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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The Atlantic only got half the story. It’s not about “housework”; if we’re talking about top management, at a certain point, a couple has to decide which person is going to stay home. You cannot have two people with high-flying careers in a relationship unless they don’t have children. If you have children or want a family, one spouse/partner must stay home.

Relatively few people nationwide achieve the career trajectory needed to get into top management. At most high-flying companies, they usually have Ivy League pedigrees and life experiences that are highly unusual (compared to the average American), like Sheryl Sandberg has. Even among that group, many don’t achieve Sandberg-like trajectories, and the problem is that you don’t really know if your career is going to take off until your early 30s. By then, you’ve made several make-or-break career decisions.

The way most companies are run now, the moves you have to make are made with the assumption that one spouse is subordinate—because to get on that trajectory, you have to work 60–90 hours a week when you’re in your 20s. The right moves require frequent geographic relocations. They require that you have no responsibility for elder care. They require that you put in your private time politicking: going to the right events, socializing with the right people, etc. In other words, for people making more than a good upper-middle-income living (more than $500,000), the requirements of time and travel make it impossible for both spouses to be employed. For example, I know a senior woman executive who makes a seven-figure income. There’s NO WAY she can say no to a last-minute client meeting, and there’s no way she can get more than partial flex time. Her househusband has two advanced degrees, but he’s unusual—in the wealthy neighborhoods across the country there are far more middle-aged women with advanced degrees who stay at home than there are men.

The problem as I see it is that the women usually opt out of the corporate rat race because the expectation is that they won’t be treated fairly. And the data agree—they won’t.

That’s why it’s extremely important for men AND women to pick the right company to work for. They’re not all the same. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t recommend that any woman work for Facebook because the only woman who has reached top management has a résumé that is in the top .0001 percent of America. Sheryl Sandberg isn’t just exceptional, she’s SUPER exceptional. Sure, some of the men around her are super exceptional, but not all of them have nearly her pedigree. Fifty percent of the people Sheryl’s age with SUPER-exceptional résumés aren’t women (many have dropped out of the fast track for the reasons noted above); however, I’d estimate that 30 percent of that group are women. This should tell you that if the women at Facebook were just exceptional, they’d have no chance.

Women—and men—should pick companies that have the competency to develop the careers of both genders. I’ll take a Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, where 50 percent of the people reporting to André Wyss are women. I’ll take a PricewaterhouseCoopers, where I’ve heard Bob Moritz talk about the personal responsibility his top management has been assigned to take for the careers of the women reporting to them. I’ll pick a Sodexo, where senior executives talk like real human beings and are passionate about (and busy) doing the right thing.

I’d avoid companies where the CEO speaks paternally or has odd, out-of-date anecdotes, especially avoiding those that talk about “picking a woman” as if that were something remarkable. (Given that women have been earning more bachelor’s degrees than men since 1982, how remarkable can it be?) I’d look very closely at that web page that shows the company’s senior executives and board. All men? All white men? Since most companies look that way, you don’t want to make a final decision based on that evidence, but ask good questions during your interview process. Unless there are demonstrable management initiatives (executive diversity council, structured mentoring, high-profile resource groups) to change the status quo, don’t count on a good career if you’re not one of them, because they picked a lot of just-exceptional men over their more-exceptional women counterparts many times to get to where they are today.

Don’t let Sandberg convince you that the problem is with women: No matter how much you “Lean In” and how much your spouse/partner does the housework, your career doesn’t stand much of a chance if you work for a company that chooses to run itself in a way that discards most of half the available talent pool.

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: It’s Not About Housework, It’s About Picking the Right Company appeared first on DiversityInc.

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.

Q: A reader commented on our article ‘You Must Have Voted for Obama’: 5 Things NEVER to Say to Blacks. He quoted a portion of that article and made an observation that makes for a good teachable moment. 

