Organizational Development continues to be a critical area of focus for all corporations. The most significant development in the area of O.D. over the past 10 years has been the expansion and maturing of corporate Diversity Programs. Now is the optimal time to merge Organizational Development with Organizational Diversity.

The methodology that accomplishes this objective most effectively is Cramer's Cube. It was developed specifically for this purpose. The power and potential of diversity is tapped and its essence is then applied to the corporation's tactical and strategic objectives. Cramer's Cube does not address the diversity embodied in Affinity Groups. Rather, it taps the unique potential of diversity in the workgroup and fuses it into a creative organizational development environment, which empowers the individual and enriches the corporation. The methodology of Cramer's Cube applies the uniqueness of individuality to the collaborative environment of the workgroup.

THE DESIGN, THE DYNAMICS AND
THE DEPLOYMENT OF THE DIVERSITY DOZEN

1) CREATE THE TEAM AND DEFINE ITS OBJECTIVE
Corporate management defines an issue that a team of employees will address. Drawing on the vast diversity of individuals within the company, a team is created that has the best possibility to provide unique insight and understanding of the issue and its underlying aspects. The team must be as diverse as possible in order to increase the dynamics of the workgroup. For example, the group dynamics will not be effective if all team members share the same experience level. The best dynamics are achieved by populating a team with a wide spectrum of individuals.

The objective for the team must be communicated in a way that is precise, quantifiable and clear. Prior to commencement, the team must acknowledge that each of these three criteria have been met.

2) DEFINE CLEAR METHODS OF COMMUNICATION.
ELIMINATE "LOOSE LANGUAGE"
At a minimum, a picture is worth a thousand words. Until two people are confident that each one has the same understanding of a word or phrase, miscommunication is inevitable. In a workgroup setting, this miscommunication can yield tragic consequences.

There will always be a degree of inefficiency in spoken communication and it would be counterproductive to attempt eliminate all of it. However, what each of us must be aware of is whether we are contributing to the miscommunication problem by using ambiguous language, phrases that require further explanation or concepts that were created solely for dramatic effect. For example, phrases such as giving 110% should not be used in workgroup collaborations because they cannot be clearly defined. This "loose language" must be eliminated.

3) FOLLOW THE FLOW…
DON'T FOLLOW THE LEADER
In business, when teams are assembled, there is usually a stated commitment by each member to follow a fair and democratic process in discussions and collaborations. In most cases, the team believes that their commitment to follow a fair process is actually being accomplished. On reflection, it is usually determined that a leader on the team stepped forward to move the process along by proposing a "straw man" for the group to consider.

A "straw man" is a proposal or argument that the leader understands will be challenged and attacked. The straw man has the appearance of being fair and balanced. By the fact that the team members are expected to test its worthiness, the process-methodology appears fair, balanced and inclusive. However, appearances can be deceiving and in this case they are! When submitting the straw man, the leader directed the focus of each individual toward a very small universe where the solution has the greatest possibility to exist. The straw man should not be viewed for what it includes, but for the universe of potential information and insight that it excludes.

4) EXECUTIVES CREATE AN EASY PROCESS
FOR THE TEAM TO FOLLOW
In most workgroup settings, it is expected that the collaborative process that the team should follow is rather obvious. Why wouldn't it be? Each member of the team is a competent individual and a recognized team player. Each is respectful of the others and will work toward a timely solution, which the entire team can support. Unfortunately this process often results in failure because the working methodology has not been challenged and validated. For the confidence of the executives and the efficiency of the workgroup, it is most beneficial to establish a consistent methodology before the team is assembled. For uniformity, the methodology should be consistent across the corporation.

5) PROVIDE A HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT OF EXPRESSION
Once the methodology is defined and communicated, it is essential to create a healthy operating environment. In a workgroup where certain members do not fully and actively participate, it is guaranteed to fail. Team members must be comfortable expressing their insights and views, no matter how different they may be from those voiced by others in the workgroup. A consistent methodology can help this process. Members should know that they are not only allowed, but also encouraged to contribute. Predictability in this case is a good thing. It makes people comfortable and less anxious. A wider breadth of contributions leads to increased diversity of thought and, ultimately, a better solution.

6) DISTRIBUTE POWER, INFLUENCE AND
IMPACT EQUALLY ACROSS ALL MEMBERS
The issue is not whether the team wants to have an operating procedure that ensures equal power, influence and impact. The issue is whether the team actually has the ability to do it. The key ingredient, which will guarantee that the team meets these goals, is to have a methodology that removes the subjective application of rules and leadership. The methodology must guarantee that the goals of equal power, influence and impact are achieved by simply following non-interpretative and non-constraining rules.

7) DROP THE LABELS AND STEREOTYPES
When people of great diversity are formed into a workgroup it is only natural that each member will make assessments of the others. This is not an issue, unless the assessments are made prematurely and stereotypically. After the team has been together for a period of time, each member will have had the opportunity to interact with other members in the framework of the workgroup as well as one-on-one. In the process, the essence of each individual begins to be revealed and the members respond to that individual in a particular way. That is okay!

Issues arise if the process is short-circuited by allowing team members to make pre-judgments of others before they have had an opportunity to interact and communicate with that individual. Applying labels and stereotypes to that person, based on some general assessment of the group or category in which the person has been placed, is destructive. Even if you believe that you are applying a positive stereotype to a person, it must be eliminated. Everyone is an individual and it is counterproductive to label teammates because individual conduct and group dynamics will be affected.

