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Diversity Practitioners Need different Skills for Today’s Challenges
 By Mary-Frances Winters
President and CEO, The Winters Group, Inc.
It is becoming increasingly evident that the role of the office of diversity is evolving at a rapid rate. The skills that were adequate even 5 years ago are insufficient for the added complexity of the role.
Consider the seemingly greater polarization in our society over issues like religion, immigration and sexual orientation. Terrorism is the most extreme form of intolerance of difference.
The growing anti-American sentiment and the diversity tension that plays out along country (ethnic) lines could have significant impact on global firms’ ability to achieve business goals.
There is a lot at stake and diversity and inclusion experts will be needed to facilitate new and deeper conversations about acceptance and inclusion. Even though it appears that these issues are mostly happening outside the workplace, they clearly influence how workers may be feeling and thinking these days. As the world seems to move more towards “us and them” and less towards working together for common goals, the advances that we have made over the past forty years could be in jeopardy.
We have to find ways to have civil discourse about our differences and diversity practitioners can certainly help. The training that we do inside organizations teaches that inclusion is not about agreement but it is about first seeking to understand and respecting other points of view. We teach that diversity is natural and certainly can cause tension. It is how we resolve the tension to come to a mutually agreeable solution that is important. As practitioners, we need to take the message deeper and further. We need to be in the forefront offering effective, inclusive solutions inside and outside of the organization.
There should be no question about the business case for diversity in today’s world climate. There is interdependence on a global basis for natural resources, labor and technology. Widespread hatred and intolerance of difference must be alleviated. If we do not find ways to work collaboratively with each other around the world, it could surely lead to the demise of our economic markets.
Therefore, diversity practitioners, in addition to the traditional duties, need to have some familiarity in the following areas:
- Historical and contemporary global-geo political issues
- International Government Relations
- Trade Relations
- Ethics
- Global Marketing
- Global Security
- Immigration
- Macro-economics
- Cross-cultural conflict resolution
Diversity and inclusion experts with these skills might just be what the world needs to stem the trend towards divisiveness rather than inclusion. I invite diversity and inclusion experts to coalesce around helping the broader world community understand the benefits that can be derived from leveraging diversity and practicing inclusion.
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