Discovery

At Global Leaders Summit in Tunisia I attended the workshop led by the TCS - about diversity on the workplace.

That workshop really sparked a lot of ideas in my head about diversity.

First of all, I again realized (or - reminded myself) that diversity is not only about different cultures. It is easy to say that there is a diversity in the organisation if it has people from different cultures there. Of course, the diversity is stronger in this case than if the organisation has just people from one nationality, but at the same time there are so many other distinguishing factors. Diversity of experiences, age, physical abilitites etc.

Women in business - another “burining” topic in today’s conference agenda, especially here in the Middle East. But isn’t it the bigger question of accomodating people of different conditions in the common environment?

Another thought - diversity is not only about having different cultures working together, and not only respecting them and being interested in other cultures. If company employees are enjoying friendly dinners from different countries (e.g. this month a collegue from China is cooking, next month is Jordanian dinner planned etc.), it is great, but it is not sufficient to tell that the company really has a diverse workplace.

Having a diverse workplace (and really harvesting diversity) would mean that every employee is heard, included in the discussions and decision making and able to contribute in his/her own unique way. Harvesting diversity is bigger even than providing equal opportunities to employees, e.g. equal opportunity for women and men to become the department director, or for all employees to choose their working hours based on conditions they have etc. It starts there, but doesn’t end. The higher form would be such a place where performance of the company becomes higher because of diverse opinions and team work of people coming from different backgrounds, having different living conditions, different life styles, and of course genders, age and other factors.

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I live in the house with people from 9 different nationalities, in the Middle Eastern country. It is a fantastic place. We all live together peacefully, enjoying chats about various traditions in our countries, different food and so on.

But can I say that we are really harvesting our diversity?

When was the last time we did something together, e.g. had a debate about the future of nations? When was it when we planned a holiday where everyone would contribute something from their culture?

I work in a team with 2 other AIESECers, one of them is from United States and the other one is from Australia. We like working together. But when was it when we talked about how our roots and background can contribute to the way we work?

One of my teammates, Anjali, is actually Indian born in the US with roots in Africa. So when was the last time I asked her how she could use such a mix of cultures in her work, and what is her working style that she can bring to the team, and what I can learn from her multicultural personality in the every day life?

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Now, looking at AIESEC as a whole, we say that our value is living diversity. It is really true if we are talking about the cultures, gender and perhaps different perspectives/opinions of people. But stop, even with cultures.

Last month we were trying to send an Omani person to the internship to Turkey, to work with school children. And we couldn’t do it. Reason? In Turkey they do not allow women wearing headscarves to work in the government schools. And she couldn’t not to wear it. And AIESECers from Turkey didn’t tell this to us till 3 hours before the flight. It is definitely related to country laws more than to AIESEC rules, but still a food for thought.

Or - are AIESECers prepared to recruit people from the lower classes of society? It is the organisation for students who are usually from higher classes. I saw that espcially in Pakistan, where AIESEC members were out of 1% of the population, kids of the higher class families. There is nothing wrong about it, but I also visited government universities over there where kids are not less smarter, and could contribute a lot to the organisation, they are just coming from middle class families and might not be able to afford paying fees for the conferences.

In AIESEC, are we prepared to have blind students in the organisation? Is our online system, MyAIESEC.net, equipped for this? Not really.

And the last thought, more about cultural sensitivity. I was thinking the other day, what we call cultural sensitivity. Respect is definitely fundamental. Then might go inclusiveness, ability to include others in decision making. But it is interesting to look from organisational point of view. Culturally sensitive organisation.

If we as a national team in AIESEC Oman do not create working practices that connects with the culture, are we a culturaly sensitive organisation? If we had not paid enough attention to the networking and building connections with people in this society, but rather continued working as we would in Australia, United States or Russia, can we say we are “culturally sensitive” or integrated in the culture? Or if we don’t plan well in the long-term, but work in the short-term mode in the country where key decisions take months to be taken, can we say we understood and leveraged on the culture we are in? Probably not.

There is still so much that AIESEC can do for harvesting diversity that it already has and accomodating new ways of diversity to be a role model for other organisations.

There is so much that I can still do living in the house with people from 9 different nationalities rather just watching TV shows in silence or asking them “how they are today”.

Diversity is an exciting and great tool to create exciting and successful life for individuals and organisations. I am so interested in exploring it more!