PSY FPX 6710 Assessment 4 Intervention Proposal to Address 

Abstract

Anna Pavlova’s words, “Seek first to understand, then be understood,” resonate with me on multiple different levels. Trying to comprehend someone instead of listening with the aim to respond can have a powerful impact on communication and relationships. By listening to reply, rather than listening so that we can get to know the person we are talking to, we are not actually hearing them, or it can create the sense that they are diminishing their emotions or point of view.

This may result in the speaker feeling invalidated and/or resentful. When you communicate with someone else, the plan is to hear where they are, and then you communicate with them about what you want and what you require, hopefully coming to an agreement halfway through. “Seek first to understand, then be understood” is one of the techniques I apply when I communicate with colleagues in a way to let them feel that they are heard. It provides a sense of respect and allows the two to be honest and truthful with each other. It can also be applied in industrial and organizational psychology as a way of building a working relationship with management and associates at a company you are working with.

Intervention Proposal

Introduction

Anna Pavlova’s words, “Seek first to understand, then be understood,” resonate with me on multiple different levels. Trying to comprehend someone instead of listening with the aim to respond can have a powerful impact on communication and relationships. By listening to reply, rather than listening so that we can get to know the person we are talking to, we are not actually hearing them, or it can create the sense that they are diminishing their emotions or point of view.

This may result in the speaker feeling invalidated and/or resentful. When you communicate with someone else, the plan is to hear where they are, and then you communicate with them about what you want and what you require, hopefully coming to an agreement halfway through. “Seek first to understand, then be understood” is one of the techniques I apply when I communicate with colleagues in a way to let them feel that they are heard. It provides a sense of respect and allows the two to be honest and truthful with each other. It can also be applied in industrial and organizational psychology as a way of building a working relationship with management and associates at a company you are working with.

Interview

Intervention Proposal

The first action in developing a good proposal for improving overall performance and job satisfaction as a result of the diversity intervention that I developed is to analyze the data. The data that I will need to analyze is the current health conditions of Company G’s culture and overall satisfaction. To gather this data, I will need leadership and their subordinates to be entirely open. In order to carry out the collection of the information, as a practitioner-scholar within my field of practice, I would remind them at the beginning of the discussion that all the information given to me is kept entirely confidential.

It was in 1939 that authors Conte and Landy state that Lewin, Lippitt, and White incorporated the term “climate” to describe the organizational culture. “Climate is the collective attitude of employees regarding their work entity: an organization, division, department, or work group” (Conte & Landy, 2018, p. 550). Also listed were four dimensions to which there is an organizational climate. These are listed as role stress and lack of harmony, job challenge and autonomy, leadership facilitation and support, work group cooperation, friendliness, and warmth (Conte & Landy, 2018, p. 550).

PSY FPX 6710 Assessment 4 Intervention Proposal to Address 

All four of these, according to James and McIntyre, are best suited for a multicultural organizational environment. In the article, Diversity Impact on Organizational Performance: Moderating and Mediating Role of Diversity Beliefs and Leadership Expertise, the authors stated that when diversity is not managed well in the organization, it can have adverse impacts such as “emotional conflicts; perceived organizational politics; miscommunication; power struggle; and higher employee turnover” (Jamshid Ali Turi, 2022). Besides, diversity was also cited in the article as something that organizations need to facilitate decision-making and contribute to an organization’s overall effectiveness. Armed with this information, I have designed these crucial questions below.

Intervention Proposal

Questions

• What existing policies does Company G have at its disposal that cover diversity and inclusivity?
• How does Company G follow up after policy communication to associates?
• What is your overall impression of Company G’s climate?
• What strategies or initiatives have been used to develop a more diverse climate here at Company G in the past?
• Were any of those initiatives successful?
• Is diversity encouraged by top management or leadership? If so, how do they help to build a diverse climate?
• Are there any initiatives offered at Company G that are conducive to a multicultural or diverse setting?
• How does Company G approach intersectionality in diversity efforts, if at all?
• How often are associates provided with surveys or other kinds of surveys for input?
• What leadership issues prevent a diverse organizational environment?
• What initiatives is Company G taking to track diversity?
• How often are these initiatives tracked and updated?

Intervention Proposal

• How has leadership been dedicated to creating a diverse work environment?
• Do current Employee Resource Groups encourage diversity within the company?
• What are the most critical diversity, equity, inclusion, and/or belonging issues within Company G?
• In your opinion, how does Company G address diversity at the moment?
• Is there a limited budget to invest in deploying diversity for Company G?
• What is the target date for deploying this proposal?
• Do you believe your culture is valued at Company G?
• In your opinion, what can Company G improve better at?

