Although the rest of the country may be slow to recognize it, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul are no cultural backwater. Changing demographics and economic prosperity are putting the region in the same league as the nation’s top cultural centers. Two area companies—lender Wells Fargo and law firm Faegre Baker Daniels—are among those leading the charge to ensure the area’s long-term prosperity by making diversity a priority in everything they do. The results are encouraging.

Minnesota is already home to 20 Fortune 500 companies—more per capita than any other state—and Minneapolis/St. Paul is the fastest-growing metro area in the Midwest. Boasting a healthy job market, lower-than-average unemployment and high wage growth, the Twin Cities’ growth is unlikely to slow down. The Metropolitan Council forecasts that by 2040, employment will grow 37 percent and the region’s gross metro product will reach a staggering $400 billion. “That would represent 1.5 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product,” according to Twin Cities Business magazine. “A significant portion considering the Twin Cities is home to less than 1 percent of the national population.”

Such growth is shifting the demographics of a predominantly white state. Between 2000 and 2010, Minnesota’s Latino, Black and Asian population grew by 55 percent and is projected to more than double over the next 30 years. And the vast majority of this non-white population will be concentrated in the Twin Cities. If the area is to succeed, it will need to transform this economic and cultural wealth into an inclusive community that continues to thrive, says Lisa Tabor, executive director of the St. Paul–based CultureBrokers Foundation. “In an intercultural city, residents and organizations creatively harness their diversity and use it as a tool to build a more prosperous future for all,” Tabor writes in a recent editorial. Corporations are banking on the idea that the key to success lies in maintaining a diverse workforce, championing the causes of underrepresented groups and reaching out to traditionally underserved communities.

A Diverse Workforce

As one of the 100 largest law firms in the United States and the largest in Minnesota, Minneapolis-based Faegre Baker Daniels sees diversity as a partnership with the wider community. According to their diversity policy, “Diversity and inclusion is not something that any one individual—or firm—achieves on their own.” With collaboration in mind, Faegre was a founding member of Diversity in Practice, an association of 28 law firms and 12 corporate legal departments that work to “attract, recruit, advance and retain attorneys of color in the Twin Cities legal community.” The association offers professional development, networking opportunities and summer clerkships for Black, Latino and Asian first-year law students. The firm has hired 28 summer associates as a result of these clerkships; after the summer, more than 90 percent of students receive offers to return to the firm for a second year.

These initiatives are helping to recruit bright law students from diverse backgrounds to the city. “We’re not New York; we’re not D.C. We don’t have the critical mass in population,” says Kristine McKinney, director of Diversity & Inclusion at Faegre Baker Daniels. “But we’ve created that through Diversity in Practice.” And the effort is working: 36 percent of the firm’s partners, attorneys and associates are women, and nearly 11 percent are Latino, Black, Native Hawaiian, Asian, American Indian, openly LGBT or a person with a disability.

Wells Fargo also prides itself on maintaining a diverse workforce. Nationally, 59 percent of the bank’s employees are women and 36 percent are Asian, Black, Latino, American Indian or Native Hawaiian. Employees will often recruit from within their communities, says David Kvamme, Minnesota Great Lakes regional president at Wells Fargo. The bank also makes promotion and advancement a priority for employees from different cultural backgrounds and has invested in programs to ensure their success. Since 2009, Wells Fargo has contracted with English Proficiency Systems, a woman-owned business.

Efforts are also being made to promote and recognize the achievements of women. In 2012, Faegre was one of 50 U.S. law firms to receive Gold Standard Certification by the Women in Law Empowerment Forum in recognition of the firm’s number of women in top leadership roles. “Women participate in every level of leadership at the firm—as members of the firm’s executive committee, management board, practice group leaders, office managers and chief executives,” says McKinney. Faegre ensures retention through groups like the Women’s Forum for Achievement, which promotes networking, leadership development and ties to professional associations.

Advocacy & Outreach

Faegre’s volunteer and pro bono efforts demonstrate a commitment to advocacy on behalf of traditionally underrepresented groups. In 2010, the Southern Poverty Law Center asked a team of Faegre lawyers to partner in an investigation into anti-gay policies and harassment in Minnesota’s largest school district. A settlement was reached in 2012 that granted new protections for LGBT students and provided a national blueprint for future advocacy. “The decision to go forward was consistent with the firm’s longstanding pro bono priorities, which include public-policy advocacy to effect systemic change, and protection of individual civil rights,” says McKinney.

In the same spirit, Wells Fargo believes that a successful company recognizes the needs of all members of the population. “We are working to bring a sharper focus to finding solutions to the social, economic and environmental issues faced in the communities we serve, and our diversity and inclusion efforts are an important component of this work,” says Jon Campbell, executive vice president of Wells Fargo’s Social Responsibility Group. Banking services like bilingual phone operators, a multi-language Internet site and the first-ever Hmong-language ATMs provide special outreach to the Twin Cities’ diverse demographic. “In some of our stores here in the Twin Cities metro area, there are five or more languages spoken,” says Kvamme, “which helps us ensure that customers feel welcome.”

