Cultural IQ

Cleaning Up the Political Conversation

Where There Is the Will, There is a New Way!

Yesterday, I received a rather toxic e-mail from an unhappy reader. My first thought, of course, was to thank the person for giving me an opportunity to be my better self. OK, not really. My first thought was to call the guy’s minister and say, "Could you PLEASE hold a refresher course on the 10 commandments right away?"

Thank goodness, I resisted that moment of temptation.

Now, if you are regular reader, you are probably asking yourself a couple of questions: How does Coach define toxic e-mail? Is that an e-mail that criticizes her writing or columns? Or is it one that a good person sent off into the world before it was cleaned up and ready for prime time.

Good questions all. 

 A toxic e-mail, fellow citizens, is one that uses so much mean language and so many poisoned words that recipients have to dig through piles of dirt to find buried messages. The toxicity level is so high, people standing within 90 feet feel a need to run for shelter.

Let me share this email with you so you can measure the poison is this pen. Before I do, borrow my sticks-and-stones-will -break-my bones-but-words-will- never-hurt- me raincoat folks.I don't want anyone to get injured.  Here is what he wrote (without edits):

“Got a hint for you - - - Why go through all of the hassel of trying to register as a legal voter? All you have to do is sneak into the sewer south of our border. Get some Mex. clothes, polish up you MexSpanish, and then sneak back into the states as an illegal. Shucks, don't you know the powers that be have made it much easier to vote if your an illegal alien? The vote counters aren't allowed to ask you if you are a citizen. Why do you suppose both partys are so anxious to keep the borders open if not for the vote from the spawn from our southern sewer towns?”

The correct response to something like this is: Ouch! My guess is this poor writer is being tortured terribly by the thought of voter fraud. In Texas, dead people have been known to cast ballots. (Of course, they had living accomplices.) So have non-citizens. This is never a good thing. So why not just say it like that?

A culturally competent patriot might write: “Cultural Coach: I think it hurts our democracy when dead people vote. And it’s really uncool when non-citizens vote because these days, one vote can decide an election. I need your help!”

If the writer had sent me an e-mail such as that, I would have been honored to be his compatriot. I might have said, "I agree, my brother.  What can I do to help you?” Then the writer could have qualified as a community organizer, which, despite what you've heard recently, is a very respectable job. Two citizens working against fraud is the start of a movement, while one person working against fraud is a lost cause.

By using all that dirt to wrap his message, he forced me to play detective and decipher what's wrong. and what he wants me to do. And I’m a very busy person. 

So here’s the lesson for the day. Before we sit down at the computer and fire off an e-mail, let’s ponder this question: Are we out to pollute the sea of humanity, or to write a clear message that travels globally at space shuttle speed?

This blog post is brought to you by Decision 2008. My name is Linda S Wallace, and I approve this message.

Leave No Voter Behind

Thanks to all of you who offered heartfelt condolences yesterday, along with best wishes for a kinder and speedier voter registration process. Your warm thoughts and contagious optimism has kept hope alive here in Texas.

With all that good will,  it is little surprise that, by mid-morning, our prayers were answered. OK, so we had some help. I happened to drop a line to the Houston Chronicle (one of my very favorite newspapers), and the paper assigned a reporter to check out my story. (I wouldn't have believed me either. )

Reporter Rosanna Ruiz  called yesterday morning with miraculous news: my voter registration record was now available on line. (And dated August 27, but more on that later)  I got misty as I was telling her how my girlfriend, Pam, dropped by my house on presidential primary day - (the first presidential primary I've ever missed) and urged me to walk over to the polls -- even though I would not be able to vote.  I felt left behind on a day the state was moving into unchartered terrority. Pam is such a warm and lovely person.  Her thinking:  if you go over there, at least you can say you were at the polls. You will still be a part of history. So we walked together - one Jewish American and one African American -  two neighbors, traveling side by side, sharing a common precinct. We stuck our heads in the room, and watched the voters standing in line. The only thing that could have made the day better was if they had decided to let me vote. (You see, if you missed the primary here, you missed the poll vote and the caucus vote. Really, how often does one get to vote twice in a presidential primary, and then brag to their friends?)

