Diversity Icebreaker

Human Factors has always cared about the human factors. We have searched a business practice where we contribute to unlocking individual potentials, improving team performance and create wealth in a broad sense. Diversity Icebreaker has been our most valuable contribution in such direction.

 

Diversity Icebreaker has been proven to contribute to trust, positivity and constructive identity development. The concept promotes integration of people, increase willingness to voice opposing views and contribute to better problem solving and execution.

 

The world has some major challenges where Diversity Icebreaker can add value. Sometimes there are organisations and initiatives addressing these issues that cannot afford to buy our material or services. For these organizations we contribute in different ways to overcome these resource challenges with pro bona activities and reduced costs of material.

 

The areas where we have special interests are:

 

 

 

Peace development in war inflicted areas:

 

 

Refugee and integration challenges due to immigration.

Integration of refugees and immigrants has been a growing concern in many countries. Diversity Icebreaker has been applied in cross-cultural community development since 1999. Based upon a long tradition in the area of intercultural communication we know that Diversity Icebreaker has potentials in many ways. Our presentation “Reframing Others in Colours of Mastery” – a presentation we did in Finland 24th November 2017 give an overview of contributions so far. Download the PPT presentation (12 MB) 

 

 

Climate crisis, ecological balance

Red, Blue and Green, the Diversity Icebreaker communication preferences, were applied for the first time in 1995 in a massive campaign for energy conservation. Since then, we have been pleased to see the concept applied by our ordinary customers in e.g. Master program in agro-ecology, European research programs in the area of climate effects, and trust development among stakeholders in a large windmill project.

 

We would like to see an increase in this area of use. Sometimes these activities qualify for CSR promotion from our side. A good example is a project where the Red, Blue and Green communication strategies are applied in order to train catering personnel to reinforce customers choice of more sustainable dishes. You can read more about this at

 www.foodsustainabilityheroes.com

 

Read more about our stance and how the Diversity Icebreaker can be used to facilitate work towards shared climate goals in an interview with Bjørn Z. Ekelund, the tools creator and the person behind the 1995 project mentioned above, at tilt.work (Norwegian text).

Vi samarbeider med Hebrew University i Jerusalem og Konrad Adenauer Stiftung om et fredsprosjekt i Midtøsten.

Diversity Icebreaker project in the Middle East 2011-2013


2011-2012
Since 2011, Bjørn Z. Ekelund (Human Factors AS, Norway) and Lilach Sagiv (the Hebrew University, Israel) have used and studied the Diversity Icebreaker at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. One of the objectives of this initiative is to evaluate the potential, added value of the Diversity Icebreaker in supporting conflict resolution processes; another, is to train consultants and facilitators active in conflict resolution milieus in Israel and Palestine and enable them to use the tool.

Human Factors AS defined its contribution in the project as a CSR activity for the years 2011 - 2012 with a budged of approximately NOK 400 000,-, of which 20% is financed externally via the SkatteFUNN scheme by the Research Council of Norway.
As a part of this project, 26 workshops have been conducted at the Hebrew University for a total of 650 participants, in the years 2011-12.

The project results have demonstrated that the Diversity Icebreaker workshops builds trust, increases the positive and decreases the negative affect, enhances creativity, and enhances awareness of the “self” in connection with others. Results were the same regardless of whether the workshop facilitator was a first-time user, conducting the seminar in Hebrew or an experienced, international user using English.

2013
The project continues also in 2013, both in terms of research and practical application:
In august 2013 Bjørn Z. Ekelund applied the Diversity Icebreaker in a group of 60 teachers from Israel, Palestine and Jordan – teachers that in the next two years shall facilitate a non-violent conflict resolution in nine different schools and their local communities using tools like DI. The project was organised by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (www.kas.de), together with local conflict resolution partners from each of the countries.


If you wish to learn more about the project or contribute to it financially, please contact Bjørn Z. Ekelund; bze@human-factors.no
 

Diversity Icebreaker used in group dialoge, related to conflict in the Middle East

I would like to share with you some thoughts following the experience of using the Diversity Icebreaker® (DI) in a situation of group dialogue, related to conflict.

This was a 1 day workshop for young Jewish volunteers from the US, who spend a year in Israel working in schools and social change organizations. The group members all knew each other, and in previous discussions about Israeli society they discovered that they view Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in very different ways. These differences caused a lot of tension in the group, and raised basic questions related to morality and identity. We were asked to help the participants discuss their differences in a more open and less judgmental way.

We used the DI as the first unit of the day. As usual, facilitating this was a lot of fun – I think that the humor embedded in the DI really helped participants (as well as facilitators) relax and feel comfortable. This is particularly important in a group that experienced conflict in past discussions.

In my view, the DI helped to create a good and open atmosphere and get to know the other group members from a new direction. I think it gave a lot of legitimacy to the existence of differences, which resonated to the other parts of the workshop. An important massage that came out of the DI was that we can see the same reality through different perspectives, which are not necessarily “right” or “wrong”.

I think that this perspective reappeared when we discuss the Israeli reality and their place in it. Though the participants did not explicitly link the two parts, they did emphasize that the atmosphere of the current workshop was very different than in previous sessions of this group. They were very careful not to hurt each other, and discussed their similarities and not only their differences.

One participant mentioned that she met a reporter who was much more “left wing” then her, and could better understand his perspective thanks to former discussions she has with another participant in the group.

I hope that we get more opportunities to work with the DI in conflict situations, particularly long term processes.




Tammy Rubel

Social psychologist (MA) and a PhD student at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem