Changing individual, group and organizational behavior
By Otis D. Jones
For the St. Louis American
Diversity in Corporate America has been an age-old battle that has been a struggle to achieve for both diverse groups within companies as well as the companies in which they work.
Many times the struggle to achieve a truly diverse company stems from implementing an incomplete diversity initiative. The following is a two-phase approach to implementing a more cohesive diversity initiative within your company.
The first phase involves performing a needs-assessment, using questionnaires, focus groups, observations, etc., that analyze the current problems of organizational diversity. The next phase calls for developing and implementing training and consultative services to resolve these problems.
Phase I
There are three levels within an organization that should be analyzed:
Individual Level
Individual Level analysis involves analyzing the individual beliefs, attitudes and sensitivities towards diversity and its positive and/or negative consequences. There are a number of questionnaires and tests that assess the perceptions, attitudes, personalities and belief systems of individuals. The purpose of these questionnaires and tests is to answer questions such as:
– What factors influence the perceptions of organizational members?
– What distortions of perception occur?
– What beliefs and values do individuals hold?
– How do these beliefs and values influence the individuals’ attitudes?
– What functional and dysfunctional behavioral intentions result from the individuals’ attitudes?
– Do the personality styles of participants fit with those of other organizational members?
Unfortunately, a lot of these individual beliefs and attitudes are products of external influences and persuasions from others; or isolated incidents in your employees’ past. So the goal here is only to understand the various factors that have conditioned your employees’ beliefs.
Group Level
Group Level analysis involves analyzing how an individual’s beliefs and attitudes interact with others’ beliefs and attitudes. Two measurement tools that can be employed to analyze groups are observation measures and self-report measures. Observations of meetings, team activities and work delegation can give you valuable information about how internal beliefs and attitudes hinder the productivity of your group.
Self-reports can be used to diagram relationships within a group. Answers to questions such as, “Who do you like the most in your group?” or “Who do you prefer to work with the most?” provides insight about working relationships and discrimination when observations are impossible to conduct.
Organizational Level
An Organizational Level analysis involves analyzing organizational systems such as selection systems (hiring, career development, succession planning, etc.) and organizational culture that sustain diversity problems; and analyzing how these systems and culture affect (positively and negatively) organizational goals. Do not fool yourself. Discriminatory organizational systems and culture are not only the results of a large collection of similar individual and group beliefs. A company’s geographic location, school recruitment list, inflexible work schedules, benefits package, etc can inadvertently prevent a company from achieving a diverse population.
Phase II
Based on the three levels of analysis, partial or all of the following strategies can be implemented:
Individual Level Strategy
The Individual Level Strategy involves providing periodic diversity training courses that teach skills such as sensitivity skills, good interpersonal and communication behaviors, conflict resolution, etc. There are probably many years of discriminating conditioned beliefs that must be confronted. Changing them will take time. Honestly, you may not ever change all of the discriminating negative beliefs. Your goal is to consistently keep everyone aware of how they are treating others and to communicate that your company has a low tolerance for any behaviors that stem from those negative beliefs.
Group Level Strategy
The Group Level Strategy involves training managers to push themselves beyond their current environment and interactions to develop their knowledge of and sensitivity to issues of diversity. Doing so will help them fully understand, appreciate and maximize the talents of others. More specifically, it involves utilizing interpersonal and group process interventions that facilitate successful group interactions and performance. Interventions such as T-group sessions and process consultation are used to raise the understanding of individual differences in group settings and to find ways of getting past those differences when working together on various processes.
Organizational Level Strategy
The Organizational Level Strategy can involve using five methods.
First, it involves examining the hiring process for any adverse impact towards job candidates of different race, age, gender, etc. If adverse impact exists, develop and implement skill-based selection tools to decrease the adverse impact and increase the chances that someone would get hired based on past or present performances.
Second, it involves assessing the organization’s readiness to receive diversity initiatives. Doing so allows you to determine the best timing and level of change you want to pursue.
Third, it involves modifying policies and procedures that hinder diversity. Policies and procedures may include the performance appraisal system, the mentoring program, the policies on career development and promotions, the policies on training opportunities, reward systems, work schedules, etc.
Fourth, it involves setting an organization’s diversity goals and establishing departmental and organizational interventions and incentives to achieve those goals.
Finally, it involves monitoring and maintaining those interventions on a consistent basis.
Timeline
Diagnosis and Implementation timeframes can range anywhere from one month to one year. The ultimate determinates of those timeframes are the seriousness of the diversity problems and the strategies chosen to alleviate those problems.
Once companies understand and implement a more cohesive diversity initiative, the battle for diverse inclusion within those companies will cease and the war for racial, gender and disability equality within Corporate America will be won.