After Ms. Ruiz and I  got off the phone, I headed to the Harris County voter registration website to inspect my registration record. In journalism school they taught us, "If your mother says she loves you, check it out." I call my mother often and quiz her still. She hates it, but she would worry that I was sick if I stopped.

I put in my name as Linda (S.) Wallace, and no records came up. After I emailed her, Ms. Ruiz kindly informed me I needed to put in my name in backward. (It clearly says so on the website.) Of course, that makes sense. Tried again, but still couldn't find it. Then I put in my home address and I got this message: "no records found." So next I called the Assessor's office. A friendly clerk pulled up my file and informed me I, Linda S Wallace, still wasn't registered to vote in Harris County. My application, submitted last February, was still incomplete. (I didn't let her in on the hot rumor that I may be registered.) When I told her that I filled out a new registration form Sept. 2, and had included my Texas' driver's license number, she was elated. She asked me to call back Friday. Perhaps, by then, my application would have arrived downtown, and the process would be complete. I felt she was really rooting for me!

Don't know about you but I haven't been this confused  since I took high school trig. Just for fun, I put my home address in again, and this time, my voter registration record pops up.  Question is: where had it been hiding for the last six days? Why weren't the clerks who work with voters able to pull up that record when I called on August 29 and, again, on Sept 3? (If voters are told they are not registered,chances are fairly good they won't go to the polls. Not everyone may respond, as I did, by filling out a fourth voter registration application.)

 I am going to pray for wisdom and guidance, in addition to the safe return of the envelope containing my social security number. What's important, really, is that I now have proof that I am a voter in waiting. It is tucked away in a lock box, along with all of my identity papers that I will transport with me to the polls on Nov. 4th in an armored car.

Hope to see you there, voters to be. Wannabe voters, don't give up. When you register often, remarkable things can happen. So, rest if you must, but don't you quit! 

Wait Just a Doggone Minute, I’m Just Trying to Register to Vote

As the Process Gets Tougher, One Texas Woman Finally Wises Up

 

 

In a year when an African-American visionary and a female warrior made a bid for the globe’s biggest job, I found myself pondering a question: “Who does a woman have to know to get registered to vote in November?”

 

 

As our nation pats itself on the back for all its racial and gender progress on the political home front, I find that I – a person long-committed to voting – can’t seem to manage to get registered. I’m a new resident of Bellaire (TX) in Harris County, and I’m over the age of 18. I’ve never committed a crime. I am a citizen (always a good thing) and I am not (yet) mentally incapacitated. Furthermore, my dog thinks I’m a fine person. Now, that may not be part of the legal criteria, but it matters to me just the same.

Even before the moving van arrived from Philadelphia in January with my furnishings, I had filled out the Harris County voter registration application in my empty house because I wanted to vote in the primary. I popped it into the mail, thinking, “I’ve done it!” I moved without forfeiting my right to vote in one of the most important elections ever. Boy, was I naïve.

In February, I received a letter from the Harris County Tax Assessor, which handles voter registration, telling me that it needed additional information from me to complete my application. In this county, if you don’t have a Texas driver’s license, which I did not, you have to furnish the last four digits of your social security number. I did so happily, but the County wrote back it couldn’t verify my personal information with the current info. I sent in another application as directed, this one attached to a copy of my Pennsylvania drivers’ license, my SSN, and my February utility bill.

As the primary neared, I got a little nervous. A week before the election, and still no word about my voting status. I called the Tax Assessors office and a nice lady sadly informed me that it had no record of receiving the second letter I sent. It went out, and never came back. It’s lost out there. I surely hope it found a home with some nice, honest people.

 

Friend and foe alike will tell you this: I am persistent. Watch out. I have a nose for news, and an uncanny ability for sniffing out great stories. This is one of those times.  It just so happens that the Assessor’s Office, which oversees registration, is headed by a Republican. The Harris County Democrats, buoyed by a rising tide of new minority residents, have launched a campaign to take over the County’s executive jobs. Voter registration drives are a key part of the strategy. The nice lady answering the phone at the Assessors office recently tried to make me feel better by assuring me lots of other folks were having problems too. About 40 percent of the 27,000 registration cards gathered by ACORN from January through July have been rejected or placed in limbo pending the gathering of more information, Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt recently informed the Houston Chronicle. Hmm. How come that makes me feel worse, not better?

