Making Diversity Work: Seven Steps for Defeating Bias in the Workplace

Thiederman, a speaker on workplace diversity and author of Profiting in America's Multicultural Marketplace, offers practical ways everyone can be more aware of their biases, stereotypes and negative attitudes. It's essential, according to the author, that everyone, from low-level employee to business owner and executive, be more mindful of diversity in order to communicate more effectively, manage others and be more successful at work. Biases hurt everyone because they hinder decision making, hiring and keeping workers.""One of the really creepy things about biases is that they can easily become self-fulfilling prophecies. If a manager believes that an employee has a certain characteristic, darn if she doesn't find a way to make that characteristic come true."" The author offers concrete steps to combat biases, including dissecting those biases and""putting them through triage."" Thiederman uses her own experiences as well as those of others who give firsthand accounts. The writing is clear, and her approach is textbook-like with chapter summaries and sidebars emphasizing key points. In the end, this is a levelheaded examination of this important topic, which is already covered in many other books.