“Don’t assume all Blacks are African-American; there also are people who are African, Afro-Latino, Afro-European, Afro-Caribbean, etc.”
Thank you for posting that. One of my best friends in high school was Black but traced his ancestry back to France. It bothered him whenever someone referred to him as “African-American.”

On the flip side, one of my son’s best friends in high school was born in America, but both of his parents were born and raised in Africa. He could legitimately be called “African-American” but probably never will be since all of them are Caucasian.

Just goes to show, you can’t judge a book by its cover … or a person by his/her color.

A: Yes and no. I acknowledge that you posted your comment with positive sincerity; however, I agree with your first point, but not the second.

“African-American” refers to descendants of enslaved Black people who are from the United States. The reason we use an entire continent (Africa) instead of a country (e.g., “Italian-American”) is because slave masters purposefully obliterated tribal ancestry, language and family units in order to destroy the spirit of the people they enslaved, thereby making it impossible for their descendants to trace their history prior to being born into slavery. This was all in an effort to prevent enslaved people from organizing and revolting their bondage (look up Nat Turner).

Enforcing illiteracy of enslaved people (by law, with severe penalties—including death in some cases—for teaching an enslaved person to write) and obliterating any sense of history or familial ties was a tradition in our country starting in 1619 (before the Revolution) and ending after the Civil War. (One can argue that this practice continued into the 20th century.) This is why our African-American fellow citizens cannot trace their heritage past the continent of Africa. I’ll re-emphasize this point: Their personal and family history was purposefully obliterated by people who enslaved other people.

For purposes of respect, as well as providing context to current-day events and economic realities, it is important to acknowledge and understand this part of American history. America is unique in having people who are African-American. For a personal insight into what all this means, I suggest you read Frederick Douglass’ autobiography My Bondage and My Freedom. In addition to learning history in a very real and first-person way, you‘ll also learn things about our language—for example, the bone-chilling origin of the common phrase “sold down the river.” For an outstanding overview of the repercussions of slavery in the modern-day era, I most strongly recommend Michelle Alexander’s recent book The New Jim Crow. She will be speaking at our next DiversityInc event.

In the case of your son’s friend, post-slavery immigrants from a country in Africa can readily identify themselves by where they came from—it’s on their passports. Black immigrants from Africa can identify themselves by country and tribe (keep in mind that country boundaries in Africa are chiefly colonial constructs). A modern-day immigrant from Africa may refer to him- or herself by a hyphenated identity—“Sudanese-American,” for example.

A special note for the people who email me about their white ancestors who were enslaved: Virginia codified slave laws to be exclusive to Black people in 1705 (establishing white supremacy), and indentured servitude was ended by the early 1800s. Comparing indentured servitude of white people to the history of African-Americans is insulting, in my opinion, and I won’t entertain it in this publication.

The post Ask the White Guy: Is a White Person From Africa an African-American? 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.

Disparities in Income

I think the trend of competitive people clustering will accelerate as global economics continue to evolve. Despite more than one-third of the world living on less than $2 a day, the average wage for every earner on the planet, according to the BBC article “Where are you on the global pay scale?,” is $18,000 per year in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) dollars, which expresses what it would cost in the U.S. to get equivalent goods and services in your own country. The growth of the global middle class is accelerating for the same reason that the sorting inside our country is accelerating: technological advances in communication and transfer of money.

What’s the problem? The average wage in the United States is $42,980 (compared to $18,000 for the global average, which includes the United States). As economies grow, more people will be able to find work globally and there will be wealth generated, but not enough in the United States to keep up with the global growth rate. That means our average wage will likely continue to shrink as the developing world rises.

Why Top Performers Seek Diverse & Inclusive Workplaces

This tells me that the sorting trend is going to accelerate. The most talented people from around the world will sort themselves out. Many will come to the United States (if our government can get out of their way), since our economy is the largest on the planet. And the folks already here, your potential human capital, will aggressively sort themselves out, with the best and brightest proactively seeking “positive ecologies.”

