Stopping Pseudo Diversity in its Tracks

Last week I wrote about the all day class on "men and woman working together" I was subjected to.  Well, I wasn't the only one who felt that the material did little to get beyond the promotion of poor stereotypes.  My post, and a co-workers in person complaints, caused our managers to re-evaluate the value of this particular offering.  Long story short... the class was halted after a discussion with HR before the last third of our team (and eventually all of Devdiv) was forced to take it! 

Having been a team lead at Microsoft I've been to some great trainings on Diversity that focused more on teaching general techniques for working well with multiple thinking styles and understanding the different filters that everyone sees the world through.  My push was to have this, more generalized, diversity training rolled out instead.  I think that we're on our way toward this as a replacement to the stereo-typed views of gender relationships.

Comments

• Anonymous
  May 25, 2005
  Good to hear. I remember when reading that I thought "Why on earth they spend money on such.."
  
  The diversity thoughts and drive on developments there certainly sound interesting and I'll be looking forward to hear how it pans out when if you do get some diversity there. I am not sure what to think about the example of taking someone who can't handle the interview pressure.. What kind of situation would this be measured in, possible sign of poor handling during interview could also mean that this person may not be up to the job being interviewed? Well perhaps that's not what you meant .. :)
• Anonymous
  May 25, 2005
  That's what I meant. A lot of the talents/behaviors that most interviewers look for seem to ensure that only one type of person gets through the doors.