Second Reflection Essay: which is due on Tuesday, September 27th at 2pm (a) In our context, diversity refers to the

differences that everybody brings to an organization where they work. Diversity usually occurs when these individuals come from different backgrounds and experiences. It is also important to note that the definition and extend of diversity experienced by everyone is different, due to different experiences and backgrounds. Diversity need not come only from individuals from different countries, races and religion. It is in fact present everywhere. These differences can affect the dynamics in a workplace, such as creating higher performances and productivity or causing conflicts in the workplace. To ensure higher performances and productivity however, managers must learn how to effectively cope with diversity and leverage it to bring out its advantages.

There are two dimensions of diversity in the workplace, surface-level diversity and deep-level diversity. Surface-level diversity represents the characteristics that are easily observed and identifiable such as race, gender and age. Deep-level diversity represents the aspects that require insight and a deeper understanding such as values, personality, and work preferences. According to Geert Hofstedes Framework for assessing culture, he assessed cultural diversity in five value dimensions, namely: power distance, individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term vs. short-term orientation.

Diversity as a double-edged sword This is because diversity in the workplace can bring about both advantages and disadvantages depending it how it is managed in an organization. The main advantages will be examined first, followed by the main disadvantages. Advantage of Diversity: Higher Performance and Adaptability A team with high culturally diversity means that each individual is equipped with a different set of knowledge, skills and expertise. Managed effectively, these differences in strengths will be able to complement the weaknesses of each individual in the team, resulting in higher team performance. Furthermore, as each individual carries with them different cultures, collectively, an organization will gain greater adaptability in times of uncertainty making an organization more resilient in the face of challenges and changing environments. With diversity, the organization will also have the capacity to serve a more diverse market. Advantage of Diversity: Reducing Blind Spots Embedded in every one of us is a set of preconceived notions that is formed by our experiences. In the workplace, this means that our viewpoints on a certain problem are often skewed to the way our preconceived notion was formed. By bringing together a team of culturally diverse individuals, they will each be able to leverage on their own experiences and

to solve business problems or work on tasks from unique perspectives. This way, blind spots that would otherwise be present in a team where there is little diversity will be greatly reduced. This is however contingent on the fact that groupthink in the team is effectively managed and removed.

Disadvantage of Diversity: Increased Barriers to Communication Diversity can result in raised barriers to communication between individuals in a team. It can greatly reduce productivity in teams. Individuals in culturally diverse teams tend to bring with them unique preferences and expectations in a team, which could result in severe misunderstandings between team members. Disadvantage of Diversity: Cultural Discriminations An organization with culturally diverse individuals may face cultural discrimination (which occurs more often in surface-level diversity). Individuals from the same gender, race or age may have higher tendencies to group together, creating an effect of discrimination against the out-group members. This reduces the morale of out-group members and prohibits effective sharing of knowledge among all team members, resulting in decreased productivity.

b) The predominantly negative perceptions that the Alpans had of the Betans right after the experiment were accurate and relevant to what would happen in the real world. In the real world, people often view their surroundings from their own lenses and tend to define those surroundings from their own experiences and backgrounds. As the saying goes; it takes one to know one, people belonging from a certain culture will tend to view people from the outgroups to be with or in absence of characteristics from their own culture. An athlete who places high emphasis on jogging as a way of healthy lifestyle may think that people who tend to fall sick often and overweight have not been jogging enough, instead of listing all other ways of having a healthy lifestyle. Thus, the predominantly negative perceptions formed by the Alphans were a highly relavant phenomenon in the real world.

However, It can also be argued that, since the experiment requires the participants to be geared and inducted towards a certain culture and mindset for about 90 minutes, the feedback that is obtained immediately right after the experiment may be skewed towards a certain perspective. For instance, participants of the Alpha culture who have been inducted into thinking about the importance of relationships and coming from a patriarchal social system would feedback on the Betans in dimensions that characterize the Alpha culture (e.g. Familyoriented, welcoming and etc.) On the other hand, participants of the Beta culture who have been inducted into trading and with the objective of scoring points with an all-or-nothing system would have a more objective mindset than the Alphans, who play games just for social

purposes. As a result, the feedback obtained from Betans about the Alpha culture may be skewed towards more objective in detaching themselves from the Beta culture first, then looking at the Alpha culture objectively and in an isolated manner. In which ever the case though, having this culture induction and the immediacy of feedback retrieval only makes this experiment an even more relevant example of the real world, as similar to the participants in the experiment, people tend to carry with themselves the dimensions that define their culture in assessing the out-groups.

I have been a volunteer with the Chinese Development Assistance Council (CDAC) for the past 7 years and currently a curator at TEDxYouth@Singapore. My role in these two organizations have been mainly empowering youths from low income families and getting them to believe in possibilities of realizing their dreams. To me, having dreams, ideas and the belief that whatever can be conceived, can be achieved is important to living a purposeful life. As a result, when I view out-group members, my view of them tends to be skewed and can be crystallized into questions like: Is he making enough impact in the society through his actions? Is he living his dream? Does she empower people through her actions? Why is he so apathetic towards the society?

We favor in-group members over out-group members because we often have the perception that other in-group members are similar to us in dimensions that characterizes the group. Since our group is not possible without our in-group members and it is our group that created our identity, it is also in our nature to take care of the other members in our group. It might also be part of the theory of reciprocity as well, as you would expect other in-group members to take care of you in the group.

By recognizing the negative stereotypes of other group members and gradually realizing their character thus learning beyond their stereotypes brings out the good points in them exceptionally, and creates an effect that bonds people closer together faster. Negative stereotypes of other group members (such as their perceived weaknesses) can also accentuate the strengths of other group members, thus promoting complementing weaknesses with one anothers strengths.