Often, it is uncomfortable being "the first and only."

That's the term James O. Rodgers, a Lithonia-based consultant known as The Diversity Coach, uses for a pioneer who is the first — and usually only — minority member or woman in a workplace.

LEITA COWART/Special (ENLARGE)

James Rodgers, president, and his daughter Shana Rodgers are diversity consultants at The Diversity Coach in Lithonia. The first step to acceptance is overcoming the expectation that you will be rejected, James Rodgers said.

"You feel isolated, out of your element," Rodgers said.

Fortunately, he said, the situation is becoming more rare, as companies are becoming more diverse and there are fewer offices, shops or boardrooms where a woman or minority member is unique.

That wasn't the case for Michelle Hurdle.

As a senior executive for a nationwide banking company several years ago, she was the only woman in top management in the company's Portland, Ore., office and the only African-American among the 200 or so workers, most of them women.

"There were no minorities," said Hurdle, now 48 and retired from the company. "And I was about to change their whole lives."

As the person in charge of the bank's "back office" operations, where checks are cleared and a lot of the paperwork of banking takes place, Hurdle was tasked with "cleaning up" the place.

Making the office run more smoothly and efficiently meant changing the culture.

As the boss, she brought assistants with her from her previous post in California, including a gay man and two nonminority women. "I had someone to bounce things off of," she said.

Personally, Hurdle said, she also had to adjust to a new community where there were fewer minorities.

"I couldn't find hair-care products," she said. "There was nothing for me, none of your culture living with you."

That's part of the challenge of being a "first and only," Rodgers said. "It's a natural condition from childhood — being used to being around your own kind of folks."

The key to success, he said, is "accepting and feeling accepted."

Any new person coming into a group feels like an outsider, said Rodgers, whose company has worked with large, multinational companies and small businesses. Diversity is inevitable, he said.

At their roots, the largest companies "have the same issues as a blue-collar work team," he said.

"People assume they will be rejected," Rodgers said, but that isn't always the case.

"Assume the best," he advises. It will allow you to overcome that first big hurdle: the belief that you won't be accepted.

In the group, make the most of your differences. Workplaces recognize the value of diverse viewpoints and experiences.

"Be yourself," Rodgers added.

Don't try to conform or assimilate into someone else's culture, because that diminishes the value of your diversity, he said.

But it's important to adapt to working with people from other cultures as well as those with more experience in your new workplace.

Be open to questions about you and your culture. "Let natural curiosity work for you," he said.

That's the method for Steve Denson, a Native American who is an administrator and professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

"I'd rather have [people] ask questions than wonder," he said, recalling how he repeatedly has told people that he never lived in a tepee or on a reservation in the Southwestern desert. Denson's mother is Chickasaw, an Eastern woodland tribe, and he grew up on a ranch in Oklahoma.

"I take it as a compliment" when people want to know his background, he said.

As director of diversity at SMU, Denson advises students from many backgrounds: "In the outside world, play by the rules of the outside world. You can't expect the world to accept everything about your culture."

Rodgers also advised: "Deliberately work to help others overcome their stereotypes. All human beings have biases and prejudices. We all react to them."

The best way to overcome negative stereotypes, Rodgers said, is to perform well.

"People like people who pull their own load and help them succeed," he said. "Acceptance means doing the work."

When other new people arrive, he said, "let them know that you know what it is like to be an outsider."

Hurdle said she began winning over her Oregon employees with a sense of humor.

"I try not to take things personally," she said. "I try not to be defensive. If people say things [that show racial insensitivity], I correct them."

In both the boardroom and the back office in Portland, she said, she brought her management style from her former, more diverse workplace. She set up a diversity network, bringing an increasing number of minority and majority workers together on their own time for brown-bag lunch discussions and multicultural events, including Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations and gay pride parades.

She created a "challenge panel" that included minorities, people with disabilities or mobility issues, gay men and women, and older workers. They shared their experiences and challenges, then answered questions from a larger group.

"We're living in a time when increased diversity is the norm," Rodgers said.

The chance of working in a multicultural environment is 100 percent, he said, but the chance that everyone will agree on everything is still 0 percent.

As people discuss and discover what they have in common, he said, the differences will be less important.