BAD

Did Komen’s Lack of Board Diversity Cause Its Crisis?
The nonprofit breast-cancer-prevention group decided to defund Planned Parenthood, then flip-flopped after public outrage. Its CEO ended up resigning.

Lowe’s Muslim Publicity Gaffe Serves as Case Study of What Not to Do
The home-improvement chain caved in to an anti-Muslim group and stopped advertising on a reality show featuring Muslims. The public outcry was significant.

Chick-fil-A Caves on Funding Anti-Gay Groups But Is It Enough?
The flip-flops from the food chain have cost it several contracts and public support.

GOOD

Lessons on Values From Ellen & jcpenney
jcpenney CEO Ron Johnson stood up quickly and very publicly for the choice of lesbian Ellen DeGeneres as company spokesperson after anti-gay One Million Moms launched a campaign to have her removed.

Ask the White Guy: Decision Making, Clarity of Values & What to Do When It Goes Horribly Wrong
When progressive corporations found out their local representatives in Tennessee supported anti-gay legislation, they were horrified and reacted swiftly to try to reverse the decision. It was too late, but their public statements were forthright and they have subsequently made sure this won’t happen again.

The post Diversity Crisis Communications: What to Do When Scandals Erupt appeared first on DiversityInc.

This puts Romney in a now-familiar bind—needing to do damage control after one of his allies goes public with a statement that many people find offensive. (The first was the Todd Akin comment that women who are raped rarely get pregnant.) It’s a situation corporate leaders also have faced, and it can impact everything from share price to employee engagement.

Here’s what happened this time. At a debate Tuesday night, when asked about whether abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest, Mourdock said: “I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God. And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”

Social-media response was immediate and unforgiving. Romney’s campaign had to act quickly, since this pronouncement came so soon after Romney’s ad supporting Mourdock.

“There’s so much at stake. I hope you’ll join me in supporting Richard Mourdock for U.S. Senate,” Romney says in the spot, paid for by the Mourdock campaign.

After Mourdock’s comment, Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul issued a terse statement saying Mourdock’s comments “do not reflect” Romney’s views. But the Romney campaign has not yet pulled the ad. Watch it below.

Corporate Lessons

In 1996, when Texaco executives were caught on tape making racist remarks, the company’s stock price plummeted by double digits in one day, it had to pay $140 million in a discrimination lawsuit—and its reputation has never recovered.

More recently, documents in another discrimination lawsuit reveal that the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch demands that his all-male flight crew wears boxer briefs, A&F cologne and flip-flops.

What’s most important for corporate leaders facing public furor over potentially offensive actions and statements is clarity of values, from the start, and clear and constant communications about those values.

So first, always be very transparent about your values of respect and inclusivity. Look at this quote from Steve Howe, area managing partner – Americas, Ernst & Young (No. 5 on The 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list) as an example:

“I can tell you that we truly do believe that inclusiveness is critical. It’s critical to us performing at a consistent, exceptional level all around the globe. It makes us better, more insightful; it helps us solve problems, manage risk and seize opportunities that much better. And we believe that driving multicultural teams is an absolute must.”

Second, act quickly and decisively and disassociate your organization and your leadership from what has been said/done.

Corporate advertisers have quickly dropped organizations and individuals who have made racist, homophobic or otherwise discriminatory statements. Earlier this year, advertisers bailed on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show after he called a female student a “slut” and “prostitute” for advocating women’s reproductive rights. And when ABC came under fire for a television show that offended Latinos, lesbians and transgender people, it quickly dropped the program.

Governor Romney quickly went public to say he disagreed with Mourdock’s statement, but his ad is still running. We will keep you updated if that changes.

—Barbara Frankel

The post ‘God Intended’ Pregnancy After Rape, Says Romney’s Candidate appeared first on DiversityInc.

“You can change your position, but you have to have a rational reason for the change and be consistent and communicate that to your customers,” Bharadwaj told the Avalanche-Journal. “Two different brands cannot be visible to the customer. Your authenticity is questioned after that, and your brand loses equity.”

The PR-industry website Bulldog Reporter has been covering the back and forth and has an entertaining string of articles you may want to read.