Write your own script as to what is going on. It’s a plot with lots of twists played out by a fascinating cast of characters. But right now, I’m focused solely on getting a leading role that changes my status from wannabe-voter to voter-to-be.

 

 

In July, when I finally got around to getting my Texas Drivers License (I held off because I didn’t have a car) I marked the box that asked if I wanted to register the vote.  When I got up to the clerk, who took my photo and checked all the info, she assured me the voter registration process was complete. I had nothing else to do. A warm glow came over me as I walked out. Who cared about the driver’s license? I only got it cause I thought it could help me register to vote.

 

Oh, how happy I was!  I had overcome adversity, and with practice and patience, qualified for the final heat in the presidential round. Or so I thought. A few weeks later, I met a local attorney who volunteers with the League of Women Voters. After listening to me tell of my voting drama, she burst my bubble by telling me that – due to some computer issues- some folks who thought they had registered at the Texas Department of Public Safety drivers’ license outlet later found they weren’t ACTUALLY registered. She advised me to check the voter registration rolls to make sure I was now on it.

I checked the list on August 29 – for the third time in eight months – and for the third time in eight months I discovered that the county still had me cast as a voter wannabe.

 

 

So on Tuesday, good buddies, I got up early, waved goodbye to my dog, and then went off to register to vote - for the fourth time. Now I hold the voting registration record for most times in a single year, at least in my family. But this round, I played it a little smarter and wiser. I printed out a copy of the voter registration form before I left home, filled it out, and put a copy in my safety deposit box so I could prove the information was correct, and the boxes were filled in.  Gotcha! Plus, I didn’t give out my Social Security number to anybody this time.

 

State law requires Texans to register at least 30 days prior to the election. After registering so often, I hope I now qualify to vote. But if not, I still have a window. Figure I can fill out the voter registration form two more times still before it’s officially too late. If there is a next time, though, I think I’ll send in the form over the Internet. I’ve haven’t tried that way yet.  You know the definition of insanity right? Keep doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting the results to be different.

 

Seriously, folks, there is a moral to this story:

1)     If you registered to vote this year but have not received an official card, call your local voter registration office just to make certain your name is on the list.

2)     If you registered to vote when you got your driver’s license and did not receive a card, call and make certain your name is on the list.

3)     If you got a note from the voter registration office telling you to send in your SSN, PLEASE don’t send it in by mail. Take it down and present it to the clerk, along with a phony smile.

4)     Finally, when all this is over and you’re ready to vote on Nov 4,, take along lots of proof of your identity. I, for one, am bringing my passport; my drivers’ license; my SSN; and notes from my mother and my dog speaking to my good name and character.

5)     I don’t care who you vote for fellow citizens; only that the votes we all cast count this year. If you are having trouble, let me know. I am a whiz at filling out the forms.

Basic Tools for Bridging the Divide

These quotes offer thoughtful ways to respond when online conversations grow heated.

 

“In god we trust; all others bring data.”

             

William Edwards Deming, American statistician and management guru

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“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”    

 Investor and Philanthropist Warren Buffett

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“People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid. "

-        

Soren Aabye Kierkegaard

(1813-1855)

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"Not  everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."

Albert Einstein

(1879-1955)

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“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. "

     

Sir Winston Churchill

(1874-1965)

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“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."

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Thomas Jefferson

(1743-1826)

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"Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems. "

-        

Rene Descartes

(1596-1650)

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"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. "

-        

Martin Luther King Jr.

(1929-1968)

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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

-        

Arthur Schopenhauer

(1788-1860)

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"Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open."

 

Sir  James Dewar, Scientist (1877-1925)

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   " Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

            

George Santayana

(1863-1952)

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   " I can’t understand why people are frightened by new ideas. I’m frightened of old ones."

           

John Cage

(1912-1992)

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"History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon."

