Question: What do "minivans have in common with "Hispanics?

Answer: They're both labels people useincorrectlyto lump together diverse elements into a single category.

I made this connection recently when I resigned myself to the fact that my family had outgrown our sedan, and it was time to purchase one of those gas-guzzling, unsexy "mom-mobiles driven by lacrosse moms with their caramel lattes in the cup holders. At least, that was my cognitive folderthe place where I lumped all minivans together in my mind.

And then it happened. I began to shop around and test-drive Ford, Chrysler, and Honda minivans and discovered, much to my delight, something completely surprising. I was expecting a clunky, schoolbus-like ride, but what I experienced felt better than the ride in most of the sedans I'd ridden. I began to admire their great utility. Later I could see how the words luxury and minivan found each other. Before long, I had a Nissan subfolder, a Honda subfolder, a Mercedes subfolder, a Ford subfolder, and so on.

The question I ask leaders and teams at the companies I work with is this: How many cognitive folders do you have when it comes to people, especially people who are different from you? Do you have just one or many? Do you have subfolders labeled "Mexican,"Chicano, and "Puerto Rican? Or do you lump everyone you perceive as Hispanic/Latino into one main folder and think about them all the same way?

Do an evaluation of your cognitive folders. Do some of your main folders have more subfolders than others? Is there a diversity of folders that helps you interpret and explain situations and interactions from multiple perspectives? Or do your folders narrow your view of people?

In a typical organization, your workforce may comprise several generations; people from wide-ranging economic and educational backgrounds; employees from various cultural, racial, and religious backgrounds; people with different sexual orientations; and employees who telecommute or even work in a different hemisphereto name a few.

Such wonderful diversity offers a rich opportunity for leaders to mine the perspectives, backgrounds, ideas, skills, talents, problem solving styles, and creativity of this enormous talent pool. The easiest way to engage everyone in the process is to get them involved in diversity dialogue. Above is an example of a story that sparks diversity dialogue. I'm going to give you some more.

A valuable activity to do in your organization is to have a group meeting where everyone gets together and begins to talk about what diversity and inclusion mean to them and to the organization, and how to leverage it to make the company smarter, more resilient, more innovative, and more competitive.

Here are ten tried-and-true group activities to get your diverse, dispersed talent pool engaged in diversity dialogue.

1. Mine for new problem-solving approaches. If problem solving at your organization is routinely dominated by one approach or faction, try this. Ask every group member to write down a solution to the same hypothetical problem on a sheet of paper. Collect the answers, read them aloud, and discuss ideas that stray from the usual approach. Notice the charge people get from offbeat solutions.

2. Invite an outsider. Routinely seek out a colleague who isn't part of your usual "teamand perhaps seems wildly unrelated in his or her expertiseto contribute to a project or pose an answer to a problem. Ask your IT specialist to a marketing meeting, for example. The more you mix it up, the more you'll get everyone talking about and sharing new perspectives.

3. Question equality. Most people confuse equality with fairness. Ask employees to brainstorm examplessuch as having the same number of stalls in a bathroom for women as for men, or giving left-handed people the same scissors as their right-handed peersthat prove the opposite. Now ask them to brainstorm conditions at your company that may also be equalbut not fair.

4. Recognize another person's lens. Discuss a recent workplace policy change or a newspaper article, asking people for their perspectives and reactions. Discuss how each person's "lensbackground, upbringing, and experienceshaped his/her opinions.

5. Open up to hidden talents. Think about your own untapped talents that people at your organization don't know about. In a group, ask each person to brag about an area of expertise, a skill, or passion that he or she is not bringing to the workplace, and that others are unlikely to know about. Brainstorm how your organization could go about using these discovered gems.

6. Assess your organization's diversity. Using a flipchart to record your observations, ask the group to analyze the makeup of your organization, work group, or office. Do people of all colors span all levels of your organization? What about gender and age? Identify three or four concrete actions your group can take to fill the gaps at each level.

7. Hire in new places. Discuss where your organization habitually and historically looks for talent. How are you recruiting talent that will complement your workforce rather than simply fit in to the current structure? What types of measures could be put into place to ensure a broader, more comprehensive search? How will you attract and retain the best and brightest of the 21st century?

8. Imagine a perfect world. Have each group member write down the qualities, characteristics, and actions that would fall under the category of "doing diversity and inclusion well in your organization. Read them aloud. Where does your organization fall short? Discuss concrete, specific ways these shortfalls can become opportunities for growth and improvement.

9. Examine the structure. Outline some of your organization's people problems. Discuss how these might be symptoms of a systemic problem rather than isolated people problems. How might your organization address these structural weaknesses?

10. Weigh the benefits. On a flipchart, make two columns labeled Impact A and Impact B. Use column A to outline the benefits your company will reap as a result of engaging its increasingly diverse demographics. Use column B to outline the impact of staying homogeneous. Think long-term.

We use simple activities like these to get employees talking about diversity and inclusion in a very practical, hands-on way. The definition of diversity I like to work with is multiple perspectives, ideas, and experiences that are necessary for solving complex problems. A new way to think about diversity is to equate a perspective to a tool, and consequently the more perspectives an organization has, the more tools it has to solve problems.

The need for and power of diversity lies in the need to solve problems, whether those problems are coming up with a better product, creating a more efficient manufacturing process, or enhancing relationships in an organization.

If you want to leverage multiple perspectives, ideas, experiences, skills, backgrounds, and talents of everyone at your company, get everyone in your organization engaged in active diversity dialogue.




Steve L. Robbins is president of SL Robbins & Associates (www.slrobbins.com), a consultancy that works with companies from Microsoft to McDonald's to improve diversity, inclusion, and cultural competency. His new book is What If?: Short Stories to Spark Diversity Dialogue (Davies Black, 2008).