These aspirations, however, were well outside the scope of a typical Black law student at the time. James recalls: “When I was going to school, people always focused on Legal Aid or the public defender’s office. Not knocking that, but why go to Harvard for public-interest work? Why should Blacks settle, limit ourselves to a niche?”

Leveraging Litigation for Diversity

James was named chief diversity officer of MGM in 2009, after having worked in the company’s legal department for seven years and getting footing as counsel to the diversity committee to the board of directors. Now she is responsible for driving MGM’s philanthropy, diversity and community-engagement messages throughout the organization.

Her latest project is Inspiring Our World. The 90-minute musical program showcases MGM’s corporate-responsibility platform through song and dance. Written, produced and performed by MGM employees, the show will go live Dec. 16–18 before audiences of 5,000 frontline MGM employees per show.

While her diversity work rarely crosses over into her litigation responsibilities—most EEO cases and other legal complaints stem from conflicts with management and as such are not directly related to diversity, she says—James says communication and the ability to persuade are two valuable skills that a legal background affords her.

“To be effective as CDO, you have to have the ability to speak to a lot of different types of audiences, be able to converse at the board-of-directors level,” says James, noting that she regularly reports to and has a constant interface with MGM Chairman and CEO James Murren. “I need to be able to advocate the case for diversity, that it is our corporation’s best interest—it’s like making an argument, albeit a friendly argument, to a jury.

There Were Few Like Me

Following her graduation from Harvard Law School in 1977 and a clerkship for Theodore R. Newman Jr. (then Chief Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals), James was hired by San Francisco–based Pillsbury, Madison, and Sutro (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman), where she says “you could count on one hand the number of Black associates who ever worked at my 300-person firm.”

One partner was of American Indian heritage, which was not openly discussed, but the rest were white—and only two were women. In 1985, James would become the third woman, and first Black, partner.

“I was very conscious about the fact that no Black lawyer had been considered for partnership,” says James. “I always wanted to make sure I was excelling. I was a rarity—and wanted to make sure I set a good precedent that opened doors for others.”

Once promoted, James became heavily involved with the San Francisco Bar Association and became active in the American Bar Association’s Conference of Minority Partners in Majority Corporate Law Firms, where she led initiatives to improve the retention of nonwhite lawyers at big firms.

Advocating the Retention of Black Lawyers

All the major elite firms were predominantly white, and all had a problem with retaining Black associates, according to James. “It was a revolving door. Blacks were usually out by year four,” she recalls. “We wanted to help law firms understand what the cultural-isolation issues were.”

One of her key projects was a collaboration with a diversity specialist named Harry Jacob to create a video and accompanying manual that raised awareness of the negative experiences that nonwhite lawyers frequently encountered. The project, which received an award of merit from the ABA, focused on themes such as building an inclusive culture for Blacks, Latinos, Asians and American Indians, and best practices to ensure that all associates, regardless of race, received the same amount and same quality of mentoring from firm partners.

Creating Diversity Through Public Service

When Dennis Archer, a Michigan Supreme Court justice who knew James through the ABA, became mayor of Detroit in 1994, James left her firm to accept a public-service position as corporate general counsel and law director for the city.

“I took a huge pay cut and the work in some ways was harder, but it was a great opportunity. It gave me the opportunity to do work that helped to develop a primarily Black city,” says James.

While working on a casino authorization project in 1997, James met with representatives from MGM Resorts International, one of DiversityInc’s 25 Noteworthy Companies. They recruited her in 2002 to help drive the company’s diversity strategy. “Never in my wildest dreams had I thought I’d wind up working at a gaming and hospitality company,” she says.

The post MGM Resorts International’s Phyllis James Uses Law & Entertainment to Push D&I appeared first on DiversityInc.

Wlodkowski, who started his job at Comcast this spring, is still formulating his strategic plan, but he knows it will be aimed at making the company’s products useful for and available to customers with disabilities across the spectrum of the Comcast business, from set-top boxes to mobile applications, software, downloads and phone services.

Noting that Comcast, one of DiversityInc’s 25 Noteworthy Companies, is the first in the cable industry to create this position, Wlodkowski says, “Comcast executives realized there was an opportunity to really address the market and bring in a dedicated subject-matter expert.”

Specifically, previous roles include leading accessibility at AOL and at WGBH, where he worked on descriptive video for blind and visually impaired people and implemented voice-guided navigation on DVD menus. These roles have given him a great knowledge base for his new position.

