Culture is very important when it comes to inclusion and diversity. For many years, these words have has a negative connotation associated with them. For some individuals in this country, culture and diversity can be metaphoric with the word different. When we think of someone being different from us, inherently we can feel uncomfortable. In the late 1990’s the word diversity made an entrance into most corporate environments. Diversifying the workforce became essential to all major organizations.
Hoffstede (2001) defined culture as a “mental program”. In his explanation, he focused on how the mental program can include values, behavior and ideas from individuals of a certain social belonging. Social belonging is references individuals from a certain; country, region, workplace team etc. Furthermore, Hofstede (2001) details that there are different behaviors, values, beliefs that fall within certain levels. These include; (1) Personality, (2) Culture and (3) Human Nature. Most of these learned behaviors, when positive, can enhance the environment a person is in, especially if they are in a toxic environment.
Culture, aside from being directly correlated to heritage and someone’s background, can also define the attitudes and practices of a certain group. A department within a work environment, a congregation at a church or even players on a sports team, will exude similar traits or beliefs . As individuals work together towards a certain goal they begin to conform to each other’s attitudes and ideals. Some groups even begin to act like one another.
Josh Rothman, in an article written for “The New Yorker” (2014), expressed,
“And they’d be less meaningful, too. “Culture” may be pulling itself apart from the inside, but it represents, in its way, a wish. The wish is that a group of people might discover, together, a good way of life; that their good way of life might express itself in their habits, institutions, and activities; and that those, in turn, might help individuals flourish in their own ways. ”
One of the challenges in many organizations, is changing the perspectives of the individual’s that struggle with accepting other cultures and their perspectives. To be successful, organizations must create plans of inclusion that diminish the risk of stereotyping and prejudice. Because inclusion is a basic human right that everyone deserves to have, companies must do everything in their power to ensure that a good inclusion and diversity plan is in place. A change management approach could be very effective in introducing the meaning of culture to an organization and the different groups within it.
References:
Hofstede, G. (2001). Cultures and organizations: comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing Cultural Differences (Ninth ed.). New York: Routledge.
Rothman, J. The New Yorker. 2014. Retrieved from: https://www.newyorker.com/books/joshua-rothman/meaning-culture
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