If someone from another planet dropped in and listened to any of our numerous news sources over the past several months, what clues about our culture might he/she take away?

I conjecture that there would be at least five major glaring observations:

1. We are opinionated and sharply divided in our opinions.

2. We [...]]]>

If someone from another planet dropped in and listened to any of our numerous news sources over the past several months, what clues about our culture might he/she take away?

I conjecture that there would be at least five major glaring observations:

1. We are opinionated and sharply divided in our opinions.

2. We operate in absolutisms: “us and them”, “win and lose”.

3. We “fight” in an almost child-like manner with no widely accepted rules of engagement.

4. Winning (almost at any cost) is all that matters.

5. We are in denial about the role and impact of race in our culture.

I would be the first to advocate for different opinions. After all I am a diversity consultant and that is an important element of our thesis. Diversity of thought enhances a group’s ability solve problems, think creatively and be more innovative. In his book, The Difference, Scott Page, shows example after example

of how heterogeneous groups that display a range of perspectives outthink like minded experts.

However, I also know that the studies show that diversity of any kind only works when it is well managed. Our esteemed colleague, Dr. Roosevelt Thomas, makes the point in his book, Building on the Promise of Diversity, that tension accompanies diversity of any kind. Therefore, the benefits of diversity only accrue if there is a process to manage the inherent tension. I would argue that the debates that are going on right now over health care reform and a myriad of other issues are prime examples of diversity tension that is not being well managed.

In my corporate work with clients, we attempt to provide skills to navigate through the murky and uncomfortable waters of difference. Developing competencies to (1) recognize difference, (2)appreciate and respect difference as normal, and (3) learn to create shared meaning in cross-cultural settings allows us to more effectively use our differences as an asset rather than a liability. It does start with language and communication. We need new ways to express our differences and new “rules” for how we communicate with each other to get to win-win. Incivility keeps us stuck not moving towards solutions. As with any competency, it takes years to develop such skills as well as a huge mindset shift away from a “win-lose” mentality.

Our “win-lose” world view comes from deeply held scarcity thinking and our highly competitive nature. The belief is that just about everything is finite and we are “fighting” to keep our share. If another group “gets” more (e.g. insuring the uninsured), it will mean that I get less. An alternative world view would be mutualism, where we see the interconnectedness and interdependencies for all of our survival. Our focus would be on creating “win-“win” rather than a “win- lose” scenarios. However, this thinking is not consistent with the fierce competitiveness of sports. There must be a winner and a loser. Too often we continue to embrace this mentality in other areas where the model just does not work. In government and business when our behavior suggests that our only motive is for “us” to beat “them”, regardless of the real merits of the argument, in the end we all lose. Maybe in sports winning signifies the “better” or more “capable, but even there it is sometimes just a lucky break.

Now to the issue of race. One side says when things get tough, we call the “race card” and it is clear the current dissention and incivility have nothing to do with the fact that Barack Obama is an African American. The other side says, it is obvious that race is an issue for our first African American President. For me the issue is not so much who is right or wrong but how different perceptions can be. When Pew does its survey on attitudes towards race in America, African Americans are usually at least twice as likely as whites to say that race is still an issue. So in essence both sides are “right” from their vantage points. It depends on your “lens”. It depends on where you sit. It depends on your world view and how you see the world based on all of your past experiences.

As an African American woman race is an issue for me 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It may not be for another African American and is likely not an issue for someone of another race/ethnicity. Therefore when some say race is at play, it is not calling the “race card,” I believe that it is a genuine expression how they are experiencing the situation. If those who don’t have that vantage point were diversity competent, they would not dismiss the other’s perceptions but rather acknowledge and try to understand them even if in the end they still don’t agree.

It is impossible to see what you have never seen or experience something just the way another has. Another one of my colleagues, Howard Ross of Cook Ross Consulting, speaks to unconscious bias. These are subtle ways in which we express our biases, prejudices and stereotypes that we are not even aware of. For example a newspaper account of Hurricane Katrina labeled a picture of blacks wading in the water with food as “Residents loot for food” and a similar picture of whites as “Survivors find food.” This difference in words (“loot” vs.”find”) for the same activity suggests a more positive attitude about whites than blacks. The Implicit Association Test, developed by a team of researchers and now housed at Harvard, is a method for measuring implicit or automatic attitudes through a series of pictorial associations that respondents, in rapid fire succession, indicate positive or negative feelings. Their body of research indicates that there is a much stronger bias against images of blacks than whites.

There continue to be deep seated biases in our culture and for us to conclude that race has absolutely nothing to do with what seems to be the growing incivility towards Barack Obama, I think is naïve. He is admirably trying to stay above the fray as others battle it out. Before we dismiss the role of race completely, we should each take stock of our own deeply held beliefs and feelings and ask, is it possible that unconscious bias could be influencing my thoughts and behavior? When we say we are against a particular policy being promoted by the current administration….is it the policy alone or does the person behind the policy have an impact? Acknowledgement and self-awareness are the keys to begin to break down racial barriers that continue to deter our progress as a society.