“The biggest challenge for developing products for people with disabilities is that they are designed by people who aren’t actually using them, who don’t have disabilities. … As I tell my friends and colleagues in the disability community, now they have someone on the inside,” he says.

Out There in the Real World

Blind since birth, Wlodkowski grew up in Southington, Conn., the youngest of four brothers.

“Having a blind child as the youngest meant my mother wasn’t so protective,” he recalls. “She put me out there in the real world. I had to take out the trash just like everybody else. My brothers never let me play the blind card, although they would try to sneak the food bowl past me.”

Mainstreamed in public schools, he was in the marching band in high school and was the drummer for a rock band, leading to work in radio after college. He thought he wanted to be on the air, but when asked to work on technology for people with disabilities, Wlodkowski found his niche.

Today, he’s married with a 14-year-old son. And he appreciates how much technology has improved his life. “My son is amazed at how I can use voice-over technology on my iPhone,” he says.

The D&I Factor

The hiring of Wlodkowski is part of the company’s overall drive to be a leader in the diversity-and-inclusion space, says Maria Arias, executive director, Diversity & Inclusion at Comcast.

“There’s clearly a focus on employees and customers with different abilities. He’s our resident expert with live, hands-on experience and connections with organizations,” she says, citing not just product accessibility and workforce diversity but supplier diversity as well, particularly the certification of the US Business Leadership Network (USBLN) for suppliers owned by people with disabilities. USBLN certification is required for companies citing supplier diversity with people with disabilities on The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity survey.

Wlodkowski and Arias also both work with Comcast’s Abilities Network for employees with disabilities and their allies to create an accessible and inclusive workplace and encourage the hiring and promotion of people with disabilities.

Emerging Market

But Wlodkowski’s primary duties are marketplace focused.

“My first steps are to prioritize where we are going to focus these efforts—the next generation of set-top boxes, product development, the engineering team, and the roadmap for products from XFINITY TV that connect the home,” he says.

Adds Arias: “For the past year and a half, we have focused our efforts on building a year-over-year diversity-and-inclusion plan. We are becoming a leading company in the space, and Tom’s presence here is based on that.”

The post Comcast’s Tom Wlodkowski: Leading the Company to New Levels of Accessibility appeared first on DiversityInc.

“It was my first time working in a different country and I experienced what it was like to be an outsider,” he recalls. “I was young and I felt all the pressures to have all the answers to be Superman. I hit a wall and there was real culture shock.”

What he learned was that he had a team of experienced people on hand “and all I had to do was bring them in the room and we got much stronger decisions.”

That experience has served him well as he has moved to increasingly important HR positions, from Unilever to Bristol-Myers Squibb to Novartis, where he recently was appointed global head, Human Resources, Oncology after three years heading HR in the United States and Canada for Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, No. 13 in The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity.

The Value of Diversity

For Baert, diversity is critical to the business strategy of Novartis, and HR clearly plays a central role in recruiting, retaining and promoting diverse groups. “I have seen firsthand that a diversity of experience, cultures and individuals leads to innovation, engagement and stronger decision making,” he says.

Having worked globally, including heading the Emerging Growth Markets area, which includes China, Russia, India, Turkey, Thailand, Korea, Australia and New Zealand, he sees strong differences in U.S. and other approaches to diversity and inclusion.

“There are ways the United States is ahead and ways it is behind,” he says. “In general, the focused attention on diversity and inclusion in businesses in the United States is ahead of the world. It seems every major U.S. corporation has a dedicated function on diversity, with many senior leaders understanding the importance of diversity as part of their strategy. You will not find that easily in other parts of the world.”

However, he notes that on some issues, such as same-sex marriage, the United States is not as progressive as some other countries, and this can be a detriment to hiring. He says that he has had trouble recruiting gay/lesbian scientists to the United States because they cannot get visas for their spouses since the federal government does not recognize their marriages.

“As an employer who likes to bring in the best people, this is disappointing,” he says.

Tying Business to HR

Baert is a rare HR leader whose strategic emphasis is always focused on business goals. He started his professional life as a lawyer, which he chose because “life is not expressed in black and white and the law is a good training ground to manage ambiguity. … I am by nature very solution-oriented and I didn’t like all the fighting in law.”

