Summary Report: Leading the Way as Full Diversity Partners—A Senior Executive Workshop on Critical Skills for Courageous Leaders
Publication: Leadership and Management in Engineering
Volume 6, Issue 1
Abstract
This paper provides a summary report of the second senior executive diversity workshop held in Vienna, Virginia, on May 11, 2004. Facilitated by Bill Proudman and Michael Welp, of the consulting firm White Men as Full Diversity Partners, the workshop was attended by senior executive representatives from the private and public sectors, as well as ASCE board members and executive staff. The workshop was developed to reach a broader audience and provide participants with a clearer understanding of why it makes good business sense to approach diversity as an all-inclusive concept. The summary report illustrates the benefits of understanding first the nature, approach, and scope of white male culture as a basis for open and inclusive dialog among all members of the human spectrum in the workplace.
Organizations are seeing the bottom-line benefits—including greater efficiency and higher productivity—that result when they harvest the strengths of all their employees. While corporate diversity programs have worked to foster a more heterogeneous workplace, most focus only on women and people of color rather than embracing the entire human spectrum in diversity initiatives, thus excluding white males. Forward-thinking companies now realize that the longer they wait to engage white men in diversity efforts, the longer they will wait to achieve the full benefit that a diverse workforce can provide. These are some of the many views held by two leading consultants, Bill Proudman and Michael Welp, of the consulting firm White Men as Full Diversity Partners (WMFDP).
ASCE believes that diversity is a particularly important issue for civil engineers. As a people-serving profession, civil engineering needs to bring diversity of opinion and perspective to solutions developed. As the composition of our society continues to change, women and people of color will increasingly be the consumers or users of civil engineering products as well as the talent pool from which to draw future civil engineers. These are the conclusions drawn by attendees at ASCE’s first Senior Executive Diversity Workshop in May 2002.
ASCE has long recognized that to truly make progress in diversity initiatives an organization must dispel the notion that diversity is just about women and people of color—that it is a new word for affirmative action—or more important, that is not about white men. Based on the positive feedback received from participants who attended the first senior executive diversity awareness workshop in 2002, ASCE decided to conduct a follow-up workshop entitled “Leading the Way as Full Diversity Partners.” This workshop was developed to reach a broader audience and provide participants with a clearer understanding of why it makes good business sense to approach diversity as an all-inclusive concept.
About the Workshop
ASCE’s Committee on Diversity and Women in Civil Engineering conducted its second senior executive workshop on Tuesday, May 11, 2004. The workshop was developed to show organizations how to create a vibrant culture that helps all workers achieve peak performance by encouraging white male employees to participate in diversity discussions as full partners with women and people of color.
Participants included senior executive representatives from the private and public sector, as well as ASCE board members and executive staff. The workshop, which was stimulating and very interactive, was facilitated by Bill Proudman and Michael Welp, PhD, both founding principals of WMFDP.
The objectives were to:
1.
Define full diversity partnerships and why they are essential to business success.
2.
Identify specific leadership skills and tools that support white men, women, and people of color working together as full diversity partners.
3.
Identify some of the opportunities and barriers to white men, women, and people of color and their organizations.
4.
Raise the awareness and understanding of white male culture and how it affects white men, women, and people of color and their partnerships at work
5.
Identify specific advantages of thinking about diversity as a “we” instead of “them versus us.”
6.
Deepen awareness and understanding of how different styles of leadership are necessary to elicit change in creating more vibrant and full diversity partnerships at work.
7.
Help attendees learn how to tap into the richness of diversity already within their organization and create an environment that retains and attracts the best talent available from all groups.
Workshop Summary
Race, gender, and sexual orientation are the dimensions explored by diversity initiatives in our society today. The workshop leaders noted that the focus of these programs, as illustrated in Table 1, tends to be on people of color, women, and homosexuals. This typically leaves white male heterosexuals largely unexamined and unengaged in the diversity process. Bypassing white males, a key component in the workforce, limits the effectiveness of the program and results in what Proudman and Welp define as the white male culture—the dominant culture in corporate America today—going largely unexamined in the process. At this workshop, Proudman and Welp made sure that participants had the opportunity to understand the influence of the white male culture, and the importance of the white male’s role as a full diversity partner. The facilitators did so by presenting what they consider three key issues that must first be addressed.Table 1. Diversity Approach
| Dimension | Focus | Unexamined |
|---|---|---|
| race | people of color | white |
| gender | women | male |
| sexual orientation | homosexual | heterosexual |
Issue I. White Male Culture: What is it? Why does it Matter?
