Thinking Outside The Box

In some circles, corporate diversity programs suffer from an internal reputation of unclear goals, unnecessary paperwork and - in extreme cases - accidental discrimination. Are you company's diversity initiatives fair?

Allison Shirreffs

January 7, 2009

D iversity is a term that is difficult to define. Look it up and you expect to find a variety of arbitrary answers, such as "diversity may refer to:" and other distinctly inconclusive definitions. None of these match the definitions crafted by several Atlanta corporations getting kudos for their diversity efforts, nor do they match the definition coined by R. Roosevelt Thomas, Jr., author, consultant and founder of the American Institute for Managing Diversity (AIMD), located in Atlanta.

Thomas' definition, noted in his most recent book, "Building a House for Diversity," is "any mixture characterized by differences, similarities and related tensions." Thomas writes that diversity cannot be predicted from external appearances.

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So why is diversity so hard to define?

In the "2007 State of Workplace Diversity Management" survey report conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), key findings note the diversity management field is "not well-defined or understood," the field "focuses too much on compliance" and "the field still has a long way to go."

In other words, despite compliance initiatives dating back to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, diversity management is a field still figuring itself out.

That said, the election of Barack Obama signals "that progress has been made," says Melanie Harrington, president, AIMD. However, she says we must "celebrate that and acknowledge that, but now let's figure out where we are in our diversity work and where we need to go."

The Grouping Game
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, diversity efforts focused on assimilation around gender and race. But companies soon discovered that hiring women and minorities was one thing, retaining them was another.

Whether it was outright discrimination or regular doses of micro-inequities (subtle forms of bias that affect how individuals perceive how they're valued), women and minorities were leaving companies at a faster pace than their white male counterparts. A company may have had representation from women and minorities, but its leaders weren't sure what to do with it.

"We tend to want to short cut the learning by group," Harrington says. "Black people do this. White people do this. Women do this. Asian women do that. Trends do emerge in groups, but everybody's an individual. You are better served by treating a person as an individual rather than making assumptions about them because they are a member of a group. There's still a need to build that cultural competency skill and it's tricky."

Given Thomas' definition - "any mixture characterized by differences, similarities and related tensions" - it's getting a handle on those "related tensions" that allows an organization to leverage the diversity of its organization.

"I'm more comfortable with white men, but I've had to learn," says Frank McCloskey, vice president for diversity and corporate relations, Georgia Power Company, and a white male.

While McCloskey doesn't believe anyone should feel guilty about whom he or she is; he acknowledges that white males have been - and still are - the beneficiaries of systemic advantages. But he sees an opportunity there. "Knowing that, how do we use that systemic advantage to create fairness?" McGloskey says.

Beyond Black And White
In order for Georgia Power's diversity efforts to have real traction, McCloskey says the company must engage white males who account for more than 60 percent of its 9,000 employees (Georgia Power is the largest subsidiary of utility holding company, the Southern Company which has nearly 27,000 employees).

He says the ultimate success of diversity efforts is, "For every employee to feel valued, respected and productive. This is a management and culture change. It's not just [doing] diversity training and declaring victory. These are internal, long term strategies and structures that will make our company more successful 125 years from now."

Like Georgia Power, several companies are moving beyond diversity as compliance toward diversity as fairness. And they're doing it not just because it's the right thing to do, but also because it makes business sense. According to the SHRM report, "Managing diversity is considered a necessity by forward-thinking companies that want to empower employees, expand market share and sustain the enterprise." The report adds that inclusiveness "generates opportunities for growth, flexibility and adaptation in the marketplace for both employees and the organization."

Benefiting The Bottom Line
In 2000, The Coca-Cola Company made headlines when it settled a racial discrimination lawsuit for $192.5 million. After E. Neville Isdell took over as Coca-Cola Chairman & CEO in 2004, he told his company's Executive Leadership Council that the suit was "an embarrassment," but he noted that it was indicative of something greater, "the failure of Coca-Cola share owners to receive the full benefit of our unrivaled global reach. We have made substantial progress in moving from just compliance to commitment and in making diversity a competitive advantage to our organization."

According to Steve Bucherati, chief diversity officer, The Coca-Cola Company, "It would have been easy to think about race and race ethnicity" coming off the lawsuit, but the company decided from the get go, we were going to lead in diversity and we were going to talk about diversity broadly."

That meant opening the discussion to generational diversity, sexual orientation and the like. It also meant creating a strategy to leverage the diversity within its organization.