He moved into HR, thinking he would work in that field for two years and switch to a business role, “but I got so passionate about HR” and its impact on the business. He was recruited by Novartis in a global role and in 2009 was asked to head up HR North America, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation. In that job, he had many opportunities to drive the human-capital agenda.

In his new role, he believes the intersection of HR, diversity and innovation is crucial to the company’s success. “Our business is all about innovation,” he says. “The discoveries we make to fight diseases become ever more complex. It would be naïve to think one person singlehandedly could come up with a solution. You need to bring in many diverse backgrounds, insights and experience to work in an inclusive way because that is what will lead to a breakthrough.”

The post Novartis’ Steven Baert: Diversity of Experience Leads to Stronger Business Decisions appeared first on DiversityInc.

Lechleiter accepted Lilly’s award as DiversityInc’s Top Company for Working Families at our October event in New York City. Go to www.DiversityInc.com/2012specialawards for the full video. Also view our digital edition to read this article and other CEO Interviews.

Luke Visconti: You’ve publicly stated the importance of diversity to Lilly’s mission and to its business goals. How did you come to this realization and why has it become an increasing focus of your tenure as CEO?

John Lechleiter: I’ve been CEO just over four years. The importance of diversity as an underpinning of our business success today and for the future has become more clear to me and more evident. There are a number of reasons why diversity has sprung to life as an important business issue and been magnified in my mind during this time. One is the opportunity I’ve had to travel even more around the world to meet so many willing people and so many of our customers who reflect different backgrounds and different cultures.

Secondly, it’s the increased diversity of our scientific workforce. As we recruit the very best scientists and physicians from universities and medical schools around the world, we see an increasingly diverse population among the group of individuals who really form the core of our company, based as we are on innovation. And the way that our business is shifting in terms of serving different populations and different segments of different populations than we have in the past, both here in the U.S. and in emerging markets, has brought me, and the whole company, a greater awareness of how different we are with respect to the way in which medicine is practiced, the way in which treatment is sought, the way in which people understand disease and approach therapy.

Visconti: You’re coming off of patent on a couple of things. How are you seeing this subject applied to innovation at your company, considering how important it is for you to develop new products?

Lechleiter: We’re in a very interesting place right now in this industry where the promise of the science and all of this knowledge we’ve accumulated about the human genome and about disease pathways is sitting there in front of us, sort of tempting us, waiting to be exploited. Yet so many of our companies are finding it difficult to really innovate in a way that is affordable, that is timely, that ultimately hits the target.

We believe that among the best approaches is to really enhance the innovations, to make sure that we’re able to effectively integrate the ideas, the energies, the passions of Lilly people around the world—Lilly people who come from all sorts of different backgrounds, who bring their diversity with them to work, who are proud of that, who really make their different perspectives and their different backgrounds work for us in terms of literally making that whole greater than the sum of the parts. We can harness that, really harness that; it gives us a real competitive advantage.

Visconti: Is there a personal reason that diversity is a subject that’s important to you?

Lechleiter: I’ve been here almost 33 years now. I joined Lilly as a scientist, and you could say I came from a nontraditional background in terms of going from that entry-level position as a chemist to becoming CEO. There have certainly been times along the way when diversity and the implications of diversity for the company have been really brought home to me.

About 20 years ago, when I was in my first executive management job, I had lunch with a group of gay and lesbian employees who happened to work in the area that I was responsible for. Leaving that lunch, I felt like I really had stepped into someone else’s shoes and recognized just how subtle and how almost imperceptible some of these issues are that magnify themselves and become really big deals for people who are not like most of the people they happen to be working with. I have never forgotten that. It really opened my eyes, and opened my ears as well, to listen better, to try to figuratively, if not literally, put myself in people’s shoes to try to understand their stories and their journey more completely, and then to try to deal with some of the things that represented obstacles for them, that kept them from realizing their potential, that made them feel maybe just a little less significant in the scheme of things because of the ways they might be treated or things that were said, opportunities that didn’t open up for them.

Visconti: You’ve put Shaun Hawkins, a line executive, in the role of chief diversity officer. What led you to this decision and how is it paying off for your business?

Lechleiter: That reflects our view that diversity needs to be owned and led and driven by our people in the line. This is not HR’s job, it’s not strictly the CEO’s role. The message here is that we picked one of our best and brightest to serve as the catalyst. While I’m proud of the progress that we’ve made—we were tremendously proud to join DiversityInc’s Top 50—there’s never been a time when we don’t see the opportunity for more progress to be made. We’re never going to be satisfied.

