[ubuntu-ar] (OT) El Nivel de Diversidad - Jono Bacon

[Miguel Sajnovsky]

Nunca mas oportuno para nosotros este post de Jono Bacon (Community Manager
de Ubuntu) "The Diversity Level"

Si bien esta en Ingles, se que muchos de aca hablan ese idioma. Y sino
esperemos algun voluntario que tenga ganas de traducirlo.

The Diversity Level <http://www.jonobacon.org/?p=1412> November 20th, 2008

In the past I have talked quite a bit about diversity in this blog.
Diversity is critical to the future development and growth of communities,
and the strongest communities are ones with a strong sense of equality and
diversity, and a governance infrastructure that supports and celebrates that
diversity.

Importantly, diversity is closely connected to *evolution*. The essence of
diversity is in all of us, but the social acceptance of said diversity is a
slower moving animal. There are obvious large social progressions in
diversity - gender and race equality being one such example - but within
every community and human grouping we see diversity and evolution moving
forward, hand in hand.

Typically when talk about diversity, we use these common examples. Gender.
Race. Sexuality. Class. Although important, these poster-children of
diversity can sometimes focus the attention away from more subtle and
potentially potent forms of diversity that we can encourage, explore and
celebrate.

George B. Graen, author of *Dealing with Diversity* talks about these
different types of diversity that we have before us. His interesting
hypothesis is that not all differences are equally relevant or important in
all circumstances. He broadly divides this diversity into
*surface-level*diversity which are readily observable characteristics
such as the one we
have just discussed — race, gender, or age, and *deep-level diversity* which
points us towards important but less readily transparent entities such as
personality, values, and attitudes.

Now we are rolling.

I am really keen to explore how we can build diversity in these areas of
personality, experiences, perspectives and beliefs. Often these more hidden
kinds of diversity teach us life's most valuable lessons, and we typically
learn these lessons for whom we share a deep-level of diversity. I am not
suggesting surface-level diversity is unimportant, and I want to be clear
here, I am not talking about equality, all equality is important, but I am
keen to explore how we can grow this sense of deep-level diversity.

But is deep-level diversity a productive and pro-active area in which to
focus our efforts? The cards may well be in our favour - Graen suggests that
surface-level diversity appears to be waning:

"In a study of 45 teams from electronics divisions of three major
corporations, Pelled, Eisenhardt, and Xin (1999) found that the effects of
surface-level diversity (age) on emotional conflict diminished as a function
of team longevity. Similarly, Chatman and Flynn (2001) found that
demographic homogeneity (race and gender) was less predictive of team
cooperation as team members interacted with each other".

Interestingly, at the same time, and in another research study, deep-level
diversity is growing:

"In a study of 144 student project teams, Harrison, Price, Gavin, and Florey
(2002) found that surface-level diversity negatively affected early cohesion
in the team. Over the course of a semester working together, surface-level
diversity became less predictive, whereas actual deep-level diversity
(measured by conscientiousness, task meaningfulness, and outcome importance)
and perceptions of deep-level diversity became increasingly important to
team social cohesion and performance".

Although the experiment may seem a little abstract, Graen suggests that "*as
team members interact, attributions about underlying differences based on
race, gender, and age are likely to be minimized; however, the underlying
differences in terms of personality, values, and attitudes are likely to
have an increasingly negative effect on team cohesion and performance*".

In a nutshell, as a community, diversity is everywhere. We have so many
opinions, viewpoints, perspectives, recommendations and other reactions to
stimulus, and at every step we need to foster and encourage open and frank
exchanges of debate, and to bring balance to this debate. The Ubuntu Code Of
Conduct, one of the most important documents in the community that I
frequent most of the time, draws attention to understanding and respecting
this deep-level of diversity, but the Code Of Conduct is sometimes
misinterpreted as simply" *don't be an asshole*". It means far more than
that - it encourages us to not only take responsibility for our actions and
our reactions, but to also use this diversity as an opportunity to learn and
grow; turning differences into opportunities for personal development and
learning. If we are ever going to win this fight, we need to cherish and
respect this deep-level diversity. The importance of this is not something
we can enforce with actions, bullet-points, success criteria or other
organisational devices - it boils down to us always remembering why we are
doing what we are doing, and standing shoulder to shoulder, connected by our
diversity to help us grow and take on the challenges before us.


Fuente: http://www.jonobacon.org/?p=1412

-- 
_______________
Miguel Sajnovsky
------------ próxima parte ------------
Se ha borrado un adjunto en formato HTML...
URL: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-ar/attachments/20081120/efe8df47/attachment-0001.htm