Bring Your Whole Self to Work: Maturation of Team Work Through Diversity

摘要

Several years ago I attended the Water Professionals conference hosted by the Kentucky-Tennessee Section in Memphis, Tenn. The section held a diversity track at its conference. One of the sessions was led by the vice-president for diversity at FedEx; during the session she touched briefly on the topic of bringing your whole self to work. This concept really resonated with me. I first approached the topic with a baseline understanding of diversity. When we think about diversity, we typically default to the basic definitions of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, and disability. (Diversity is defined as "difference" in Webster's Dictionary.) We don't often think that diversity-our differences-can be in personality or cognitive style. We don't consider perspective, tenure, education, or organizational function. In the workplace differences can be celebrated, encouraged, even capitalized on.