Intervention

As I mentioned in the introduction, Company G is quite a big company with 5,000 employees, and this might lead to more as they expand their business in East Asia. To seamlessly and strategically place this intervention within Company G, I am going to recommend doing it step by step. This approach would be most effective to split a company of this size into units to train leadership and associates properly. The interventions that I will put in place will help to create and maintain an inclusive multicultural environment.

The initial method of intervention to be used is to conduct a conference with all the higher management. I will present a PowerPoint presentation with the handouts of the data in the questions posed to the associates, described in the questions section above. This will give upper leadership the overview of what is needed and all the information for when training begins. Four steps for training are given by Developing Culturally Diverse Organizations: Participative and empowerment-based method for training with specific cultural training in an organization. They are “providing information, influencing attitudes, and organizing behavior and targeting minorities, majorities, or both in a wider organizational and societal context” (Sippola, 2007).

PSY FPX 6710 Assessment 4 Intervention Proposal to Address 

The second thing would be training all top-level leadership and human

training facilities for comprehensive, inclusive, and diverse leadership training. Training intervention needs to develop a strong interpersonal diversity and sound training practices. This comprehensive training will incorporate “cultural competence, handling difficult and uncomfortable conversations, developing awareness of and eradicating bias, discrimination, and prejudice, and enhancing overall competence and motivation to work with other social groups” (Bezrukova et al., 2016).

The third step will be to empower senior leadership to cascade the training information to their respective teams and human resources to train new associates as part of the onboarding process. This will also include a restructuring of the employee resource groups that provide a diverse dynamic for all associates to be able to participate in.

Lastly, within a 3-month period following the training, to ensure that training is consistent and ongoing. To ensure that there is no requirement for further training and that it has helped the company’s intended results on the overall climate and effectiveness, outcomes of training must be measured following training.

Methodology

Based on research, I believe that the Kirkpatrick methodology is fitting for this proposal. There are currently four different levels to the Kirkpatrick methodology that include reaction, learning, behavior, and results. I believe that all four are being used within this intervention. But I believe level 3 behavior is the best methodology for this intervention. This is because the purpose of the intervention is to fix cultural competence in Company G for the sake of maximizing efficiency.

We can’t do this without a change of behavior from the leadership and culture of the company itself. Such a follow-up consists of a 20-25 question diversity- and inclusion-based survey that is administered to employees of all ranks for evaluation. What drew me to this particular methodology is the fact that it consists of qualitative and quantitative information. Quantitative data includes a rating scale to quantify behaviors and inclusion, which provides numerical results. In contrast, the qualitative aspect is centered on workplace reasoning and motivations (Conte & Landy, 2018).

Professional Standards

Professional standards are evolving constantly to suit the workforce of today. They are put in place to make organizations more effective and inclusive and reduce employee turnover. The diversity and inclusion intervention will make a secure atmosphere for a multicultural or multi-organizational business to thrive where associates sense a sense of belonging and well-being. Policies will also correlate with making a culture of belonging, inclusiveness, and diversity by making the associates who do not meet the rules accountable. This can be racism, micro-aggressions, harassment, and a myriad of other ways of bullying an associate not only due to their culture but in general.

Evaluation and Anticipated Results

Having completed all of the information I read, it is clear that making an organization more culturally competent and diverse has successful results. The data also gives the roadmap for which steps to take next to ensure the training is yielding results. Training will have to be done every so often to make sure leadership within Company G maintains its inclusive and diverse environment. This can include updated training and surveys administered to the employees every three to six months to follow up on results and outcomes. It will also give a sense of how much Company G is developing this culture through measurable data.

I anticipate with this intervention that Company G will stay in the right direction by achieving its mission of increasing efficiency through a diversified labor pool. With the ability to implement an environment that is culturally competent, diverse, and inclusive in conformity with training and policy development, Company G will see a rise in multicultural hiring and cost-effective growth.

Conclusion

Lastly, Company G is a fast-growing company that would benefit from more open cultural environments, especially since they are now beginning to grow overseas. Leadership has to do what they taught and put what they learned from training into practice in all areas of the business in order to continue and do it by example. In total, Company G seeks to improve job performance and overall productivity by tracking the company’s diversity health utilizing the intervention that I felt was best to accomplish so.