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Developing Competency to Manage Diversity

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Developing Competency to Manage Diversity

Readings, Cases and Activities

Berrett-Koehler,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

Diversity represents a business opportunity, a future necessity, a door to global markets and a microcosm of society in action, but you have to know how to manage it to make it work for you.

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Editorial Rating

5

Qualities

  • For Experts

Recommendation

Taylor Cox Jr. and Ruby L. Beale offer readings, case studies and structured activities for developing individual and organizational diversity skills. The readings often focus on specific groups, but the underlying ideas can easily be extended to others. By focusing on the economic benefits of diversity management, the authors make a persuasive case that these ideas are strategically relevant, especially for companies that are trying to compete in the global economy. Some of the ideas are complex and take some real study, but they are presented clearly and concisely. The book offers little original research, but that is not the authors’ goal. They mean to unite existing research and to put those ideas into action - a task that they perform very well. getabstract recommends this book to human resource professionals, managers who must handle diverse workforces (especially executives who work outside their home country) and anyone struggling with diversity in the workplace.

Summary

A Mix of People

Diversity itself has many definitions, including, "A mix of people who have distinctly different, socially relevant group affiliations," that is, group affiliations that have some meaning when the people interact with each other. Managing diversity means creating a climate that maximizes the organizational advantages of diversity while minimizing the disadvantages. Diversity management can be accomplished by anyone, not just supervisors. "Competency for managing diversity," or "diversity competency" is a process of learning that leads to having the ability to respond effectively to the challenges and opportunities presented by diversity.

This learning process has three phases:

  1. Awareness - Realize that diversity has real effects.
  2. Knowledge and understanding - Grasp how and why diversity competency matters to good performance.
  3. Changing behavior and taking action - Change your own behavior and take organizational action.

Individuals and organizations wishing to acquire diversity competency must master several critical elements: communication, performance evaluation and feedback...

About the Authors

Taylor Cox, Jr.  is an associate professor of organizational behavior and human resource management at the University of Michigan Business School. Ruby L. Beale  is on the faculty of the Psychology Department and the School of Business Administration, and has a research scientist appointment at the Center for the Education of Women at the University of Michigan.

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