Volunteering magazine, January 2005, Issue 103
www.volunteering.org.uk/magazine
In this, the first of two articles, Adam May explains what diversity means and how it differs from equal opportunities.
A recent report by Justin Davis Smith entitled Volunteering in UK Hospices: Looking To The Future (reported in the June issue of Volunteering Magazine) highlighted the need for hospices to diversify their volunteer base. In the light of this report, Help The Hospices, the national charity for the hospice movement, ran a workshop on diversity on October 27th 2004. This article is based on Adam Mays presentation at that event.
Just about every organisation I have ever been involved with has had a bad corporate conscience because their employee or volunteer base didnt properly represent the wider community. They all had a bad conscience but didnt know how to translate the guilty feeling into positive action. Heres my attempt to explain what diversity means.
Diversity represents a step forward from the rhetoric of equal opportunities. For an example of an idealised equal opportunities environment, take some time to veg out to an old episode of Star Trek. The crew of the Star Ship Enterprise is diverse in the sense that they clearly all come from different backgrounds, not to say planets, but something happens to the crew members as they are being beamed up on to the ship. They lose their culture and adopt Captain Kirks. There is no sense that they bring with them anything that might challenge or change the way Kirk runs the Enterprise.
Now lets imagine a Star Ship Enterprise that had left its old equal opportunities policy somewhere back there in hyperspace. On a Star Ship that was operating a policy of diversity things would be very different. The planetary background of the crew would probably be much the same because Kirk is pretty good at hitting his quotas for ethnic balance.
So how would things be different? Well, crewmembers would feel that they had permission to acknowledge their diverse attitudes and customs, and to have their preferences taken account of. Differences of attitude, culture, taste, and physical capability would all need to be taken into account. Of course, there would be far more conflict. Everyone would need to have good negotiation skills to cope with the acknowledgement of all this diversity. Its impossible to say in advance just what would result from this constant process of celebrating and engaging with diversity. The Star Ship Enterprise would certainly look very different. The physical design of the vessel would almost certainly be much different. Given the huge cranial diversity amongst crewmembers, pillows and headrests would probably be available in a range of designs.
The world of equal opportunities is one that implies that there is a mainstream way of doing things and that there are barriers to some poor unfortunates gaining access to mainstream provision. The role of people in the mainstream, according to the equal opportunities world view, is to help other people compensate for their differences so that they can join the mainstream.
This might involve providing translation services, or special aids and adaptations.
The diversity case is based upon a very different set of assumptions. In a pluralistic society it makes little sense to talk of a mainstream. Differences are not problems to be overcome but variation to be celebrated. Diversity is less about welcoming others in and more about being willing to move out of our own comfort zone to engage on an equal basis with those who are different. Diversity is about negotiating, not just because negotiation may yield better solutions for everyone, but also because the listening required for effective negotiation confers value and recognition on everyone involved.
A diverse organisation, then, is more than one where there are just many different kinds of people. It is one where many different kinds of people all feel at home. Feeling at home means feeling that you belong; that you are consulted and can make a difference; and that you are valued for who you are and what you do.
The rhetoric of reducing barriers really belongs to the equal opportunities model. It involves labelling and categorising people into groups. People dont belong to just one group, for example the disabled.
A person with a disability has other attributes: they belong to a social class and have a certain level of education. These and a myriad of other factors will affect the persons experience of their disability.
Another problem with the rhetoric of barriers is that those who are not in the usually identified groups become invisible. There are dimensions other than race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and ability levels that can make a difference to some peoples lives. For example, physical height, having a psychiatric history, or being eccentric may be more significant factors in causing some people not to feel at home in some organisations than those we normally checklist.
Perhaps one of the biggest reservations I have about using the language of barriers is that it implies that the people who belong to what used to be the mainstream are somehow trying to keep others out, and that there is something wrong with the old mainstream values. Diversity is about celebrating differences between people and finding value in them. Captain Kirk needs to feel he has a place in the new order too!
In our next issue Adam will describe ways in which you can make your organisation more diverse.
As a partner is AM Training, Adam May delivers courses on volunteer management in collaboration with Volunteering England. Adam is also a psychotherapist in independent practice. For details of future courses visit www.amtraining.co.uk, or telephone 01248 421015 for a brochure.
For a copy of the report, Volunteering in UK Hospices: Looking to the Future, contact daniel@hospiceinformation.info. For a report on the workshop, which included sessions on working with younger volunteers, the risks and rewards of working with offenders, the mutual benefits of a work sabbatical, and on increasing reprsentration amongst ethnic and faith groups, contact jennie.mcdowell@help the hospices.org.uk
AM Training has designed a prototype tool to help you assess how diversity-friendly your organisation is. To try it out, go
to www.amtraining.co.uk
