Reviews

Anita Rowe, Ph.D., Partner, Gardenswartz & Rowe and Emotional Intelligence and Diversity Institute

Transformational Diversity turns the kaleidoscope to bring another way to view and address diversity in corporations. It presents an approach that focuses on inclusion rather than the more traditional differences and applies the paradigm and methodology of intercultural competency to help organizations leverage diversity as an asset. The premise of the book is that by emphasizing intercultural competencies, organizations can transform their cultures and capitalize on diversity as a business advantage. Click here for full review

Dianne Hofner Saphiere, founder, www.CulturalDetective.com

This book had me at the title. We all work with people who are different from us in gender, age, function, ethnicity, nationality, intellectual orientation or religious tradition. Many of us have also been involved in mergers and acquisitions that join two or more organizational cultures. We have a wealth of diverse human talent to draw upon to penetrate new markets and creatively solve problems, but how do we do so?
Books like this one, a compendium of the latest thinking along with sample designs and resources, are gifts. Such compendia guide the responsible practitioner through the maze of information available on the topic, highlight for the reader what is most accurate or valuable, and ideally teach us where to turn for further learning. They help us take stock of where we are as a field, where we should be going, and the latest best practice for how to get there. This book does that in a no-nonsense, practical, and brief manner (131 pages plus appendices and bibliography).Click here for full review

Lara Hartman, Manager, HR Information Systems, HR Dynamics, Inc., larahart@hotmail.com
The Reader’s Guide

The challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to update your diversity training program to include practical tools that produce measurable, bottom-line results and, in turn, teach intercultural business competence and help employees understand that differences often stem from value systems. The value of inclusion will become part of the organizational culture, improving performance and morale. This may seem like an impossible task, but Fiona Citkin and Lynda Spielman are here to help with their new, scholarly book, Transformational Diversity: Why and How Intercultural Competencies Can Help Organizations to Survive and Thrive. Click here for full review

Kate Berardo, Founder, www.Culturosity.com

The premise of Transformational Diversity is powerful: organizations need to revamp diversity programs to incorporate and emphasize intercultural competencies. Citkin and Spielman make the case that this will result in more inclusive, more profitable organizations and is needed to enable the next generation of diversity work within the US. What makes their premise so powerful, in my opinion, are two aspects in particular. Click here for full review

Testimonials for “Transformational Diversity”:

Ci Ci Holloway, Chief Human Resources Executive, Lincoln Financial Media; former Managing Director, Diversity and Inclusion, Americas, UBS Investment Bank:

“We at UBS tried and tested some of TD programs within our Diversity Today and The Diversity Experience series. Transformational Diversity extends traditional Diversity efforts shifting the focus to Inclusive Leadership, putting interpersonal and intercultural business competencies on center stage – and maintaining that when tolerance-development and workplace relationships are taken a good care of, this results in productivity and performance improvement—and then ROI takes care of itself.

Jim Wall, former Chief Diversity Officer, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited:

Intercultural competence allows us to bridge differences in thinking styles, viewpoints, and behaviors to act as one team and leverage the diverse strengths everyone brings to the table locally or globally. With this book, Lynda and Fiona introduce concepts that combine the intercultural field and diversity insights for Learning and Development professionals who want to create a globally inclusive organization. This book is a door opener for transformation.

Philip Berry, Chief Human Resources Officer at Clinton Foundation:

The field of diversity and inclusiveness has numerous articles which address how this is handled in the United States. However, as companies pay increasingly more attention to how they operate globally, more perspective is needed regarding the cross cultural dimension.

Dr. George F. Simons, creator of Diversophy®:

Diversity and intercultural expertise have been uneasy bedfellows for many years now: diversity running from the passion for fairness and justice to being marketed as good for corporate ROI; the intercultural flip-flopping from research and ivory tower model building to tip sheets on dealing with “foreigners.”

Robert S. Nadel, former President of The Human Resources Association of New York:

This book is a required “booster shot” for any company officer, manager or consultant who believes their bottom line can be improved through greater productivity.

Peter W. Hayward, founder and Senior Partner of Expanding Horizons International (EHI):

Guiding the reader through the How, What and Why of Transformational Diversity Citkin and Spielman take us through a step by step explanation of how the changing economic scene and evolving business pedagogy has brought about the need to take diversity training to the next level.
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