Description
What is it that we hope to find when we pick up yet another book about managing diversity in the workplace? These texts abound now. Many of them are quite useful and a number of them are written by authors represented in this collection. Nevertheless, it is probably safe to say that we come away from most of the books and articles on this topic yearning for something more. Why, and how can this volume help us move beyond dissatisfaction?
In many cases, our disappointment reflects not the inadequacy of the texts we are reading, but rather the breadth and bias of our questions. The questions triggered by diversity in the workplace exist at the intersection of our work lives and the rest of our lives, the intersection of the workplace and wider society, the intersection of our national identity and our global citizenship. They go to the heart of some of our most cherished assumptions about our organizations and perceptions about ourselves: meritocracy, equal opportunity, fair treatment, unbiased standards of performance, and so forth. And, painfully, they point out seeming contradictions and inconsistencies in these assumptions and perceptions.
When confronted with these difficult questions and contradictions. We have typically responded by focusing on the messenger, not the message. Diversity becomes a "problem" to be solved, rather than the herald of a new creative energy and the necessary announcement of heretofore unseen fault lines in the foundation of our workplaces. By defining diversity as a problem, we predetermine and constrain the structure our responses can take.
ISBN: 9780875847351