8) ARGUE AND DEBATE –
DON'T FIGHT! BE PASSIONATE BUT NOT PERSONAL
Ideas and opinions are very personal. If a person is having his or her ideas and opinions challenged, then the individual is essentially being challenged. Therefore, in a workgroup it is almost impossible to have a vibrant and passionate environment because some members might feel that others are attacking them personally through attacks on their ideas and opinions. One solution would be to define a code of conduct that eliminates passion and friction from the working environment. Such a proposal might sound quite proper and civilized but it would be stifling. Creativity and productivity would be sacrificed at the altar of harmony.

The alternative is to keep the passion, but eliminate ideas and opinions. That sounds kind of crazy! It is not, and here is why. By redefining the interplay of the workgroup from one that is based on opinion to one of observation, the sense of personal attack disappears. The principal difference is that if you attack a person's ideas or opinions, you are, in effect, attacking that person. However, if you passionately and aggressively attack a person's observations or insights, the individual is not injured in the process. Observations are individual, but not personal. They are influenced by one's unique viewpoint, but they are not elements one's persona.

9) CREATE COLLECTIVE CLOUT
WITHOUT SACRIFICING INDIVIDUALITY.
We have transformed the workgroup's operating environment from one based on ideas and opinions to one that deals with observations and insight. When a team needs to reach a solution in an idea-centric framework, the ideas of some individuals will be sacrificed in the name of consensus and efficiency. Since ideas and opinions are highly personal to an individual, the individual has, to some degree, compromised his or her individuality. In the framework of an observation-centric environment, every individual can objectively relate to the observations of the others in a detached frame of mind. If one team member has made a significant observation and the others assess it as being significant, it is quite easy to have the team embrace that observation. The team members are not changing their own position for the sake of a consensus recommendation. Instead, each member now sees the more compelling observation of another member and moves to that position.

The individuals have not sacrificed their individuality in this process. Because of the diversity of the team, one person may have had a rather unique ability or perspective to see what others could not. That is the power of individual diversity, or more accurately said…individuality. Enlightening other members of the team and providing a change of perspective is the power of team diversity. The team has generated collective clout and the individuals have expanded their vision. The operating environment of observation and insight is an additive process, not subtractive or compromising.

10) COLLABORATE AND FORMULATE CONCLUSIONS
Collaboration can be very efficient and productive if each member of the workgroup knows what is taking place and why. As stated in step #3, the team has not been following a leader in the methodology of Cramer's Cube. Each person is working to gather information and make observations but their potential value has not yet been determined, and it will not, until the members can collaborate. Each member will present his or her observations and inputs for the team to evaluate and assign potential importance and significance.

After that step, the elements will be combined in various configurations to determine whether some of these elements gain strength or become weaker when combined with other elements. Like a collection of magnets, some elements will be attracted to, or repelled by others. The team will make assessments and judgments, culminating in a conclusion that is ratified by every team member.

11) PUSH THE LIMITS...
TAP THE UNIQUENESS OF THE INDIVIDUALS.
What comes naturally and instinctively to one individual may be difficult or impossible for another. For this reason, people sometimes resort to exhortations of thinking out of the box or giving 110% in order to challenge an individual to produce something of which he or she may be incapable of producing. Rather than trying to push people to reach their unreachable limits, there is another way to achieve the desired result. Whether an organization is a corporation, university or government agency, if it has diversity it also has unfathomable potential. But, there is a note of caution for such companies. Will the individuals have the means to impact the company and improve the bottom line or will the established culture and methodology of the company begin to mold the individuals?

If the diversity programs are to achieve their potential, it is imperative that corporate diversity be given the opportunity to flourish and thrive. Let the unique talents, abilities and insights of the individuals reach their full potential and maximum impact. It is difficult for corporate leaders to address the myriad of challenges and opportunities that lie ahead, but utilizing the assets of corporate diversity, CEOs can leverage those assets to create a company that is proactive with its clients and customers, as opposed to reactive to its competitors. This is accomplished by creating an operational framework with a methodology that empowers the individual, energizes the workgroup and invigorates the corporation.

12) CREATE INNOVATIVE, EXTREME
AND REVOLUTIONARY RESULTS
An assignment is considered complete when the results are delivered…and delivered on time. Evaluating the efficacy of what has been created is quite challenging because it usually lacks relativity. The point of reference is usually the recipient's expectation, or the results of a similar assignment. It would be more effective if the team were given an assignment that required the team to produce three solutions. That would allow for a relative comparison of the expected results, costs and tradeoffs.

The spectrum of the three solutions should cover the range from "status quo" to "impossible" but not including those two. The designators that can be used to define this range will be Innovative, Extreme and Revolutionary. The team must be provided with the guidelines, which define these three classifications. That will enable the team to mold their solutions into a context matching the definition of each. There is an added benefit to the executive who receives these recommendations and it may be more significant than the relativity that they provide.

At the time that the workgroup was given its assignment and its objective, they were also provided with data and assumptions to channel their effort. Since CEOs are not in the habit of sharing sensitive information, there could have been some information that might have been beneficial to the team in meeting its objective, but it was not shared. CEOs have a greater risk in sharing sensitive information than they do in receiving a recommendation from a team that might not address the true magnitude of a problem or opportunity. A third alternative is to ensure that the team utilizes a methodology which takes them to the limits of its recommendations, without having to provide all of the information and insight that is available. Utilizing a comprehensive and documented methodology that clearly defines the parameters for Innovative, Extreme and especially Revolutionary solutions, the CEO will have achieved that objective.