Diversity & Inclusion
Diversity & Inclusion is about diversity in the workplace. Everyone has different viewpoints based on where they grew up, what their culture is and even their sexual orientation. When seeking ideas on how to make a change or find an answer to something, those differing viewpoints can help you find an answer. If you only keep people with similar views around you, then they will likely be trying to provide similar answers to those that you would already be providing. We want to make sure that everyone, regardless of their color, handicap, sexual orientation, or whatever, has a place within our organizations.
Diversity & Inclusion in Leadership
As a leader, it is often up to you to find answers to the problems that your team or organization is facing. If you are trying to break into a new market in Bangladesh, are you going to ask someone that has never lived there how best to do it? Or would it make more sense to ask someone that was from there and can give you pointers on the culture, so you don't accidentally offend anyone? This is just one example of how diversity in a team can be helpful. Being inclusive means accepting people for who they are and, even more, accepting them for the value that they can bring to the team.
Diversity Artifact
The below artifact is a paper that I wrote for OGL350 Diversity and Organization. The paper describes a course I took from the Starbucks To be Welcoming (TBW) Global Academy. I learned about diversity, bias, empathy, and how to discuss these topics with other people in some form of dialogue. This was from the first module in that class and was a real eye-opener for me.
Diversity & Inclusion is about diversity in the workplace. Everyone has different viewpoints based on where they grew up, what their culture is and even their sexual orientation. When seeking ideas on how to make a change or find an answer to something, those differing viewpoints can help you find an answer. If you only keep people with similar views around you, then they will likely be trying to provide similar answers to those that you would already be providing. We want to make sure that everyone, regardless of their color, handicap, sexual orientation, or whatever, has a place within our organizations.
Diversity & Inclusion in Leadership
As a leader, it is often up to you to find answers to the problems that your team or organization is facing. If you are trying to break into a new market in Bangladesh, are you going to ask someone that has never lived there how best to do it? Or would it make more sense to ask someone that was from there and can give you pointers on the culture, so you don't accidentally offend anyone? This is just one example of how diversity in a team can be helpful. Being inclusive means accepting people for who they are and, even more, accepting them for the value that they can bring to the team.
Diversity Artifact
The below artifact is a paper that I wrote for OGL350 Diversity and Organization. The paper describes a course I took from the Starbucks To be Welcoming (TBW) Global Academy. I learned about diversity, bias, empathy, and how to discuss these topics with other people in some form of dialogue. This was from the first module in that class and was a real eye-opener for me.
Reflection
Diversity and Inclusion, in my opinion, are crucial for any leadership degree program. I thought I knew everything there was to know about diversity and inclusion, but taking OGL350 Diversity and Organizations, I realized that I didn’t know nearly as much as I thought. Understanding the value that diversity brings to leadership should be a requirement for aspiring leaders. OGL350 was probably one of the best and most eye-opening courses that I’ve taken at ASU.
I’ve learned that it’s important to bring diversity into a team because of the differing opinions that they will have. It is not only in one’s professional life that they should be seeking diversity. We should be looking to bring people into our lives that are different from who we are so that we can experience differing viewpoints. If I always only hang around with people that look and act the same as me, then I’m not really learning anything new. I’m not seeing the advantages that other people can bring to the table. So it’s good to widen the spectrum of those you regularly interact with, so we can learn about people and cultures that are different from us.