           Napoleon Bonaparte

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"What luck for rulers that men do not think."

           

Adolf  Hitler

(1889-1945)

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Mother Nature & Father Time decide all arguments.

 

                           -- Michael Schefer, Philadelphia

 

 

100 Ways To Change the World

Number 100: Join the NAACP Stop! campaign

 In today’s culture, nothing is more influential than the images and impressions we receive daily from the mainstream media. What people watch on television, listen to on the radio, see in a movie or on the Internet has a profound impact on how they view the world.

At the NAACP, we firmly believe that we all have a responsibility to insure that those images and impressions foster respect, and not hate or racism.

Now is the time to call for a STOP! in our community.

We must tell the artists and media executives who produce material that fosters a culture of disrespect that by promoting racist ideas and rants, they put their own financial future at risk.

And, at the same time, we must recognize the need for balance within the African American community in regards to what the community deems acceptable in music, film, and other media. Images reflected in songs and music videos that show half-dressed African American women being objectified or demeaned by men, or young African American men as thugs must STOP. These kinds of images promote hurtful and false stereotypes of young African Americans.

On college campuses around the country, like Clemson University, the University of Texas-Austin, and Johns Hopkins, racial incidents are a too-common occurrence, and the way that media portrays young African Americans only contributes to the problem.

That’s why we have developed the STOP Campaign, an initiative of the NAACP Youth & College Division.

SIGN THE STOP! PLEDGE TODAY

• STOP Defaming Our Women… by respecting all African American Women and not describing them in profane and derogatory terms
• STOP Degrading Our Community… by not supporting hurtful images that portray negative images of the African American community
• STOP Denigrating Our History… by not supporting words and media that diminishes our proud history and insults our ancestors
• STOP Accepting Disrespect… by not patronizing companies and artists that put forth demeaning and disrespectful images in our community
• START Standing Up… by standing up against anyone who diminishes the capacity of young people
• START the Diversity… by supporting balance and diversity of content in the entertainment industry to create positive role models for young people and by demanding more African Americans and other people of color in decision making positions in the entertainment industry

Hidden Barriers to Academic Success, New Report Says

– Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union are calling upon the US government to prohibit corporal punishment in all public schools and urge state governments, school boards, superintendents, and administrators to eliminate physical punishment in their schools.  

 More than 200,000 US public school students were punished by beatings during the 2006-2007 school year, the groups concluded in a joint report released today. In the 13 states that corporally punished more than 1,000 students per year, African-American girls were twice as likely to be beaten as their white counterparts.

 

In the 125-page report, “A Violent Education: Corporal Punishment of Children in US Public Schools,” the ACLU and Human Rights Watch found that in Texas and Mississippi children ranging in age from 3 to 19 years old are routinely physically punished for minor infractions such as chewing gum, talking back to a teacher, or violating the dress code, as well as for more serious transgressions such as fighting. Corporal punishment, legal in 21 states, typically takes the form of “paddling,” during which an administrator or teacher hits a child repeatedly on the buttocks with a long wooden board. The report shows that, as a result of paddling, many children are left injured, degraded, and disengaged from school.  
 
“Every public school needs effective methods of discipline, but beating kids teaches violence and it doesn’t stop bad behavior,” said

Alice Farmer, Aryeh Neier Fellow at Human Rights Watch and the ACLU, and author of the report. “Corporal punishment discourages learning, fails to deter future misbehavior and at times even provokes it.”  

The report found that in the 13 southern states where corporal punishment is most prevalent, African-American students are punished at 1.4 times the rate that would be expected given their numbers in the student population, and African-American girls are 2.1 times more likely to be paddled than might be expected. There is no evidence that these students commit disciplinary infractions at disproportionate rates.  
 
“Minority students in public schools already face barriers to success,” said Farmer

. “By exposing these children to disproportionate rates of corporal punishment, schools create a hostile environment in which these students may struggle even more.”  
 
Students with mental and physical disabilities are also punished at disproportionate rates, with potentially serious consequences for their development. In Texas, for instance, 18.4 percent of the total number of students who were physically punished were special education students, even though they make up only 10.7 percent of the student population.  
 
