Purpose: To move
forward the discussion on how to use science, humanistic philosophy, and education
to help workplaces reap the benefits of diverse workplaces while avoiding the
problems caused by diversity.
Abstract:
This paper will discuss the benefits and challenges of
employing a diverse workforce and discuss ways we can use behavioral science
and humanistic philosophy to help businesses reap the benefits of a diverse
workforce while avoiding the problems that arise when working with a group of
diverse individuals, specifically focusing on how to use science to eliminate problems
with discrimination, harassment and retaliation which make the creation of
truly diverse workforces so difficult to achieve.
To successfully change corporate culture to be more inclusive,
we need philosophy to provide people with adequate reasons why it benefits them
personally to embrace a diverse workforce. This is a challenge that is best
addressed through the use of humanistic philosophy. Once a work team has
decided to embrace diversity, they then need to learn specific skills and
techniques to defuse the conflicts that arise and how to effectively deal with
harassment and discrimination so that all employees feel protected in the
workgroup. These skills and techniques are best addressed by applying
behavioral science techniques to the problem behaviors.
Discussion:
Diverse workforces benefit employers and employees
[i],
but attempts to create diverse workforces are hampered by a myriad of problems.
People coming from diverse backgrounds have different life
experiences, different triggers, different world views, different assumptions
and different goals. How we talk to one another respectfully and further,
understand what is being said, is not always easy. We all have implicit biases
[ii]
that may prevent us from accurately perceiving the other person and their
motives.
Our difficulty in seeing other people accurately and without
bias is hampered by the fact that humans, as a species, are tribal animals. We instinctually
feel safe around people we perceive to be like us and are frightened by those
we perceive to be “other.”
[iii]
There are a variety of ways our tribal instincts can be triggered, but once
they are triggered, creating a cohesive group out of diverse individuals
becomes exponentially harder.
Humanistic philosophy can help us bridge those differences.
It helps us bring the “other” person into a common tribe which helps us to
override our tribal instincts so we can view the other person as “ethical.” Humanism also provides us with a common moral
language we can use to create consensus and resolve differences.
Diversity problems in the workplace manifest in a variety of
ways and stem from a variety of causes. This is why diversity is such a “wicked”
problem to solve.
A combination of humanistic philosophy and applied science
can help us fix these problems so that we can reap the benefit of diverse
workforces.
There are 3 major problems we need to solve to create
diverse yet cohesive work groups. We need to hire more diverse workforces. We
need to solve the problem of social exclusion that prevents diverse work groups
from creating cohesion and leads to harassment and discrimination in the
workplace. And we need to help people more effectively deal with and resolve disagreements
so that our tribal instincts don’t kick in and turn what should be a rational
disagreement into an irrational divisive conflict.
The Challenge of
overcoming implicit and explicit bias in personnel decisions.
We now know that our ability and willingness to hire diverse
workforces is complicated by our implicit and sometimes explicit biases.
[iv]
We all have biases and that our biases impact our hiring decisions, firing
decisions, promotion decisions and more. We cannot fix our diversity problem
without better understanding of how implicit biases work so that we can take affirmative
action and hire people we wouldn’t normally hire because of our biases.
Otherwise biases will continue control hiring decisions and our businesses will
suffer as a result.
Humanistic philosophy can help us work past our biases and
science can help us develop techniques so that we can work to ensure our biases
don’t negatively impact our personnel decisions.
The Challenge of
Eliminating Social Exclusion
Social exclusion is the process in which individuals or
people are systematically blocked from (or denied full access to) various
rights, opportunities and resources that are normally available to members of a
different group, the “ingroup.”
Social exclusion can happen for a variety of reasons.
Sometimes it’s a result of bias, but it can also be a result of competition for
resources in the workplace where individuals may dehumanize their co-workers
through bullying, a technique that helps them gain access to resources and
minimize the influence their target has in the workplace.
For example: social exclusion appears to be the main aim of
workplace bullying or harassment. Evolutionary psychologists
[v]
have shown that bullying is adaptive behavior. Bullying can be thought of as a
tool of group control.
People who can
control access to a group through social inclusion and exclusion wield a lot of
power.
