Europe Deals With Diversity

POSTED BY: Geezer
UPDATED: Friday, December 12, 2025 16:34
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GEEZER

Tuesday, November 2, 2010 12:46 PM

Interesting hour on the Kojo Nnamdi show yesterday about the problems previously racially homogeneous countries, particularly in Europe, are having due to immigration.

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MR. KOJO NNAMDI - From WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show, connecting your neighborhood with the world. Howard Ross is with us. Howard Ross spent decades exploring the rules and rituals of the American workplace, but today we're exploring how our business culture compares with, say, Switzerland or Singapore, especially when it comes to diversity.

American attitudes toward race and gender and culture reflect our unique history, affirmative action and policies against discrimination came directly from our long struggle for civil rights. But what if your country never had a civil rights movement? What if you never had to confront large scale immigration and diversity in the workplace?

International businesses often find themselves navigating a patchwork of cultural expectations in different countries. Howard Ross is a business coach and consultant and trainer who works on workplace diversity issues. He's a principal with the firm Cook Ross. Howard, good to see you.

MR. HOWARD ROSS - Hey Kojo, how are you?

NNAMDI - Here in the U.S., we tend to see workplace diversity issues through the lens of civil rights and for good reason. For most of this country's history, the corporate world was mostly closed off to people of color and women and it was only after the civil rights movement that progress was made at diversifying American workplaces. But what about countries without that kind of history? How are these same issues viewed in a country, say, like Switzerland, a place that never had a civil rights movement, that finds itself nevertheless confronting the forces of immigration and diversity?

ROSS - Well I think it's a very interesting difference, Kojo, and it's hard for us. I mean, I think even in this country, we don't really see -- and when I say we, I mean, the larger national zeitgeist about this issue, don't really see the way our history with race relations, particularly the civil rights movement, African Americans and the women's movement to a certain degree, have shaped the way we see these issues of diversity, inclusion and cultural competency.

We tend to see them as an extension of these historical movements because they are, in our context. But if you go to places like northern Europe, to Switzerland -- you know, in the last 18 months or so I've been in Switzerland, Japan, Singapore, Denmark, London, Canada, Taiwan and India, you know. You go to places like northern Europe, for example, where, for the most part, you've been dealing with a racially homogenous group of people, historically up until the last 10, 15, 20 years.

You've been dealing with a group of people who are mostly religiously homogenous, of course a lot of it having to do with, you know, the Holocaust and the removal of a lot of people, particularly Jews, but also Roma and other people. And so you've been dealing with cultures that have seen themselves generally as being pretty socially liberal on these issues or progressive and inclusive on these issues. In fact, in a lot of cases, very judgmental about the United States...

NNAMDI - Yeah I was about to say, especially when they're looking across the water.

ROSS - That's right. And all of a sudden, in an incredibly short historical period of time, we see these kinds of changes happening. I mean, just -- I don't know if you saw the story, but you probably did, just the other day that said that now this year the name Muhammad is the number one name for boys in England now. The new name for image brings up obviously all kinds of issues. So it's something that's happened very fast and it challenges, fundamentally, the way people in those cultures see themselves, even in the language that's used to describe it.

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NNAMDI - Here's Orietta in Fairfax, Virginia. Orietta, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

ORIETT

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