Is DiversityInc a ‘Slick Money-Making Machine’?
Luke Visconti’s Ask the White Guy column is a top draw on DiversityInc.com. Visconti, the founder and CEO of DiversityInc, is a nationally recognized leader in diversity management. In his popular column, readers who ask Visconti tough questions about race/culture, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability and age can expect smart, direct and disarmingly frank answers.
Stu Arnold, one of our relationship managers, received this email from Terry Howard, diversity director, Texas Instruments on Oct. 10, 2010:
[From Terry Howard] … Diversity Inc has a growing reputation as being nothing but a slick “money-making machine” driven solely by your profit motive. Not sure if you’ve heard that or not but that reputation is out there in the diversity community.
Here’s the email I sent to Terry on Oct. 14, 2010:
[From Luke Visconti] That was a really foolish thing to write, Terry. Every company exists to make a decent profit for return on equity.
But businesses shouldn’t just be measured on profit alone, Terry. Corporate citizenship is also very important – you have an area about that on your website. It says that TI donated $18.8 million to various charities (including $8 million to the TI Foundation). Your firm had $12.5 billion in annual revenues. That means TI donated 0.15 percent of its revenue to charity. I’m on three college boards and one other not-for-profit board. I donated 2 percent of my gross revenue – or 33 percent of my salary — to those philanthropies.
Which company is the “slick money-making machine”?
And about reputation in the “diversity community”: There’s no diversity area on your website – this might be because out of 18 corporate executives pictured on your web site, none appear to be non-white and only three are women – two of the three women are definitely not in line positions. That means that 6.25 percent of your leadership positions are staffed by women.
What “diversity community” are you a member of? The almost 100 percent white male one.
Your reputation is fully grown with me, Terry: You’re a fig-leaf holder. I’ll bet they make you work out of an office outside the state. No Texan I know would put up with you.
On Oct. 21, 2010, after he received the above email, Terry sent this email to a group of diversity professionals in Dallas. One of them forwarded it to me:
[From Terry Howard]: To tag onto the recent exchanges about the DiversityInc survey, does anyone have a feel for just how “diverse” DiversityInc is relative to the number of people of color and women who work there? Who holds the key jobs there and what do they look like?
And further, given that DiversityInc has become a financial behemoth, does anyone know how much they have given back to their homebase, the city of Newark, known to have problems of unemployment, high crime, etc.
In short, is DiversityInc really walking their talk or are they just raking in the dough?
Are my questions legitimate ones to pose? Talk to me Consortium.
Terry
I responded by referring the person who forwarded Terry’s email to me to www.DiversityInc.com/aboutus. Please note that when Terry sent the above email, he already had my response about DiversityInc philanthropy. For the record, of my eight direct reports, six are women, two are men (one white man). Five of my eight direct reports are not white. I sent this email to that person on Oct. 24, 2010 (the companies I named were on The 2010 DiversityInc Top 50 list – on The 2011 DiversityInc Top 50 list, several companies do no business with me, including General Mills, Cummins and SC Johnson):
[From Luke Visconti]: One more thing you may want to think about — entering the DiversityInc Top 50 competition is free — and you get a report card. There are six companies on my list who don’t do any business with me, including JPMorgan Chase, General Mills and Xerox — which PROVES there’s no connection between doing business with me and being on my list (I’m just guessing this has been brought up).
There are some people who think that not participating is the best thing to do – if you don’t participate, your CEO can’t ask “Why aren’t we on the list?” If you do participate and get on the list, you have to worry about falling down in your rankings. If you’re a fig-leaf holder for your corporation — if you’re the kind of person who figures “Hey, I got mine, the hell with everyone else,” the LAST thing you want is a measure of independent verification. Once you have it, you actually have to drop the fig-leaf to DO SOMETHING. Might be risky! Might be stressful! You might actually have to face some heat.
The reason I waited to publish this interaction until now was the hope that it would go away – unfortunately two companies have recently contacted me with the same slander – one of them mentioned Terry by name. Unfortunately, Terry must have mistaken my kindness for weakness. Bullies often do that. I’m going to send his CEO and corporate counsel a copy of this column with a letter from me. For the record, Texas Instruments does not participate in The DiversityInc Top 50 and we do no business with them.
