Sustainable Growth:

Master of Business Synergies (MBS)

Managing and Leveraging Diversity

How To Manage and Leverage Diversity in Your Workplace

   

 

 InnovationCreativity Management4 Levels of Problem SolvingHarnessing the Power of DiversitySynergize DiversitiesManaging and Leveraging DiversityInclusive LeadershipCross-pollination of IdeasCross-functional TeamsHow To Leverage Diversity Benefits multicultural collaboration

 

 

Diversity as a Managerial Approach

Unleashing the Power of Integrated Opposites

Solving Problems Created by Diversity1

  • treat people first and foremost as individuals

  • acknowledge the special circumstances or particular context that may lead to exclusion for some groups of people

  • work to change that situation

  • develop a workforce within which people are valued for the contribution they make

The GE Leadership Effectiveness Survey (LES)

  • Fully utilizes diversity of team members (cultural, race, gender) to achieve business success.

  • Values and promotes full utilization of global and work force diversity.

  • Demonstrates global awareness / sensitivity and is comfortable building diverse / global teams... More

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Create a Culture of Questioning

Examples of "Why?" and "What If?" Questions:

  • Why should we look at cultural differences as a problem? What if we try to leverage the power of our diversity?... More

 → Turn Problems to Opportunities: 6 Tips

 

Leading Innovation

Maintain a Fresh Perspective with Your Employees

  • Hire a diverse group of individuals... More

New Product Development by Cross-functional Teams

Recommendations to Top Executives4

  • Keep the team small. Increased functional diversity on the teams does not necessarily increase innovation. Social cohesion between the members of a team can suppress the exchange of views, since cohesive groups focus on maintaining relationships and seeking concurrence. Cut back on number of functional areas represented on the team, so as help the team crystallize its identity... More

Master of Business Synergies (MBS)

Synergize Diversities  >>  Best Practices

The Tao of Business Success

Synergize Radical and Incremental Innovations

Cross-functional Teams

Winning Organization

Balanced Organization: 5 Basic Elements

Leverage Diversity

Cultural Intelligence

Managing Cross-Cultural Differences

10 Guidelines for Multicultural Collaboration

Diversity Defined

Diversity is a specialized term describing a workplace that includes:

  • people from various backgrounds and cultures, and/or

  • diverse businesses.

A Healthy Company Balances Its Diverse Communities

Even as a healthy company pursues its own discrete goals, the company views itself as interdependent with others stewarding resources for the benefit of the larger communities to which it belongs. Leaders acknowledge, honor, and constructively reconcile competing stakeholder demands. The company treats everyone with dignity and respect... More

Success Stories Best Business Practices Steelcase

Steelcase was founded in 1912 by people with a strong commitment to integrity and doing the right thing for their employees, customers, business partners, associates and neighbors. In all of their diversity efforts, internal and external, Steelcase sets the industry standard... More

Manage Cultural Differences

Anthropologists discovered that, when faced by interaction that we do not understand, people tend to interpret the others involved as "abnormal", "weird" or "wrong". Awareness of → cultural differences and recognizing where cultural differences are at work is the first step toward understanding each other and establishing a positive working environment. Use these differences to challenge your own assumptions about the "right" way of doing things and as a chance to learn → new ways to solve problems... More

Synergize Diversities

To be successful in → today's complex, rapidly changing and highly competitive world, you must embrace, manage and → synergize critical opposites. You can inspire → innovation and find a strategic → competitive advantage in an organizational and cultural context by seeking to leverage, rather than diminish, opposite forces. People with different cultural, educational, scientific, and business backgrounds will bring → different frames of reference to a → problem and can spark an exciting and dynamic cross-pollination of ideas... More

→ Creative Problem Solving: Switching Perceptions

Balanced Organization: 5 Basic Elements

Wood (Corporate Capabilities):

References:

  1. "Developing a Culture for Diversity in a Week", Chris Speechley and Ruth Wheatley

  2. Jack Welch, Letter to Share Owners in General Electric 1990 Annual Report

  3. The Healthy Company, Healthy Companies International

  4. "How To Kill a Team's Creativity", Sethi R., Smith D. and Park W., HBR