According to Proudman and Welp, the white male culture in the United States is essentially interchangeable with corporate America, and therefore a critical reason to include white males in diversity initiatives. Unlike women and people of color, white men see themselves as individuals rather than as part of an affinity group. This limits their ability to understand that the white male culture has cultural norms and that their culture affects them as well as women and people of color.
Characteristics of the white male culture presented by the facilitators were:
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rugged individualism
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low tolerance for uncertainty—work with us or against us
•
action over reflection—the white male culture is not very reflective
•
rationality over emotion
•
linear and forward-focused perspective of time
•
desire for status and rank (more male-oriented value) over connection (more female-oriented value)
•
focus on the bottom line—other issues don’t show up for them
Issue II. Costs to White Men from the Current System
The white male culture is results oriented, but the results are not without cost, according to the workshop leaders. Among these are a lowered quality of life at work and home, reduced life expectancy, unproductive relationships, and high stress. The “fix it” orientation and rugged individualism limits white males’ ability to hear and understand others, dampens their curiosity, isolates them from others, and limits their access to support networks.
Issue III. Impacts of White Male Culture on the Workforce
As Proudman and Welp contend, the white male culture creates expectations, roles, and stereotypes for all segments of the workforce—white men, white women, and people of color. White men often overcompensate for the white male stereotype, abdicate group processes to women, and get blamed for lack of promotions for people from other groups. Because of the role they are expected to play, they typically don’t have the opportunity to practice being an ally to diversity groups.
White women feel they don’t have the option to be mediocre or they won’t be taken seriously. They often experience self-doubt and feel torn between work and family. They have learned not to express emotion in the workplace least they be perceived as high maintenance.
People of color often resent having to conform to the white male standard in corporate America. They feel they are living out of context with who they really are and often see the company as temporary before returning to their own culture, thus affecting their retention.
Confronting the Divide
Following an examination of these issues, the facilitators then conducted a fishbowl exercise in which the participants were broken up into two groups. One group was made up of white men and the other group was made up of women and people of color. The purpose of this exercise was to confront and explore affinity group stereotypes and address many of the difficult questions that often go unaddressed in the workforce. White males were asked to write down the questions they have for women and people of color but were afraid to ask. Women and people of color were asked to write questions of white males. Each group read and responded to the questions posed by the other.
Among the questions asked of white males by the women and people of color were:Among the questions the white males asked of women and/or people of color were:Participants reported that this exercise was not only effective but enlightening as well, because they felt comfortable with being more candid in this setting.
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What are you doing to break down the diversity barrier in your organization?
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What are the strongest attributes you value in your women colleagues? What do you least value?
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What can we do to make you see that your actions don’t agree with your talk?
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Why do people of color have to have your values?
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For many individuals, career building occurs at the same time as family building. How can we support individuals who wish to maintain a balance in both areas?
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How do we break down the white male work culture of rugged individualism to create working teams?
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Has how attractive a woman is ever entered into your professional opinion of her?
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What characteristics do you need to find in women and people of color to fully trust them and welcome them to your team?
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Why is so much emphasis put on one’s verbal ability?
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Why do you appear impatient when an idea is being discussed with you?
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How can we create compensation packages that address individual situations to build diversity, but still be viewed as fair to our employee base as a whole?
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What do women and people of color do and say to make themselves comfortable with each other that they do not do or say around white men?
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What should white men do to further the cause of diversity? (White men often feel unwelcome in meetings, etc.)
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Do you feel affirmative action puts you at a disadvantage?
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What specific kinds of behaviors do white men exhibit that lead women and people of color to believe they are not considered equal partners?
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Who do we call people of color? This dilemma causes discomfort, which does not make closing the diversity gap any easier.
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What is the proper level of emotion in the work place?
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What can you do to assure (i.e., build trust) white men that they are truly “part of the team” and not just championing a “diversity” cause?
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What do white men say/do that discourages active engagement of women and people of color as partners?
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What characteristics do you look for in a potential employer to ensure that your differences will be valued and embraced in the work environment?
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Why do you always try to join other women at work? Is this not a bad beginning for diversity?
