Casual Friday

Diversity

The relationship between workforce diversity in relation to common perceptual distortions.

When I grew up in N.Ireland there was a significant amount of common perceptual distortions when it came to the protestant and catholic divide. I grew up hearing that people from the other side had eyes that were closer together, they did not wash and also that the kicked with the left foot. It was interesting to see how my childhood predisposition led me to find what I was looking for. These common perceptions are mere folklore that had taken a hold of people in more polarized environments. These perceptions were defense mechanisms to protect people from losing the truth of their beliefs.

There are similarities to this in the workplace. I believe that many common perceptions are held as a defensive system. These are used by many who fear what the uncommon will do to their beliefs and lifestyle. Unfortunately this only polarizes people more and breeds a high level of suspicion and a culture of sarcasm and judgment. In a time where the globe has come to us and the global village is in our living room as well as our workplace we need to be willing to explore and open ourselves to learn. The term I used in my last discussion was become curious once again. It does not always kill the cat.

Robert Chia has written significantly on cultural mindsets that are not indifferent to common perceptions. He lays out the ease of getting locked up in our own worldviews and unable to see beyond our collective blindness. This connects also with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which states that unless we have the same language, we cannot be living in the same world: we see the same thing but see it differently. We nominalize, generalize and delete depending on our unique map of the world and the life experience developed filters.

If we begin to realize that each of us is unique and diversity can be broken down to the individual and beyond culture, skin tone, gender and ability we are forced to learn and listen again as there is no one like us. We can break out of the psychic prisons that Gareth Morgan mentions in Images of Organizations, by seeing our own uniqueness as well as the uniqueness of others.

Another important factor to consider when introducing the attribution theory to this discussion is the concept of observer participancy. Do we also get some of what we are looking for? Is it possible that we can draw out the traits and commonly held perceptions in others by being fixed in our mind about what we are looking for? A good analogy of this is Wave/Particle Duality. This is the understanding that light sometimes behaves as a particle and sometimes as a wave. It all depends on what you are looking for. A causal chain may be possible between perception and behavior therefore we need to be careful when coming to what we attribute things to.

posted by Mark Dowds @ Sunday, January 09, 2005