This is an exceedingly simple story. Yet from the first time I heard it, I sensed there was something very tender about it.
The woman on the left is Tracie. She was my boss for over six years, until I was laid off recently. The man on the right is her co-worker, Mike.
The story is that Mike is the first black person Tracie ever interacted with, a fact she readily admits.
Where Tracie grew up, deep in the near-rural suburbs of Chicago, there weren’t many black people. So it wasn’t until she was an adult in the workplace that she had an opportunity to meet someone from another race. She met Mike. There’s nothing more to the story really, but given history, that is sufficient.
There’s just one more thing I’d like to share. When Tracie says, “We are all about diversity,” she means it. As part of my annual review she wanted to know how I’d contributed to creating an environment of diversity.
The idea that we pro-actively sought to make our workplace more diverse meant a lot to everyone involved. It’s a better work experience when everyone’s included.
Working together brings us together, sometimes for the first time.
Wednesday, May 13th 2009 at 8:21 pm |
One of the great gifts of urban American life is the diversity of peoples and cultures. I look over the faces of my friends on Facebook and I know that the hope for the future, in all manner of things, is that caring, committed people from anywhere in the world can communicate with each other and live together in respect and peace. I believe that it is possible.
Wednesday, May 13th 2009 at 8:58 am |
Ah if there were only more Tracies, yet your telling this “simple” story might spur that to happen. I am so overjoyed to to see so many young people up through college age who have studied and played in groups, often amongst people unlike them, except sharing the same age and often the same interests. At UC Berkeley in the student-run biz plan contest, for example, only one person on a team had to actually be in the MBA program – the rest of the members were recruited because of what they brought to the team. The were often inadvertently diverse, with ages on one team ranging from 14 to 83 – with 7 nationalities about the 12 players. Looking back, years from now, I’ll bet many of the participants on those teams will more fully realize how that interpersonal experience has sharpened their work skills and made their life a richer experience, going forward in how they choose friends and work colleagues. It was such a joy to be their communication coach – and to learn fresh ways of connecting along the way.