Visconti: What place do metrics have in diversity management?

Lechleiter: My view is we can’t zero in on any one metric and say that achieving that represents the epitome; it has to be looked at as a composite. I pay particular attention to retention rates. We have proven time and again that Lilly is able to hire many of the best and brightest from schools and companies all over the world.

But that’s just the first step. We want to retain these talented employees that we hire. We want, through that metric, to see a clear indication that this is a place people like to work, where they want to build a career, where they want to raise their families, where they feel valued and where they feel like they can make a contribution. Even at a challenging time for Lilly, those things that we can control, we’re making the kinds of progress that we expect and are pleased to see.

Visconti: You personally are chair of the diversity council. Why take such an active role, and how do you hold your senior executives and council members accountable for results?

Lechleiter: This year, for the first time, I sent very explicit guidance to the 13 people who comprise the executive committee along with me about what I expected them to do in terms of their own leadership for diversity as we enter into this challenging period at Lilly we call Years YZ, where we’re going to lose these patents and we’re going to have some ups and downs in our business. At this time, any of us might be tempted to say, “Let’s not worry too much about diversity; we’ve got these clear business objectives we need to hit, we need to reduce our cost, we need to move our pipeline forward.” And I think that would be exactly the wrong approach to take. This is the time we need to engage people like never before; this is the time when we need to take full advantage of the power, of the intellects we have here and the people we have who are committed to this company, who want to see us move forward.

Our resource groups are absolutely a critical part of the overall fabric of diversity and are responsible for a lot of the progress that we’re making. I try to ensure that the individual executives who have been given executive-leadership or executive-liaison responsibilities with these groups really are engaged with them. I sit down with some regularity with people who comprise those resource groups and I ask about that, and I try to also understand at a first-person level what the Lilly experience is for them, how we can improve, what suggestions or recommendations they would have for me or for any of our executives in terms of how we can be more effective leading diversity.

When I meet with our resource groups—this is typically an hour-long lunch that is almost never over at the one-hour point—I learn an enormous amount. We have a resource group for veterans, a group for people with physical handicaps, a group for our gay and lesbian employees. Every time I sit down with any of these groups I learn a lot, my eyes are opened up. And these are not gripe sessions. These are, ‘Hey, John, did you know this, this is happening over here, we are driving this initiative there, things are getting better,” or, “John, progress is just too slow.”

I met with a group of our Indian employees a few years ago and they said, “When you walk in our lobby you have ‘Welcome to Lilly’ in eight languages, but our language isn’t there.’” Well, gosh, how hard is it to add “Welcome to Lilly” in another language? It was a small thing, but every time these folks walked into work, they were reminded they didn’t see their language up there.

Visconti: What do you see as the greatest value diversity and inclusion bring to Lilly’s ability to create and market pharmaceuticals?

Lechleiter: Our vision is improving outcomes for individual patients. We know that while medicines are necessary, they are seldom sufficient. If you have diabetes and you’re prescribed Lilly insulin, that’s not the end of the story. There’s a whole lot of other things that need to comprise your care for you to meet current treatment standards, in addition to using that insulin. So if we want improved outcomes for individual patients, and our medicines figure prominently in that, we really have to understand the patient journey. We have to understand how Hispanic patients are different from African-American patients, are different from a Caucasian woman who lives in New York City.

Sometimes we can do this at the genetic level—in other words, differentiate a disease based on a genetic factor. Cancer is a good example. Today we’re able to say you don’t just have this type of cancer, you have a subtype of this type of cancer, and we know how to treat that more effectively than we did 10 years ago because we can target therapy. That’s really exciting; that’s the ultimate improved outcomes for individual patients. But in between there’s a whole lot of knowledge we can bring to bear about how communities of people think and live and approach medical care. We’re getting better at that. We have a couple of programs we are running for diabetes, in particular one with African Americans here in the U.S. And we have growing knowledge of how certain disease states are approached and thought about within the Hispanic communities in the U.S.

Imagine what might be possible for us from a business perspective if we can become more relevant to the prescribing physician based on a more detailed understanding of the differences among people who seek care and use our products.

Visconti: What is your vision for Lilly for the immediate future and then longer term?

