BEE Partner, South Africa Economy Watch

5. Leverage diversity

One of the most powerful tools of innovative thinking in the South African workplace is that of diversity. In South Africa, with its apartheid past, the temptation is to focus on cultural diversity in order to try to forge a clearer understanding between the various cultures of South Africa. The Rainbow Nation is well represented in business organisations, thereby presenting our companies with a great opportunity for the generation of ideas. However, the prudent manager will appreciate that workplace diversity also covers age, ethnicity, ancestry, gender, physical abilities and qualities, race, sexual orientation, educational background, geographical location, income, marital status, military experience, religious beliefs, parental status and work experience, amongst others.

Since modern-day strategic thinking can be considered as one group of people trying to outmanoeuvre another group of people, it makes sense for the new breed of South African manager to leverage the diversity that exists in the company’s talent base to generate innovative ideas and methods for improving business efficiency. Capitalising on workplace diversity will give the manager a strategic tool that can be developed into an asset in the perennial war against competitors. Leveraging the mixture of diversities means that the company can become quicker and more creative in its response to business requirements. Failure to do so may mean losing talent to competitors or to other countries. There are two fundamental principles that need to be followed in leveraging workplace diversity:

• Avoid placing employees in diversity boxes. One has to consider diversity in a broader context.
• Consider the variety of permutations and choose the best mix, instead of adopting an ethnocentric attitude.

Building on these fundamentals, the manager may want to consider the following practices:

• The implementation of a diversity-management mentoring pro- gramme aimed at coaching and providing feedback to employees who are from different cultural, religious or ethnic backgrounds. The aim is to help employees move beyond their own cultural viewpoint and get them to understand other cultures that exist in the organisation, as well as the benefits associated with working in a diverse environment.
• Approach the diversity issue from a strategic perspective. Diversetalents are often needed to understand and exploit diverse market segments.
• The HR department needs to assume responsibility for promoting diversity at all levels in the organisation. If this is not done, some employees may assume that there is no role for them in the company, and they might leave.
• HR needs to measure the impact diversity initiatives have made not only on how the organisation functions, but also on its strategic capability.

6. Develop a penchant for risk

The new breed of South African manager will also need to develop an entrepreneurial attitude towards supporting innovative ideas from his or her staff, and for developing a culture of seeking and grasping opportunity in his or her organisation.” The manager has to view problems as opportunities for advancement and growth, as opposed to a culture of `no can do’. He or she will have to see staff as potential investments who can generate ideas that will take the company forward, rather than as a group of people who are merely doing a job. Opportunities can only be identified and acted on if people are encouraged and rewarded for their actions. However, whilst business success needs to be praised for the advantages it brings to the company, as well as to the country, failure needs to be viewed as a temporary setback. Ongoing criticism should be avoided. The objective is to encourage innovation, not to develop a community of people afraid to try new ideas.

7. Have a high tolerance threshold for failure

In the South African corporate world, as well as in the country’s wider society, there is still a stigma attached to failure. From an unsuccessful deal to bankruptcy, failure is frowned upon. Yet South African companies need to be innovative if they are going to have the remotest chance of success against foreign competitors. Success at being innovative and making improvements in one’s organization can only come about by trying out new ideas, seeing how the_{y work}and learning from failure. The famous business personalit_y M_aryKay, who founded the Mary Kay Cosmetics empire, believed in _apolicy of ‘a person failing forward to success‘. Both business and non-business literature is full of examples of people who have adopted this policy, and it can be proven that most successful people in history, no matter what their field of expertise, had at some time in their lives tasted failure. Yet many business organisations still penalise people who try and fail. Our new breed of manager will have to create an environment that is not only conducive to the development of new ideas, but which accepts failure as a natural stage in the process of learning and achieving eventual success.

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