In the third of a series of articles on staff diversity, Roslyn Fisher explains how successfully managing staff diversity can boost productivity, morale — and the bottom line.

Even if you have not been specifically charged with the responsibility of managing diversity, as a manager, supervisor or leader you have to do it.

Even if everyone in your jurisdiction looks a lot like they could actually be cousins, the fact is, they are a group of individuals, each with their own different talents, skills, strengths and weaknesses. They are diverse.

And if you want to encourage peak performance among the ranks, you want this diverse group of people to consistently deliver because, to paraphrase a well known commercial, if they don't look good, you don't look good. Managing diversity just means managing well.

Remember that diversity has many faces. For example, Keith Knapp, a senior manager of a video production company, was once asked by his director to put together some ideas about managing creative people.

Keith wrote: "To understand creative people you must understand that they were put on this green earth to make things."

"If they are prevented from making good things in the line of duty, then they will become the office eccentric or the office fashion plate. If they are prevented from making anything good at all, then they will make trouble. But they will make something: they came that way from the factory."

"To you as a manager, this quiet but strong drive is a powerful resource. A creative person who has learned the political limitations you teach them, and has signed up to make a real contribution, will outperform any two of your other people."

"But when this drive is blocked, as it often is in large corporations, the best creative people will quietly find another job and leave you in the lurch, while the ones who can't quit will quietly sulk, often unproductively, through the daily game."

As a leader in your organisation, you want to harness all the talent you can find.

It's part of your job to set goals - both short-term and long-term.

You set goals on a variety of levels too, in terms of productivity perhaps, or efficiency, or cost effectiveness.

You may set goals for your organisation, your division, your department, your staff and yourself. But goal setting is not all you do.

In fact, as a leader, your personal effectiveness is scored on the efficiency and effectiveness of the people you manage. So it naturally follows, that a big part of your job, perhaps the most important part, is 'growing people.'

Today's reality includes a labour force that is no longer homogeneous; something as simple as mobility has transformed the look and feel of the people with whom you work.

And as a leader addressing excellence in the workplace, you are obliged to manage your people so that they all perform to the best of their abilities.

Indeed, managing your diverse workforce is not only a nice thing to do; it's the smart thing to do.

Of course, there are also legal reasons why you have to be fair. Let's remember that racism and all the other "isms" are a systematic attempt to subordinate a particular group of people, and that is illegal.

But legal issues aside, there are a number of compelling reasons to improve your management skills in this area. The first, and perhaps most important in terms of organisational survival, is for the competitive edge.

The competitive edge

In its search for justice, flexibility, and improved productivity, an organisation restructures, reorganises and retrenches. It defines and declares a new vision. And surprisingly, everyone carries on the way they always have: business as usual.

But in this critical economic climate, the reality of tight budgets plus an ever-increasing need to do more with less, make it painfully clear that business as usual is an unusually bad idea.

To compete, an organisation needs to be more flexible and able to respond quickly to customer demands.

The power within must be tapped. Individual employees have to take initiative, assume risks, and be responsible and accountable.

Corporately, to succeed and to surpass the competition, you must create an environment that promotes and supports each individual.

And if you want effective work groups or teams, you must create your own new dynamic. A bad peace can be as difficult as war; in other words, you must manage for success.

Over and over again, research shows that the more varied the group, the better the decision-making capability; the more varied the group, the more solid and reliable the results.

And still, as managers or supervisors, or simply as people, we tend to be more comfortable with 'our own'. If we have any degree of power in the organisation, we often try to find staff who appear to be most like ourselves; who reflect our mirror image.

Apparently, that's human nature. But according to the research, it is also counter-productive.

If you want a customer-oriented team, you need a team that best reflects the customer. If you want flexible staff who can quickly adjust to changing business demands, you need a variety of ideas, attitudes, and approaches.

If you are looking for improved productivity and efficiency, the more varied your group, the more diverse their ideas, attitudes and approaches, the more likely you are to achieve success.

And if you want a competitive edge, you are going to have to take advantage of the diversity within your workforce. In fact, if you are concerned about quality management, managing diversity is key.

Begin by assembling thoughts and ideas that invite every employee to participate in a conversation. Open the door to discovery so you each of you can learn more about the others and in doing so, begin building the framework of an inclusive culture. Consider topics you might use:

• as an ice breaker to open meetings
• as a discussion topic to build the team
• to open the dialogue for one-on-one meetings
• as homework to increase sensitivity
• for coaching and counselling
• to educate and "grow" your people
• as a strategy for improving communication
• as an "I care" what we're all about message.

Recognise the importance of building a new kind of culture, one that is all-inclusive, one that embraces everyone. Become a champion of your expats and your others, and reap rich rewards.