Who Am I?, Who Are We? -- Really?
The Multiple Identities of Individuals, Organizations, and Nations – and Why This Challenges Key Fundamentals of Current Models of Diversity Work
By Andrés Tapia, President, Diversity Best Practices, and
Mary-Frances Winters, President and CEO, The Winters Group
Introduction
Female. Male. Disabled. Able-bodied. Gay. Black. Latin. Chinese. Brazilian. Gen Y. Immigrant. Introvert. Engineer. HR professional. On goes the diversity parade, as diversity becomes more relevant to different parts of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America and to more and more industries, corporations, not-for-profits, and city and national governments.
It’s a beautiful thing–this inclusion movement–whose spirit is to give voice to the voiceless as it brings into the circle of our communities, organizations, and nations those who historically have been marginalized. But there is a fundamental genetic flaw in the movement’s DNA. A flaw that replicates across diversity and inclusion strategies and programs as they reproduce exponentially in a growing number of organizations. The flawed diversity chromosome? A one-dimensional view of difference.
A mental scan of diversity and inclusion’s most popular programs–mentoring programs, affinity groups, associations–tend to sprout under a uni-dimensional nomenclature labeling it as race or sexual orientation or gender or generation, and on. But a look in the mirror quickly challenges this organizing principle.
What co-author Andrés Tapia sees reflected back is an extroverted Peruvian, a middle-class heterosexual father whose faith experience makes him a Catholic-evangelical-AfroBaptist-Pentecostal. Co-author Mary-Frances Winters identifies as an African-American woman, a baby boomer, a widow, a mother, a liberal with parents of Canadian heritage.
Rather than a uni-dimensional self image, our self-images are multi-dimensional—we don’t fit neatly, or at all, within the constraints of uni-dimensionality.
In fact, multi-dimensionality manifests not only in individuals, but in organizations and nations. Can IBM still be considered a U.S. company, for example, if half of its 400,000 employees are from outside the United States, and if it employs tens of thousands of contractors, and if it outsources to companies around the world (and they outsource to it)?
Nationally, as various countries experience the most massive migration flows in the history of civilization, what does it mean to be German or European or American?
In this paper we will explore how multi-dimensionality manifests in each of three dimensions—individual, organizational, and national—and then surface implications for the current work of diversity and inclusion.
Our paper begins with an examination of multi-dimensional individuals. (Important note: Given the more controversial multi-racial history of the Americas, the section on individual multi-dimensionality uses more Americas examples. Other sections will lean more heavily on other parts of the globe.)
Diversity Best Practices members, click the PDF icon above to download the paper and read more.
