Ogl 350 Cultural Bias

Cultural Diversity
Bias and Conflict
Kelsey Urbanchek – OGL 350

During the readings and the videos, I learned that there can be unconscious
cultural bias that we ourselves are unaware of. During the first YouTube video the
speaker described how she had a vision of what the airline pilot should look like; an
aged, pepper haired white male. She stated this was her vision of what her pilot should
look like and when she heard the woman pilot over the intercom she felt a sense of
uneasiness come over her. During this video, I thought a lot about my unconscious
biases, and realized I too have hidden biases I wasn’t truly aware of. I remember going
to the nail salon and my regular lady was booked for the day so I would be assigned
someone else, which is never a problem. When Liv assigned her son Giang though I
internally freaked out, I’ve never had a man do my nails and to me it was always a very
feminine job, which required very delicate touch and precision. After I watched the
video, I realized how silly that is, working in an aerospace company, pilots to me are
women and men of all ages but something so silly as a man doing my nails made me
uneasy. While there are probably a lot of other minute biases I have, this was a recent
occurrence that I can vividly remember feeling judgmental. The personal cultural
maturity assessment most definitely helped me to see I have areas for improvement
and made me relive certain situations such as above that made me cringe thinking
about them. While no one is perfect I think, it shows we all have unconscious biases
and areas for improvement. I think the scenarios described gave great responses to the
situation but it should have been more open to our own personal responses though to
truly test how we would react.
Diversity conflict is something I see a lot in my career being that I work directly
with people from around the world. Something that stood out to me in the readings was
the forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning (Effective Multicultural Team
Ch. 4., pg 5) My department uses this mindset when we introduce new members to the
team or have visitors from foreign countries for an extended period of time. It takes a
while for groups to adjust to change, and takes even longer when the individuals have
cultural differences. We run through these stages to help ease all parties into feeling
comfortable sharing their ideas and questions while also building trust and relationships.
You can usually spot where conflict will arise during the storming phase and usually find
alternative avenues for conflict resolution during this stage. While the individuals may be
unaware they are going through these stages it helps work through cultural barriers
such as communication and different cultural practices. Prior to having foreign
customers come to town we hold seminars to learn about their cultural practices and
history. This helps our teams during the forming stage to help ease into open
communication and finding commonalities. With new team members of common cultural
backgrounds, the forming stage helps us learn about their personalities and dominant
communication patterns.
I have witnessed many different diversity conflicts throughout my career, but the
most common is related to age. While the company hires people of all ages I find that
there is a generational gap in various departments that seems to create issues. While
age diversity is one of the most important components in making sure a corporation has
proper knowledge transfer and continued intellectual property management it can also
create conflicts with people. When I initially started, I was 20 years old, far younger than
most people who work in engineering at a fortune 500 company. I had two individuals
assigned to train me, both were older and had plans to retire so the company was
looking to train their replacements. One of the individuals Don, was excited to get some
of the work load off his desk and transfer as much knowledge as possible to me, while
the other Linda, felt as though me being hired was a sign that she was going to be
forced out of the door early before her retirement date. She refused to train me and
would retaliate if I asked for help from other individuals when she wasn’t providing me
with assistance. I never went to management with the concern because Don was
always willing to help and would teach me things she was assigned to behind her back.
One day I was able to complete a task that to her I was not trained to do, she
immediately told me I was out of line and needed to pull back the email I sent assigning
actions to other departments. She even stated, “you’re too young to be sending out
emails like that telling other groups what to do.” I was dumbfounded. At this point I went
to management as it was a direct order to send the email and I did not want to have my
job on the line. Management confronted her about her request to have me pull my email
back and asked her to identify what the issues with my email were. When she found
none, it spiraled into a very tense and hateful relationship. She spent her final years
trying to ensure I would fail and people wouldn’t value my word. I saw her do this to 5
other new employees we hired over the years and learned to just live with it because
some people can’t handle diversity and see all the benefits it can have.
This story about my own personal diversity conflict came to mind as I was
reading the Giraffe and Elephant story. In order for diversity to truly work, both parties
need to be willing to give a little to make the situation work. For example, in our
department we have 3 different types of process guides; step by step, hands on, and
visual guides. When I first started, there was only step by step guides, while I can learn
from various methods my coworker only learned by hands on experience. Coming from
the shop floor he was use to walking through the task at hand a few times before
continuing on his own, we figured he would not be the only person who learned this way
in the future and developed the other processes to ensure easy training for any
individuals to be hired on in the future. The Giraffe and the Elephant fable shows how
while the house may have been built for the giraffes and fit their lifestyle, it could never
work for the elephants. In order to ensure success, you need to adjust your own
personal way of thinking and have others in mind.
Luckily for me, our corporation has mandatory cultural diversity training every
quarter. This helps keep the importance of cultural diversity fresh in our minds and
allows us to grow as individuals. I will continue to use what I learn from my daily job and
these courses to be the best version of myself possible.

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Cultural Diversity

Bias and Conflict

Kelsey Urbanchek – OGL 350

truly test how we would react.

such as communication and different cultural practices. Prior to having foreign

personal way of thinking and have others in mind.

these courses to be the best version of myself possible.

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