Building capacity: Navigating organizational opportunities as if they were a subway system

8th Annual NW Diversity Learning Series (2006)

Session Four: July 13, 2006:
Becoming an Experienced Commuter: Bridging the Generation Gap in Moving up and Around the Organization

By Steve Hanamura

Significant Historical Events

1930-1940

• Empire State Building was constructed in fourteen months
• FDR elected president in 1932
• Citizens were dealing with the Great Depression as a result of the 1929 stock market crash

1940-1950

• Pearl Harbor was bombed
• United States entered World War II
• Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball

1950-1960

• Equal Pay Act was passed
• Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus in 1955

1960-1970

• Assassinations of John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.
• USA entered the Vietnam War
• Race riots
• Participative management was born as was the encounter group movement
• Our first astronaut walked on the moon

1970-1980

• Water Gate scandal
• President Nixon resigned from office
• Apple computer markets PCs

1980-1990

• John Lennon shot and killed
• President Reagan inaugurated, shot
• Challenger tragedy
• Fall of the Berlin wall
• The Cosby show began what was to be a ten year run on NBC
• Exxon Valdez oil spill

1990-2000

• Operation Desert Storm
• Play Station created
• Rodney King beating captured on video tape
• Oklahoma City bombing
• Columbine shooting
• .com industries

2000-Present

• 9/11
• War in Iraq
• Corporate business scandals (Enron, Tyco, Arthur Anderson)

Steve Hanamura, Hanamura Consulting, Beaverton, OR, was the presenter for the July 13 Diversity Learning Series session on generational differences and access to organizational opportunities.

The 2006 NW Diversity Learning Series (now in its 9th year) focused on the theme, Building Capacity: Navigating organizational opportunities as if they were a subway system.

Using the metaphor of a subway system, each of the six-bi-monthly morning seminars explored some of the ways that access to organizational opportunities and career development are hidden and therefore more difficult for women and people of color, as well as people who speak English as a second language, to utilize. The purpose of this Series was for everyone to become more aware of organizational culture and how it impacts building people's capacity, and for everyone, managers and employees, to become better at navigating these cultural obstacles along career paths.

For more information about the NW Diversity Learning Series, please visit the Series section of our website.

2006 Series Sponsors:

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