Skills (Behavior) that Contribute to Effective Partnership
In discussions as a group and in breakouts, participants then explored specific skill sets that could help them be more effective in conquering the divide between affinity groups and white males. These included building trust/listening, mustering courage to stand by principles, integrating head and heart, balancing paradoxes, and managing difficult conversations. Provided below are highlights of these skill sets and what they look like, as presented by the facilitators. In most cases, workshop participants shared their own views of these skill sets.
Listening and Trust
Trust is a critical element for effective working relationships in any group. It is, however, context dependent and is different for different cultures. Some cultures need to see emotion around an issue to hear what is being said as true; the opposite tends to be the case in the white male culture. Regardless of the culture, trust is built around shared values. It takes time and effective communication to find shared values.What this skill looks like:
•
I listened to understand—not necessarily to agree. I can fully hear others whose perspectives are different from mine.
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I can accept their viewpoints as valid.
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If necessary, I can repeat the essence of their perspectives so they know that I grasp their views. This creates shared understanding; it does not mean I agree with their perspectives.
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I am able to listen to others’ perspectives without interrupting to defend my perspective.
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I know how to acknowledge others’ ideas as a way to broaden my point of view.
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I can step out of a debate mode of conversation when the goal is to have a conversation for learning.
[Welp et al. (2004), reprinted with permission]
Participants’ views:
•
People don’t always say what they mean.
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You need to check out what people mean. Don’t assume you know. Ask.
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There are two parts to any conversation: What is being said and what is being heard—intent and impact.
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You have to understand what a person meant, not just what he or she said.
Courage
Courage is the cornerstone of integrity in building relationships and developing trust. Without courage, nothing will change and people will not have the commitment to break down the barriers that are limiting effectiveness, personal growth, and the ability to form new, more productive partnerships.What this skill looks like:
•
I know the principles dearest to me. I stand by them.
•
I may still be afraid, but I choose to function in spite of my fear, risks involved, and any of my own discomfort.
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I am willing at times to say “I don’t know,” and join with others in searching for answers.
•
I am able to take risks in speaking my truth and acting to create change.
[Welp et al. (2004), reprinted with permission]
Integrating Head and Heart
Differences placed on rational thought and emotion are one of the main cultural divides in a diverse workplace. The ability to integrate head and heart thus becomes the only way to bridge this critical divide.What this skill looks like:
•
I value both my head and my heart.
•
While my intelligence is an important source of my leadership strength, I balance intellect with emotional maturity and the ability to empathize and connect with others.
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I know when and how to show vulnerability in a way that creates openness and authentic connection.
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I also know my own blind spots and growing edges. I recognize how my leadership presence affects others’ performance.
[Welp et al. (2004), reprinted with permission]
Balancing Key Paradoxes
Life in general and diversity initiatives specifically require us to balance a number of key paradoxes. We are both individuals and members of various groups. When you acknowledge your membership in a group, you do not give up your individuality. Diversity initiatives require both a focus on difference and sameness, diversity and commonality. Each can only be defined in terms of the other.
Breakthrough learning is created by supporting and challenging each other at the same time, not choosing to do just one or the other. While difficulties around diversity are not a particular person’s fault, it is our common responsibility. Often white men feel they are being asked to carry the personal burden of historical mistreatment toward other groups. It is not any one person’s fault and white men must be included as a vital part of the dialogue needed to create more equitable systems and to understand how this historical mistreatment may be affecting the current partnership.What this skill looks like:
•
I know that successful leadership requires me to satisfy many contradictory needs and goals.
•
These elements are interdependent; to satisfy one I must address the others.
•
I am most successful when I try to balance these opposites.
•
I recognize that some of my leadership challenges are not really problems to solve but ongoing paradoxes to manage.
[Welp et al. (2004), reprinted with permission]
Participants’ views:
•
Vulnerability leads to showing courage.
•
For me, things start with passion in my heart. I need the passion to move into my head.
•
Notice how each of us does this differently—there are no specific right ways.
•
Recognize that the product is people. We must have the heart in this.
•
The Myers-Briggs type for engineers is often ISTJ—they tend to be “head” oriented and focus less on the heart/emotional connection.
Leveraging Ambiguity and Turbulence
Life is both simple and complex. Because people are often overwhelmed by complexity, they often seek simpler models to understand or express things. Gaining a deeper understanding and achieving a more productive outcome often requires accepting complexity and ambiguity as a constant reality. Being open to paradoxes and polarities provides a deeper perspective.What this skill looks like:
•
Life is both simple and complex; this is one of many paradoxes I embrace.
