Unlike most universities, our Board of Trustees is not the governing body. There is a Board of Governors, which is composed of six politically appointed Governors and five Governors from among the Trustees. However, there are also committees that span both boards. One is the Governors Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics, which is composed of both Trustees and Governors. I’ve been on that committee for three years—I asked to join it because I’m not much of a sports fan and I thought the committee would benefit by having someone who could give a more objective opinion.

Last December, during a regularly scheduled committee meeting, we were verbally briefed by Athletic Director Tim Pernetti about Coach Mike Rice’s having behavioral problems, and the AD said his solution was a fine, suspension and counseling. We were not told that Eric Murdock—a former Director of Basketball Operations—had compiled a video of Rice’s behavior. We were not told about the language being used or about the inappropriate physical handling of the student-athletes. I found out about the video the same way you did—on mass media, last week. The FBI is investigating how and why the video was released.

It’s hard to watch the videotape of Coach Rice’s slinging the F-word at his players, along with basketballs. If you watched it, you’ll note that he sometimes had a lackey standing by to reload his basketball hand for him. There’s talk in chat rooms about people not understanding the process of building a team—that’s a lot of garbage. I earned my commission in a program run by Marine Corps drill instructors. They did not touch us, nor did they use language like that. From that perspective, my opinion is that Coach Rice’s behavior was completely unacceptable. He should have been fired on the spot.

And that’s apparently what the AD wanted to do. But he was apparently counseled to get a legal opinion, so an outside law firm was engaged to investigate—a firm that does not have the word “diversity” on its website. The report was NOT provided to the board or the athletics committee; in fact, I had no knowledge that there was an investigation or report until it was emailed to me last week. The report was contradictory in a way—it said that Rice did not create a “hostile work environment” (really?), but that there were grounds to fire him. The most legally conservative approach was taken—Rice was given a suspension, fine, counseling and a monitor—and, apparently, his behavior this year was acceptable.

So what can we learn from this?

1. Understand your organization’s mission and values. In the wake of the Tyler Clementi tragedy, Rutgers accelerated its already good LGBT policies to be one of the best in the country. The coach’s behavior was completely unacceptable according to our own codified values.
2. Utilize your corporate-governance structure. If the athletics committee had been shown the video, I am certain I wouldn’t have been the only one to demand that Rice be fired immediately. The Trustees have good diversity—but it’s useless if it’s not utilized correctly.
3. Assume that information will go viral, especially video. Information wants to flow from secrecy to exposure. In this case, the video was an edited compilation, and I’ve heard the opinion that it’s “not fair.” I think it’s plenty fair, but whether or not you agree, there’s enough there to be very, very alarmed. And the point is that there is nothing you can do to stop it, so once you’re aware of potential exposure, treat it as if it is fact and already public knowledge.
4. Lawyers are very important teammates in a decision-making matrix. But they are not the decision makers—the president is. The most conservative legal decision in this case may have been legally correct, but it was morally wrong and is a financial disaster that will probably cost the university hundreds of millions in lost and/or delayed personal and corporate donations.
5. Ignorance does not abrogate guilt when it comes to public opinion. I accept my responsibility in allowing myself to be bamboozled, and I apologize. Although it’s very difficult for a board member to not be fooled when an organization is determined to be less than forthright, I’m not going to resign because I want to do my best to make sure this never happens again.
6. Reaction must be immediate. Senior leaders must have media coaching. The president waited a very long time to respond and the response was not good enough to make anyone feel better—thus compounding the damage done.
7. Remediation must be meaningful in order for trust to be rebuilt.

Our former AD, Tim Pernetti, is a great guy who ran one of the academically best athletic programs in the nation. His leadership skills elevated our program to national prominence, and he negotiated our way into the Big Ten. I watch the way people react to leaders—the broad diversity of people he surrounded himself with was very comfortable with him. Our president, Dr. Robert Barchi, was in his first semester as president when all of this was evolving and he’s had no experience with college athletics.

I want to close with what I consider to be the greatest tragedy: The end result of this incident is that we (leadership) betrayed our LGBT students, faculty, administrators and community members, and their allies, who constitute just about all of the Rutgers family. Our campus should be an oasis from oppression—and indeed, that’s what our own values state. No coach, professor, administrator or fellow student has the right to destroy someone’s productivity by spewing hate speech. This has nothing to do with “free speech”; it has everything to do with creating a space at a university where all can come to learn. A sequence of very bad decisions not only let this coach’s horrible behavior go unchecked, but once it came to light, the behavior was papered over and the checks and balances of committee work was circumvented. Especially on a campus where we lost Tyler Clementi just two years ago, this is completely inexcusable and unacceptable.