For more on the importance of corporate values and their implications on your business, read:

Ask the White Guy: Decision Making, Clarity of Values & What to Do When It Goes Horribly Wrong

Does Gay Marriage Violate Your Religious Values?

Are Political Donations That Conflict With Your Diversity Policy a Shareholder Issue?

Lessons on Values From Ellen & JCPenney

The post Chick-fil-A Caves on Funding Anti-Gay Groups but Is It Enough? appeared first on DiversityInc.

Diversity management is the key to preventing multicultural missteps like this week’s fiasco—a video of Ashton Kutcher in “brown face” portraying an Indian as part of an ad campaign to sell Popchips. 

After a hugely negative social-media response, Popchips removed the ad from Facebook, Twitter and its own website. However, unofficial versions of it remain everywhere. 

The original ad, which you can watch below, was part of Ashton Kutcher’s series of dating-video spoofs, in which he is portrayed as various characters looking for a date. In one scene, he pretends to be a Bollywood producer named Raj. Kutcher has his face painted brown and a bad sing-song accent. Indian Americans on social media were incensed about the portrayal. For example, Anil Dash even wrote a blog demanding Popchips, Kutcher and Alison Brod PR fix the racist ad campaign. 

Kutcher, who owns a minority stake in the privately held Popchips and is its “president of pop culture,” developed the $1.5-million ad campaign with the help of ad agency Zambezi, a Venice, Calif.-based youth-oriented agency as well as Popchips CEO Keith Belling. Kutcher’s previous ad for Popchips, which was featured online in 2011, portrays racial stereotypes against Blacks and Latinos. 

Here’s how to avoid similarly embarrassing and potentially costly mistakes, based on our experience examining the diversity-management success and failures of companies applying to The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list over the past 13 years. 

Diversity-Management Tip No. 1: Use Your Resource Groups as Focus Groups 

As Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, No. 13 in the DiversityInc Top 50, demonstrated at DiversityInc’s first Innovation Fest! in February, resource groups understand their communities and what works – and what’s offensive. Novartis saved more than $1 million in marketing research by asking its motivated resource-group employees to vet its materials. 

Our diversity web seminar on resource groups, featuring Procter & Gamble, No. 5 in the DiversityInc Top 50, and American Express, No. 14, showed exactly how valuable their resource groups were to examining marketplace ideas, including ad campaigns. American Express, which has 16 groups, used its Latino and Asian groups to develop holiday cards that were culturally competent and brought in significant revenue. 

Membership in resource groups of DiversityInc Top 50 Companies has increased dramatically in recent years because these groups are proving their value to the business goals. 

Diversity-Management Tip No. 2: Ensure Moral Values Are Clearly Communicated 

Organizations with clearly stated values, including diversity & inclusion, are less likely to have ambiguous decisions made on any level. Popchips’ website does not include any statement about values and/or diversity. By contrast, all of the DiversityInc Top 50 companies have mission statements mentioning values and diversity on their corporate websites. 

A good example of a company that espouses and lives up to its values is jcpenney (No. 35 in the DiversityInc Top 50). The retailer, and CEO Ron Johnson, stood firmly behind its decision to have Ellen DeGeneres as its spokesperson, even after a protest from an organization that called itself One Million Moms but really had only about 40,000 followers. Read our coverage of this news in Lessons on Values From Ellen & JCPenney. 

For its Mother’s Day catalog, jcpenney is featuring a lesbian couple (one of whom is an actual employee) to make the point that it is an inclusive company. View this photo on Huffington Post. 

For more on clarity of values, read Ask the White Guy: Decision Making, Clarity of Values & What to Do When It Goes Horribly Wrong. 

Diversity-Management Tip No. 3: Make Sure Apologies Come From the Top 

In this case, Popchips gets some credit. While CEO Keith Belling was part of the team that came up with the ad, he has personally apologized for it and seems to get the point. 

On Popchips’ “what’s poppin’” blog, Belling issued this apology: “We received a lot of feedback about the dating campaign parody we launched today and appreciate everyone who took the time to share their point of view. Our team worked hard to create a light-hearted parody featuring a variety of characters that was meant to provide a few laughs. We did not intend to offend anyone. I take full responsibility and apologize to anyone we offended.” 

