Activities to Promote Diversity in Organizations
In today’s global economy, a business that practices or allows its employees to demonstrate discrimination and prejudice will sooner or later suffer the economic effects. Hate, anger, harassment and fear cost a company in production, dollars and morale. Savvy business owners know the importance of respect in the workplace and provide venues for their employees to participate in enjoyable 20- to 30-minute activities that promote and celebrate differences as a healthy way to bring a variety of talent, ideas and creativity into their company.
Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes
Internationally recognized diversity expert Jane Elliot devised the Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes activity to shake people up and show the irrational effects of prejudice and bigotry. The activity requires you to divide the workforce into two groups based on eye color. The supervisor or manager must favor one eye-color group while denying privileges to the other eye-color group. After several hours, the groups are reversed. The goal of the activity is to make your employees or organization members aware of how often discrimination is based on arbitrary factors and to imbue them with a sense of understanding and empathy.
Penn State University suggests the First Impressions activity to create awareness and appreciation of diversity by discovering that first impressions of others are not always true. Print and pass out a copy of “The Herman Grid,” which is available in printable form online, to each participant and ask the group to stare at their grids. As they do, gray dots seem to appear in the white spaces between the black squares. But the gray dots aren’t really there. It’s an illusion, a wrong first impression. Lead into a discussion by asking the group if anyone has ever had a wrong impression of someone from a different culture or background. Discuss, as a group, how wrong impressions can impact your business or organization. Ask your participants to share and their past experiences and examples, either as a large group or break into several smaller groups. This activity not only promotes diversity but also is a good way for employees of small businesses to get to know each other.
Name That Feeling
Name That Feeling is a diversity icebreaker activity suggested by Jonamay Lambert and Selma Myers in their book "50 Activities for Diversity Training," for the purpose of engaging people in what it feels like to be different. You’ll need a flip chart and marker. Ask the participants to think of a time they felt different from everyone else -- for example, walking into a meeting and being the only female, the only one of a certain culture or the only one who spoke a certain language. Then ask them to think of one word that best describes how they felt, such as “isolated." Ask the participants to go around the room introducing themselves using their word instead of their name. For example, “Hi I’m Isolated.” Have the group sit down after a few minutes and write each participant’s word on the flip chart and acknowledge that they have experienced feeling “different” at some time. Ask for comments on their feelings and how diversity impacts your organization or workforce. Ask them to share experiences. Conclude by encouraging them to remember what they felt about being different as a reminder to be more sensitive to others.
Chain of Diversity
The Chain of Diversity activity also comes from Penn State, and its goal is to find similarities as well as differences among the participants in your group. Provide each participant with six 1-1/4- to 1-1/2-inch-wide strips of colored construction paper. Invite the group to think about ways they are different and similar to others in the room. Ask each participant to write one similarity and one difference on each of the six paper strips, such as age, hair color, gender, hobbies and parental status. When finished, each person will have a total of six ways she is similar and six ways she is different from others in the room. Ask each person to share two differences and two similarities with the group. When finished, as them to think about the things they have in common. Create a chain by having your participants add their six strips, one at a time, to the chain, looping and overlapping the ends of each strip and gluing with a glue stick. Continue around the room until all participants have added their strips to the chain. Display the chain where people in your company can view it as a symbol of the contributions similarities and diversities make to your company. This is an effective activity to also help small-business employees get to know each other.
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