Lechleiter: Lilly the company needs to be representative of the people we aim to serve. There are still many things that remain to be done to get even closer to our vision of having the company comprised of diverse individuals who as a group are innovative and who ultimately can deliver on this promise of improving outcomes for individual patients.

One of the things that is fundamental is ensuring that we continue to create opportunity for everyone to gain access to quality education. We put a lot of focus in terms of the way our foundation supports K–12 education, on encouraging women and minorities to pursue careers in math and science. We want to see more African-American graduates from schools of engineering; we want to see more women and Hispanics graduating from Ph.D. programs in chemistry and biology. Also, creating opportunities for people to expand their responsibilities within the company, to be promoted, to be able to be in positions of leadership as diverse individuals, is something we monitor, measure and strive for.

Visconti: Lilly is significantly more philanthropic than even the DiversityInc Top 50 companies. You are at about 2.3 percent of gross revenue going to philanthropy; the average for the DiversityInc Top 50 is 1.6 percent and my estimate for the Fortune 500 is 0.5 percent.

Lechleiter: We recognize that the Lilly family who started this company were in their own way visionaries way back when. They had a deep-seated belief that a successful firm should give back to the community and should engage with the community that it is a part of—for us that’s been Indianapolis for 136 years. Giving back is really in our DNA.

There’s been a trend in recent years to engage our employees more in that. A very successful program—we’re now in the second year—is called Connecting Hearts Abroad. We give about 200 employees an opportunity annually to spend two weeks in one of eight or nine locations all around the world, working on the ground in some sort of community-related activity. It could be supporting an orphanage, helping to build a new irrigation system. That’s really brought home to our employees the company’s commitment to social responsibility, but to also creating shared value among the people who ultimately, like any of us, could be patients someday.

The post Eli Lilly CEO John Lechleiter: ‘Engage People Like Never Before’ appeared first on DiversityInc.

Video Minutes

0:01:07 Remembering Reverend Willie P. Cooke

0:01:55 What Does It Mean to Be Human?

0:05:27 Have Courage

0:09:39 Engage in Dialogue

0:12:15 Be an Original

0:14:38 Ignore Distractions

0:16:20 Connect With the Past

0:18:15 Go Beyond Discourse

0:20:17 Love and Justice

0:21:24 Show Compassion

The post Dr. Cornel West Tells Us About Race, Values and Lives Worth Living appeared first on DiversityInc.

Diversity management at Wells Fargo (No. 33 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50) generates community wealth, from which diversity leader Jimmie Paschall gets satisfaction in helping underserved communities.

The big question everyone has been asking Jimmie Paschall for the past few months is “Why?” Why did she leave Marriott International (No. 21), where she headed the global diversity efforts, to become Wells Fargo’s chief diversity officer?

The answer, she says, boils down to one word: “impact.” “I’ve had the privilege of going from one great company to another, but the scope of Wells Fargo’s impact is dramatic,” she says. By way of explanation, she notes that Wells Fargo has 270,000 team members; as of the end of 2011, the bank ranked fourth in assets and first in market value of its stock among its U.S. peers.

“The other thing that was especially attractive to me is the focus on long-term growth and economic development for communities,” she says. “If you look at what financial institutions can do and the lives being touched by Wells Fargo, there are lots of places where diversity and inclusion can play a role. The impact feels infinite.”

For more on diversity management and leadership at Wells Fargo, read Talent Development Takes Wells Fargo Leader From Teller to $100M in Revenue. Wells Fargo is one of 2012 DiversityInc Top 10 Companies for LGBT Employees and is being recognized as the 2012 DiversityInc Top Company for Community Development at our Oct. 11-2 event in New York City. Visit DiversityInc.com/events for information and to register.

Building on Background

Her years at Marriott, where culturally competent customer service is the major emphasis in doing business at all levels, are helping her in her new role. “Mr. [Bill] Marriott would say, ‘Take care of your associates and the customers will come back again and again,’” she says. “At Wells Fargo, team members are the frontline contact with customers. Both are relationship-oriented businesses where people make the difference.”

To increase Wells Fargo’s market share, she says, “we have to have customers take advantage of products and services across business lines. There is going to be a lot of focus on how to make it easier to do business with us.” Similarly, Executive Vice President and Northern New Jersey Regional President for Wells Fargo Lucia DiNapoli Gibbons discussed Wells Fargo’s strategy to gain market share through diversity in the video below.