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.

The post Ask the White Guy: What I Know About the Rutgers Situation appeared first on DiversityInc.

All stated their opposition to the bill, but the damage was done, and as the heat started to rise, the governor signed the bill into law, bringing Tennessee into the circle of states that affirmatively oppress their LGBT citizens.

The corporate reaction to our questions was swift but after the fact. I think most companies’ headquarters were genuinely surprised by the actions of their colleagues on the chamber’s board.  That leads us to a “teachable moment”—here are some ground rules I’ve learned by observing companies closely:

1. Decision making is best by having clarity on your values.
Credibility received for your professed values is dependent on your decisive execution of actions based on your values. This does not preclude empathy and forgiveness for mistakes, but values cannot be parsed without exposure to repercussions.

2. Your best possible business outcome is dependent on your ability to equitably execute on fair and equitable treatment.
People treated fairly have a better relationship with you—better relationships transcend commodity pricing and increase the quality of your revenue stream. Better relationships also increase employee engagement and productivity—as well as reduce regrettable loss.

3. In the age of Facebook and Twitter, you cannot hide.
Your actions will be publicly evaluated and the resulting addition or subtraction from your brand image will have an impact on your business.

Here is some food for thought regarding human rights, business and our LGBT neighbors:

Rights afforded to one group that do not diminish another group’s rights are what this country is all about. This was the basis of women’s suffrage and the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act and Americans with Disabilities Act—and it is the basis of the lawsuit that overcame the anti-LGBT Proposition 8 in California. The anti-LGBT forces could not produce a single expert who could show that same-sex marriage in any way diminished heterosexual marriage. Married couples have certain legal rights, and extension of those legal rights to same-sex couples does not hurt heterosexual marriages and does not force your house of worship to marry same-sex couples. Freedom from a state-run religion and freedom of religion from the state are part of our Constitution.

Here’s some personal advice if you think marriage is for one man and one woman: Don’t marry someone of your own sex.

Finally, especially for companies that are publicly traded and/or regulated by the government (which, in aggregate, includes just about every company), there are some things to keep in mind regarding communications, donations and membership:

1. Communications sent in “secrecy” are worse than no letter at all, as “secret” complaints constitute tacit approval.

2. An organization cannot stink selectively. The chamber’s actions were anti-LGBT rights, period. This cannot be parsed, and if your continued membership in an organization conflicts with your stated values, then you have a problem across the entire organization.

3. Conflict in values produces brand damage and potential exposure to lawsuits and is detrimental to shareholder equity. Your personal opinions or politics do not trump your organization’s need to do business properly. This is especially true for leaders.

Over the almost 14 years of publishing DiversityInc, we’ve seen the practice of managing diversity become more effective by orders of magnitude in the most competitive companies. Questions about diversity are now on 100 percent of DiversityInc Top 50 companies’ requests for proposals (RFPs). This directly communicates a statement of values. The ripple effect of diversity values is aggregating into a bow wave as globalization is enhanced by web and cell communications.  This gives companies unprecedented opportunities—and unprecedented responsibilities—that transcend nations.

This creates seemingly complex challenges—but I don’t think they’re all that complex: If you have clarity on your values, then don’t violate them; if you’re doing business with a company that violates your values, you are violating your values; and if you make a donation or support an organization that has facets that violate your values, then you are violating your values.

We will all make mistakes. As Dr. Cornel West said at one of our events, “We are all cracked vessels,” and the public is very forgiving of a speedy and forthright apology, particularly if it’s backed by redemptive action. Such as, for example, resigning from the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce.

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.

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In response to DiversityInc’s article “The Work/Life Balancing Act: How 4 Companies Do It,” one reader asks how companies that offer these benefits are affected.

Question:
All of this is well and good, but what is the effect on the bottom line? Are the companies that engage in these practices more profitable? Have they seen an increase in profits since adopting these practices?