“A Violent Education” is based on four weeks of on-the-ground research in Mississippi and Texas in late 2007 and early 2008, including more than 175 interviews with children, teachers, parents, administrators, superintendents, and school board members.  
 
The report documents several cases in which children were beaten to the point of serious injury. Since educators who beat children have immunity under law from assault proceedings, parents who try to pursue justice for injured children encounter resistance from police, district attorneys, and courts. Parents also face enormous, sometimes insurmountable, obstacles in trying to prevent physical punishment of their children. While some school districts permit parents to sign forms opting out of corporal punishment for their children, the forms are often ignored.  
 
In the report, Human Rights Watch and the ACLU cite experts on best practices in school discipline, who emphasize traditional approaches such as detention, and modern approaches such as positive behavior support systems. Positive behavior support systems, which are school-wide discipline systems that stress a clear structure of rewards and consequences for student behavior, have been effectively implemented in major

US school systems. States and school boards that fail to implement best practices allow the status quo, or school beatings, to remain in place.  
 

Source: Human Rights Watch Press Release 
 

'They just beat us up because of the color of our skin'

As the Democrats prepare to nominate an African American as their presidential nominee, it is tempting to think that the battle for inclusiveness is over.

If the fear-driven emails arriving regularly in my In-box are any indicator, a fresh round of battles have just begun. The nomination of Barack Obama has set off waves of fear that can create either a perfect opportunity, or an blustery storm.

 We should emphasize this battle is not between blacks and whites,but rather between those who see  America as one family of many cultures, and those who see it as a family where their race is dominant.

The Philadelphia Daily News reported this week a story of two young African Americans who were chased down, they said, because of their skin color:

LEVI LEE and Bryson Mills arrived on the doorstep of the Daily News last week looking bruised and battered. Even hard-bitten reporters - their eyes widening - seemed taken aback by the appearance of the two young men.Their clothes were smudged with blood. Mills gingerly pressed an ice pack to his right eye, which was swollen shut. Lee sported gashes in his lip and head.But the worst injuries weren't visible. As victims of an alleged hate crime, he and Mills said they suffered the kind of soul-penetrating wounds that may never completely heal. "They didn't know us,"" Lee said.

Then, there's the Wall Street Journal report on the arrest of a Florida man who was being held without bond after he threatened to shoot Barak Obama if the he wins the presidential election. 

In the next few months we should expect amazing breakthroughs and powerful backlashes. Which side will prove to be strongest? It depends largely upon which community is better organized and prepared to advance its agenda. (Inclusion v. control)

The community connectors are working to foster inclusive breakthroughs. On August 25, the National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia is hosting a forum for teachers to help them manage diversity-related debates in the classroom this fall. The Center for Healing of Racism in Houston is hosting a dialog on the election on Tuesday night - where the unspoken community fears can emerge.

Are you aware of the forces at work in your community? Is your church, synagogue or mosque waiting around, hoping for a loving and happy outcome?  How many of us are ready to take a stand and seize this moment in history? 

 

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Radio station KPFT and the Center for the Healing of Racism will host a dialogue called “Toward A More Perfect Union” on Tuesday, August 19 from 7-9 pm at Saint Paul’s United Methodist Church.

The community conversation is the first in a series of scheduled discussions on race and other issues that create divisions.   The program will be in the Fondren Hall at St. Paul’s,  located at 5501 Main Street at Binz/Bissonnet, across from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Parking is free of charge in two lots across Fannin Street from the Sanctuary. The church is within a block of both Museum District MetroRail stops.

 

 

Check Your Bias At the Office Door

 

When it comes to our gender, religious and racial biases, one strategy is especially attractive: Don’t ask, don’t tell.

 

If our biases don’t get us into trouble, we can feel safe and secure toting them around. That is a high risk strategy in today’s conflict-driven world. At any given moment, a bias can get out and expose our hidden preferences and feelings.

 

Today I am offering a few ideas for managers, teachers and principals, and judges who want to create bias-free zones in their domains. Michael Morris, an American business professor who researches cultural preferences and cultural lenses, provided input for some of these recommendations.

