Journal Reflections for Modual 4.3 - Cultural Competency and Equity

[Editors note:  The following is a journal entry addressing the CPM course taught by Dariush Khaleghi for module 4.3]

1 Do you have any biases, conscious or unconscious? How do they impact your attitude, behavior, and life in general? How about at work and in your role as a public service manager?

Logically, since everyone has different life experiences that shape how they respond to people, and since biases would seem to be relative to how others see the world, everyone including myself must have biases. How they impact my attitude, behavior, and life in general would be difficult to say and probably vary greatly between particular instances.

I suspect my self evaluation of this subject would be biased enough to be nearly worthless.


2 Why are diversity, inclusion, and equity important in the workplace? What is the purpose of Equal Employment Opportunity and the Affirmative Action?

Our American government has based on the premise that all people are created equal, and therefore should be granted the respect that a human life intrinsically warrants. Hence interacting with people independent of their differences is a primary principle of our society.

The purpose of those particular laws appear to be specific attempts to correct specific unjust practices that occurred in the past within our society.


3 What is the relationship between motivation, leadership, and managing diversity effectively? What are the consequences of not proactively managing diversity?

As leaders it is important to strive towards the ideal. In the area of diversity, that means treating each individual with respect and dignity.

4 Define cultural competency and its impact in service delivery? What are some of the barriers to achieving it? And, how can they be removed?

Cultural competency is gaining an understanding of the traits, commonalities, and background of other groups of people. By being able to understand the context within which others are acting, it is much easier to empathize with them, understand the motivations behind their actions, interact with them in inoffensive ways, and appreciate their uniqueness.

The largest barriers to cultural competency would tend to be the unconscious presumption that others are like ourselves in ways that they may not be.

The best way to overcome that would be to seek more to understand than to be understood. Asking the questions of “Why would a reasonable, rational, and decent individual do something like that?” would be a good start.


5 How should you as a leader demonstrate your commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion?

Ideally, I would like to treat each person with respect and dignity.

Secondly, I believe management should be giving others the opportunity to succeed. That opportunity should be given because they are a human being and should not be withheld due to whatever specific traits they may possess.



6. What are some of your insights that you gained from this course and how would you use them to improve your organization and service delivery?

Having commented extensively in last months journal entry on some insights gained in the whole of the course, here are some comments on pertaining to this particular module of the course.

Mr. Khaleghi gave me the opportunity to note something I gained recently from a Coursrea class given by Dr. Richard Boyartz. He made the statement that people do not typically make decisions by reason, rather they make decisions based on emotion and than build logical arguments to support their decisions.

I actually noted a number of concepts or statements presented in class that may fit very well into that paradigm in that they may have much more basis in an emotional realm than being based in logical arguments.

1. That climate change has been so well established by science that anyone skeptical of the concept no longer deserves an equal voice.
2. Privacy can be one individual's key value, and yet the proceeding statement that individual made was how cool it was that an “Anonymous” group had identified and exposed a KKK member in relation to the Ferguson issue currently in the news.
3. It is the people that believe in Heaven and Hell that are the trouble making radicals.
4. That minimizing differences in equity income between the top 20% and the bottom 20% is the largest cause of social wellbeing in the developed world. I found it particularly striking that no one found the irony of presenting this concept on the same day the President was making an executive order to increase the immigrant population into this nation which will most likely impact that disparity by further lowering the income of the bottom 20%.
5. That a slight bias towards positively perceiving women as scientists was reflexively labeled a “good” or “positive” bias. Even when pressed for an explanation as to why this particular bias was good, I still did not get a particularly clear rational. I presume this is labeled a "good" bias because it counteracts a traditional bias and fits a modern ideal of empowering women.
6. The statement that Jesus was a great leader because he was able to inspire his band of 12 followers to change the world.
   Actually, much of what Jesus said those individuals didn’t understand at the time. He clearly claimed to be God incarnate as was killed for that claim (likely alternatives as a lunatic or a liar) and reportedly performed enough miracles to be a public figure with a populous following. But then he died in the most uninspiring way possible as a hideous criminal. His death was even the result of being betrayed by one of his 12 followers. Of this inspired group, at the time of his death one member denied he knew him and the rest of the group was in hiding hoping to avoid the same fate. Apart from some supernatural miracles, not much seems particularly inspiring.
   Unless we allow for the possibility he did rise from the dead as proof that he was actually God, that there is a heaven and hell in the world to come, and that his claim to be the only way to heaven was true. Conceivably, that course of events could inspire 12 in descript individuals from the backwoods of a minor Roman province to change the world. Apart from that, he really is minimally inspiring.

On the other hand, the prominent social issue that was never mentioned over the course of the two day class was that a doctor could drill a hole in Mike’s son’s head, suck out that baby’s brain, snip off the limbs, throw the whole thing in the trash, while never even warning the mother of the potential emotional and physical consequences of such an action. And Micah’s agency probably only would be involved if the Doctor refused to perform the procedure. And LR’s daughter could most likely have this procedure done without ever informing Lisa about it. The closest we came to addressing the subject in class was a statement complaining about how some company owners do not want to be forced by the government to pay for this atrocity.



Another aspect of the cultural competency course that struck me, was when viewed through the lens of a recent Weekly Standard article on modern virtues.
It noted how modern society’s highest virtues are probably:

• Freedom
• Convenience
• Progress
• Equality
• Authenticity
• Health
• Non-judgmentalism

My personal observation would be that the list actually sums up the underlying content and thrust of the two days and probably the assigned reading fairly well.

Unfortunately, the crux of the article was how un-inspiring and insufficient those virtues are. Quoting from the article:

No, the modern virtues fail because, for the most part, they concern the outer self, the human façade, the part of ourselves that the world sees most readily—while the classical virtues form an organizing framework for our inner selves .  .  . for our souls, if you believe in that sort of thing. And it turns out that when you scale people out to the societal level, the superficial moral framework of the modern virtues turns out to be an insufficient organizing principle. When it comes to virtue, the old ways are still the best ways.

If you’re looking for a good explanation of the old ways, you could do worse than Alasdair MacIntyre’s summation of Aristotle. Here’s MacIntyre explaining what virtue really is:

The virtues are precisely those qualities the possession of which will enable an individual to achieve eudaimonia and the lack of which will frustrate his movement toward that telos. .  .  . For what constitutes the good for man is a complete human life lived at its best, and the exercise of the virtues is a necessary and central part of such a life, not a mere preparatory exercise to secure such a life. .  .  . Virtues are dispositions not only to act in particular ways, but also to feel in particular ways.

There’s a lot to unpack in those 88 words, even if you remembered what eudaimonia is. (Don’t worry, I didn’t either.) But overall, it’s a fine working definition of virtue: Virtues are the internal qualities that allow us to be our best selves and enable us to lead complete and fulfilling lives. When you think about virtue in that sense, you really understand why the modern virtues are so inadequate. Being your authentic self and living a physically healthy life are clearly second-order goods. To be your best self and live the most fulfilling life, it’s far more important to exhibit, say, charity and courage.

So the question posed at the end of the course about what cultural competencies will make you a great leader. I would postulate that it is those people that can cultivate the deeper, greater, and (unfortunately) “older” virtues will be the people with something to truly inspire others.

Rather than striving to find the right cocktail of “good” biases towards politically correct groups so as to avoid being perceived as judgmental or inequitable; may I submit that the individual with prudence, justice, restraint, courage, faith, hope, and charity will be the one with the true gravitas necessary to lead others.