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Diversity Diversity
can be an effective tool to enhance learning.
The more diverse a group is the more different perspectives it has
at its disposal to learn from, to create/innovate, and to use for critical
thinking. Many companies’
only recruit people like them and suffer from “groupthink” (they all
think alike). A diverse
workforce often attracts diverse customers.
Anything that can expand the customer base is advantageous to the
company. Making
diversity happen in an organization is a challenge.
The culture has to be one where differences are tolerated and
preferably appreciated. One
of the challenges is that organizations need to figure out how to attract
people who are different than their usual employee.
This is difficult for both the company and perspective employees
because people innately prefer people who are like themselves. Once a diverse workforce is in place, the people in the
organization must have excellent conflict resolution and dialoguing skills
in order to turn differences into shared knowledge. Group Reflection Building
time for reflection into the work process is essential for the action
learning needed in today’s society.
Organizations should be encouraging their employees to reflect both
individually and in-groups. This
should not only be done at the end of projects, but also during them.
The United States Center for Lessons Learned (CALL) uses group
reflection to enhance their learning process.
The process starts with the need to identify and focus on specific
learning opportunities. The
next step in the process is designed to capture the learning through group
reflection and by using outside observers.
The third step is to synthesize, analyze and code the data to
identify and define lessons learned.
These lessons are then applied by turning them into appropriate
documents for training or recommendations for leaders.
The final step is sharing what has been learned by teaching others.
This sharing enhances the learning process as it helps the teacher
better understand what they learned, hence making it more usable for
themselves and others (Baird, Henderson and Watts, 1997). Scenario Planning Scenario
planning is another learning tool that helps employees explore possible
future experiences giving them the opportunity to learn and prepare.
OD practitioners would be wise to know how to facilitate such an
activity. Some examples of the types of issues that scenario planning allows companies to explore are: flaws in strategies and operations, potential new competitors, possible new substitute products, new technologies that might enhance or harm them, and macro events that could help or harm them. The idea is not to figure out what will happen, but to understand what could happen so that the organization can be at least mentally be prepared if it does occur. Scenario planning can also be used to discover new opportunities. 
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