• Rely on multiethnic strategies and culturally competent systems, not solely on good intentions. A company might implement a mentoring program to help employees access organizational intelligence and learn how to adapt to cultural values and norms. A teacher might use words and language that allow the fullest range of student views and opinions to emerge. Judges and court room officers might use open-ended questions in examining potential biases and have written processes in place to ensure fairness.

 

• Train managers and teachers so they feel comfortable providing constructive feedback to workers across the cultural divide. The fear of being labeled racist or sexist sometimes prevents supervisors from providing honest reviews. This deprives workers of an opportunity to strengthen their skills and overcome deficits.

• Conduct cultural assessments to survey employee or juror attitudes. People won’t always tell you when something is wrong. But they do tell friends, neighbors and strangers at the grocery store. Surveys help to provide truthful feedback. Ask them to identify corporate values, and note how often and where "fairness" emerges.

•  Provide cultural competence training for managers and staff; court workers, and students. Give them the appropriate tools to manage and resolve conflicts and workplace differences. Gather data on common causes for cultural collisions. Build programs that target these specific weaknesses and strive to create a culture of trust. (Where honesty and accountability intersect)  Provide the necessary resources to conduct fair performance appraisals and support staff in career development.

• Ask managers to look for specific strengths related to workforce diversity. Most organizations spend more time discussing diversity challenges than diversity solutions or benefits. This frames the conversation in a negative manner and adds to friction and tension.

• Monitor cultural boundaries and build a culture of trust. Strong cultural boundaries risk engendering intergroup competition. Managers and employees may become more concerned with furthering the well being of their cultural group than with fairness. 

              

• Teachers and supervisors should be sensitive to obstacles facing members of certain cultural groups, and provide flexibility to adjust performance evaluations in order to even the playing field.

• Put members of different groups into key performance-appraising positions and encourage managers to call on those with cultural expertise much as they would call on those with technical expertise for an IT problem.  Organizational connectors model th skills everyone must have. Organizations must identify them and support their efforts, for they are on the job teachers.

• Include all employees and all ethnic groups in discussions related to diversity. Fair-minded companies don't limit cross-cultural understanding to the experiences of communities of color. Diversity should include: diversity of thought and ideas; job functions, class differences (in courts and classrooms especially) and age differences. 

Sometimes Two Won't Go Into One

 

Imagine that It’s My Company merges with It’s My Life.

 

It’s My Company is a corporation that builds widgets, and It’s My Life is a up-and-coming retailer which sells gadgets.

 

How do you take two different cultures, work groups, and services and blend them into one efficient money-making machine?

 

Alas, change is more difficult for some than others. The new culture may not work for all. Holding "let's all get along" workshops may not be the solution. Sometimes, two does not fold easily into one.

 

Glenn Carroll, the Laurence W. Lane Professor of Organizations at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, managers need to make it clear to workers that, if  they do not fit in,  they may wish to look elsewhere for opportunities. In other words, they might encourage a employee to leave on his or her own accord.

 "Although the implication of this finding for managerial policy is straightforward, it should be treated with caution—it is based on specific assumptions in a theoretical model. It is also only one of several effective demographic factors to merge the cultures; other options might be more attractive," Caroll says.

His book, Culture and Demography in Organizations, provides further details. . A merger can fail for any number of reasons,  but cultural differences are increasingly thought to be a major cause of post-merger dysfunction, according to Carroll. 

Examples abound of merged organizations that failed to come together culturally, the Stanford Graduate School of Business reports. There's the merger of Compaq and Digital Equipment Corp. that was unsuccessful largely due to a culture clash that pitted Compaq's high-volume, fast-to-market strategic focus against DEC's more convoluted and lengthy sales cycles. Indeed, the business challenges created by the culturally troublesome merger are viewed as a reason that Compaq lost its position as the No. 1 computer maker to Dell, its longtime competitor.

"These problems can linger on for years after the merger has been completed," he says. "Failing to successfully integrate the cultures is a very serious thing."

