- One of the TedTalks that I found interesting was Fried’s talk about work, and how people don’t actually get their work done at their offices. This speaker was very engaging and interactive with the audience. He was giving a formal speech, but spoke in a way that made it seem like he was having a conversation with just one person. He made jokes, and asked rhetorical questions that kept the audience thinking. He also spoke about the fact that he is manager, and that many managers need to work on not interrupting their employees, including himself. His awareness of this issue made him likeable, and easy to listen to. In order to explain his ideas, he gave the audience some insight into what it is like to be working, and have your day interrupted at the office. He also talked about employees, and how he has found that all of the people he talked to about the subject preferred to work somewhere other than the office. He spoke to the audience member’s experiences in their favor, which most likely helped them know that he understands their struggles at work. Overall, I thought that this TedTalk was very interesting, and made a lot of sense.
- One of the talks that I listened to that I thought worked well with evidence was Heffernan’s speech. This is because she gave many examples that enriched the information she was speaking about. For example, she began her talk by speaking about a business chain that wanted to become more efficient. Heffernan says that this business embraced technology called a task allocator in order to do this. Instead of the business allowing for collaboration, the employees got assigned tasks, completed them, then went back to get more assigned. This did not end up being very efficient because the new technology could not predict different changes throughout the day at the grocery store. The main purpose of her talk was to show that if we rely on technology so much for efficiency, we will lack skills to deal with changes or unexpected occurrences throughout the day. I believe that Heffernan was smart to begin her TedTalk with evidence like this because it gave the audience a clear understanding of what she was going to be talking about.
Drafting your Unit 1 blog post
Over the last few weeks, we’ve been working with a shared body of readings that have given us some insights into workplace cultures and, in particular, the challenges, complexities, and value of diverse workplace cultures. Now that we’ve got a foundation of knowledge, it’s time to build on that by expanding our reach into some of the questions and issues these readings have raised for us.
Each of you is contributing to that expanding body of knowledge by suggesting an article to the rest of us. Your Unit 1 blog post will provide a summary of this text in addition to your commentary about what we can learn from this text and why it should be part of our shared canon of work on organizational culture and diversity. Read on for some pointers.
Let’s think first about the summary piece.
Unlike the other summaries that you’ve been writing, your readers (us) have not read the piece that you are summarizing, so that really raises the stakes for the work that you do in your summary. We’ll be totally reliant on your explanation of what this source is, what it does, and what it says, so please be sure to read through the comments that you’ve gotten from me on your prior summaries, to review the Handout on summary here or on Blackboard, and to consider what we’ve learned from the TSIS and Harris readings.
A few reminders:
We need to know precisely WHAT you’re summarizing—what kind of text is this? Can you tell us a little something about the author and/or publication that would help us understand something about this piece?
We need to know what the authors are DOING in this text—are they reporting a list of facts? Are they making an argument? Have they conducted their own research? Reporting someone else’s findings? Responding to some other argument they disagree with? Diving into a public controversy? The authors might have several purposes in their text—help us to understand what their purposes are (to use Harris’s term, their project) so that we can really get what this text is. Verbs can really help you here–select action verbs that really help to pinpoint the work the author is doing (arguing, advocating, explaining, addressing, debating, contesting, etc.)
We need to see the BIG PICTURE of what the author is saying—as a rule, we don’t need the sequential play-by-play, but we do want to have some clarity on the overall point of the piece, as well as the major sub-points that add to our body of knowledge.
Make sure you name the author and article you’re discussing—there should be no ambiguity here. And if there are multiple authors, credit them all the first time, and thereafter, you can use the first author’s last name and “et al” if there are 3 or more authors. (Technically, APA style requires that you only use “et al” if there are 6 or more authors, but come on….. If you’re submitting for publication in a professional or scholarly journal, follow that rule, of course; elsewhere use your judgment.) Please include a full bibliographic citation at the end of your blog post, detailing all the publication information for this particular article. (Again, remember to consult the assignment sheet for the criteria that your source must meet.)
Let us see what you’re working with–use the “Add Media” button to provide us with direct access to the article you’re contributing. If it’s a web-based source (on the open web), insert the link using that button. If the article is from a subscription database, please link it as a PDF. See my post from earlier this week, linked below, for instructions on how to do that.