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I police my own need to oversimplify the world as a way to maintain blindness to things that do not fit my worldview.
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I recognize when I am falling into either/or thinking and can extend my view to include both/and thinking.
•
I have learned to extend patience to others and myself.
•
I understand that ambiguity and change create an atmosphere of turbulence. Leadership requires that I both manage my own and others’ resistance to this turbulence and simultaneously use it as an opportunity to remove both real and perceived barriers to change.
[Welp et al. (2004), reprinted with permission]
Participants’ views:
•
I look forward to real conversations as they emerge.
•
One thing I’ve learned is to wait for the teaching moments.
•
If you come from one another’s perspectives, you can find common ground.
Managing Difficult Conversations
People avoid difficult conversations for many reasons—concerns about being politically correct, hurting feelings, or not being able to handle what might result. Difficult conversations are the key to breaking through to build the trust and understanding so critical to diversity initiatives. There are skills that can be learned to help manage difficult conversations.What this skill looks like:
•
I initiate and engage in direct, honest, and timely conversations, without blame, in order to maximize partnership and business success.
•
I acknowledge immediately when something is not working and stop doing it.
•
In listening to others, I recognize when I am observing behavior and when I am adding my own interpretation to that behavior.
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I avoid attributing negative intentions to others and monitor my own intentions while communicating.
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I do not collude with my own stereotypes about other people.
[Welp et al. (2004), reprinted with permission]
Participants’ views:
•
You have to work to understand what the issues are. And you need to work to understand each other before agreeing to disagree.
•
I need to learn how to lower my directness.
•
It’s hard to know what to do when a difficult conversation becomes emotional. We don’t have much of a base to embrace emotion.
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It helps to let the other person choose the location for a difficult conversation.
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One skill to develop is being comfortable with silence.
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Listening unconditionally to others helps.
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Set some ground rules before the conversation.
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Don’t make it personal. Base your conversation on behavior, not personality.
Seeing/Thinking Systemically
One effective approach to dealing with complex issues such as diversity initiatives is to look at things systematically. It helps you move beyond an individual perspective to begin to see the perspectives of others and understanding the issue as a whole.What this skill looks like:
•
I understand that I am part of many different social-identity groups and that this affects both my experience of the world and how others see me.
•
I look beyond individual ways of knowing, exploring, and making sense of patterns that I would not see if I looked at others and myself only as disconnected individuals.
•
I know that culture is created in part by shared assumptions embedded in groups of people. I know these assumptions create dynamics of inclusion and exclusion.
•
I continuously seek to understand and interrupt these dynamics in order to create a more equitable and just world.
[Welp et al. (2004), reprinted with permission]
Being an Agent of Change
Once you have an understanding of the diversity issue, it’s time to take a stand and help make a difference. That means making a commitment to become an agent of change.What this skill looks like:
•
I understand the common pathways of creating learning and change, both for individuals and organizations.
•
I know how to respond to “resistance” to change and how to use myself as a leader/individual contributor effectively to support complex organizational change.
•
My leadership is enhanced by my embrace of the chaos that comes with change and my understanding of the emotional components of changing systems composed of human beings.
•
I demonstrate how to create inclusion, ownership, and commitment while implementing change.
[Welp et al. (2004), reprinted with permission]
Participants’ views:
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It’s all intertwined.
•
You must have passion and know why you are doing it.
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Tenacity is critical. Involvement creates ownership.
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The goal is to work for and/both rather than either/or.
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This is not a quick process. It takes time.
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You need to find other champions. You can’t do it by yourself.
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Get buy-in from a few people at a time.
Conclusion
Diversity is a complex issue. There are no pat answers or one-size-fits-all approaches. Diversity is a journey that we all must take together as full partners, but first you have to build trust. Workshop leaders noted that the best way to do so is to start by asking the difficult questions, and then work toward building that trust, one person at a time.
In wrapping up the session, white male participants were asked if they felt more comfortable going back to their workplaces and talking about their experience with women and people of color, and vice versa. Both groups expressed an eagerness to take their findings back to the workplace.
The day ended with workshop leaders presenting four final thoughts to reflect upon:
1.
It is unacceptable to be only accepting and tolerant; we must take action.
2.
Taking a stand on diversity boils down to a leadership issue. It’s the right thing to do for a number of reasons.