Answer:
There is a dramatic bottom-line benefit to diversity management and implementing work/life practices. One simple area to think about is retention. Given that the workforce is now at gender parity, including college-educated workers, then making sure the gender that must bear the children in our society finds it beneficial to continue focusing their talent in the workplace doubles a company’s chance to get the best talent into the right positions. My wife said that this would have been obvious a long time ago if men bore half the children. Indeed, work/life efforts have risen as the number of dual-income families have risen because the stress of working and raising a family can be mitigated by good management, to the increased productivity of both men and women, the recruitment of the best and brightest and the retention of your most talented people.

We have written hundreds of articles about bottom-line benefits (there is plenty of documentation on DiversityIncBestPractices.com). It all boils down to relationship building; if a company has a superior ability to build a relationship compared to its competitor, it will command a higher margin and stronger market share. The company will also be able to pull innovation into its decision-making cycle.

Recently, a large retail company called me for help—their board, comprised of seven white men, one white woman and one Black woman, wanted “proof” that diversity had a bottom-line effect. I doubt the male members are sexists, but you have to think about moving the needle with a group whose very composition reflects a failure of process. Admission that diversity management is a benefit would be a self-indictment!

Although there are clearly other issues, I’ll limit this discussion to gender: The simple fact is that more than half of bachelor’s degree earners under the age of 60 in this country are women. Therefore, 22 percent women representation is a failure—ESPECIALLY in a retail setting. Now those white men might just be qualified, but is the board as effective as if it were 50 percent men, 50 percent women? How could it be? And, frankly, it isn’t. This particular company was the first mover in a space that now has a major competitor. (Again, are the white men on that board qualified? Performance might indicate otherwise). Surely, the board couldn’t be “all that”—otherwise, this major competitor never would have happened. There’s a penalty for not having good diversity management—although most people don’t see it clearly.

I won’t tell you how I advised the retail company; I should have charged them for the advice (they do no business with me), and if another retail company wants the answer, just let me know and I’ll tell you what my hourly rate is. It was a simple answer (my detractors tell me that’s all I’m capable of), but it worked.

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.

The post The Business Case for Work/Life Benefits appeared first on DiversityInc.

Wong recently sat down with DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti during a Q&A session at Wells Fargo to discuss the company’s outreach to the Asian community.

How do you see the demographics of the Asian community that Wells Fargo serves changing?

Nancy Wong: Immigrants actually are very entrepreneurial and many of them are business owners, so the way that Wells Fargo has been serving the Asian community is by really focusing on the financial needs of Asian businesses. We know how important it is for businesses to strive and therefore we develop programs that help the small-business community to strive and provide them access to tools, financial education, resources that can actually help them to really make their business go to the next level. A lot of the businesses have ties with Asian countries and actually have transpacific characteristics, so we offer specific products and services such as treasury management, trade finance and APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) service because we know that these services would help to really meet their needs.

What is Wells Fargo doing to reach a larger footprint with Asian-Americans?

Nancy Wong: The company has a very long history of serving diverse communities and we have developed a lot of marketing assets. We really believe in building out the assets in terms of advertising, in terms of marketing collateral, and what we are able to do when we have a larger footprint is to scale a lot of these assets from the West Coast footprint to the entire footprint. So that’s a lot of efficiency. We have the ATM network, which is already serving multiple Asian languages, so all the language marketing materials, such as financial-education brochures, we are able to use all that for different Asian communities across the entire footprint.

What marketing strategies work particularly well with the various Asian segments and what should be avoided?

Nancy Wong: Being consistent is very important in serving the Asian community, and we show respect to the communities by celebrating Asian heritage on a consistent basis coast-to-coast. During holidays and festivals we also run special promotions to make sure that we are offering a particular celebratory offer to our Asian customers. So being culturally relevant, being in the community and respecting the culture is very important.

What role does Wells Fargo’s Asian Connection resource group play in your efforts?

Nancy Wong: A lot of our resource-group team members of Asian descent, they are not just corresponding with customers on a daily basis but they are actually living in the Asian community. A lot of the insights that they are able to gather from the community help us improve our products and services. The other thing that we do very, very consistently is that we organize a lot of volunteer work. We have a hands-on banking-education seminar and we mobilize all our Asian Connection team members to go out and actually teach financial literacy to the Asian community. We set a goal to reach 2,000 different community groups across the country to make sure that as a financial institution we are offering the right financial-education programs to our communities.

The post Multicultural Marketing Case Study: Wells Fargo’s Asian Outreach appeared first on DiversityInc.

Question:

Why is it whenever white people defend their racism, the first thing they default to is “I’m not a bigot” and the second thing is “I have friends who are black”? I could scream.

