Challenges in Organizational Diversity

Workshop Presentation
Pamela Gray Daniel  

Our lens for Understanding and Implementing Diversity and Inclusion in America, historically has been negative, punitive if you will. Our country was built on separation in living and workplace so it stands to reasons that any attempt to change that would be met with opposition. It has been only 50 + years since Title VII, the section of the Civil Rights Act that prohibits workplace discrimination. Laws had to be created to force people to treat others not like them as equals. This means from the onset no one understood the benefits of diversity. It was a forced value to avoid punitive results.  My goal is to give participants an opportunity to put on a lens that allows us to see diversity in full focus so that we can see its benefits clearly, embrace it, and integrate it fully into life practice. Laws never changed people. When we move past intellectualizing diversity and move towards implementing diversity into our everyday lives. We make changes that will shift society more than any law could.  This workshop suggests practical ways to get diversity from your head into your heart. Diversity isn't the right thing to do, it is the thing that makes us all better. We must be intentional. This session is designed to help participants to escape from their intellectual thoughts and approach to diversity through intentional practice facilitated through games and activities. We will explore dimensions of diversity and participants will be to challenged to see the perspective of others.