Now, let’s think about the commentary piece. Think about your audience and your purpose.
Remember that you know what we know–that shared body of knowledge built from the texts we’ve read together. Feel free to draw connections/contrasts with other pieces we’ve read and discussions we’ve had.
Write in your own voice–you don’t have to adopt the scholarly tone of the articles that you’re working with. Write as if you’re speaking to us. Be direct.
Remember that your task here is expand our knowledge, to complicate the discussion we’ve been having by injecting something new and explaining its significance. Tell us what you think this article means, what you think is important about it, why you think it matters, what you want us to learn from it.
Please categorize your draft post as Expanding the Canon, and tag it with “draft,” “week of 6/8,” [your name], and “canon.” This will help me and others to easily identify what’s what.
One final request–please double-check all of your recent posts to ensure that they are properly categorized and tagged, and edit them as needed. When I’m grading posts, I sometimes have to go hunting to find your work, and that’s not especially helpful. You’ll find the instructions for tagging and categorizing in each of the prompts, which you can easily access by clicking “prompts” on the tag cloud. Contact me with any questions.
What makes a source “scholarly”?
Note that the Unit 1 assignment calls for you to choose a source from a scholarly or professional journal. As I’m reviewing your summaries, it’s clear that not all of you have done this. Read on if you’re not sure what I mean by “scholarly,” or if you’d just like a little refresher, and then see my next post (linked below) for some more pointers about crafting your draft.
Scholarly journals are different in some important respects from popular magazines, the kind that you see at the checkout line at the grocery store or on the display in a bookstore. You can see some of those differences just at a glance–
- non-flashy covers (really the opposite of flashy–like this: )
- few to no advertisements (and those that are present are typically announcements about various professional conferences and publications)
Those visual differences are just the tip of the iceberg. Here are some other critical differences between scholarly publications and popular magazines:
- authors published in scholarly journals are credentialed experts in their respective fields who typically specialize in certain topics–as opposed to professional journalists who might write about a range of topics that they haven’t spent years studying, maybe a different topic every week or every month
- articles in scholarly journals are aimed at a fairly narrow audience of other scholars/professionals in that field who will understand the often highly-specialized jargon they employ (and who can make sense of their various graphs, charts, formulae, etc.)–as opposed to popular magazines that aim for a broad readership to increase circulation/sales
- authors of scholarly articles must demonstrate the legitimacy and solidity of their research to their readers, and so you’ll see in-text citations for their detailed data and analysis–as opposed to popular publications that are not so focused on clarifying their research methods and giving readers access to all of their sources
- articles in scholarly journals have been peer-reviewed, read by a panel of other experts in the field who have endorsed their methodology as sound and their findings as important contributions to the field of study before agreeing that it should be published–as opposed to popular magazines where there is not such a rigorous process of critical review
Professional journals are a bit less stodgy in terms of their visual appearance and a bit less rigid in their review process, but are nonetheless going to feature work by practitioners who are experts in their field, as opposed to journalists who may be more free-range in their topics. And they will typically utilize a pretty research-heavy approach to share information with their readers, other practitioners in the field, who are intent on staying on top of the latest news and research. They may be a bit flashier in appearance than scholarly journals (more images, more reader-friendly formatting), but are still going to have very visible research in the form of footnotes or in-text citations/links and a references list.
You’ll find easy access (and some research assistance) on the SU library website.
Your focus for this Unit 1 canon addition needs to be on scholarly or professional literature. If that’s not what you had in your first draft, it’s not too late–please keep searching, contact Karen with questions, and re-submit a new summary by the end of the day on Wednesday. You can then take an extra day to assemble your draft, and submit that by the end of the day on Thursday. That way you can make a truly valuable contribution to our growing body of knowledge.
Please see this post for some more guidance on assembling your draft:
Discussion prompts for Week of 6/8
This week you will be watching three TED talks and reading another article that all intersect with our big umbrella topic of organizational culture. (Think of this like a Venn diagram:
I think this can be a helpful analogy because it is much the same tactic that we take in research: we are not simply looking for the one “perfect” source but rather for a source that interacts with our ideas in someway that move them forward. And the more voices we hear from in that research (the more perspectives we incorporate), the more likely we will arrive at a fuller understanding of the topic we’re examining.