Talk about integrating two corporate cultures typically revolves around "cultural content"—the norms, beliefs, and values that lead to general descriptions of the firms such as bureaucratic, entrepreneurial, free-wheeling, or conservative. The predicted success or failure of any given merger is based upon an analysis that takes this cultural content into consideration.

"The problem is that people can make up any number of stories that can justify any type of merger," he says. "You'll hear that a merger will be successful because two organizations are very similar in their cultural content. Another merger will be hailed as a good one because the organizations' cultures are so different, and will therefore complement each other."

Carroll and his co-author, J. Richard Harrison of the  University of  Texas Dallas,, reasoned that it would make sense to analyze cultural integration by looking at the demographics of the merging organizations. Demography is the study of population dynamics.

Carroll and  Harrison developed a demographic model of culture that encompasses a host of factors, including the growth rates of the firms, the selectivity of the hiring processes, the type and extent of socialization that occurs once employees are members of the organization, the rates of employee turnover, and the degree of alienation felt by employees.

Hiring selectivity refers to how carefully management selects new workers who fit into the culture. Selectivity can include personality testing as well as extensive interviewing by multiple employees—both peers and management—before a candidate is hired.

Socialization refers to how employees are indoctrinated into the new corporate culture. This can involve the pressure exerted by colleagues on each other to adapt to the new organization—or socialization by management, which can include such things as incentive bonuses, training classes, and corporate retreats.

Finally, alienation is the degree to which employees who don't fit in come to leave of their own volition. Either peers or management could ignore the employee in question, or give him or her difficult or unpleasant assignments until the employee simply quits.

Although the success of post-merger cultural integration is influenced by many demographic processes, the strongest effects seen in the Harrison-Carroll model are associated with hiring selectivity, management-based socialization, and alienation.  Although alienation was found to be a strong factor, Carroll says it wasn't the only one.

"The demographic way of thinking about mergers and acquisitions could be very useful to firms considering such a step," he says. . "It provides a whole new set of insights."

Credit line: Information and material for this blog provided by Stanford University Graduate

School of Business

Fact Vs. Fiction: Studies Refute Stereotypes about Obese Workers

EAST LANSING, Mich. — New research led by a Michigan State University scholar refutes commonly held stereotypes that overweight workers are lazier, more emotionally unstable and harder to get along with than their “normal weight” colleagues.

 

With the findings, employers are urged to guard against the use of weight-based stereotypes when it comes to hiring, promoting or firing.

 

Mark Roehling, associate professor of human resource management, and two colleagues studied the relationship between body weight and personality traits for nearly 3,500 adults. Contrary to widely held stereotypes, overweight and obese adults were not found to be significantly less conscientious, less agreeable, less extraverted or less emotionally stable.

 

The research, done in conjunction with Hope College near Grand Rapids, appears in the current edition of the journal Group & Organization Management.

 

“Previous research has demonstrated that many employers hold negative stereotypes about obese workers, and those beliefs contribute to discrimination against overweight workers at virtually every stage of the employment process, from hiring to promotion to firing,” Roehling said.

 

“This study goes a step further by examining whether there is empirical support for these commonly held negative stereotypes. Are they based on fact or fiction? Our results suggest that the answer is fiction.”

 

The findings are based on two separate but convergent national studies. Roehling, who’s also a lawyer, said the practical implication of the research is that employers should take steps to prevent managers from using weight as a predicator of personality traits when it comes to hiring, promoting or firing. He said such steps could include:

 

• Adopting a policy that explicitly prohibits the use of applicant or employee weight in employment decisions without a determination that weight is relevant to the job.
• Structuring the interview process to reduce the influence of subjective biases.
• Using validated measures of the specific personality traits that are relevant to the job if personality traits are to be considered in hiring decisions.
• Including weight-based stereotypes as a topic in diversity training for interviewers.

 

“Employers concerned about the fair and effective management of their work force,” Roehling said, “should be proactive in preventing negative stereotypes about overweight workers from influencing employment decisions.”

 

Contact: Andy Henion, MSU University Relations, Office: (517) 355-3294, Cell: (517) 281-6949, Andy.Henion@ur.msu.edu; Mark Roehling, Labor and Industrial Relations, Office: (517) 355-3335,