Monday, July 03, 2006

AOL Black Voices, June 16, 2006, Friday

AOL Black Voices, June 16, 2006, Friday

Work & Money

Taking Diversity Deeper: Cornell Professor Spearheads Project to Beef Up the Buzzword
The First Organization 'By Diversity Officers for Diversity Officers is Launched'
By Terence Samuel, AOL Black Voices
http://blackvoices.aol.com/black_work_money/headlines/features_advice/canvas_wmart/_a/taking-diversity-deeper-cornell/20060612181309990001

[picture with the following caption--Christopher Metzler Cornell University"If diversity is the right thing to do, frankly everyone would have done it already," he says. "The difficulty is that we have not been able to define that with any specificity what we mean by diversity." -- Prof. Christopher Metzler, Cornell University]

To Christopher Metzler, who studies these things, the whole conversation about diversity and inclusion in the American workplace has stalled, broken down, gotten so hung up on tangential issues as to be almost meaningless. He says it has become an exercise in "warmed over demographics" and a way for organizations "to deal with minority issues." And that is particularly tragic for businesses, really trying to figure out how to fit diversity and inclusion into their long-term market strategies.

So Metzler, a professor a at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and a group of "diversity professionals" from large corporations, have set out to do something about what they see as a problem. They have formed the Chief Diversity Officers Roundtable, which in Metzler's words is "the only organization in the world for diversity officers, by diversity officers." The goal is a deeper, wider breath of research that will ground the conversation in facts and figures, rather that just aspirations and ideology.

The Board of the new organization will hold its first meeting this month, and the eventual aim is to make the debate about diversity more concrete and more meaningful in the offices, conference rooms and management suites of American corporations.

"I think where the opportunity lies in the chance to tighten the relationship between the business case for diversity and diversity." says Gloria Johnson-Goins, Vice-president for Diversity and Inlcusion at The Home Depot. Johnson-Goins, who sits on the board of the Diversity Roundtable, says that while diversity is widely discussed in corporate America, there are still misconceptions about its value: "A lot of people think that diversity is a synonym for affirmative action or EEO (Equal Employment Opportunity)," Johnson-Goins says, "and what we are talking about is the change in demographics of both the workplace and the marketplace; that is a bottom-line issue, and companies need to leverage diversity as a business imperative."
BV Work & MoneyWork & Money Main PageBV Small Business PageFind a Job HereBV's Careers PageE-Mail the EditorAlert Me: Sign Up for BV FeaturesMetzler says the most important goal is to make sure that business understands the "value proposition" of diversity, which he says has become an epithet in some places. Through his work with business executives responsible for diversity issues, it has become clear that "diversity has become a pejorative and must be replaced by the word ‘inclusion,’ which they believe drives a different philosophy," Metzler writes.

"If diversity is the right thing to do, frankly everyone would have done it already," he says. "The difficulty is that we have not been able to define with any specificity what we mean by diversity, and it has now come to include so many different things that the use of the word is now meaningless. When we talk about what the central issues of diversity, there are three: race, gender, and sexual orientation."

Those nuts remain very difficult ones to crack despite all the progress that has been made and all the attention that has been paid to diversity by American corporations. Metzler believes that the generalized national debate will have no effect on moving the discussion forward where business is concerned.

On Monday June 12, in New York City, Black Enterprise magazine announced its top 40 best companies for diversity in America. Aetna, Aflac Inc, and American Airlines Inc. topped the overall list, while Altria Group, DaimlerChrysler Corp. and Ford Motor Co. were the top three in marketing diversity. Black Enterprise editors said they evaluated diversity programs, and surveyed more than 1,000 publicly traded companies for their diversity study.

Notable on the list was Denny's Corp., which the editors said was recognized for making significant progress in key areas. Many of the companies honored were recognized because of the money they are willing to spend on their diversity goals, but Metzler says that as long as diversity remains a cost center instead of a profit center for companies, it will have limited success.

The Cornell Diversity Roundtable will hold a series of meeting on this issue this fall in New York City and London and Metzler says that diversity has as much to do with the way white people see themselves as much as how many minorities are in the workplace and how integrated they are into the functioning of the organization.

Metzler says the London meetings are recognition that the issue is now one of global leadership. In last Thursday’s London Financial Times, under the headline: 'Time to take racial diversity on board: There is a Dearth of Ethnic Minority Faces in the Top Echelons of Management,' John Wilman wrote: "There are two key steps needed …according to Race for Opportunity, the Business in the Community campaign …One is to recognize that there is a business case for diversity -- it is not a matter of good will or political correctness. The second is top-level commitment in the organization, with chief executives and board members championing the race agenda."

The globalization of the marketplace and of the forces that drive those market make the issues more than just an American one, say Monica Hawkins, an adjunct member of the Cornell faculty and a member of the Roundtable Board of Directors. "The Chief Diversity Officer Roundtable is the global resource for business leaders who understand the power, relevance and strategic value proposition of diversity management," says Hawkins, Founder and CEO of the Professional Pipeline Development Group.

"Where the conversation needs to move is to the internal dismantling of discriminatory and prejudicial practices," Metzler adds. "Externally, it needs to move to organizations being good citizens and harnessing the buying power of previously overlooked groups. We are having these conversations only in the most tangential way."

More Diversity at Diversity, Inc.