Answer:
It’s disorienting for white people who think they really aren’t biased to be confronted with a reality they have not considered. You’ll also hear things such as “Oh, I guess we have to be politically correct” as opposed to something more accurate like “I guess I can’t manhandle your self-esteem anymore.”

Considering most interracial conversations happen at the workplace (Americans are socially very segregated), these common phrases of denial demonstrate how diversity training is crucial to productivity and engagement.

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.

The post ‘I Have Black Friends’ Doesn’t Mean You Aren’t Racist appeared first on DiversityInc.

Same-gender partners are expected to receive military identification cards, which will allow access to military perks such as commissaries and family-support programs, and access to military-only facilities including gyms and movie theaters. Additionally, same-gender partners could receive some privileges in health programs. The Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy, which enforced a mandatory discharge of any troops identified as gay or lesbian, was repealed 16 months earlier.

“Considering DADT was repealed well over a year ago, our families have waited far too long for the Defense Department to extend benefits to same-sex military spouses,” said Stephen Peters, president of the American Military Partner Association. “No military family should suffer because of outdated regulations. For the sake of our families, we hope for substantive action and look forward to hearing from Secretary Panetta on exactly what benefits will be extended.”

While a step in the right direction, the benefits being extended to same-gender couples will not encompass the full breadth of allowances—including medical, dental, housing and other spousal benefits—because of the continued existence of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. That law states that the federal government only recognizes heterosexual marriages.

What About DOMA? What Will SCOTUS Rule?

As more states have recognized same-gender marriage, the next big question is how the Supreme Court will rule on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and Proposition 8? Both cases will appear before the high court starting in March, with rulings expected sometime this summer. Proposition 8 refers to the ballot measure against same-gender marriage that was approved by voters in California but which has been ruled unconstitutional by lower courts.

“If you provide benefits to individuals seen as the most deserving and the social fabric doesn’t tear, that does make it easier down the line to do away with DOMA,” said Tammy S. Schultz, the director of the National Security and Joint Warfare Program at the Marine Corps War College. However, she says the benefits announced by the Pentagon “could be a flanking maneuver to keep chipping away at it.”

Global Equality Increasing

While global inequities for LGBT people remain and are examined in our recent Global Diversity Research report, there has been progress in certain countries. Our report examines LGBT resource groups and benefits, and companies’ abilities to create safe workplaces and to lobby for human rights. Most of the progress in LGBT equality globally has come in Western Europe. To that end, the British House of Commons just voted overwhelmingly to approve same-gender marriage in the United Kingdom.

The post Pentagon to Issue Same-Gender Couple Benefits appeared first on DiversityInc.

Daniel Ayala, head of Wells Fargo’s Global Remittance Services, spoke to DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti about how cultural competence allows his company to better serve underrepresented groups. Wells Fargo is No. 33 in the DiversityInc Top 50.

Luke Visconti: How has cultural competence enabled Wells Fargo to help its customers succeed financially? 

Daniel Ayala: Cultural competence is a key element of being able to effectively execute a business strategy in today’s corporate world. Eighty percent of the consumer market growth in the last two or three years has been driven by diverse segments. When you look at the long-term implications that number is amplified because minorities are going to be the majority, so having cultural context and understanding the segment well allow us not only to perform the way we perform historically but really project ourselves into the future.

Visconti: What are the greatest differences among the financial habits of Latinos, Asians and whites, especially in the area of consumer remittances? 

Ayala: At the end of the day, consumer remittances is really people taking care of other people, so it’s as simple as a father sending money to his siblings and/or potentially to his kids and providing that day-to-day support. So it’s really not different from one segment to the other. One key thing about remittances on the international side is it goes beyond educational support. In some cases, people in the U.S. that come from Latin America and Asia are supporting families, extended families for their lifetime, so in those cases sending money to those families overseas is a key financial activity that they perform month after month.

Visconti: Can you talk about any specific cultural differences that you weren’t aware of but found out through your good work and were able to put to good use for serving your customers? 

Ayala: When you look at different ethnic groups you always look for the differences. But what I found is the immigrant experience has a lot of commonalities: First you need to establish yourself, then you need to make ends meet for yourself, and then your primary focus is to take care of your family back home.

There is one key theme that cuts across all immigrant segments no matter where they come from, and it’s the principle that hard work pays. And when it pays, they take care of their own. That’s a very unique thing about the immigrant segment. When you hear the stories about people leaving everything behind and in some cases not even speaking the language and surviving through all those challenges, it’s a great story of success, and you still hear about people being able to live the American dream through that.

