Cultural diversity and its impact on organizations

Cultural Diversity

The tendency to look for what is familiar, trusted, and predictable is how everyone tries to make sense of their perspective of the world, to reconcile the explosive changes happening in the world today due to globalization. The fact that everyone has their own perceptual filters of how they interpret reality further leads one to judge others, often very quickly. When a person doesn't actively question their perceptual approaches and biases, stereotypes get solidified and intolerance, bigotry and even racism can get solidified. Only through the opportunity to learn about many different perspectives through education, by participating in other cultures, and by finding out that first impressions based on stereotypes are often wrong does a person grow past intolerance to acceptance of people dissimilar to themselves.

People reject those that are different, and its hard work to accept those people who are even a little different than ourselves, so in a sense everyone at times could be considered bigoted and even racist in their views of others. Just preaching tolerance of others rarely works; the best approach of all is for those with stereotypes to get to know those they are judging as persons first. Judging others excessively does create societal pollution and creates more conflict, discontent, and pain than is necessary. The fact is that judging others in their age, sex, race or nationality is like seeing only with the portion of a single eye; the remainder of what is truly in front of us is not seen; bigotry and racism blinds us from connecting with and enriching others. In that enriching of others, we enrich ourselves. So in the throwing off of stereotypes, however difficult that may be, we actually strengthen ourselves. In the service of others and in striving to understand them, we in effect broaden our own perceptive and become stronger for it. So in spite of bigotry, racism and the cruelty those aspects of human behavior deliver, if a person can rise above them through actually befriending the people they judge, they become stronger, more adept at re-ordering their own perceptual views of the world.