Her previous work on Marriott’s diversity initiatives, as well as her involvement with the Marriott Foundation for People with Disabilities and its “Bridges …. From School to Work” program, gave her a deeper understanding of ways to reach people from underserved communities.

Paschall has a long history of community involvement. In between two stints at Marriott, she was executive vice president of external affairs at Volunteers of America and also is a member of the Executive Leadership Council, which works to build inclusive leadership by focusing on the development of Black corporate leaders in corporate America.

She cites her “ability to work with ease up and down and across an organization. People find me easy to work with and a quick study on how to integrate diversity and inclusion into existing strategies,” she says.

What’s Next in Diversity Management at Wells Fargo

Paschall, who is reporting to Jon Campbell, executive vice president and head of the social-responsibility group for Wells Fargo, says her top priorities will be coordinating the team-member networks and various diversity councils now in place at Wells Fargo to have the most significant business impact. Watch our diversity web seminar on diversity councils.

“There are many hearts and minds within this company working within this sphere of influence,” she says. “The greatest opportunity is to align across a common set of objectives that will support the business goals. There is tremendous activity here. If we can harness that energy within a strategy, we will have a new level of performance.”

For now, she’s “excited to be sitting around Jon Campbell’s table to create long-term economic growth and vitality for every community where we have business.” She notes that when she interviewed for the job with Chairman, President and CEO John Stumpf, “I said that we really have the opportunity here to be a leader, to change something in this country.” Read DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti’s exclusive Q&A with John Stumpf and watch the video below.

Personal Satisfaction

For Paschall, who grew up in Macon, Ga., the vibrancy of the Washington, D.C., area has always been important. Wells Fargo is allowing her to continue to live in the D.C. region, traveling often to the bank’s headquarters in San Francisco and its key hubs.

Before having children, Paschall often volunteered in public schools to mentor needy children. “With our own kids, there isn’t enough time, but I find more of the mentoring relationships and supportive partnerships are happening through work and [nonprofit] organizations.”

She still talks to “my Marriott folks” all the time, she says, as she acclimates herself to the world of Wells Fargo. “It is an amazing environment. My husband says: ‘You just come home smiling every day.’”

For more on diversity management at Wells Fargo, read Increasing Diversity in Talent Development and Retention Best Practices: When Paychecks Aren’t Enough.

The post How Diversity Management at Financial Institutions Creates Major Impact appeared first on DiversityInc.

Showing real diversity leadership, President Obama today announced his support for same-sex marriage. His decision, applauded immediately by supporters of diversity and inclusion, came after pressure from the LGBT community and DiversityInc, among others.

“I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married,” Obama said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

His announcement comes a day after the voters in North Carolina overwhelmingly voted to ban same-sex marriage and prohibit local governments from offering domestic-partner benefits.

The lesson is one several CEOs have learned. Vice President Joe Biden took a visible stand on Sunday, when he announced on “Meet the Press,” a Sunday-morning TV talk show, his adamant support for same-sex marriage. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan very publicly added his adamant support.

Obama said he has supported other LGBT rights, including the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” after long deliberations. Read Ask the White Guy: What Changed Obama’s Mind About Gay Rights?

Several states are considering same-sex-marriage legislation, both positive and negative. The recent events include the California court decision to strike down the Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage that DiversityInc covered earlier this year. Minnesota faces a ban on same-sex marriages in November while Maine residents are being asked to approve marriage equality.

Fifty percent of Americans support same-sex marriage, according to the latest Gallup poll. By comparison, a 2000 Harris poll showed that only 15 percent of Americans at that time approved same-sex marriage. That may not be a comfortable-enough margin for Obama, but it’s a telling indicator that public conviction is changing.

Equality for LGBT people is not a bargaining chip but a fundamental civil right, as noted in the Human Rights Campaign (HRC)’s President Joe Solmonese’s official statement. And real leaders must unequivocally support ALL human rights. This lesson has been demonstrated in corporate America several times by diversity-management leaders, especially CEOs. Click on the images to download a PDF of our Diversity Leadership LGBT Pride Timeline and Facts & Figures.

Corporate Diversity-Leadership Lessons

There are several positive examples of CEOs and corporate leaders who have stood up for LGBT rights with great success. 