Visconti: I can’t imagine what could be more relieving to somebody who is struggling to establish themselves than to know they have security, that the money that they are sending home, which in lot of cases is keeping people alive, is getting there safely and at a reasonable cost. 

Ayala: Absolutely. When you humanize that and you understand that the $300 transaction going from Oxnard, California, let’s say, to San Salvador, El Salvador, is going from a grandparent for his grandson’s birthday, and that money is going to be used to buy the bicycle and to pay for the birthday party, you understand how important that transaction is to that individual in Oxnard and how important it is to the family receiving that money. You can’t be late, it needs to be delivered on time and needs to be a positive experience for both sides. That’s the business we are in, and that’s why it’s important to understand who it is that you are really serving and for what purpose.

The post Wells Fargo: Cultural Competence Builds Global Remittance Business appeared first on DiversityInc.

LUKE VISCONTI: What led you to be a supporter of diversity and inclusion? How has it impacted the success of your business units?

DAVID EPSTEIN: There are two drivers for me. One is that I grew up in an atmosphere my parents created where people are people, regardless of whether they’re male, female, from any given country, religious background or sexual orientation. I’m interested in what a person can contribute, what their unique experiences are.

The second driver is that, back in 2000, Dr. Daniel Vasella [Chairman and former CEO of Novartis AG] gave me the opportunity to run Novartis Oncology, a global business unit. For the first time in my career I ran discovery, development and commercialization. We operated in more than 70 countries. I had the opportunity to build that team from scratch. I picked people based on their experiences and how I felt they treated other people. My philosophy is that you treat others in the way you expect to be treated.

I ended up with a team that came from all over the world. We had phenomenally productive discussions. At the beginning, it was very difficult because we had different cultural backgrounds and the norms within which we communicated were different, but after a while I saw the power of people with different backgrounds and what they could contribute to business ideas. Once we got that group working as a high-performing team, we were able to accomplish feats that nobody thought were possible.

The business more or less didn’t exist when I was asked to create Novartis Oncology in 2000. We pulled together what oncology products and pipeline we had within Novartis, which represented about $1.5 billion in sales. We had three products, two of which were not robust: one was going generic, and the other was a licensed product but the license was coming to an end. The business was about to disappear.

We built, over 10 years, a $10-billion business, the No. 2 oncology business in the industry. More importantly, people who work in that business say there is a unique focus on creating the environment and the atmosphere, which drives people to do what’s right for customers and patients. An environment that brings people together in a way that’s unique: People can be open, be themselves, and passion fuels what they do together.

Now, I’m trying to create that here in the bigger Pharma business. We’re making progress: You see a much more open, a much more inclusive atmosphere. You see that we’re increasingly hiring people of varied backgrounds. You’re seeing more women in management, more people from emerging markets sitting on the leadership team. It’s starting, but it’s a long road. It takes years and commitment.

Authentic Leadership

VISCONTI: When I interviewed Dr. Vasella, he said, “I love other cultures.” Do you think it was his influence, his leadership that was an inspiration? 

EPSTEIN: Daniel influenced me in a lot of ways; I found him to be a very authentic leader. I take great pride in my authenticity. When I speak, there is no hidden agenda. People around me know what I think. They know that I will listen, that I will debate. I might be the guy who makes the decision, but they’ll know where I’m coming from. It engenders a lot of trust.

If you have weaknesses as a leader, you should be willing to discuss those with your team. If you make a mistake, you should admit it, whether it was a business decision you made, the wrong person you hired, or how you treated someone.

The second thing I owe to Daniel is that he believed in me. He gave me some unique opportunities, such as running the Oncology business or being chosen as head of Pharma. If he hadn’t made that choice, I never would have had the opportunity to grow and become more worldly, more diverse, more inclusive.

VISCONTI: How do you translate the Novartis values across different cultures while respecting local traditions? 

EPSTEIN: It’s not about everybody being in the same place at the same time or having to do everything exactly the same everywhere. For me, it’s a journey. Everybody is moving along that journey to become more inclusive, to put together the best possible team, to get their teams to operate in a high-performing way. Yes, you may have to do it uniquely in China versus Japan versus somewhere else. I think that’s OK.

