Making Equal Opportunity Mean Just That
Remember that “opportunity” is always your coaching trump card. That's what you offer your employees from day one on the job; that's how you attract new talent to come work for you. The word “opportunity,” as a matter of fact, is sprinkled all over the pages of this book because opportunity is such a valued principle in the coaching and mentoring philosophy.
In this people-intensive approach to managing, opportunities for learning, new challenges, and, of course, advancement in the company have to always be available to your employees. But the opportunity bell rings rather hollow if it doesn't mean genuine opportunity for all, regardless of gender, race, or ethnicity.
You can talk the opportunity talk all you want, but if Beth sees Sean, Will, and Christopher advancing at a faster clip than she is, even though she's equally or more qualified than all of them, then you've got a lot of explaining to do. Likewise, if Fred, Eugene, and Donald find themselves passed over for a promotion in favor of Ellen, who hasn't earned her on-the-job performance stripes, you've simultaneously got a credibility problem and a morale problem on your hands.
So, what exactly do you do to ensure that your talk of equal opportunity means just that? How do you factor in the sober reality of the glass ceiling? How do you ensure that women and minorities aren't excluded from those special relationships (mentoring and mini-mentoring) that play a considerable part in the opportunity equation?
Understanding the Role of Affirmative Action
Affirmative action is a much debated and contentious public policy issue. So, we'll leave the issue debate to a book on politics and public referendums. The history of affirmative action nevertheless reveals that it was originally crafted as a government access program, not any kind of set-asides or preferences for one group over another. Your job as a coach is to practice affirmative action in the workplace as it was originally and very nobly conceived. That is, you've got to make certain that women and minorities are apprised of all the advancement opportunities in the workplace and are afforded genuine shots at competing for them.
In the office environs — and it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman — your role as a coach is to level the playing field, not the results. A level playing field doesn't mean establishing different standards for people based on gender, race, or ethnicity. Instead, it means that you're fully aware of and understand the roles that invisible hands play in the workplace, and you make compensatory allowances and adjustments for them.
When mentors are assigned to employees, for instance, it is often the case that women and minorities bear the brunt here based on an entrenched and long-standing pecking order. Mentoring often entails higher-ups in an organization advising and providing career counseling to employees on lower rungs of the corporate ladder.
And, as previously noted, there is a propensity for male bonding in these relationships that perpetuates the dearth of diversity in high places. There is this prevailing mentality: “These are the kinds of guys I hang around with, live next door to, and talk to about all things. So, naturally, these are the kinds of guys I want to work with, place my trust in, and groom for bigger and better things.”
In order for you to promote diversity without controversial preferences, you've got to both understand and value the difference between equality and equivalence. Equality of office standards and performance expectations that everybody must abide by and meet are a must. Equivalence in individual employee treatment, however, is not part of the coaching and mentoring playbook.
Okay, let's get a little more specific in how you can level the playing field without losing your credibility and authority as a coach and manager. Foremost, you need to clearly distinguish between equality and equivalence in the workplace. The words are not one and the same when it comes to managing people. This shouldn't be too difficult for you to fathom, because your coach's toolbox is crammed with tools and techniques designed for making such critical distinctions.
Upholding Equality
Equality is a principle that everybody who works for you is expected to uphold by abiding by certain rules of conduct, ethical boundaries, and, of course, meeting performance expectations. Equivalence, on the other hand, is not part and parcel of coaching. In fact, it runs completely counter to it. Every employee in your charge is a unique individual. Therefore, equivalence in treatment doesn't ever wash with wise coaches.
Performance standards don't ever need to be lowered to accommodate diversity. You need only afford genuine opportunities to those who fall under the diversity umbrella and allow them to meet those standards and advance based on merit and merit alone.
Now comes the hard part. Sure, you fully accept your responsibilities in handling all the behavioral challenges and skill deficiencies in your employees that come down the pike. After all, you're a coach, and that's what coaches do. But now you're being asked to manage differences that are very apparent (gender, race, and ethnicity), but also very complex.
Keeping Firm Standards
No need to panic. Managing diversity is the kind of challenge you address with the firm standards you already have in place — standards that all of your employees are measured against. You deal with your employees on an individual basis, yes, but you never alter your bedrock principles or lower your performance expectations — for anybody or for any reason. Sure, diversity issues are the most ambiguous of all. You've got to look at gender, race, ethnicity, and other cultural differences in a manner quite unlike the way you would address poor attitudes or skill deficiencies.
The obvious question that springs to mind right now is “Isn't this discussion leading to a call for lower or different standards in accommodating diversity?” The answer is a resounding “No!” If you reinforce both the company's expectations and your own expectations, you will always remain on solid ground. The problem of a lack of diversity atop corporate managerial hierarchies does not require anybody to lower standards to ensure more of it. Rather, the solution asks us only to furnish more opportunities to the diverse among us to meet universally high standards and to move onward and upward.
Putting a Premium on Skills
In your day-to-day coaching, you make opportunity a reality for everyone because you conduct business in a vibrant and unrestrictive learning environment, which puts a premium on growing employees' skills. And, automatically, this means that you're encouraging diversity because your staff of employees is in all likelihood a very diverse brood. If you assiduously navigate the coaching course as described, you most certainly will be grooming star pupils from all walks of life.
Hence, your employee pool of bright stars will be diverse, and not because of a quota system, but because you devote your regular, everyday coaching activities to building up people — all people, regardless of gender, race, or ethnicity. You can uplift people by taking into account all aspects of their personality makeup, including diversity, and not ever run counter to your doctrine of equality. This is the course you should always travel.