• Most recently, jcpenney CEO Ron Johnson very publicly supported the company’s decision to use Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesperson, despite boycott threats from a bogus organization called One Million Moms, which was really an offshoot of the anti-gay group Focus on the Family. Johnson cited DeGeneres’ strong values as a reason for choosing her. Jcpenney is No. 35 in The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity.

• Last year, several DiversityInc Top 50 companies, including KPMG (No. 22) and AT&T (No. 4), publicly denounced a Tennessee bill prohibiting local governments from passing antidiscrimination measures. The companies were embarrassed after the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce, of which they are members, supported the bills. Other companies joining in the protest of the bill, which passed, included Pfizer, Comcast and Whirlpool (all three are on DiversityInc’s 25 Noteworthy Companies list).
  
• In Indiana, DiversityInc Top 50 companies such as WellPoint (No. 34), Eli Lilly and Company (No. 29) and Cummins (No. 18) have been fighting the Defense of Marriage Act (which also narrowly defines marriage as only for heterosexual couples). Nationally, according to the Human Rights Campaign, several diversity-management leaders have opposed the Defense of Marriage Act legislation, including Aetna (No. 24), The Chubb Corporation, National Grid, Time Warner Cable and Xerox (Time Warner Cable and Xerox are two of DiversityInc’s 25 Noteworthy Companies).
  
• Many DiversityInc Top 50 companies have been strong advocates for the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act. This includes Ernst & Young (No. 6), Accenture (No. 12), Merck & Co. (No. 16), IBM (No. 17), KPMG (No. 22), Dell (No. 26), Eli Lilly and Company, Bank of America (No. 31), WellPoint, Time Warner (No. 40), The Coca-Cola Company (No. 46) and Capital One (No. 47).
  
• Companies including Cisco and PG&E have publicly opposed Proposition 8 in California, and companies including The McGraw-Hill Companies urged the passage of same-sex marriage in New York.
  
• Companies including Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers (No. 1) recently announced that they will offset the tax penalties employees pay for having same-sex domestic-partner health benefits.

In the cases of all of these companies, their CEOs stood firmly and visibly behind their decisions to stand up for equality for everyone. Many of these CEOs have told DiversityInc in interviews why they are visible supporters of rights for everyone, including Bob McDonald of Procter & Gamble (No. 5), John Veihmeyer of KPMG, John Stumpf of Wells Fargo (No. 33), Ernst & Young’s Jim Turley, and PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Bob Moritz.

Read What Clinton’s Global LGBT-Rights Speech Means for Your Company.

Vacuum in Diversity Leadership

In the absence of real diversity leadership, those who oppose equality win. There are several companies, including Walmart, whose leaders have to this point been reluctant to advocate for equal treatment of employees, including domestic-partner health benefits for same-sex partners of employees.

The absence of this equality costs companies support in the community from LGBT people, from their friends and allies, and increasingly from younger people, according to several polls from Gallup and other organizations. Read Civil-Rights Progress: Helping LGBT Youth for more information.

It also costs companies a spot on the DiversityInc Top 50 list (a policy that’s been in place for the past four years). This year, when the HRC increased its qualifications for the Corporate Equality Index (CEI), including more provisions for transgender people, we added scoring penalties in the DiversityInc Top 50 for companies that received less than an 80 percent on the CEI. Read Our Analysis of the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index.

The momentum is shifting quickly toward marriage equality, despite the backlash factor remaining in states such as North Carolina. Diversity leadership means taking a public stand. Thank you, President Obama.

Read Ask the White Guy: Decision Making, Clarity of Values & What to Do When It Goes Horribly Wrong for more on the importance of communicating diversity-leadership values

–Barbara Frankel

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Today, as Eli Lilly and Company’s senior vice president, human resources and diversity, and a member of the executive committee, he is instrumental in helping the company focus on its internal and external diversity goals. Eli Lilly is No. 29 in The 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity.

His transformation from a member of a homogenous group following in expected footsteps to a worldwide leader in inclusiveness is an example of the value of cultural education. He didn’t have one startling epiphany; he had gradual exposure to those who were “different.”

Higher Education

Fry was the first in his family to attend college. He chose the University of Indianapolis because it was close enough to home so he could still help at the farm and because he hoped to play basketball. He also had a job working part time as an auto mechanic.

“I expected I would still be a farmer, but I thought if I didn’t get an education then, I probably never would,” he recalls.