3.
The white male culture may be what we use in a crisis, but we’re not always in a crisis. In addition, there may be more than one way to deal with a crisis.
4.
Women and people of color need to hear the barriers/difficulties white males have with diversity.
Appendix. WMFDP’s Operating Assumptions
The following points are taken from handout materials provided to conference participants, and represent WMFDP’s thirteen key conclusions, which are drawn from years of experience in the field (reprinted here with permission from WMFDP).
1.
Organizations will not become more inclusive without white men as full diversity partners working alongside women and people of color.
2.
The majority of white men, women, and people of color want to be effective partners and create equitable systems that work for everyone.
3.
White men are not the problem. They aren’t broken and don’t need to be fixed. Diversity is perhaps more critical to the development of white men as leaders than any other group. This is in large part because white men are often the last to identify, let alone understand, the subtle nuances, qualities, and resulting impacts of white male culture on everyone, including other white men.
4.
White male culture is not the enemy or the problem: It simply is. It has upsides and downsides, like any dominant culture. Often a difficulty is the invisibleness of white male culture to white men and their not noticing the cumulative effect and/or impact of that culture on others.
5.
White men are often unaware of the systemic advantages they receive (from being white and/or male) and how these influence their ability to be effective diversity partners. It is challenging leadership work for them to identify how diversity benefits them personally—as well as from a business standpoint—without focusing solely on women and people of color as the recipients of the benefits of diversity. Women and people of color often are uninformed of the depth of this unawareness and oftentimes mistakenly assume it is out of their white male colleagues’ indifference, arrogance, and/or stupidity.
6.
Receiving systemic advantage does not prevent white men from being the recipients of mistreatment and discrimination.
7.
One by-product of being a member of the white male group is the ability to live in unconscious incompetence (not knowing that I don’t know). This does not mean that white men who operate here are stupid, unwilling to grow, part of the problem, or the enemy. Not knowing one does not know is often a by-product of living in a culture one never has to leave.
8.
White men are often accused of “not getting it.” Oftentimes the “not getting it” is because women and people of color don’t recognize when white men truly do not know that they do not know.
9.
Women and people of color need to explore how their learned cynicism and/or skepticism about white men’s general lack of awareness of privilege influence their willingness to partner with white men, as well as their effectiveness in doing so.
10.
All people, not just white men, have work to do to examine and deepen their diversity partnerships. It is necessary work for women and people of color to examine how they invite and/or limit white men’s full engagement as diversity partners.
11.
Engaging white men, women, and people of color as diversity partners is challenging and ongoing work. It is not simply learning about and/or applying new strategies, models, and/or tools. It is leadership development work that requires the purposeful integration and application of intellect and heart.
12.
White men need to look to and work with other white men to understand better how systemic advantage affects them individually and collectively. White men need to understand the benefit to them and other white men a more diverse and inclusive organization can be. Their deepened partnerships with each other are essential toward transforming their partnerships with women and people of color.
13.
Conflict, turbulence, and emotion are inherent parts of doing meaningful partnership work, and should not be considered dynamics to be avoided or judged as signs of weakness by those who are willing to acknowledge their presence and learn from them.
Reference
Welp, M., Morris, J. A., and Proudman, B. (2004). Eight critical leadership skills created through effective diversity partnerships: A skills building field guide, White Men as Full Diversity Partners, Portland, Ore.
Biographies
WMFDP has provided the leadership material used in this summary report. WMFDP LLC is a national culture-change consulting firm based in Portland, Oregon, and is committed to deepening the work partnerships between white men, white women, and people of color. The firm works with clients to inspire leaders to operate with courage and take action to address issues related to inclusion and diversity and their resulting business implications. For more information about WMFPD, call (503) 281-5585, or visit their Web site, www.wmfdp.com. Three partnership field guides are available through ASCE Press [www.pubs.asce.org, or (800) 548-2723]: Diversity Partnership Tips for White Men: A Skills Building Field Guide; Diversity Partnership Tips for White Women and People of Color to Engage White Men; and Eight Critical Leadership Skills Created through Effective Diversity Partnerships: A Skills Building Field Guide.
Information & Authors
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Published In
Leadership and Management in Engineering
Volume 6 • Issue 1 • January 2006
Pages: 13 - 19
Copyright
© 2006 ASCE.
History
Published online: Jan 1, 2006
Published in print: Jan 2006
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