Accepting people and their differences

By Priscilla L. Pipho

January 21, 2021

The word diversity refers to differences; what sets us apart and makes us unique. By nature, we seek those who are like us. Go to a party and you’ll see the women congregate together in one room and the men in another. We choose friends who are similar to us because it gives us a sense of sameness and safety. In the office we see groups naturally form along age, gender and racial lines for that same reason. Congregating in groups that are similar is a natural phenomenon, but it can also engender prejudice and assumptions about others. We get caught in the trap of seeing others as “them” and not “us” and begin to create stories about their intentions, lumping all of them into the group called “those people” who are not a part of our tribe. You can see where this is going. In a country that was built by such a group of disparate people who came to the shores seeking liberty and freedom, we brought with us the human baggage of bias. Compound that with one group being subjugated to slavery, and another migrating to take low-paying work, we have to work at maintaining the freedom and liberty, and we are bound to have some conflicts. In the United States we developed laws intended to reduce the conflict by prohibiting discrimination recognizing that that us-ism can create unintended conflicts, particularly in the workplace where we are often exposed to groups of people we would not otherwise find in our lives. It’s a human thing. We fear what we don’t understand and we generally don’t understand people who are different.

We have seen a shift in cultural acceptance in the US as to what is acceptable and we seek as a nation to right the wrongs of racial inequality. Perhaps the stress of COVID has caused us to react to the injustice. Our anger at injustice inflamed, we seek to rectify all forms of racism in our country. 

And yet diversity is much more than a racial thing. It’s about accepting people and their differences.

My experience managing a racially diverse group taught me this lesson.

The last team I managed was one I had inherited that was the most racially diverse group I’ve worked with. When I inherited the team, they were clearly divided along racial lines as to who did and did not get along. It was a small team of ten that had worked together for a couple of years, with a nearly equal number of Black, Hispanic, and Caucasian. I inherited the team during the first wave of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2017 when the sense of injustice and anger was simmering. As a result, my first three months were spent managing interpersonal conflict rather than the process improvements I had planned. Did I say three months? It was more like three years. Old habits die hard, as we see in our country during the second Black Lives Matter wave that has gripped our nation.

My team members were happy to come to me individually my first few days and let me know everything that the others were doing wrong. I have an open door policy and I truly want to hear from people, so as I listened I would hear “I don’t want to say it’s a race thing…” from some of my Black teammates, knowing that if they perceived it was a race issue, for them it was. I was frankly stumped. I had been raised during the Civil Rights era of the 60’s with socially conscientious parents. My first book report in the 4th grade was on the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I had attended black churches in inner city Kansas City. But I didn’t tell them that I didn’t see race as an issue, because I knew I had to show them.

Individual conversations.

My first approach was to have the individual conversations to uncover the pain points with everyone. I wanted each person to feel heard – their concerns, complaints, and regrets. We were able to bring up some of the unspoken words that needed to be given voice in order to remove their toxic effect. And then I asked each person what they wanted for themselves which helped set the stage for a desired future state. I also called people out on how they were being perceived and how their behaviors were being interpreted, and helped them to see how others saw them.

Honest conversations.

The second thing I did was to have honest conversations about what I saw as the sources of conflict that went deeper than appearances and touched on personalities. It was clear to me from the beginning that there were cultural differences that divided the team, but there were also performance issues that were more related to how they interacted and communicated with one another. I started using language that framed their differences in terms of how they approached their work rather than inherent bias, and helped them find a way to reframe their conflict. In my mind, there were deeper issues at play and the surface issue of ethnicity could be overcome if we confronted the source of the conflict. I would ask them the question: what do you want me to do about it? And often the answer was to change the other person, which I couldn’t do. But I could help them move towards framing the conflict with a new lens. 

Utilize tools to improve understanding.

I introduced them to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator because it provides a tool that accounts for differences in personalities that are observable such as a preference for extraversion and thinking out loud versus introversion and needing deep concentration time. This helped us to start seeing one another as unique individuals with different styles that explained some of the friction they were experiencing. I didn’t shy from the conflict but addressed it directly and gave them an alternate narrative. The perception that racial bias was at the core began to shift as they began to look at one another as individuals with unique preferences. We were going deeper. 

Build camaraderie.

The next thing I did was introduce new rituals that built camaraderie. We had regular staff meetings where everyone could talk and where I could set standards of behavior and expectations. We had monthly potluck lunches and celebrated birthdays with gift bags where co-workers could put anonymous gifts. One thing I noticed right away was the generosity that emerged. We had a group that really wanted to have fun together and enjoyed celebrating with one another. The purposeful social gatherings evolved over time. Initially I still observed the division of who people chose to sit with, but slowly they began to interact with one another more easily and eventually those who avoided one another were laughing together. It took time, and didn’t happen overnight, but eventually they began to enjoy working together as a team.

Foster growth and development.

I also had one-on-one conversations that allowed each person to express what they wanted to learn and how they wanted to grow, and I spent the next four years trying to give them the opportunities they desired when it corresponded with business needs. By showing them that they had a place in the organization that could feed them professionally, we were able to turn the focus to a different set of behaviors that were rewarded. I called them out on teamwork and added it as a core value that they would be expected to model, reinforcing teamwork as a construct on their performance evaluations. I also moved a few people on through performance management and helped them self-select to find another opportunity and brought on new staff members who were a better fit for the team. 

While the people who remained in the division continued to have friends who were like them, and their personality differences continued to cause friction, trust was improved as was productivity. Less time was spent in my office complaining, and when there were complaints it was generally about people not pulling their weight. The group’s focus had shifted. I learned a lot myself along the way about conflict. I learned that while I did not have conscious racial bias, I did have a bias about conflict and how it was managed. I learned that my bias for people like me caused me to judge those who engaged in conflict more directly than I did. I had to learn respect while at the same time setting the standards for how we would engage in conflict as a team.  

The bottom line is that we tend to gravitate towards those who are like us because it is easier than venturing out of our comfort zones to deal with those who are different. But when we are purposeful we can create a work environment that favors teamwork, values the individual, and provides a language for uncovering misunderstandings that contribute to cultural divisions. 

My takeaways from this experience for dealing with diversity in the workplace:

1. Acknowledge the elephant in the room. Allow people to voice their concerns about discrimination. Don’t be afraid to have the conversation that may be uncomfortable but could uncover true feelings. This is where the messiness comes in, but also starts the steps towards healing.
2. Find a common language about differences. Help employees understand what is truly bothering them and reframe it around work rather than cultural differences but also around similarities. I found the Myers-Briggs worked well because I could tell that the extraverts and introverts were pushing buttons and triggering events. Look for clues such as: “Why does she always come and interrupt me when she just as easily send me an email?”
3. Create new rituals. It seems very unproductive to spend a couple of hours every month having a potluck lunch and opening silly presents, but it has a powerful effect. Breaking bread together and focusing on something other than the stresses of daily work allows the subconscious to breath and see others as more like us. 
4. Clarify culture. As the leader of a group, it is essential that you define and demonstrate what respect looks like. What behaviors are never tolerated should be clearly communicated and reinforced. A good place to start is to look at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s checklist of things you should do as an employer to ensure discrimination is not tolerated. But an even more important step is to invite staff to help define a culture of inclusion in ways that are meaningful to them and what success looks like as a group.