PREFACE
This book has evolved from four streams of my diversity work over the past twenty-five years and comes together at their intersection.
The first stream is my focus on understanding the field. Over the years, I have been thinking and speaking about the Four Quadrants in one form or another as a way to organize the various approaches in the arena of diversity. I have not sought so much to determine what is right, wrong, or useful, but rather simply to understand what exists and their interrelationships. My thinking at this point is that all diversity approaches can be lumped into at least one of four strategic categories: (1) Managing Workforce Representation, (2) Managing Workforce Relationships, (3) Managing Diverse Talent, and (4) Managing All Strategic Diversity Mixtures.
The second contributing stream has been an expanding personal exploration into what constitutes (or would constitute) world class in diversity and diversity management. By “world class,” I mean “best in class,” according to worldwide standards.
When a consulting colleague suggested that we strive to help clients become “world class” in diversity management, I initially responded, “How can we talk about being ‘world class’ when we can’t agree on what diversity means?” Flashing through my mind were the many discussions I had experienced with practitioners about professionalizing and making sense of the field. All had ended in frustration.
Later, as I was preparing for a speaking commitment, the same colleague suggested that I present on world-class diversity management. He subsequently recommended that we author an article on the topic, as well. In less than a year, I moved from saying the notion was unrealistic to thinking seriously about how to make it a reality. I knew that the world-class manufacturing movement had succeeded. Why couldn’t world-class diversity management do so, too? I began the project in earnest.
The third stream of contributing activities has been my work with chief executive officers (CEOs) and other senior-level executives. From the beginning of my involvement in the diversity field, I have encountered senior leaders who have been thoughtful and engaging around the topic of diversity.
Some will find this statement surprising, since many hold a stereo-typical view of action-oriented executives preoccupied with obtaining the five “to-do’s” and having little patience for exploring concepts and frameworks. The skeptics believe that those leaders subscribe to the philosophy of “Fire, ready, and aim” rather than “Aim, ready, and fire.”
I have experienced my fair share of such people; however, I also have interacted with a substantial number of executives who desire to engage in thoughtful dialogue on diversity. Consider two examples below:
• Upon first entering the field as a con sul tant, I presented a proposal to the staff of the human resources (HR) department of a company that pioneered in the diversity arena. They concluded that my proposal calling for a multiyear process of cultural change was so different that I needed to speak to the CEO and the chief diversity officer (CDO). I agreed to do so and was given “exactly” fifteen minutes to make my point. I prepared accordingly. As matters turned out, the two senior executives engaged me in a lively discussion that lasted an hour and fifteen minutes.
• In another setting, I again presented to an HR department responsible for screening potential con sul tants. I made it past the initial hurdle and received a meeting with the CEO. He responded favorably. I subsequently had approximately twelve three-hour sessions with senior executives, and the CEO attended each one—not just to show his support but as an engaged learner. Because he was willing to be a “learner” and to probe, he provided a contagious model that made the sessions very productive.
I have benefited enormously from exchanges with leaders like these. They have helped me over the years to refine and extend my thinking as they engaged me with questions and affirmations. Collectively, these open-minded and inquisitive executives provided the model for this book’s composite case study of Jeff Kilt, a composite leader of a corporate team seeking to be “world class.”
Fourth, my twenty-five years of observations of the field (internal and external practitioners) have contributed to the conceptualization of this book. Among the most significant observations have been the following:
• While enthusiasm and energy about achieving social justice and human rights gains persist, practitioners appear less certain that diversity and diversity management are the most promising routes for making progress. When speaking to people active in the field, I often sense weariness, hopelessness, or a sense of surrender. Some are even unclear or confused about what would constitute success. Many admit to “diversity fatigue.”
• Many—if not most—internal practitioners and their general managers see diversity as a problem to be solved and pushed aside. I have heard internal diversity professionals say, “My goal is to work myself out of a job.” CEOs often share that view. They may, for example, see the “problem” as not having an environment that welcomes minorities and women. With that diagnosis, they set out to create such an environment with the expectation that once that is accomplished, it will be behind them. Their priority is to demonstrate that their organization embraces diversity.
• Despite the perceived declining morale of practitioners, an enormous number of activities remain in place after being institutionalized as part of an organization’s fabric. Once institutionalized, diversity activities in many settings are seen as an ongoing given—part and parcel of the business routine. Conviction, energy, and fire are often missing, however. Change, in particular, frequently does not appear to be a goal or expectation.