 CEO commitment is a cornerstone of good diversity management. That also means accepting the responsibility for failures, including multicultural missteps. CEOs who have done this over the years have seen their companies regain credibility.   

For more companies’ multicultural missteps, read ‘I’m Puerto Rican—I’d Be Great at Selling Drugs’; ‘Not Married? She Must Be a Lesbian’ and Lowe’s Muslim Publicity Gaffe Serves as Case Study of What Not to Do.

The post 3 Ways to Avoid Racist Ads Like Ashton Kutcher’s for Popchips appeared first on DiversityInc.

* UPDATE: Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder on April 11,2012.

In case you missed it, Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman as he walked down a street to a friend’s home in Sanford, Fla. Zimmerman, on a “neighborhood watch” patrol, called the police to report Trayvon as a “real suspicious guy” and “up to no good, or he’s on drugs or something.” Trayvon was wearing a hoodie; it was raining. The dispatcher asked, “Are you following him?” When Zimmerman said “Yeah,” the dispatcher said, “OK, we don’t need you doing that.” Zimmerman was armed with a Kel-Tec 9mm pistol. It took one shot to kill Trayvon.

When I first read of the news, Trayvon’s picture was in the story, and I was struck by how handsome and open he looked—in contrast to his murderer.

But chances are you’ve heard of Trayvon. As of this morning, there are almost 1 million electronic signatures on the change.org petition demanding that Zimmerman be arrested. Spike Lee and Wyclef Jean started the ball rolling with tweets. The press picked it up. Anderson Cooper was all about Trayvon last night. Because of the Internet, you can hear the 911 tapes, see Trayvon’s pictures and hear his mom say that he was killed because of “the color of his skin.”

As hard as it is to imagine, George Zimmerman has not been arrested. The law in Florida, a “Shall Issue” state where one is entitled to carry a concealed weapon, does not call for people to back down from confrontations because Gov. Jeb Bush signed the “Stand Your Ground” law in 2005. Prosecutors in Florida have apparently decided that prosecuting shootings in this case is not worth it as judges can dismiss the case before the trial begins under the concept of “true immunity” based on a “Stand Your Ground” assertion.

But there’s a lot of pressure on Sanford, a place that ran Jackie Robinson out of town during spring training. The city commissioners voted to demand that the police chief resign. If you do a little digging on the Sanford police, you’ll see that there’s been a history; the NAACP is collecting stories to deliver to the Department of Justice. In a larger context, this “Stand Your Ground” law, which has been passed in 21 states, needs very close examination. I am a fan of the Second Amendment, but this reads a little to me like “Shoot the Black guy first, ask questions later” law.

What can we learn here from a business context? History matters. Having a trajectory of good practices—or bad—is public knowledge these days, especially when something goes wrong and people have a little time to dig around the web. Many companies I visit still have a policy of being “modest.” It’s old fashioned and doesn’t serve your customers, employees or shareholders. Websites should have clarity and focus; today, hundreds of millions of people tell their own story on Facebook and Twitter. Your company must tell its own story on its website, yet most corporate websites are soulless (many look like they’re designed by soulless ad agencies and vetted by attorneys who don’t get out much).

I’ve been discussing strategic philanthropy with several companies, a program that has a theme, reflects the company’s values and can be integrated with the general business. There is nothing self-serving about building a pipeline of educated professionals and talented technicians by serving poor and underrepresented young people in a nationwide education mentoring program (the Rutgers Future Scholars program could be adopted nationwide, and Rutgers is an AAU research institution, so it is doing the research to understand how).

The kind of pressure that took years to create during the civil-rights era now takes days. What I’ve observed is that furtive and hateful things burrow underground, while the opposite struggles for sunlight. But what I’ve also found is that, although evil is not sustainable, it is well organized—while forces for the good often devolve their conversations into arguments over jargon. (Is it “I&D”? “D&I”? “DNI”? Just “I”?) Trayvon was murdered by a man with a troubled background who was empowered by a law that needs to be repealed. The force of the social media has taken the lead and traditional media is following. The lessons here for business are clear.

Ask the White Guy: Decision Making, Clarity of Values & What to Do When It Goes Horribly Wrong
Are you violating your values? If you are, you can’t hide from the repercussions.