Community Giving

Employees also play an important role in corporate giving. The bank has contributed at least $10 million annually to Minnesota nonprofit organizations, local schools and community events for the past six years. Fifty Twin Cities–based employees volunteer to sit on the bank’s Community Funding Council for three-year terms. They evaluate grant applications from nonprofit organizations centered on local issues including English-language learning programs for job seekers, violence-prevention programs for at-risk teens and kindergarten-readiness programs for children of low-income working families.

Faegre promotes a robust community-service ethic including a volunteer mentorship program with Lincoln International High School and the International Education Center, which serve the cities’ large immigrant and refugee populations. But these efforts are not handouts, says McKinney. “We believe that diversity makes us a better place to work. As a result of the firm’s community-service programs, firm employees often have a heightened awareness of community needs, an increased opportunity to interact with diverse groups and individuals and a greater understanding of how they can be more involved in our community.”

Wells Fargo has been involved in community programs as a partner in the Midtown Greenway project, which revitalizes low-income and traditionally underserved parts of the city. “The success of diverse neighborhoods and business owners contributes to the vitality and vibrancy of the entire community,” says Kvamme. It’s also creating a marketplace for minority- and women-owned enterprises. Located in the Midtown Exchange Building, the Midtown Global Market currently hosts 64 MWBEs.

As the regional economy continues to grow and demographics begin to shift, the Twin Cities have the opportunity to become a model in multiculturalism and urban renewal. It’s clear that area companies like Wells Fargo and Faegre Baker Daniels are committed to making sure that no group is left behind. They believe that inclusion makes not only their companies but the whole community stronger. “Make no mistake, interculturalism takes hard work and clear vision,” writes Tabor. “But the return on that investment of time and labor is profound.”

The post In the Twin Cities, Diversity & Economic Growth Go Hand in Hand appeared first on DiversityInc.

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.

Question:
What do diversity and inclusion have to do with income distribution, such as in “The United States of Inequality” from Slate? 

Answer:
The broad subject of wealth disparities is a source of constant discussion in our office. What “diversity” in a business context means for most companies is maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of talent development; you want the best and brightest of ALL groups and want them to equitably be developed—and it is of immense advantage to companies that do it well, especially if their competitors don’t.

However, where I think the subject truly makes money for companies (and societies) is that when you harness equitable talent development to the purposeful development of innovative and nimble corporate (and societal) cultures, you have a force multiplier that dramatically outpaces competition. That means taking diversity training beyond compliance and making a real business case for the four stages of diversity management.

In a country-size economy, it will maintain economic superiority, but the nature of economics is that when one group wins, all win because they have to produce the goods and services demanded by increased wealth. Winning in this context isn’t bad; it’s highly desirable.

A Distribution of Wealth

I’m not sure that we’re seeing anything more than a return to traditional distribution of wealth because very few people as a percentage are truly talented, and this has been consistent. What hasn’t been consistent is access for talent to express itself, and from time to time, markets expand to include more people than typical. For example, I think the post-war “middle class” was an artificial artifact of our not having to suffer massive strategic bombing and TWO generations of dead young men (our casualties in World War I were nothing compared to those of France, Germany and England).

The last 100 years have been a process of expanding workforce needs forcing expanding participation of workers; women haven’t had the vote for 100 years yet, and Jim Crow ended less than 50 years ago. When we needed more workers, the workforce market had to expand past Christian Anglo men. When the new groups to the table gained a modicum of power, they demanded their rights. Those rights increased wealth, and that wealth consumed more services and products—a virtuous circle. Good for America. Good for the world. [Click on the images below to view and enlarge the timelines.]

But I’d argue that economic growth didn’t come from labor, the labor came from innovation—and innovation created the economic growth that drove the demand for labor. Innovation is facilitated by a free society, and our society is more “free” than anywhere else (acknowledging our faults, but giving us our just credit). In other words, despite our faults, America gives access for talent to find means of success better than anywhere on Earth.

Recovery Through Education

So if we are returning to a traditional distribution of wealth (more wealth concentrated in the hands of fewer people), what is the answer to the discordant societal damage from inequitable distribution of wealth?

The article on slate.com touches on the one thing I think will save America’s pre-eminence: education.

In my opinion, only a certain percentage (a small percentage) of people have what it takes to be in the top 5 percent—or the top 1 percent. We need to maximize the ability for people to reach that level because they create the things that the rest of the people live on; their innovation creates wealth, which in turn creates economic (and labor) demand. We destroy our potential by limiting good education to a precious few. I believe that we do this because people intuitively feel that if “they” win, “I” lose.

