A reader chimes in on why diversity in the workplace is essential

"A plague on both your houses."

From what I have read and heard over the many years "diversity in the workplace"--as it APPLIES TO THE IT ARENA--has been a topic, individual views fall into two camps.

One camp seems to spring from the premise that "diversity is good" and its adherents start from their conclusion and work backwards to prove it, always using unquantifiable generalities. It is all style, devoid of substance; it means everything to management (especially HR folks) and nothing to the eggheads working in the trenches. Note: there seems to be no antithesis to this camp, no group whose premise is "diversity is bad."

Obviously, this first camp is pro-diversity.

The other camp seems to be comprised of just those eggheads working in the trenches who appear to ask, "How does a 'diverse' group of people actually help us in designing, coding, testing and implementing the best solution to this problem?" They want to know how diversity gets them there, and therefore don't particularly see how diversity helps decide whether to code in COBOL, Perl, or Java; how will diversity help determine if the most efficient code is Oracle PL/SQL anonymous block, procedure or package.

This camp appears to me to be diversity neutral. I don't see or hear anyone saying they have to work with a mono-culture, only that they don't see how diversity helps them perform their technical duties.

I think if you examine the arguments of the first camp, you will find few technical arguments and more emotional arguments. In this case, "technical" refers to HOW a problem got solved, "emotional" refers to WHY a team will work well together.

I think if you examine the arguments of the second camp, you will find very few people who discriminate in any way, but a number "devil's advocates" and "nitpickers." And I think you'll find a lot of white males who are pretty sick and tired of being called racists and sexists, particularly when they are just trying to write the best code they can.

Are there other "camps" of thought, as it applies to diversity in the IT community? I don't know for sure. If you know of one, post about it.

I do have questions for Don Tennant: under the premise that you have an IT dept. of 50 people with 25 distinct ethnic/cultural/sexual backgrounds (IOW, 2 people per background on the ark), and your current task is to create a data mart on your company's widget inventory in the single warehouse the company owns, how many people of how many backgrounds should be on the design team and why?

For disclosure purposes: I definitely belong to my 2nd camp of people. Whenever someone talks to me about diversity in the IT workplace and how great that is or why it's needed, the above is the type of question I start asking.

Captcha: "Pride shaded" Good one for this topic!

Amused and aghast

As I wrote the initial response to Don Tennent's article, I had no thought as to having it published, either in his blog, or in the magazine itself. My intent was to praise Don's efforts in casting more light on some of the issues in society that affect the world of IT. The original article was appropriate and Don's response to an irate reader was also appropriate. Period.

However, having read the comments here (and previous ones related to the original article), I feel the need to eradicate some of the obvious ignorance displayed by a couple of the commentators.

First and foremost, the idea of bringing diverse backgrounds to the table regarding problem solving, ideas, and solutions stands on its own merits. Differences in language, culture, upbringing, religion and so on inherently creates differences in thought processes. Linear vs. non-linear creative and cognitive functions can, in part, be traced to language. Throw in culture, ethnicity, values, and the rest of what makes each of us unique and you have a rich DIVERSITY of intellectual capabilities. One is not necessarily superior to another by itself. However, when aggregated, the processes of problem solving and innovation are exponentially linked to the capabilities of the group.

IBM found out the hard way that putting all of its (male) employees in the same white shirt, blue suit, and black shoes that it couldn't compete with Dell, Compaq, or even Apple in P.C. hardware development and it certainly couldn't compete with many in the software arena. If you missed the connotation of the shirt, suit and shoes.. well you probably need to expand your thought processes.

The point is that diversity is essential to any organization's survival. Specialization and single-purposeness (i.e. monoculture - it's an allegory, okay?) works great in the insect world (like the species of ant that only lives on the baobab tree), but not so great in the world of men (and women).

"Diversity" is itself racist.

The idea that "diversity" in its current meaning of "enforced racial and ethnic variety" is in itself the key to new ideas and progress has become an unquestioned truism. Unfortunately, that belief itself is racist.

For "diversity" to guarantee the expansion of ideas its promoters (and would-be enforcers) promise, there would necessarily need to be "black ideas," "white ideas," "Asian ideas," "female ideas," "gay ideas," and so forth, instead of just "ideas." This view is racist to the core; it says that (for example) black people ARE NOT CAPABLE of having the same ideas as white people. And vice versa, of course, but it's just as racist in the other direction too.

We will not move past this racism until we decide to judge ideas on their own merit, and not assume that color and gender must necessarily have something to do with them.