On October 29, 2012 Melanie Harrington— Director of Vibrant Pittsburgh—came to speak to our class on what her company does to increase the Pittsburgh economy and manage diversity within different organizations in the area. The introduction of the lecture with the story with the giraffe and the elephant was pure genius. I think it was a good idea to tie what we are learning into a simple story that can be understood and then later on applied to real-life situations. A great point that Melanie made was that the first things that organizations need to do is filter out the variables that are not qualifications but rather just preferences, and traditions. When she said this I immediately started to think of one of the chapters that Rice mentioned “cloning”. I know that when we were in discussion a lot of the other classmates didn’t understand what he was talking about; yet I fully understood. Sometimes organizations may think that they are attempting to manage diversity within their organization but instead just producing a replica of their “ideal employee”.
Ms. Harrington also went on to talk about Roosevelt Thomas’ model for ‘A Way To Organize Managing Differences and Similarities’ and how they all need to work continually in order to keep a sense of effective management. I found it interesting when she referred to ‘Managing Understanding’ as the “285 Beltway of Diversity”. Most organizations may feel as though there is no need for change beyond that point because they may feel that once they understand how to manage it nothing else needs to be done. If you have different functions in an organization all have separate needs and all have a separate way of doing things. The goal, however, is that they all contribute to the greater good of the organization. Employees need to work and have strategies the fit together for the common goal, but accomplish this through their specific specializations. Having someone how knows the benefit to having a more diverse and is truly committed to making sure that the organization