Making differences matter: A new paradigm for managing diversity

Abstract

Diversity efforts in the workplace have been undertaken with great goodwill, but, ironically, they often end up fueling tensions. They rarely spur the leaps in organizational effectiveness that are possible. Two paradigms for diversity are responsible, but a new one is showing it can address the problem. The discrimination-and-fairness paradigm is based on the recognition that discrimination is wrong. Under it, progress is measured by how well the company achieves its recruitment and retention goals. The paradigm idealizes assimilation and color- and gender-blind conformism. The access-and-legitimacy paradigm, on the other hand, celebrates differences. Under it, organizations seek access to a more diverse clientele, matching their demographics to targeted consumers. But that paradigm can leave employees of different identity-group affiliations feeling marginalized or exploited. In companies with the right kind of leadership, a third paradigm is showing that beneficial learning takes place and organizations become more effective in fulfilling their missions if employees are encouraged to tap their differences for creative ideas. If all or most of eight preconditions are in place, the opportunities for growth are almost unlimited. Leaders in third-paradigm companies are proactive about learning from diversity; they encourage people to make explicit use of cultural experience at work; they fight all forms of dominance and subordination, including those generated by one functional group acting superior to another; and they ensure that the inevitable tensions that come from a genuine effort to make way for diversity are acknowledged and resolved with sensitivity.