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A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE
® Institute
Building Community &
Embracing Diversity in the Workplace I:
Demonstrating Compassionate Leadership
The A WORKPLACE OF DIFFERENCE™ Program offers some suggestions and strategies for creating and maintaining a productive and positive workplace environment.
- Acknowledge and support managers, communicators and other employees who assume a leadership role for implementing diversity initiatives.
- Allow people to get to know who you are and take time to get to know others. Respect people’s privacy and protect your own.
- Be someone’s mentor or protégée.
- Be willing to stand up for your beliefs. Try to leave your own and other people’s self-esteem intact.
- Create an environment for exploration of diversity in your office and throughout the workplace. Display culturally-based items (flags of countries you are affiliated with, photos of family members, posters, interesting cultural artifacts, etc.)
- Develop and enhance diversity skills. Encourage quality discussions. Sponsor a lunchtime panel or a focus forum. Discourage workplace gossip and diffuse rumors.
- Establish and/or reissue the company's "Zero Tolerance Policy" and practices by which harassment is handled. Enforce them consistently.
- Learn about other people's cultures. Ask questions that invite explanation and understanding. Be open to giving and receiving information.
- Learn as much as you can about the organization’s mission, vision, values and people. Be inclusive. Share information.
- Maintain a strong corporate profile by modeling the appropriate behavior and language that the company is to represent.
- Meet with managers and employees to openly communicate a shared responsibility for all diversity initiatives and to encourage input and participation.
- Restate management's commitment to diversity as an integral part of the company's mission, strategy or other organizational planning process.
- Take an active role in issues that are important to you. Remember...silence and inaction are the voice of complicity.
- Take time to talk WITH people, not AT them. Be flexible. There is usually more than one way to accomplish a task or reach a goal.
- Treat all people with respect and dignity. Encourage others to work with you, not against you! Try to stress the positive in every situation.
ADL's A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE® Institute operates on the premise that educators are most likely to be successful in integrating anti-bias content and methodology practices in their classrooms when they have had hands-on experience and training with the materials they use. For this reason, ADL's A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE® Institute curriculum materials are available only within the context of a six-hour (minimum) staff development workshop, and are not for sale through ADL’s Resource catalog. In the interest of providing specific examples of the Institute's curriculum materials, this sample exercise has been made available. For more information on how to organize an A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE ® Institute training program in your workplace, contact workplace@adl.org, on your college or university campus, contact campusdiversity@adl.org, or in your school or community, contact your ADL Regional Office, ADL National Headquarters (212) 885-7700, or by E-mail. |
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