For those of you listening to whispering campaigns by people like Terry – who will slander and libel my company behind my back and do not have the guts to confront me directly (yes, I know all about you two on the West Coast), please keep this in mind: I’m not going to take it quietly anymore.
6:52 pm
Luke, I know Terry personally and am a part of the Consortium. Terry is actually a nice guy and work hard for diversity causes. I urge both of you to sit down and have a conversation to hash out your differences. You will probably find a brother-in-arm in Terry. Thanks.
8:01 pm
Looks like someone at TI needs some diversity training! The old adage is true…old school executives should never use the new technology if they expect privacy.
Good reply Luke!
9:41 pm
Hi Luke… I have read the exchange with you and the Texas Instrument, Terry Howard (Diversity Officer). I believe if these are the sentiments of a so-called Diversity Officer of a corporate conglomerate, then it no doubt reflects on true diversity initiatives within his own company. For instance, I too, went on the Texas Instrument website and found it very difficult to navigate the website of their own diversity initiatives (recruitment efforts with college students, board representation, and buyer-supplier contracts). I would hope the upper management echelon of TI would examine their own diversity policy and maybe even welcoming a diverse workforce to their own organization. Customers are global and more sophisticated that 20 years ago. Therefore, it will be this base that would demand a change in attitude, culture, and yes… the face of this company. I would hope this is indeed the case. Wallena Gould Diversity in Nurse Anesthesia Mentorship Program
10:01 pm
I can agree with many of the posters -primarily that it was good to see the response from Luke, it was detrimental to any advice given to many people on how NOT to respond. Not so much a ‘pissing’ contest, but a slanderous topic to which Luke was sick and tired of having to explain and defend. A letter to the CEO of TI, along with a copy of Terry’s email (I will admit -knowing this came from the Diversity Director would make me think twice about working for TI) would have been a good start, and quoting what what publicly posted to TI’s website would have been sufficient. If the response from TI was as crass as Terry’s email -including Terry feeling free to take it to a more public arena, then I can see a reason to bring it to the public domain.
2:57 am
I get value from reading the Diversity In newsletter monthly. I don’t see where the issue of “moneymaking machine” really makes sense. Can someone enlighten me, or shall we get onto more important things.
8:16 am
To all the people attacking Luke for fighting back with facts: Did you actually read the article? What makes you think that having a beer summit with TI Terry would have changed things? Really, what makes you think that? Luke’s tried to deal with him nicely for the better part of a year, and instead TI Terry keeps being a bad actor. It almost makes me wonder how many of you are TI Terry’s sockpuppets or people he’s told to swarm this thread to attack Luke, because none of the people attacking Luke seem to have bothered to read, much less comprehend, anything Luke wrote.
9:14 am
Mr. Visconti,
I applaud your response to Terry’s attack on your magazine. I have found many useful articles in your magazine over the years that I have been aware of it and share it widely in the hope to broaden my fellow professional peers awareness. Diversity matters and it is good for business. You magazine is very much needed still today to raise the voice and awareness. Thank you for what you are doing.
9:31 am
It really seems that Terry has a personal beef with you Luke …. more like “player hating” than a legitimate issue, e.g. “Not sure if you’ve heard that or not but that reputation is out there in the diversity community.” Really? That’s not much better than the “… I heard that people think you (fill in the blank)…” that happened in high school.
P.S. My brother in Texas told me that he heard that Terry doesn’t really like football! Not sure if he’s heard that or not but that reputation is out there among the maintenance staff at Cowboy Stadium.
8:39 am
I first realized that the head of DiversityInc was “a white guy” when Luke came to speak at my company for a diversiy event. I arrived late to a full-to-capacity auditorium and so I stood along the back wall with my jaw dropped that here was this white guy speaking with sincerity, intelligence, and authority on the sometimes uncomfortable realities of the diversity advances that companies still have yet to make (e.g. a friend in NC told me last month that he wasn’t allowed a position in logistics because, as the lady in HR said, “You have a police record for getting in a fight when you were in high school, so you’ll have to work on the assembly line if you want a job with us because some white people are uncomfortable working with a black man who has a fight on his record.”) Anyway, I left inspired because I too am a white guy who share’s Luke’s passion for D&I, and have said many times to my colleagues and my company’s diversity leaders that if I wasn’t an engineer, I’d be Luke Visconti. Thanks, Luke, for showing that people like you and I exist and are genuine in trying to make things better for us all.