Humans have an instinctual need to “belong” to ingroups and exclusion
is felt as physical pain
[vi].
Our instinctual fear of being socially ostracized allows bullies to manipulate
group dynamics and control them. The bully might not be biased against their
target, they are merely using the threat of social exclusion to control a
group. They do this by marking their target tribally as “other” to encourage
social exclusion of the target. Anyone who is perceived as different can be
marked as “other” this way. Since no one wants to be excluded, our instinct is
to seek inclusion in the form of currying the favor of the person perceived to
have the power to include or exclude people from the group.
To create a diverse yet cohesive workgroup, social exclusion
cannot be tolerated. The challenge is how to make social exclusion behavior
stop. Currently 152 countries have laws prohibiting discrimination in the
workplace. Several countries and state jurisdictions mandate harassment
training and yet, harassment and discrimination continue, and vulnerable people
are excluded from our workplaces as a result. Laws prohibiting discrimination
are not enough.
Solving this problem will require a combination of
humanistic philosophy and behavioral science. Humanistic philosophy will help
us resist efforts by bullies to marginalize and label people as “other.” Behavioral
science will help us extinguish the unwanted exclusionary behavior.
Scientists have known for decades how to stop unwanted
behavior including exclusionary behavior, like bullying and harassment. Specifically, the science of behavioral
extinction not only explains why attempts to stop this behavior results in an
escalation of behavior otherwise known as retaliation, but it provides us with
the tools we need to get it to stop. We need to start applying these techniques
to the problem of bullying, harassment and discrimination in the workplace so that
diverse individuals are no longer subjected to social exclusion in the
workplace.
The challenge of
De-Escalating Conflicts to maintain group cohesion
Diverse workgroups means that there is diversity of opinion.
Problem solving is never an easy task. People with different skills sets,
knowledge bases and experience, approach problem solving differently. This can
lead to disagreements that if they remain unresolved, can cause conflict.
When we find ourselves in conflict our tribal biases kick in
making resolution of the disagreement harder. Unfortunately, some people have
learned that if they use bullying and/or aggression to stigmatize the other
person, it increases the chances of their viewpoints being adopted. This
technique, while a successful strategy for the person employing it, negatively
impacts the problem-solving process and is experienced as harassment and
discrimination by the person on the receiving end of this sort of bullying
behavior.
Thomas and Killman describe five approaches humans take to
resolving conflict.
[vii] Two
of these approaches are considered counterproductive. The three remaining ones
form the basis of most of the advice on how to resolve conflicts.
The first step in any conflict management program is to
attempt to get both sides to see each other as part of the same tribe so that
the tribal aggression and defenses that are preventing rational discussion from
taking place are eliminated. Humanistic philosophy is essential to this effort.
Humanism can also help us develop communication strategies
to help us find common ground in the problem-solving process and to resolve
disagreements by using a shared set of values and moral approach.
Science should also be employed. We can use the same
behavioral techniques we use to eliminate bullying and harassment to
de-escalate conflict behavior to set the stage for humanistic communication
strategies to take root. We can also use what is learned from sociology on
group dynamics and decision making to help us better manage disagreements so
that they don’t devolve into conflict. The goal is to help teams focus on
collaborative problem solving as a team instead of allowing the team to
fracture into warring tribes.
Transformative
approach
Philosophy on its own is not enough and science on its own
is not enough. Combining philosophy, science and education can create positive
social change in corporate culture
Humanistic philosophy helps us tweak our thinking so that we
can overcome our biases, see our colleagues as members of our in-group/tribe
and encourages us to be compassionate and patient with them when disagreements
arise. It also provides us with the motivation and the knowledge we need to
resist attempts by bullies to manipulate us through social exclusion.
Science can provide us with a complimentary toolset needed
to resist our biases so they no longer control our decision making processes. We
can use behavioral science strategies to establish new cultural norms that
reinforce respectful behavior in the workplace and collaborative problem
solving. We can also use behavioral science to help eliminate social
exclusionary behavior that prevents diverse work groups from becoming cohesive.
A holistic approach that combines the best of humanistic
philosophy with applied science can help us transform our approach so that the
promise of social inclusion becomes a reality.