For this week’s discussion I would ask that each of you respond to question #1 and then either #2 or #3. Please categorize your list as “Discussions/ Homework” and tag it with “week of 6/8,” “unit 1,” and [your name].
- We use the term “rhetoric” to discuss how we make arguments (what we do and how and why, not just what we say). Since a hefty portion of your work in this upcoming Expanding the Canon blog post hinges on rhetorical analysis, let’s do some practice–working with one of the TED talks for this week (Heffernan’s, Fried, or Salecl), talk to us about what you find interesting in their rhetorical approach. How do they engage the audience? What kinds of strategies do they use to explain their ideas? What do you think is interesting or significant about the way that they present their arguments and appeal to their listeners?
- Choose one of the talks that you watched this week and examine how this speaker works with evidence. What kind of evidence do they use? How do they explicate the connections between their evidence and their claims? Be specific. How do they walk the audience through their argument? What are some of their argumentation tactics that you find effective? Note that you will need to watch the talk at least a second time, and take notes while you are doing it; you can also access a full transcript of the talk on the TED website.
- Choose one of the talks, and discuss how this presenter adds to our body of knowledge around organizational culture. Who is the speaker/author, and what kind perspective do they contribute? (You may need to do a quick Google search to get a sense of who they are.) What kind of connections do you see between this take and other things we have been learning about organizational culture? If you were to make a Venn diagram (or a few) articulating the connections between this text and other ones that we’ve read, what would it look like? You can have some fun with this using an online Venn creator like this one or by sketching it out by hand and incorporating the image(s) into your post):
Please post your responses by the end of the day on Wednesday, 6/10, and respond to at least 2 of your classmates’ posts by the end of the day on Saturday, 6/13.
Overview of Week of 6/8
We’ll be closing out Unit 1 this week, so that means your first Unit assignment deadline is approaching (Sunday, 6/14).
Read on for an overview of how we’ll be moving toward that:
Look for feedback from me in the next couple of days on the summary of your article that you submitted yesterday. You’ll work with that feedback to finalize your summary, which will become part of your Unit 1 blog post (along with your commentary on how this article would enrich our understanding of the specific organizational culture issue/area you’re exploring). Be sure to review the unit 1 assignment sheet. Consider your purpose carefully.
While you’re waiting for that feedback, start thinking about and looking at your options for a media component (link, video clip, image, etc.) to incorporate into your post. You’ve got a lot of latitude to work with here. I suggest using the assignment’s purpose as your starting point. Here’s what I mean: while you’ve read this article (probably multiple times by now), your classmates probably haven’t. You’re suggesting that this text ought to be part of our canon, that looking at it would enrich our knowledge and understanding of this important issue. You need to show and tell us how that’s the case. You’ll be offering summary, analysis, and commentary. The media element is there to round that out. For example, your media component might:
- provide some background knowledge that would be crucial to our understanding (i.e. through a link or a video)
- contain some visual context for the scope or complexity of the issue (i.e. an infographic) or assist with our understanding of change over time or comparison (i.e. graph, chart)
- offer an opportunity to explore this issue further (i.e. through a link) for those who want to learn more
You may incorporate more than 1 element if you would like; just make sure you have at least 1. Also be sure to attend to the following:
- if using a link, make sure it is functional–use the “Add Media” button in the +New Post window to “Insert from url”
- if using an image, make sure it is high-resolution so that it’s legible–again you’ll use the “Add Media” button to “Upload files” and “Insert into post”
- if using an image, provide a caption that includes the source information (where you found the image–the actual web page, not just “Google search”)
- whatever your media component, be sure that you explain its relevance in your post–don’t leave your reader to draw their own conclusions about its significance. Walk us through what you want us to learn from this item.