Is This the End of Rush Limbaugh? Advertisers Flee Show
Rush Limbaugh learns the hard way after his “slut” comment that in today’s social-media world, negative reactions are swift.

Lessons on Values From Ellen & JCPenney
JCPenney’s support of Ellen DeGeneres after an attack by an anti-gay organization is a case study in clarity of values and CEO support.

Why Julie Goodridge Might Be the Scariest Person in Investment Banking
With an all-woman socially responsible investment firm, the head of NorthStar Asset Management is a force to be reckoned with in corporate America. What does she look for when assessing companies’ values—and who is under her microscope?

Rutgers Future Scholars Enhances Talent Pipelines With Corporate-Student Outreach
An event with Ernst & Young served to inspire students from low-income families to become the next generation of accounting professionals.

The post #Trayvon appeared first on DiversityInc.

The organization, which fights breast cancer, reversed its decision to defund Planned Parenthood, but can the damage really be undone? The resulting mistrust from Komen’s flip-flop stance and delayed response to protests now has former supporters wary of backing the organization and raising questions.

How could such a poor decision get approved in the first place? The answer could lie in a lack of diversity in its board, according to an article on MotherJones.com by Clara Jeffery.

Calling for an Overhaul

The article delves into the organization’s other underlying issues—such as the way donated funds are collected and distributed, its focus on finding a cure over prevention and how the organization threatened to sue other charities for utilizing their “for the cure” phrasing in marketing.

Most notably, it makes the call for a complete Komen overhaul—starting with its “sucky” board of directors, says Jeffery. She notes that the nine board members are mostly white (there are only two Blacks on the board) and most are wealthy Texans.

Ultimately, the article raises important questions about diversity in leadership and thought that is a common topic discussed at DiversityInc. Without more diversity among board members—individuals who can challenge the way the organization has typically done its business—how can Komen adapt and innovate to changing demographics and concerns among the population of women it purports to represent? How can it prevent communication blunders from happening again?

Diversity in Thought

Read these DiversityInc articles on diversity in thought and corporate values for more insight into how crucial diversity is to a business’ success and public relations:

Restoring Trust in Public Companies Through Diversity
Luis Aguilar is one of the most influential Latino attorneys in the country and has served as an executive in major U.S. companies. He talked to DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti about his commitment to diversity at the SEC and in the governance of the country’s public companies.

Did the Fed’s Stunning Lack of Diversity Cause the Housing Crisis?
Without a diversity-management structure, there are no checks and balances in place.

Will Occupy Wall Street Occupy Your Front Entrance?
They’re angry and growing in numbers. What does your organization have to do to not be a target?

Ask the White Guy: Decision Making, Clarity of Values & What to Do When It Goes Horribly Wrong
Are you violating your values? If you are, you can’t hide from the repercussions.

Lessons on Values From Ellen & JCPenney
JCPenney’s support of Ellen DeGeneres after an attack by an anti-gay organization is a case study in clarity of values and CEO support.

Lowe’s Muslim Publicity Gaffe Serves as Case Study of What Not to Do
Lowe’s publicity nightmare continues after being the only major advertiser to pull its advertising from TLC’s “All-American Muslim” reality show.

The post Did Komen’s Lack of Board Diversity Cause Its Crisis? appeared first on DiversityInc.

Straight men in dresses using urinals. Comments such as “I’m Puerto Rican—I’d be great at selling drugs” and “No, she’s not married. She must be a lesbian.”

What was ABC thinking when it allowed its new comedy “Work It” to air Tuesday night? The show, whose premise is that two unemployed straight men dress as women to get jobs as pharmaceutical sales reps, had dismal ratings. It has been dubbed by gawker.com as the “worst television show in history.” It has been vociferously attacked by LGBT and Latino organizations, as well as every television critic we can find.

What lessons should ABC and other corporations have learned in cultural competence from their employee-resource groups, diversity councils and diverse senior leadership to avoid such missteps?

Ironically, ABC, owned by The Walt Disney Company, one of DiversityInc’s 25 Noteworthy Companies, has long been heralded for the diversity of characters on its shows in terms of race/ethnicity, orientation and disability. Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), noted this in a statement from GLAAD demanding this show be cancelled:

“As a network with a record of positive portrayals of LGBT people, ABC should know better than to air this offensive program that even has the potential to jeopardize the safety of transgender people,” he said. ABC has not released a statement on the criticisms of the show.

