"And believe me, when you see the President of a major Chinese retailer laughing and immersing himself in the exercise, you know you have a winner. GOOD WORK."
- Donald D. White
University Professor
Sam M. Walton College of Business
University of Arkansas, USA.
The sentences below are taken from interviews done by Miriam Nordgård, and later on presented in the paper for Academy of Management, august 2007 in Philadelphia, USA.
Full paper can be seen…..
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Diversity Icebreaker - a user friendly instrument and intuitive categories
“A tool that is easily applicable, and that do not focus on the requisition of having an academic degree to understand how to use it, and it is easily available to most people.”
“The constructs work, and the participants identify with them”
“Recognize myself strongly, and recognize others”
Creates an affective event characterized by positive emotions
”It is a way of doing this that is playful. It is an icebreaker, and it gives us a good starting point, especially when one is to build trust within a group. It speeds up a process where people can be more open”
“It is fun to share with each another what we think of each other.”
“It’s personal without being private”
“Gets down the defences towards the other groups.” “One of the advantages of Diversity Icebreaker, since it is value neutral. The colours are not hierarchical…”
Offer a new language and shared understanding to manage diversity
“Typically, after we have run the Diversity Icebreaker in a group, then everybody walks around and talks about blue, red and green, and that you are blue, and i am green and so on, in weeks after. It is really an eye-opener.”
“We get to use the tool in a such way that we focus on the strengths in the group, one discover the strength of the others, because one gets a new language to talk about it.”
“I believe the constructs work, people identify with them and use them later, I have heard; -It is a Blue way of doing it. Yes, here we need a Green process”“I like to use Diversity Icebreaker relatively early. To create a tribal language”
“It is a strategy to manage diversity”
Dynamic polarization
“Very fast there is a in-out group thinking. We in the green group, we are like this”
“A participant from a red group said once: “The Green people make us blue”.
“Because we have a strong focus on multidimensionality, you have different strength that maybe will be salient in different contexts. You can switch and vary, and use your strengths..”
Creates self, other and team knowledge
“They have had self-examination, they have searched more inwards. It opens for respect, and there is a managing of diversity, they suddenly realize that what is important for me, is not important for you and vice versa. It leads to respect”
“One views each other in a different way. How things are here with us and how we can contribute in making each other good”
“People, that previously have felt, maybe justified, that they represent a deviating view in the group, that they are a minority according to type. They much better get into the field. And the “odd” ones in the group, they are not equally easily parked away”
Diversity Icebreaker as an organizational tool for Facilitating cooperation
”You can use it as a tool for reflection. That is; you can stop and think, how I am in this situation when I am Red”
“ WhenIi use Diversity Icebreaker, then it is often in an extended way, (…) not only concerning them, but i connect it to subjects like communication, or about leadership”
“They (participants) give very good feedback on that they have acquired a way to discuss the organisation. A way that is different and useful”
“I emphasise that this concerns communication preferences. (..) This makes the participants very aware communication styles.(..) It does very much for the communication in a positive way”
“It makes some conflicts easier to understand. And along with understanding: you accept the differences. For example, some can be frustrated by somebody being pedantic in a group. Or somebody being hasty- OK we have different preferences and it has different advantages and disadvantages in different settings and that can results in inbuilt conflicts. Then it is not so important anymore, so in this way it is a way to manage conflicts. A part of the idea behind managing diversity is to prevent conflicts”