Here’s the other work on tap for this week:
- draft of your blog post (let’s extend the deadline here to the end of the day on Wednesday, 6/10)
- a few TED talks to watch (linked from Blackboard) for more perspectives on diversity and organizational culture (and in preparation for this week’s discussion)
- discussion work on the blog–see the prompt here:
I’ll be reading your drafts (due Wednesday) and getting you feedback by the end of the day on Friday. Your final version of the blog post is due by the end of the day on Sunday, 6/14.
article summary, Isaac Haseltine 6/1
The article titled “Racial Diversity: There’s More Work to be Done in the Workplace” highlights the disadvantages that continue to diminish minority groups morale in the workplace, and categorizes the individual issues and their potential resolutions. Terri Williams is an African-American freelance journalist, in the article she shares her stance against the typical homogeneous organizational culture that is disabling many businesses across the globe. Her approach towards unconscious bias and microaggressions could certainly have a positive effect, and she addresses issues that go unspoken quite frequently. Tokenizing people of color as a PR move to seem like a more diverse organization can torment a person with the stress that is placed on a person, only because they differ racially, ethnically or sexually. The quotes Williams uses help solidify the idea that more diversity will always lead to a more perceptive and positive workplace, and boosting the morale of the minority groups in business culture will help the entire companies growth and outlook.
https://execed.economist.com/blog/industry-trends/racial-diversity-theres-more-work-be-done-workplace
Dan discussion week of 6/1
- The articles “Understanding Key D&I concepts” and “Neurodiversity as a competitive advantage” both identify many significant problems that we face in our modern-day workplace. The former article describes a fictional workplace that is the epitome of most work cultures. The manager is struggling in the chaos of too many urgent tasks and is falling into the common behaviors of many ineffective managers. Those that are not in the inside group of upper management get little attention from her although she intends to do right by them. The latter article discusses how neurodiversity can play a great role in increasing the profitability of our businesses. Austin and Pisano provided multiple examples proving the success certain companies obtained by including neurodiversity people. Though if we intend to reap the benefits of our neurodiversity friends like those few companies, we must make organizational changes to provide a safe environment for them to thrive in. The workplace culture described by Kaplan and Donovan would not be suitable for this community of people. We will have to change at the individual level as well as the our organizations and the marketplace as a whole.
- I started my research for something to contribute to our cannon by exploring one of the tools I know about from work. Dale Carnegie training is something that many people are familiar with. I was curious to see if there were any whitepapers about D&I. This led to me finding a company called the center for generational kinetics. This looked promising to me; however, the company mainly focuses on delivering keynote presentations to deliver their information about generational diversity. Unfortunately, this means the information they do provide often includes many cliffhangers instead of fully formed ideas and examples. Though I will not be using this article, it helped me discover the topic that I will be researching which is generations collaborating in the workplace. I have since been using the Syracuse University library to find articles pertaining to this subject.
Article Summary
In The Changing Definition of Workplace Diversity, Shackelford discusses today’s changing definition of diversity, while considering the diversity philosophies of several corporations and authors. Employers have broadened their concept of what diversity is. The case for broadening the definition is built on the changing labor force demographics. The majority of workers entering the workforce this decade will be women, minorities and foreign nationals. The labor shortage that began in the 1990’s will continue to grow and is projected to reach 10 million workers by 2010.
Employers have moved diversity from a “nice thing to do” to a business necessity, says Donna Brazile. It’s recommended to use your cover letter to highlight your diversity status, to include on your resume your fraternity or sorority membership, to mention any affiliation with prominent minority or diversity organizations, to include military service on your resume, to state any community service or other volunteer work, or to stress your willingness to apply your degree in non-traditional ways. Discrimination in hiring has taken a back seat to issues of homeland security, terrorism, war and economic security. These changing times present a window of opportunity for “equal opportunity” for diverse candidates.