Growing up, almost everyone he knew was white and Christian. When Fry was in seventh grade, he attended a basketball camp, where he was paired with a young Black boy. “I was intimidated at first because I didn’t know any African-American kids, but we became friends that week,” he says.

When he went to college, he was placed in a dorm where many of the students played sports. The demographics in the dorm were different—of about 37 men in the dorm, around 30 were Black.

“It was my first time being the minority, and it was intimidating. Then I realized we all had the same goals. We wanted to be in school and get an education; we wanted to succeed. We had more in common than we had differences,” he says.

His basketball career didn’t get too far (although he has enjoyed a pickup game with Lilly’s Chief Diversity Officer Shaun Hawkins). His experience as an auto mechanic, however, also changed his view since he experienced for the first time the challenges of keeping very diverse (by class, occupation, personality) customers satisfied.

“It changed my abilities to listen and understand,” he says. “I learned that one of the most important things you can do as a leader is know that you don’t have all the answers.”

Global Perspective

After college, Fry first went to work at another company and then tried Lilly, joining in 1987 as a scientific systems analyst in Lilly Research Laboratories. He planned to work for three years and then go back to the farm. Along the way, he discovered he loved the company and the eye-opening experiences it provided. He started in IT and was tapped for leadership experience, which led him to various HR and operational assignments, including stints in the United Kingdom and Australia, where he was managing director for the Australian affiliate from 2004 to 2007. His last job was vice president of human resources, supporting the bio-medicine and emerging-markets business units.

His global experiences broadened his views considerably, he says, noting he was often the only white person in the room.

“If you are sitting in Indianapolis and have no knowledge of Japan, you won’t understand the process and how to be able to connect with customers,” he says, citing an example: Five years ago, Lilly would launch new products in the United States and Japan simultaneously. Japan, however, had a more stringent governmental approval process and, because the company didn’t use enough Japanese in its clinical trials, launches there were being delayed. “Now we are launching simultaneously because we have people in Japan who get it,” he says.

“We are a truly global company. HR helps drive cultural change in a company,” he says. He’s proud that Lilly’s leadership has recognized the value of diversity and has been aggressively improving its diversity-management processes.

“There’s a real understanding of why it’s important, and our leaders’ behavior matches their talk. The place where we need to continue to improve is to literally integrate diversity in our thinking so it’s never an afterthought,” he says.

When Hawkins started his position earlier this year, Fry, who is his boss, had these words for the new chief diversity officer: “You cannot be accountable for diversity by yourself. When we think about diversity and succession planning, it has to happen naturally and continually.”  

For more on global diversity best practices and challenges, read Why Is Global Diversity So Difficult?

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“When I came into this role, it was really important that we elevated the visibility of diversity as an objective force,” recalled Veihmeyer as he spoke with DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti at a DiversityInc event. He discussed with Visconti why he believes equitable values are key to an inclusive workplace and how best to communicate those to the entire organization.

He noted that communicating the importance of diversity doesn’t stop with memos, emails and webcasts. “You will fall flat on your face,” he said.

Read: CEO Commitment: Why Visibility & Accountability Matter

Generating Buy-In

Veihmeyer had to convey KPMG’s goals to all leaders of local business units—a total of 150 people—and connect with them on a daily basis. “If you aren’t passionate about this, then you can’t be in your leadership role, and we do have people who don’t respond the right way,” he said. He noted that all 22,000 employees might not yet buy in, but it is imperative to have his 150 local leaders on board.

“Diversity is not just a nice thing to do because we are all good people. It’s about trying to connect the dots and intellectually make the case for why we won’t grow as fast, be as profitable, have the best latent and achieve all of our objectives without inclusion,” he added.

Recruiting & Retention

Talent management is also high on KPMG’s agenda. Despite high unemployment rates, the firm globally is facing a talent shortage. It has shifted its thinking toward an environment of sponsorship.

Veihmeyer says this mentality is an active responsibility for career progression among employees. KPMG has a Leaders Engaging Leaders program in which participants take responsibility for at least two high potentials and are held accountable for their continued growth and resignations.

Community Connection

Additionally, KPMG encourages volunteerism and community outreach. Veihmeyer believes that there is a connection between how you treat employees and clients. “I think those drawn to caring about community and making a difference in the lives of people can look at clients from an empathetic standpoint,” he said. “It’s not just about generating a fee but finding solutions and getting to the next level.”

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