There is also a cynical group of very wealthy people who will prey on the common human emotion of xenophobia to aggregate and restrict access. So we end up with crappy schools for Black and brown people, the prison-industrial complex and healthcare disparities. We kill off that small percentage of truly talented people out of the bigotry that, generally speaking, we mistakenly believe that “keeping ours” is dependent on “keeping them” in their place. Foolishness—and that’s being proven in today’s economy.

Read Ask the White Guy on Racism, Bigotry & White Privilege.

How to Bridge Gaps With Community Outreach

The question for America is: Can we keep the destructive forces lagging behind the constructive forces? I sure hope so, and that’s why all my philanthropy is dedicated to educational disparities, such as the DiversityInc Foundation and Rutgers Future Scholars.

For corporate America, the decision on managing this overtly must be made from the top. I’d say that most companies on a sustainable path are actively involved with managing diversity because the face of educated talent has become much more diverse, and that trend is increasing. Watch the video clip below to hear KPMG CEO John Veihmeyer discuss his best practices for communicating diversity goals throughout the organization.

Companies that are dragging their feet on this one aren’t on the right side of the demographic shift, and if you can say that for your place of employment, it’s a flashing red light that your future is not secure; get out if you can.

I think the larger and far more economically powerful discussion should be taking place around how diversity can build innovation—how the very culture that develops talent equitably has far more potential to have dramatically better innovation and nimbleness than competitors that do not. For cutting-edge best practices, watch our recent innovation web seminar from Capital One and McGraw-Hill, and read Our First Innovation Fest! 10 Companies Use Diversity to Drive Change.

Think about it this way: If “diversity and inclusion” programs can help you achieve a 5 percent improvement in productivity from better human-capital performance (higher engagement, lower turnover/regrettable loss, etc.), that’s wonderful. If “diversity and inclusion” programs can help you build the innovation that facilitates the next generation of pharmaceutical advances or transportation improvement or first-mover advantage in your marketplace, well, you’d be a fool not to pick a workplace that has a demonstrable advantage over one that does not—even if you’re a white, Christian, heterosexual man with no disabilities. Anyone with an evolved sense of survival knows that your chances of success are far better at the successful company. Especially if you’re talented.

Before you jump to sending me an email that I’m beating up on one side or another, please think about this: I am taking a side. I am an optimist and I believe that all people are created equally. If you aren’t or don’t, that’s fine, but there’s no parsing this basic truth: People are created equally; therefore, talent is distributed equitably. Anything less than equitable cultivation of talent is subtractive from optimum performance.

If you are an executive, you have a fiduciary responsibility to your investors. If you’re a worker at a company that operates with this ethos (and it is a matter of ethics and values), then you do NOT have the right to work contrary to your company’s stated interests. It’s that simple.

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

The post Ask the White Guy: Why Are Disparities in Income Distribution Increasing? appeared first on DiversityInc.

Question:
Do you believe that a focus on socioeconomic status and level of education will get greater attention and debate from the diversity community in the future?

Answer:
I hope so.

Realistically, race/gender and socioeconomic status in the United States are directly linked because of hundreds of years of legal discrimination. Aside from the inability for Black people to amass wealth during legalized slavery and Jim Crow, legal barriers to voting, education and capital only fell in 1964, 1965 and 1977 (Civil Rights, Voting Rights and Community Reinvestment acts, respectively).

Simply by analyzing wealth, income and education of our constituent communities, we can see that Blacks, for example, have not achieved equity–specifically due to race. However, it is an increasingly complex picture because of the rising middle class of Blacks and their exceptional educational achievements.

The situation for American Indian-, Latino- and women-headed households has also become more complex. For example, our DiversityInc Top 50 statistics show that Asian Americans are still underrepresented in middle and top management, yet it is difficult to paint a stereotypical economic portrait of Asian Americans because of the changing Asian socioeconomic demographics created by the repeal of the Chinese Exclusionary Act (1943) and the end of non-white immigration quotas in the mid-1960s.

This is why I think the focus in the future should be on socioeconomic and education status–with an adjudicating eye toward ensuring equity across race and gender.

If the outcome is equity, then the entire way we look at problems changes. Instead of incremental changes in education, for example, we would make sweeping changes.

By the “diversity community,” I’ll assume you’re referring to corporate America. I think that the practices that prove beneficial to society are also good for corporate America, because the underpinning issues are the same: human and civil rights.

How this plays out in the workplace is direct and clear. For example, your mentoring programs should be for all employees, not just Black and women employees (a common mistake). Your most talented employee might just be a white, heterosexual man, with no ADA-defined disabilities who grew up in a poor neighborhood and had parents who were not corporate. Without mentoring, that man may never reach his potential.

The post The Future of Diversity Debate: Education & Economic Status appeared first on DiversityInc.