For one example, Merck as a company takes extra care to attract, hire, develop and retain highly capable and motivated students. Merck provides strong foundations for their development (scholarships and workshops) and welcomes diversity. Because of this, students look at Merck as an “Employer of Choice”after college. These types of programs are becoming more and more common to not only seek diversity, but welcome it.
https://go-gale-com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T003&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&searchType=BasicSearchForm¤tPosition=2&docId=GALE%7CA108966746&docType=Article&sort=Relevance&contentSegment=ZAHW&prodId=PPDS&contentSet=GALE%7CA108966746&searchId=R1&userGroupName=nysl_ce_syr&inPS=true&ps=1&cp=2
Week of 6/1 Discussion
- Through the Syracuse Library database, I have been able to search certain topics and find databases with many articles on that specific issue. On organizational culture, for example, I’ve been able to search one specific aim of research and find more studies about those type of findings. With my research this week, I have been looking further into neurodiversity, and diversity in general in the workplace, and how that can affect the success of a company. With this in mind, and in the midst of the world’s focus right now, I think it’s important to not only research and listen to the voices who talk about the importance of diversity in their company, but also the voices who are labeled “diverse.” In many corporations, diversity quotas are put in place for PR reasons as well, but it’s often not public knowledge how welcoming or healthy that culture even is for diverse employees. And this goes for racially, sexually, neuro etc. diverse people. The voice of the diverse is as important as the ones calling for diversity who may not be labeled as such. As the Austin and Pisano article stated, while adding diversity can help a company, there are accommodations that need to be in place to help the diverse employees as well.
3. The project of the writers in this case is to convince the reader of the benefits of diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Through five sections, they begin at a smaller level and move into bigger concepts before concluding with takeaways from the chapter. The first section begins at the level of one person’s workday. This has the purpose of putting the authors in the reader’s shoes for relatability. They then move on to beyond this perspective and discuss intent versus impact, as in how the actions of one affect others, calling the reader to question their own. Through the next three sections the authors move on to systematic framework and how the company as a whole can affect its individual parts with all things considered, overall moving from an individual perspective to one that affects and intertwines with the bigger company in mind, before concluding with the main ideas from each section: A sustainable inclusion effort must include change at four distinct levels: individual, group/team, organization, and marketplace. Good intent is not good enough when the impact does not match the intent. Managing the impact of our biases is leadership. What the authors do/“work on” in this chapter is effective because they move between different perspectives and don’t place the author as an other they are simply talking at. They raise counter arguments with responses to follow, and work withrather than against the reader to get them to agree with their proposals by the end of the chapter.
Week of 6/1 – Discussion
1. For our unit 1 assignment I found myself diving further into the Syracuse database. My initial research began by looking up the topics we had already been reviewing for over the past two-three weeks. I found linking scholarly and academic articles with keywords such as homogeneity, multiculturalism, diversity, etc., helpful in narrowing down targeted interests. From here, I came across a few articles that opened a topic of conversation I at least had not considered yet. Language and the effect multilingualism has in the workplace particularly caught my eye. My preliminary understanding from the briefs I read suggested this form of diversity is an emerging topic worth further scholarly investigation. As the workplace becomes increasingly global, challenges in communication between employees with different linguistic backgrounds are inevitable. Topics worth following up on include case studies and understanding the dynamics between native/ nonnative language speakers. Seeing the effects this has from an individual, team, and organizational level overlaps with a few of the readings we’ve had such as Kaplan and Donovans ‘level of systems’ framework. Similarily, Gundemir’s take on leadership, goals, and perceptions coincide heavily with how minorities can find comfort in communicating in other languages at work.
3. Kaplan and Donovan’s intent was to place readers in a position of judgment where they could reassess the impact one’s words and actions have at the workplace. From the narrative of executive employee Kim, readers follow vignettes of her day to day schedule prompting readers to think about how her decisions stand with concurrent issues of diversity and inclusion. The storyline is broken down in the latter half of the chapter addressing solutions or alternative ways Kim could have better-approached a work-related scenario.
Kaplan and Donovan develop these sections speaking on the distinction of good intent versus impact, the importance of recognizing unconscious bias, and the problems with insider-outsider group relations. They’re able to reach a broad audience because of the familiarity Kim’s everyday anecdote presents, however, the extent of their writing only comes across as far as the simplicity of their solutions. The sometimes overly perfect measures Kim could have taken suggest ‘quick’ fixes for an otherwise complex system. Still, Kaplan and Donovan’s approach at its core reopens a lingering discussion dissectable for readers to understand the perspective of those who fall short of being included. The best use their key takeaways realize is that the reevaluation of systematic views at various scales only marks the beginning.