Sitting still is not acceptable. Having a team that all looks and sounds and thinks the same is not acceptable. How you do it will vary and, being a global company, we’re fairly adept at making those changes. Sometimes there’s friction and you have to have a discussion.

VISCONTI: I’ve heard it put that this work is fatiguing at times—a good fatigue—but that it’s also very invigorating.

EPSTEIN: For me, it’s not fatiguing. I get great satisfaction from developing people and seeing teams do great things that no one thought was possible.

You can have lots of people that look and sound like you and your organization will work fine, but you will never be great and you will never capture the upside. Or you can decide to go for a more diverse and inclusive atmosphere. If you don’t do the work, don’t have the right leadership skills and those people don’t work together, it may actually be worse than having a homogenous team. You just don’t get anything done.

On the other hand, when you lead a very diverse group of talented people and have created the right atmosphere, you’re unbeatable. So it’s worth it. As a leader, you have to have your sights on that far-off horizon.

For the person who comes into a job and thinks they’re only going to be there two or three years, it might not seem worth it. In every job I’ve taken, I have adopted the mind-set that I will be here forever. I want to leave a legacy of an extremely well-functioning organization that is delivering unique value to patients. That’s ultimately what drives me. I take personal pride in seeing people be successful.

VISCONTI: How has Novartis made efforts to address diversity in drug trials? Has this approach changed over time?

EPSTEIN: If you look back 10 years, we were a very U.S.– and Euro-centric company. That’s where the business was. That’s what we knew how to do.

Over time, we began to realize a couple of things. One is that one size does not fit all. A drug for every patient with a given disease doesn’t exist anymore. Medicine is more personalized, which forces you down the road of understanding differences in people—these differences can be genetic, dietary, about lifestyles, or many others.

Second, the world has shifted. Much of the growth opportunity in healthcare comes from emerging markets. Patients in these markets need to be included in trials to make sure we are developing the right medicine for them. About six years ago, for example, we started a project in Japan. We typically launched in the United States and Europe, and five to seven years later, we’d launch in Japan. We wanted to get to the point where that gap was down to one or two years. This year, we have a drug that was approved first in Japan, the U.S. and Europe a bit later.

In the U.S., we are trying to better adapt to the needs of various ethnic groups, and we’re increasingly doing clinical work that includes them. We need to see the data for an African-American patient or a Latino or a Japanese person living in America. We look at women versus men, we look at different age groups, so all these things are being incorporated into our business. Companies that do this work have an advantage in the marketplace. They can talk with the customer and make a different kind of connection.

VISCONTI: Do you see ultimately being able to give people pharmaceuticals customized to their genetic type?

EPSTEIN: If you look at what’s in our portfolio right now, I would say close to 90 percent of the medicines moving from discovery into the clinical-trial phase are targeted based upon a person’s genetic makeup.

Our new medicines will come along with an assay, which will become a diagnostic in the marketplace. If we have three patients in the room that have a given disease—whether it be breast cancer or rheumatoid arthritis—we will be able to tell in advance, thanks to a genetic test, which patient is likely to respond. Then all the clinical trials are done with those responding patients. You can imagine how it changes the health-economics benefit. There’s no more waste. There are no longer expensive, long trials with groups of patients who simply will not benefit from a certain drug.

In our company, we’re investing in R&D and we’re driving innovation and it becomes a competitive advantage. Some companies have chosen to be more focused on short-term commercial opportunity and have not continued to evolve their innovation capability. This creates a bigger gap between us and them.

VISCONTI: Can you connect the company’s focus on diversity and inclusion, cultural awareness and cultural competency with your philosophy on research and development?

EPSTEIN: There are a couple of connections. One is we can recruit people, the best people, from anywhere in the world, which is a major advantage. And when you start to recruit these people, they bring in even more people from those regions or those backgrounds.

Working with diverse cultures and backgrounds, you’re also more likely to design your clinical trials in a way that looks for subgroups or different patient characteristics

It’s largely about talent. It’s about getting the very best people in the door and then making the investment to get them to work together in a high-performing team. That means training your leaders to be inclusive—and we do have inclusive leadership training. We just rolled out a program called Leaders as Coaches. It teaches people specific coaching skills as leaders—for example, how to have a conversation with your team members so challenges and options can be addressed openly and in a reflective manner. We also do high-performing team training where the leader and their direct team work together on a multitude of things.