The company branded its diversity efforts, "Diversity as Business," and less than a decade after settling the discrimination lawsuit, the beverage giant has made good on its push to "lead in diversity." In 2008, The Coca-Cola Company made its third consecutive Top Five finish on DiversityInc's Top 50 Companies for Diversity list. It checked in at No. 2, its highest finish to date (Verizon was No. 1).

While external recognition indicates the world's No. 1 one soft drink company is on the right track, "We know we still have so much more to do and always will," Bucherati says. "It's about sustainability."

That sustainability has remained as Isdell stepped out of the CEO role and veteran Coca-Cola executive Muhtar Kent took over. During a recent visit to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Kent explained that his leadership team, which includes leaders from Mexico, Lebanon, Turkey, France and Australia, "resembles the United Nations. In fact, [The Coca-Cola Company is] in more markets than are represented by the UN today ... This extraordinary diversity of ideas and cultures and beliefs is undeniably one of the most important competitive advantages we have as a business system."

Another Atlanta-based company that once faced discrimination lawsuits but is now making the business case for diversity is The Home Depot. "We are laser focused on business innovation and better serving the customer," says Gloria Johnson Goins, chief diversity officer of The Home Depot Inc. "And the best way to understand the marketplace is to reflect the marketplace."

One way The Home Depot does this is through affinity groups - each one linked to key customer segments, such as its Hispanics Organized for Growth and Responsibility Affinity Group, African American Pulse Affinity Group or its Orange Shield (Military) Affinity Group. "They can't just be social clubs. They have to be tightly tied to the business," Goins says. For example, the Hispanics Affinity Group designed a "Dia de la Familia" event to honor and leverage the fact that Hispanics shop as families. More than 100 Home Depot stores hosted "Dia de la Familia" events, which included opportunities to apply for jobs and health screenings.

In Chicago, The Home Depot hired Polish-speaking employees at its help desks because a number of Polish-speaking contractors live in the area. After doing so, the stores saw a lift in sales. "Every Home Depot store is part of the DNA of that community," Goins says. "Great customer service doesn't mean the same thing to all customers."

Fairness From Top To Bottom
While tailoring diversity efforts to individuals brings up the question of whether or not diversity is necessarily fair, Harrington points out that while treating people equally is an aspiration, "that doesn't mean the treatment is necessarily the same."

Hiring requirements for people with disabilities may be modified in an effort to create an equal opportunity. Work/life balance initiatives may be extended to all employees, although some employees may not be interested in taking advantage of them.

"Diversity work is very personal," Bucherati says, and there are different measures of success. "That makes it challenging. You can't just put out a program and have it work for everybody."

Because of that, managers must be aware of their own bias and how it might affect individual employees. "It's the little things that people remember," says Carolyn Cartwright, director of diversity initiatives at SunTrust Banks. "Individual situations cause us to think about how the company operates."

For example, if a white male manager stops a white male employee in the hallway to ask how his golf game is but merely says, "Hello" to the male employee's African American counterpart, he may not think he's showing bias, but he is. Whether he means to or not, that manager is making one employee feel included in a way that the other is not.

"Competent leaders today are leaders that know how to manage and leverage diversity - that means managing and maximizing the talent on their teams," Cartwright says. "They have to make sure everybody feels they have a voice and feel included. Sometimes it's the microinequities that cause people to turn away."

At SunTrust, diversity management training is part of leadership training. Managers also receive ongoing coaching to help them recognize certain behaviors as bias and eliminate them. In 2009, Cartwright says, "anyone who supervises people" will be required to take diversity management classes via the Internet.

Similar programs exist at other companies. New employees at Georgia Power go though "Diversity 101" training. Supervisors and advisors are trained to adapt to others so that they can do their jobs better. They're also trained in retaliation awareness and skill building, around, as McCloskey defines it, "The subtleties of behavior in any organization that create disengagement and distrust." They're taught to "always state the 'why,'" how to give and receive feedback, and they develop higher levels of conflict management.

"Most of the bad things happen in an organization because we don't do a good job with giving direct feedback," McCloskey says.

McCloskey thinks of diversity management as part of management, not a separate program that makes managers feel as if they've been given another task. "This stuff needs to be baked into your culture."

That happens when managers are seen as trustworthy and credible by those who are different than they are. "If I have a better understanding about race, gender, sexuality, Christianity, non-Christianity, then that improves my credibility as a manager," he says.

