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Sondra Thiederman, Ph.D.

“This resource is ideal for a time when tools are needed to help bring us together. It coins a new concept called “Usness” and provides the steps for creating just that. I will be using this with my clients.”

Dr. V. Robert Hayles
Diversity & Inclusion Consultant

 

The Diversity and Inclusion Handbook

$8.95 – $10.95

A Tool to Spread Your Diversity/Inclusion Message

The straight-forward, easy to read handbook is filled with activities and clear insights to perfectly support your next inclusion and diversity training.

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$8.95 – $10.95

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Spreading the workplace diversity message throughout your organization can be a cumbersome – and expensive – proposition. Having a tool such as The Diversity and Inclusion Handbook to distribute might just be your solution.

Easy to read, this concise (56 page) paper-bound handbook is designed to encourage contributors at all levels of your organization to begin their diversity adventure. Complete with activities and check lists, The Diversity and Inclusion Handbook can easily form the foundation for your next diversity training.

Once they open these pages, readers they will find themselves on a journey from self-knowledge and bias awareness to knowledge of others, and, ultimately, to the importance of communicating respect and Cultivating Common Ground.

After reading The Diversity and Inclusion Handbook, learners will:

  1. Understand that diversity and inclusion are nothing to fear and that creating an inclusive workforce benefits everyone.
  2. Know how to communicate respect to team members of all backgrounds.
  3. Possess skills for becoming aware of one’s own biases and, thereby, targeting them for extinction.
  4. Be able to identify and minimize the fear that prevents us from relating to others effectively.
  5. Possess techniques for respectfully learning about the cultures, points-of-view, and needs of those who are different from ourselves.
  6. Be able to effectively communicate with – and listen to – team members of all backgrounds.
  7. Focus on the Common Ground that all human beings share while, simultaneously, acknowledging diversity.

“I have used your Diversity & Inclusion Handbook every time I teach my class on Diversity in Leadership. Each time, I mandate that the students review Part I of the Diversity & Inclusion Handbook and carefully evaluate their values, beliefs, perceptions and biases. I then ask them to review the “Do I Have the Traits of an Inclusive Leader?” activity and choose two traits that are their strengths and two they feel need improvement. Over time I have changed text books, but this book has always remained! Every student over the past 6 years in our program has read your fine and practical handbook.”
– Kimberly DeSimone, MBA, PhD, Director, Master’s in Leadership, St. Bonaventure University

“This resource is ideal for a time when tools are needed to help bring us together. It coins a new concept called “Usness” and provides the steps for creating just that. The book is an easy read with insightful quotes leading each section. There are exercises, self-assessment tools, how-to directions, and helpful hints for individuals at all levels. The book is written in a straightforward, appropriately humorous and stimulating style. I will be using this with my clients.”
– Dr. V. Robert Hayles, Diversity & Inclusion Consultant

“I have long been an advocate for simplicity – even amidst the complexities of diversity. When we know what to do as individuals, there is tremendous power in the ability to create change one person at a time. This handbook helps individuals, groups, and organizations in very simple, practical and systematic ways that will absolutely make a difference when put into practice.”
– Michael Wheeler, Former Chief Diversity Officer
OmnicomMedia Group

“This handbook is practical, clear and filled with tools to help the reader develop crucial competencies in whatever role one occupies. Sondra, who is a wise expert in managing diversity, has put together a simple book that packs a punch. We all need reminders when it comes to respect for diverse individuals and to growing a team that uses its diversity to enhance performance and build a culture of success.”
– Juan T. Lopez
Amistad Associates

Identifying Common Goals

Imagine that you are stuck in an elevator, between floors, with a few other people.

It doesn’t take long at all for you and your fellow “prisoners” to abandon all pretense of conventional elevator etiquette. You no longer stand erect and stare forward – looking neither to the left nor to the right. And, certainly, you no longer pretend you are alone. The normal silence is quickly broken with the sounds of “oh ohs” and “oh nos.”

Once the reality hits that the elevator is malfunctioning, any fine distinctions about who belongs to what demographic category instantly dissolves – you are now all members of a newly created and, of necessity, inclusive US. In other words, a large dose of commonality kicks in.

In this case, your particular US is composed of people who share the stark terror of being trapped in a small space, out of control, and possessing no knowledge of when or how the “adventure” will end. The group now has one shared priority – one common goal: get the heck out of there – the sooner, the better.

Certainly, an inclusive group born of a temporary experience like being trapped in an elevator has a short life span, but the principle of sharing a common goal applies equally to more lasting situations.

Shared goals, you see, have the power to fill the fissure that separates us. When people realize that they are all “in the same boat” – striving to achieve the same thing, it is much easier to see past the differences to the common humanity that unites us. In the case of our stranded elevator passengers, nobody cares that the woman with the engineering skill to figure a way out is in a wheelchair or that the man with the ability to keep everyone calm is shabbily dressed.

You are not, at this minute at least, stuck between floors. You are, however, working with others in challenging times. Just as you would need a variety of skills and traits to orchestrate and execute a safe and efficient escape from a broken elevator, you need a variety of teammates to succeed in today’s workplace.

So, no matter what the goal – be it to get out of a stuck elevator or complete a project – a truly successful team will have these characteristics:

  • The ability to sustain mutual trust;
  • A continuous commitment to shared goals;
  • The ability to sustain harmony in the face of stress;
  • A sense of shared responsibility;
  • Mutual respect;
  • A willingness to share information and ideas;
  • A desire to collaborate;
  • A shared pre-occupation with solutions;
  • Belief in each other;
  • An ongoing sense of USNESS.

What these characteristics really mean is that as each of us works with a variety of people, we need to abandon any old elevator habits of staring forward.

It’s time for us to look around and begin to appreciate and include all the folks who are on our team – all of the unique and special people who need to help us reach that top floor labeled:

“SUCCESS.”

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