A friend and I decided we’d meet up for a sundowner and a movie. As it turned out, our choice of District 9 did not cut it as my idea of an end-of-week brain-rinse. As we chatted, she sipped my G&T and commented: “Always tastes the same.”
It’s true I often seek dependability whereas she chooses unpredictability. She loves trying different kinds of red wine and thrives on the adrenaline rush provided by the Boks as they turn rugby matches into last-minute cliffhangers. The roller-coaster experience of watching shares on the stock exchange never steers her towards fixed-deposit accounts. Isn’t it fascinating how different we all are?
When we talk about diversity in South Africa, we are usually talking about race and the progression to non-racial patriarchy in the leadership of many companies. Sometimes gender gets a look-in, but it’s a definite runner up.
While race and gender are important, I’m thrilled when a leadership development team getaway explores a wider view of diversity. Moreover, the awareness of how diverse the team is always emerges parallel to a deepening recognition of the team’s shared humanity.
Team coaches often spend time creating safe places for disclosure. We begin with non-threatening, even amusing questions and gradually, like the slow peeling of an onion’s layers, we ask more challenging questions so that the person shares what life coach Martha Beck calls their “essential self”. The boundaries are set by each person; there’s no pushing. An evening of telling personal stories can be the turning point when people see their colleagues in a new light and with renewed respect for their common humanity.
To explore diversity more widely, life coaches choose from a range of tools: Learning Preferences, Myers Briggs, Enneagrams, Insights, Kline’s limiting assumptions and so on. Kolb’s Learning Styles Preference questionnaire reveals how differently people’s brains are wired.
I worked with 12 people, eight men and four women, covering the complete racial spectrum and four religions. In terms of learning style preferences 11 were in the same quadrant. They were all doers, fabulous at delivering to deadlines.
Their “aha” moment was: “So that’s what’s different about Themba!” He was the only reflective observer with a disposition for spending time thinking about how to do something differently. Suddenly he was the team’s asset, not a problem.
The Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) questionnaire shows a team their personal styles and the need to accommodate differences.
Coach Marti Janse van Rensburg introduces this work with words to this effect: “There are those who speak in order to think; there are those who cannot speak until they have thought. There are those who get energy from others versus those who lose energy to others; there are those who recoup their energy through solitude.”
Occasionally I’ll ask people to draw the animal they feel akin to. There’s lots of laughter at the sometimes amateurish drawing skills. But it is a different way for people to talk about themselves.
One executive’s drawing left me gobsmacked. The artist, a BEE entrepreneur, drew himself as a hyena and then spoke of how this animal is maligned, seen as a scavenger, and yet is highly effective in securing its own food. A picture speaks a thousand words.
Recognising that we are similar in values and challenges is powerful. Recognising, accepting and being sensitive to our differences is often more challenging.
We come from a history of intolerance for “the other”, the one that does not conform to the norm. The film District 9 provides a sharp reminder of our past and ugly elements of our present and demands that we ask ourselves about our current levels of tolerance for diversity.
Xenophobia (winter 2008 but ongoing), homophobia (Banyana Banyana’s Eudy Simelane, who was raped and killed for being a lesbian) and sexism are still prevalent. Last week’s Mail & Guardian reported that the rights protecting choice on abortion and same-sex marriage could be challenged. What’s next? Will atheists and agnostics be ostracised?
A moment of pride was in 1994 when parliamentarians were given the option to swear their allegiance.
I recall that four out of 400 chose to be faithful to their essential selves: Pregs Govender, Z Pallo Jordan, Mac Maharaj and Joe Slovo affirmed their non-religious allegiance. Our struggle would have been the loser if these activists, “the other” in terms of religion, had not been able to participate.
It takes courage to go against the norm. Isn’t it the responsibility of us all to create that thinking environment which makes it safe for us and the people around us to express our diversity? We need to foster a society that encompasses race and gender equality but is even more transformational (embracing a much wider concept of diversity).
Without respect for that richer, deeper individual diversity we will struggle to unlock the potential of our organisations, communities, country and, not least, the potential that lies within each one of us.
Helena Dolny can be contacted at [email protected]