Part I
THE FOUR QUADRANTS MODEL: INTRODUCTION

My consulting colleagues and I have been using the Four Quadrants Model for at least ten years. At first, we spoke of it as a way to capture and differentiate the various approaches to diversity. More recently, we have come to see the four quadrants as representing the four core fundamental diversity management strategies for addressing collective mixtures characterized by differences and similarities, and their related tensions and complexities. I believe that all approaches to diversity fall into one of these core strategies: Managing Workforce Representation, Managing Workforce Relationships, Managing Diverse Talent, and Managing All Strategic Diversity Mixtures.

We have dug more deeply into these core strategies to determine the paradigm or mindset that gave rise to each. This came about as we puzzled over why practitioners did not move easily between the strategies. We found the beginnings of a possible answer in the 1987 work of Judith Palmer, in which she argued that loyalty to different diversity paradigms was the basic reason for tensions between practitioners.

FIGURE PI-1. The Four Quadrants Model

Extrapolating from her work, we argued that a different paradigm undergirded each strategy and inhibited movement among them. Further, the different paradigms predisposed individuals to a particular strategy. We, thus far, have set forth four pairings and frequently have presented them as a four-piece puzzle representing the totality of the practice of diversity management. (See figure PI-1.)

In the four chapters in this part of the book, I discuss each core strategy and its undergirding paradigm. For me, these four strategy-paradigm combinations represent the areas of the diversity forest within which one can practice diversity management. I also think of these four core diversity management strategies as paths to World-Class Diversity Management capability. Part II looks at how these strategies may be actualized.