Lesson No. 1: Vet Your Content With Your ERGs

Multicultural missteps are nothing new, and many companies have faced the wrath of consumers and critics. The best way to avoid them is to use employee-resource groups as focus groups to vet content with people from these underrepresented groups. ABC’s LGBT, Latino and women’s employee-resource groups would have raised red flags right away about this content and could have helped ABC retool the show to make it less offensive—or pushed to scrap it altogether.

The men in this show are portrayed as bumbling, macho stereotypes, and the women are stupid and insipid. The Puerto Rican drug comment (one of the two men is Puerto Rican) has organizations from the National Institute for Latino Policy to the Latino Leadership Institute infuriated. The Human Rights Campaign and GLAAD took out a full-page ad in Daily Variety asking ABC to cancel the show, primarily because of the impact it will have on transgender women, who face enough difficulties being accepted in mainstream America.

An employee-resource group, especially one whose leaders are trusted to meet regularly with senior management, would have pointed out how offensive these stereotypes are and how dangerous they are to the corporate reputation.

Lesson No. 2: Make Sure Your Senior Management Reflects the Population

Latinos are now more than 16 percent of the U.S. population, and that increases each year. LGBT people are estimated at 10 percent, and when you include their allies, that percentage skyrockets. Why alienate two such important consumer bases?

Companies whose senior management is diverse in terms of race/ethnicity, gender, orientation and disability have a different type of sensibility at the top. There is someone to say, “Whoa! Let’s put on the brakes. Have you considered the ramifications to MY community?”

Our research and DiversityInc Top 50 data shows that formal, cross-cultural mentoring is the most demonstrable way to bring diversity to the upper ranks. Other methods of including diversity in formal succession planning include requiring diverse slates and cultural-competency training for candidates.

Lesson No. 3:  Diversity Councils and CEOs Set Clearly-Stated Values and Hold People Accountable

A senior executive diversity council, led by the CEO, will hold executives accountable, primarily through compensation, for diversity results. They also will hold executives accountable for diversity missteps and for the marketplace consequences of those. They state their values clearly and consistently and never waver from them.

As this Ask the White Guy column by Luke Visconti demonstrates, clarity of values is critical from the start. When something goes wrong, as it did in the Tennessee chamber of commerce supporting an anti-LGBT law, several companies involved communicated immediately and clearly that they objected to this proposal and were disassociating themselves from the chamber activities.

Having a culture of inclusion in the workplace is important. But if that real belief in inclusion isn’t clearly communicated and demonstrated by external actions, it will fail to resonate with your constituents—employees, customers, shareholders and suppliers.  

Here’s a roundup of what’s been said about this show:

The National Institute for Latino Policy released a statement Jan. 4 on the imagery of Puerto Ricans in “Work It.” The NYC Latino Politics and Latino Leadership Institute both are calling Latinos to action: Julio Pabon, the blog’s author, picketed ABC’s offices with other Latinos.

GLAAD and HRC Tell ABC That ‘Work It’ Will Harm Transgender People
GLAAD and HRC ran a full-page ad in Daily Variety in December protesting the show prior to its premiere for its representation of cross-dressing and its misrepresentation of transgender people.

ABC’s Work It Unnecessarily Injurious to Transgender Americans
HRC President Joe Solmonese and GLAAD Acting President Mike Thompson published a post expressing that ABC should not air the “comedy.”

“Work It” Drawing Criticism from LGBT Organizations
National Center for Lesbian Rights provides a summary of the “Work It” pre-launch controversy and links to more information about the cause.

ABC’s “Work It” should be Fired Immediately
National Women’s Law Center comments on the legal inaccuracies of “Work It” and its offensiveness to several groups, including transgender people, women and Latinos.

LGBT Groups Condemn ABC Show Work It; Say Work It Doesn’t Work!
Transgender Law Center protested “Work It” before its premiere, noting the show “validates outdated gender-norms and expectations.”

Click here to watch a video clip of the show.

The post ‘I’m Puerto Rican—I’d Be Great at Selling Drugs’; ‘Not Married? She Must Be a Lesbian’ appeared first on DiversityInc.