Diversity is dealing with a collective mixture of differences and similarities in a given group. It includes age, background, education, function, and personality. It also includes lifestyles, sexual orientation, geographic origin, tenure with an organization, management and non-management values, beliefs, and opinions. As shown in figure below diversity has both primary and secondary dimensions. Diversity needs to the understood from both the dimensions.
Managing diversity is a philosophy about how differences among individuals are accepted and respected and how they are made to work in cohesion.