Headlines/Story Ideas
What are the five concepts for honoring diversity?

1. Stop Walking On Eggshells: Define and use positive confrontation. Relationships are built, and you can influence how they are developed and shaped. Yet, there is often a lot of energy-draining, stutter-stepping going on that hinders relationship development with those of different cultures or abilities. You can stop walking on eggshells by taking risks, appropriately confronting difficult situations, and managing conflict. Once you do, you will benefit from strong, healthy relationships that can help you reach both personal and professional goals.
   
   
2. I'm Okay, But "They" Need Help: Why should I change? There are rewards for implementing personal change. However, change is unlikely without identifying those benefits and making a conscious choice to implement the changes needed to acquire them. You'll learn about and use the head, heart, and hand model to help make you more aware of the things you say and do. This model emphasizes that, in every situation, you choose your response. By recognizing your ability to change outcomes by making different response choices, you can begin to experience the benefits of those changes.
   
   
3. Help Others Matter: Unleash the power of diversity. You are either included or excluded by others, which causes you to feel and behave in certain ways. You also include or exclude others. Individuals who feel they are being excluded often respond with less motivation and productivity. You have the power to change that response by choosing words and actions that make them feel they matter.
   
   
4. Broaden Your World View: See things as they are not as you are. All of us have biases, prejudices, and stereotypical ideas of others; we are all ethnocentric. It's part of being human. However, not admitting to these negative social forces damages your relationships with others, the bottom line, and your potential to advance along your career path.
   
   
5. Which Way Out of the Desert: Progress is made with just one step. Take one tiny step forward. Take another. How about one more? Before long you'll discover you're a long way from where you started. When it comes to making changes the important thing is to just start. Risk-taking and moving into discomfort will move you away from a limiting view of the world and toward a broader, more enriching one. The goal is to overcome unconscious acts of exclusion and build more effective relationships.

Want to schedule a program or interview with Amy? Have questions? E-mail her at Amy.Tolbert@ECCOInternational.com or call her at 651.636.0838.