Diversity training - it doesn't work.

Question from my Human Resources Management Course: Unlike many training programs designed to develop skills, diversity training focuses on attitude. Briefly describe one experience you have had with diversity training (1) assessing how effective the training was and (2) one recommendation for improvement. Be specific and support your response with an example.

“Diversity training doesn’t extinguish prejudice. It promotes it” (Bregman, 2012, para 15).  I have attended many diversity trainings.  They were all a waste of time, except they helped me identify which of my coworkers might be bigots.  The best lesson I ever learned on diversity was at a UC Santa Cruz graduation. The president delivered the commencement address.  He said something to the effect of focusing on differences is counterproductive.  We should focus on similarities: we put our pants on one leg at a time, we eat breakfast and brush our teeth, and we want a better life for our children.  Diversity highlights division, divisiveness, and creates a hypersensitivity and burden of political correctness. 

This question answers itself: ‘Unlike many training programs designed to develop skills, diversity training focuses on attitude.’  If the approach to the training or the content does not address improving business skills within the framework of the organizational mission, values, and goals, it is worthless.  Every diversity training I have attended was what you can’t do or say, and how each racial group has been discriminated against.  It heightened sensitivities, and potential for lawsuits.

[T]he emphasis has to move away from an individual focus toward addressing the bigger picture: how can we, as a cohesive unit, create more opportunity by achieving the organization’s goals? How can we stop contending against one another and vie against a much bigger threat: our external competitors, new technology, and other revolutionary changes within our industry? How can we advance our work with cultural knowledge, skills, and strategies for engaging the best talent and the most customers/students/constituents? (Smiley, 2014, para 8).

So to fix the problem, design courses that talk about the similarities mentioned above, and that we all want to be successful in work.  That we accomplish that by building relationships based on trust and mutual respect.  That respect comes when we understand that our cultural differences are just matters of style in getting all those same things we want done.  And for goodness sake teach people to not look for injury.  If you are wished “Merry Christmas” take it on faith as a sincere expression of good wishes and say “Thank you.”

References:

Begman, P. (2012). Diversity Training Doesn’t Work. Harvard Business Review [online serial]. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2012/03/diversity-training-doesnt-work

Smiley, L. (2014). Why Employees Hate Diversity Training. Retrieved from https://societyfordiversity.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/why-employees-hate-diversity-training/