When you first explain to people that we are going to do this, you get the classic reaction: “I have to take two or three days out of my schedule to do this? I have to think differently?” After they’ve been through it, something interesting happens: They say, “This has made me a better leader and it’s had an immediate impact on how we all work together and what we can achieve.

Our strategy is to win in primary care, specialty care and oncology. We want to become the best pharmaceutical company by 2016. There are four major pillars: growth, innovation, productivity and people. The people pillar is very clearly spelled out as becoming more diverse and inclusive, to invest heavily in high-performing team workshops and education so that we can bring out the best in people. We’re very explicit about it.

The post Novartis’ David Epstein: A Diverse Team Can ‘Accomplish Feats Nobody Thought Possible’ appeared first on DiversityInc.

Question:
Suppose someone possesses some of the stereotypes that are attached to their race, gender, orientation, ability and/or age. Do you think this person should embrace or deny these qualities, especially regarding perpetuating stereotypes and advancing in careers?

Answer:
Stereotypes are used to fit people into limitations comprehensible to the majority culture. Small-minded people cling to them as a means to make the large world digestible to their limited perspective. Even stereotypes that might seem somewhat positive—the “studious Asian,” for example—end up being self limiting: “studious but not leadership material.”

If you’re in an environment where the leadership embraces stereotypes, playing into that will only lead you down a cul-de-sac. If you have the means to leave, I suggest you do so—even if you’re a straight, able-bodied white man. Retro environments bring retro results.

If you’re in a progressive environment, playing into a stereotype is probably not going to mesh well with what the leadership is trying to accomplish.

My feeling is that people should embrace culture and celebrate differences. That is based on respect and appropriate treatment..

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.

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“Women have shown great courage and sacrifice on and off the battlefield, contributed in unprecedented ways to the military’s mission and proven their ability to serve in an expanding number of roles,” says Panetta. “The department’s goal in rescinding the rule is to ensure that the mission is met with the best-qualified and most capable people, regardless of gender.”

Panetta: Diversity Champion

DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti, a veteran, interviewed Panetta in 2010 on his desire for a more inclusive federal workplace, including the military. “Our mission is to gather intelligence throughout the world. …You can’t get good intelligence without understanding the world that we’re in, without reflecting the ethnic background of the world [and] relating to the nations that we’re involved in,” said Panetta during the interview, in which he discussed his experiences as a civil-rights champion and public servant. “The most fulfilling thing you can do in life is make a difference.”

“This was a good move, about eight years overdue. [The ban has] been holding down the careers of women who served in combat, but many officially have been in combat-support roles for the past 10 years. It shouldn’t have taken this long for policy to reflect reality,” says Visconti. Visconti served as a Naval aviator and commissioned officer with the U.S. Navy from 1982 to 1990, and he now serves on the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Committee, where he has co-chaired three subcommittees regarding diversity and women’s issues, reporting out to the Chief of Naval Operations. Visconti also was a driving force in pressing now-retired Admiral Michael Mullen to revise the military’s discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which was repealed in 2010.

Women & Diversity in the Military

Military branches will have until January 2016 to implement the changes or to request special exemptions if they believe certain positions should remain under the ban. Congress will also have 30 days to consider the policy change. Front-line jobs could begin opening to women later this year.

“Today, by moving to open more military positions—including ground-combat units—to women, our armed forces have taken another historic step toward harnessing the talents and skills of all our citizens,” President Obama said, giving his endorsement. “This milestone reflects the courageous and patriotic service of women through more than two centuries of American history and the indispensable role of women in today’s military. Many have made the ultimate sacrifice, including more than 150 women who have given their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan—patriots whose sacrifices show that valor knows no gender.” 

Women currently make up 14 percent of the country’s 1.4 million active military personnel. Although women were not allowed to serve in combat officially, military women frequently had to engage in combat throughout the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which blurred the roles of combat and non-combat personnel. More than 800 women were wounded, in addition to the more than 150 who were killed.

The decision is one of the last acts that Panetta will implement as Defense Secretary. Obama has nominated Chuck Hagel to assume the position for his second presidential term. Hagel is a former senator from Nebraska and a Vietnam veteran.

Panetta is a veteran who served as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He attended Intelligence School and was Chief of Operations and Planning for Intelligence at Fort Ord prior to starting his political career. Panetta served as a legislative assistant, then Special Assistant to Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Robert Finch, and was Director of the U.S. Office for Civil Rights where he worked to enforce equal-education laws during the Nixon Administration.

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