I enjoy brainstorming with my professional colleagues about the value of having a cohesive culture within a company that promotes the achievement of business goals. Most people assume that this is a good thing, but productivity at the expense of individual employee beliefs might in fact be a form of bias. Multiculturalism is defined to be a where there is an environment of diversity embracing more than one culture. As you may expect, culturism is the opposite. It implies a preference of one culture over another and is usually expressed as a negative term where superiority of a native culture is assumed to be correct thinking. Culturism as a prejudiced viewpoint can turn a company culture into a train wreck. You can’t make a salad with only lettuce.
The basic question becomes one of how far to go in homogenizing a company culture before it becomes discriminatory. Culturism bias is alive and well. It usually appears when it is least likely to be expected and from leaders that otherwise appear diverse in their intentions and ideas. Culturism happens because it is so difficult for people to instinctively see outside of their own world. Sometimes after a discussion with colleagues about building a collaborative culture in a company I have a shudder of shame creep over me because I suddenly realize just how many perspectives I am forgetting to consider. My father never graduated from college, but ended his professional career teaching at a technical school. Working with his hands most of his life, his type would be totally missed in casting a net for talent. One of the brightest men I ever knew was perfectly at home in an office environment, but most offices would count him among the invisible “them†workforce.
There are two reasons that we should combat culturism as an enemy of progress.
- Culturism happens when managers have profit motives or corporate goals that are not understood and not explained so that rank and file employees can buy-in to the concept. Assuming that we are striving for a collaborative culture, there must be common goals and objectives to achieve success. Excited leadership must cause excitement in followership in order to add passion to the tools needed to execute a plan. Lip service by anyone on the team is a weak link in the chain.
- Culturism happens when listening is not of primary importance to management. If we have intentionally built a diverse team of employees, failing to allow them to contribute their diversity of thought in establishing goals and objectives is shortsighted. The strongest team is one that has a part in determining the direction that they will be traveling. It is not compromising company success if there is a dedicated team pulling toward a goal that they helped to establish. Innovation happens when ideas are not all generated at the top.
Experts on engagement, team building, and career enhancement often miss addressing the entire population that is thirsty for information. There is never a one-size-fits all solution to any problem at the personal level and a company is a mix of a whole bunch of “personal levels.†Admitting that we are sometimes guilty of not thinking about people that are “not like us†is a start. Training ourselves to do so requires intentionally entering the turf of those not like us and learning from them.
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