As for this exchange. I’m grateful for being made aware of it because now I know where *not* to work.
5:31 pm
The work you are doing is so important and you take great business risks with your stand on some issues. You are admired and respected, but then… oh know, God forbid, you are successful, and begin to prosper and the Left turns on you.
11:50 am
I’m so sorry you have had to deal with something like this. I have found DiversityInc to be a gem for understanding how “best practice” organizations are addressing diversity issues. Any time I do a presentation, whether domestically or internationally, I cite DiversityInce as a great resource for the latest summaries of research and top employer programs for diversity. I think DiversityInc has been significant in moving the diversity field forward.
11:14 pm
Luke,
Hang in there, this TI guy clearly does NOT know ANYTHING about the great work you do to teach and promote Diversity and Inclusion. We use your magazine at our university, in our classes, and as a basis for discussion with students and faculty alike. If your company were only a slick money making machine, then why do universities, military, and a whole host of groups get DiversityInc, for FREE?!! You should see what our students have to pay for textbooks and on-line publications these days, but DiversityInc is given to them and us for FREE! Fight back, Luke, and let the TI guy know that he doesn’t have the facts. Grace Hwang
11:56 am
Luke,
Bravo! What is disheartening is not that this Terry person is willing to inject such unqualified criticisms into the fray of an arena that obviously does not impact his company – they don’t have diverse leadership or a strategy. But that he has found a cohortive voice, and feels comfortable publicly disparaging the work! How short minded and actually what a lack of business decorum – to be polite. Profit margins aside, if TI is not in the business of diversity, than so be it. We’re all grown ups and professionals and know that diversity is not embraced by all, most or in some quarters even many. But to attack your organizational mission and to publicly solicit a fight against it as they have no arsenal to remedy or combat what he wants to identify as being disparate in your approach??? What did we learn as kids? That the best revenge is to do well. If you don’t like what I do, than show me up by doing it better. At best, a lack of discretion is remiss while a better approach of conducting his ‘research’ was done. At worst, this looks bad for TI as an organization that does not have a value of diversity representation in its leadership and that it allows its employees to be publicly disparaging in their name.
11:40 am
As an interested outsider and casual third party observer I was compelled to echo and emphasize a few of the comments here. Admittedly I’m ignorant to the history behind exchanges between Terry and Luke and the issues they harbor, but not to civil and effective communication.
If your response had acknowledged Terry’s ‘heads up’ to the ‘word on the street’ with a thankful tone, for him showing you enough respect to offer open awareness and invite your comment (my perception of his message), your position would have appeared much more honorable and credible. As it is, the defensive and caustic retort casts doubt on your integrity and lends credibility to the criticisms (it did not appear Terry originated or intended to offend with them).
I suspect he may deserve some of the criticisms you dealt out, but doubt you represented & gained your intent; unless you only intended to attack & offend him and raise questions for anyone looking for answers to their doubt. It did NOT APPEAR he intended offense, only conversation, from an outsiders view.
In other words Luke, if it was meant as a contest by either or both of you, you lost!
I only bother to waste my time around this unprofessional exchange because I believe strongly in the cause it distracts from. Perhaps you, your company and the cause you purport to represent would be better served by involving less emotionally invested agents – filtering, supporting & increasing your effectiveness (and adding to your appeal & bottom line)!
1:10 pm
Did you even read the column? If being slandered and libeled isn’t offensive then what in the hell is? He attacked my integrity and the core of who I am and what I do. I asked him to stop—twice—and he said he would—twice. When it became clear that he wouldn’t stop, I wrote this column. He stopped. If he wasn’t lying about me, then he would have continued—and he could have taken me to court. This column not only stopped Terry, I’m sure it stopped other jackasses from trying to pull the same stunt, because you can plainly see I’m not afraid to put it all out there. Luke Visconti, CEO, DiversityInc