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STATEMENT
OF PHILOSOPHY AND APPROACH
REGARDING WORKPLACE DIVERSITY Gardenswartz & Rowe is committed to creating organizational environments that welcome and include everyone while diminishing and excluding no one. Whether through training, consulting, or writing books and training materials, our work with organizations draws us toward creating organizational climates permeated with respect and dignity, places where healthy, resilient and productive people have an opportunity to flourish. Diversity
in today's pluralistic organizations gives
us a prime arena in which to do this work.
Over the years, we have developed a belief
system and a paradigm for dealing with
diversity that is rooted in the following
principles. Diversity
is an "inside job," meaning that diversity
is not about "them." Rather, it is about
each person coming to terms with his or
her attitudes, beliefs, and expectations
about others. Diversity
goes beyond race and gender. The diversity
tent is big enough to include everyone . .
. young and old, homeless and affluent,
immigrant and native, white and black,
gang members and corporate
professionals. No
one is the target of blame for current
inequities, however, all of us have
responsibility for removing them. Human
beings have been socialized to behave in
certain ways, and all of us are at times
both perpetrators and victims of
discrimination and stereotypes. Human
beings are ethnocentric, seeing the world
through their own narrow view and judging
the world by their familiar
yardstick. The
human species resists change, continuing
to seek homeostasis. This makes the
constant adaptation required by diversity
difficult for people already overwhelmed
by staggering transitions. Human
beings find comfort and trust in likeness.
There is a tendency to seek the company of
those most similar to us. It
is difficult for people to share power.
History shows us that we rarely do it
voluntarily. G&R's
approach is non-confrontational. It
involves bridge-building that focuses on
increasing understanding and expanding a
repertoire of skills for all
participants. The
content of training goes beyond awareness.
It includes knowledge about different
cultures as well as the interpersonal and
management skills necessary for survival
in today's global work world. While
the training begins with intrapersonal
awareness as a necessary starting point,
it is strongly application oriented. The
"so what" question is asked, and the
connection to the real world of consumers
and employees is always made. The
learning environment G&R creates is
magic. Their extensive experience can be
seen in the learning climate. It is safe,
secure, open, and full of the
possibilities of exploration. Gardenswartz
& Rowe has been working with diversity
since 1977. are
published authors of seminal materials in
the field. They have written a number of
books on diversity and have created over
300 activities and training tools upon
which to draw. have
been professionally recognized. They were
named ASTD Trainer of the Year in 1985 and
the Society for Human Resources Management
(SHRM) awarded their book Managing
Diversity: A Complete Desk Reference and
Planning Guide, the Book of the Year award
in 1994. are
recognized speakers on global and domestic
diversity. are
co-founders of the Global Diversity
Roundtable design
and regularly present the Diversity
Train-the-Trainer Certificate Program
through SHRM. customize
their work with each client.
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