Coca-Cola created "Challenge Day," an experiential program where teams go through experiences designed to break down barriers of isolation. More than 1,200 Coca-Cola employees have gone through "microinequity" classes this year, and the company's diversity speaker's series has proved incredibly popular with employees. A recent talk about work/life balance had more than 5,200 unique downloads in the past four months.

Tracking things like speaker series' downloads is one way Coca-Cola knows if its diversity efforts are hitting the mark. While external polls and awards help, there's nothing like data to make the case for diversity. "Facts drive decisions, not anecdotes," Bucherati says. "We all know diversity is the right thing to do, but we're a business enterprise and we have to have a compelling business case."

The company has leveraged its technological prowess to deliver information in real time. Dubbing it "triage" work, not forensics, Bucherati sees aggregation analysis of who received bonuses and how they responded to their bonuses. The information is broken down in groups and on an individual basis. "If there are issues, we convene and fix them," he says. The company uses similar analytical methods around compensation, performance management and promotion rates.

All the diversity officers interviewed include diversity topics and questions about diversity in their employee surveys. Diversity topics are included in performance management reviews as well. McCloskey calls upward assessments "the most meaningful survey," and adds, "We know how to measure things. But if you don't feel respected, valued and included, what good is it?"

A word of advice for companies launching diversity initiatives: "The pie of opportunity around diversity is huge," Bucherati says. "You will choke yourself and your organization if you try to tackle it all at once."

Bucherati admits that when he took the role in 2001, he initially tried to do too much. His suggestion to others is to figure out "the first bite" they can do well; after that, figure out the second bite. Sequence those bites, he says, in ways that make sense. When Coke launched its diversity speaker's series, the inaugural topic covered the multi-generational workforce, not something more combative.

"We wanted to attract people, not scare anyone off," he says.

As the roles of diversity officers become more permanent, Harrington would like to see expanded career paths to them and beyond them. Goins created a chief diversity officer roundtable that has partnered with Georgetown University to create an academy and scholarship that she hopes, she says, "Will raise the credibility and effectiveness of chief diversity officers around the world."

In the meantime, these heads of diversity will continue to define diversity and diversity management for themselves and for their organizations - and not just because it's the right thing to do. "Diversity is not a fad," Cartwright says. It's a business imperative. "Organizations can't afford not to focus on it."

Seven Attributes Of
A Good Chief Diversity Officer
In order to be effective, Gloria Johnson Goins, the chief diversity officer of The Home Depot, believes that diversity officers must have strong business acumen and an understanding of how their businesses work.

While most diversity officers fall under the category of Human Resources, she says her office is organized under operations. "I'm at the heart and pulse of the organization and that makes me a better partner to the company."

Georgia Power's Frank McCloskey dubs it, "operations credibility," and Melanie Harrington, president, AIMD, puts it this way: "A chief diversity officer has to identify those tools and tactics and strategies that will integrate into the overall business strategy."

Strong communications skills are also a must. "You've got to be able to present strategies and ideas and get people to buy into them," says Carolyn Cartwright, director of diversity initiatives at SunTrust Banks. Additionally, for any organization's diversity efforts to be sustainable, meaningful and regular access to senior leadership is a necessity.

And a good chief diversity officer needs support from other executives. "I have to surround myself with really great people and reach out to even more," says Steve Bucherati, chief diversity officer, The Coca-Cola Company Most of these companies have diversity leadership councils and/or employee action committees that offer suggestions and feedback on the company's diversity initiatives and strategies. Internal affinity groups do likewise.

For diversity efforts to have traction, diversity officers must have access to C-suite leadership. It's also a job that's too big for one person. "You can't get everything done by yourself," Harrington says. "You need to be able to motivate, inspire, and leverage the resources you need from other departments." Which includes being politically savvy.

Diversity officers also must be self-aware, and calibrate their own bias and prejudice in an effort to be seen as credible. McCloskey believes it's "unethical to be in this role and not be working on my own bias and prejudice." Harrington adds that diversity officers must be "in a constant mode of development."

It takes patience to be a good chief diversity officer. Helping get an organization to a place where all employees feel respected, valued and productive is hard work. And Goins is working to create and publish research with the "goal of making chief diversity officers more effective in the corporate world," she says.

Goins wants to identify the competencies and metacompetencies of a great chief diversity officer. One such competency is good people skills.

And while it may not be a skill, there's a trait that helps her do her job well.

"I genuinely love people."