• No silver bullet is in sight. When I talk with practitioners who have attended a professional gathering designed to advance the field, they report such things as, “I heard little that was new. We keep reworking previous approaches.”
• CEOs and other senior general managers rarely play a leadership role in the diversity arena. When the field was new, little of significance could happen without senior-level endorsement and operational involvement. Now, as a result of institutionalization, many enterprises have appointed chief diversity officers and delegated major operational responsibilities to them. While CDOs typically are talented, accomplished men and women, an unintended consequence may have been a perceived—if not actual—drop in CEO push. The establishment of institutionalized diversity departments may have made it less clear who is really driving diversity. Indeed, inherent in the concept of institutionalization is the notion that advocacy is no longer needed. This sentiment may have been premature for the diversity field.
In sum, I sense that that the field is at a turning point. It can move into decline, stagnate, or grow into a bigger, disciplined purpose.
In the absence of certainties, I am comfortable arguing that what we are seeing today are the field’s growing pains, and that the discipline will overcome them and become an established, respected, and valued vehicle for addressing all kinds of diversity. The proverbial glass for diversity is half full, not half empty.
What will be required to overcome these growth challenges? For starters, a framework for organizing the field’s various thrusts and their interrelationships would be im mensely helpful. Such a structure would assist senior executives and other practitioners in designing effective diversity management strategies and action plans, and also aid academicians in further advancing the field’s development as a discipline.
This book offers the Four Quadrants as a candidate for that organizing task. Also, what we are describing as world-class diversity management capability would provide an enormous boost toward overcoming the growth pains.
It will also provide a foundation that can be used to advance the field beyond its growing pains and toward realization of its potential as a managerial tool for managers in general and for CEOs and other senior executives in particular. If, as I hope, the book successfully targets the field’s critical needs, it should greatly benefit the field and its development as a discipline and a managerial tool. Without world-class diversity management, or something akin to it, the practice of diversity management will languish.
Seven premises or themes have driven my conceptualization of the book and, indeed, the book itself. All flow from the four streams of activities that I have pursued over the past twenty-five years. These premises follow:
1. The field of diversity can be conceptualized as a “world-class” ideal that can be a source of inspiration and energy.
2. The development of world-class diversity management can parallel the developmental dynamics of world-class manufacturing.
3. The field’s primary emphasis should be on building capability for generating solutions to problems, rather than on solving the “diversity problem.” Manufacturing professionals, for example, don’t envision solving the manufacturing problem and moving on, but rather aspire to develop a capability that will allow effective ongoing problem solving in the manufacturing arena.
4. All diversity approaches can be categorized into at least one of the Four Quadrants. Individuals might differ in their judgments as to which quadrant or quadrants, but the categorization is possible. Further, each of the quadrants is supported by an undergirding diversity paradigm. Accordingly, managing quadrant-paradigm dynamics becomes a prerequisite for effective management of diversity.
5. Diversity generates tensions and complexities, and these byproducts must be accepted and worked through in the process of managing diversity.
6. CEOs and other general managers must be operationally reengaged in the pursuit of excellence in diversity management. Any significant push for excellence with diversity most often will require the visible, operational engagement of senior leaders.
7. While a desire for simplicity has dictated that most of the examples in the book focus on diversity management as it applies to race and gender, the author’s Four Quadrants Model applies equally to a multitude of additional diversity dimensions. It applies, for example, to people dimensions beyond the traditional ones of race, gender, and ethnicity to those such as time within an organization, experience level, member of an acquiring or acquired organization, etc. It applies equally as well to all of the non-people diversity dimensions—function, product, process, etc. As such, the book benefits readers seeking a framework for maximizing the benefits of all of the various types of diversity that can exist while also minimizing the tensions they inevitably create.
As the book has evolved from these mega themes, the idea of building a world-class diversity management capability has emerged as its core. Interestingly, while I focus primarily on organizations, I believe that my insights and prescriptions also hold for individuals, the whole diversity field, and, indeed, society. This for me has been one of the most exciting aspects of the book.
I anticipate that what I say in the following chapters about world-class diversity management capability will not be the definitive word. Rather, I hope it will be the definitive beginning of an engaging evolution toward making the concept a concrete and meaningful aspiration for advancing the work of individual practitioners and the collective reality known as the field. I further believe that a significant part of this evolution will be moving the ongoing dialogue beyond diversity demographics and toward diversity management. Only then will the world-class diversity management concept reach its full potential to provide maximum benefit.