summer we sought out a coach to take our leadership through a day of analization of and education on the various personalities represented in our organization. Doing this gave our leadership several tools to work with. First off they had a better understanding of their own personality. They also were aware of what the other team members personalities were. Lastly they knew how their personality was compatible or incompatible with the others.

This same process can work for diversity consciousness. We first need to realize what things we do that are cultural tendencies. These may be things we don't even think about but others see as representative of our diversity. If we can learn to recognize these things in ourselves it will be easier to identify and understand them in others. Which leads us to the next step of realizing the diversity of those around us. The last step in the process is to learn and appreciate how the diversity of ourselves and others affects the situations we are in. This will help us to understand work habits, family priorities, religious practices and cultural communication differences that we may or may not have ourselves.