“Diversity Management: An Evolving Challenge for the Third Millennium”

by Cenen Herrera
Writing from Martinez, San Francisco Bay Area

Diversity Management (DM) is all about managing differences in culture, behavior, orientation and the related tensions that arise as a result of such gaps. DM has become an evolving challenge for organizations with a multi-cultural working environment. The new-age Governance Champion has constantly encountered this phenomenon in the corporate world as one of the most pressing challenges of this millennium.

Traditionally, organizations have designed their ideal controls to match the best practices of the industry. Best practice is a benchmark often used by business organizations in rating the effectiveness of their operating performance. But what is best practice? One working definition indicates that best practices are those that produce outstanding results, i.e., positive results that exceeded targets. Best practice today could be different tomorrow in view of technological advancements, refinements in doing things, innovations, or even simply a change in mindset or lifestyle. Thus, best practice could be viewed as an evolving paradigm.

The new-age Governance Champion role is to perform the appropriate oversight in the control environment. Embracing the best practice mode has become an overarching objective for most Governance Champions in order to achieve a triple A advantage: 1. Attitude – Acquiring the attitude appropriate for the business environment to achieve and exceed the desired results; 2. Aptitude – Maintaining a leadership aptitude that continuously aligns business activities with best practices; and 3. Arbitrage – seeking risk-less profit making activities through strategic decisions in an uneven market opportunities.

As a result of having a multi-cultural working environment, aligning one’s corporate habits to best practices has become extremely challenging in light of the diversity of views and practices within an organization. The reaction from the Governance Champion is to adopt an effective Diversity Management Program. Effective diversity management means that Top Management sets the tone to continuously learn how to transform the working habits of multi-cultural staff into a one-mindset corporate identity, while respecting individual differences.