Which folks are going to be attracted to YOUR company? Which business partners?

If you are a diversity practitioner and are concerned about “diversity fatigue,” here’s what I suggest you do: Connect the dots between reputation and talent development, philanthropy and supplier diversity. Reach out to your government-relations and marketing people, so they have a coherent understanding of your diversity reputation and how it applies to their roles. I still see many corporate diversity efforts (most not-for-profit and ALL federal-sector efforts) relegated to window dressing. Seen your budget shrink? That’s evidence of a sorting process, and you need to focus on getting that reversed. It starts with connecting the dots between your efforts and strategic trends.

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: Why Do People Get Tired of Diversity? appeared first on DiversityInc.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t bother writing about Super Bowl ads, but there’s one coming up this Sunday from Volkswagen that is a good “teachable moment.” The Volkswagen ad in question features a white guy (we learn in the ad that he is from Minnesota) who speaks in what sounds to me like a mashup Rastafarian/Jamaican accent and who is inanely happy.

The controversy over this ad is not a small matter: In the CNN roundtable discussion below, Jamaican-born Wall Street Journal columnist Christopher John Farley objects strongly to the commercial, and New York Times columnist Charles Blow calls it “Blackface with voices.”

The Internet is replete with white people opining that this ad isn’t racist, but there’s another Volkswagon ad that I find more troubling. It features a Pied Piper-singing guy who is the only featured Black person in the ad—and he’s dressed like a street person. It backs up my sense of the chief marketing officer and the ad agency being completely out of touch.

In my opinion, Volkswagen’s Super Bowl commercial is more creepy than racist in the sense that it’s troubling that a big car company can do something which appears to me to be so 20 years ago. This isn’t a mistake by a local business putting an ad in the Pennysaver; a 30-second ad in this year’s Super Bowl costs an average of $3.8 million.

When I first saw the ad, I thought it must have come from the minds of middle-aged white people who don’t get out much—and sure enough, the interview with Tim Mahoney, Volkswagen’s CMO, shows him to be a roughly 50-year-old, goatee-wearing white (American) man. The ad agency is Deutsch; here’s an article that has interviews with the agency people who did this. Not a nonwhite face in sight. No women in any position of authority were interviewed on the set of the commercial shoot (see the video). Here’s the agency’s leadership—all apparently white. I could not find a nonwhite face on the company’s website. Deutsch is owned by IPG. Here’s IPG’s senior management—five apparently white men and one white woman.

Deutsch and IPG are headquartered in New York City, which is 33.3% non-Hispanic white. There are almost 700,000 descendants of Caribbean immigrants. There’s simply no excuse for being out of touch—or having that little diversity.

The bottom line is that I don’t think the publicity is a “win” for Volkswagen. Our country is rapidly becoming more diverse, with more nonwhite births than white births for the first time in our history. The diversity of our country increases as age decreases, and that’s producing more new family units that are diverse. The end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the growing number of states with legalized same-gender marriage rights increase that here-and-now diversity. And let’s include the millions of veterans returning from combat zones of the past decade in that mix; they are accelerating the issue of inclusion for people with disabilities.

How this plays out for corporate communications can be seen in the last presidential election: Despite spending more than $1 billion, Governor Romney’s largest demographic was people over 65 years old, and 88 percent of the people who voted for him were white. President Obama’s largest demographic was 18-to-26-year-olds, and 56 percent of the people who voted for the president were white. If you were selling cars, which demographic would you prefer? If you were on Volkswagen’s board of directors, how could you be pleased with this foolish, out-of-touch ad that is clearly upsetting many people? What does it say about your marketing department? Or your ad agency?

Other articles I think are worth reading include “Volkswagen teases Super Bowl ad, explains why it doesn’t star Jar Jar Binks” from Entertainment Weekly and ‘It’s like blackface with voices’ from London’s Daily Mail that uses Charles Blow’s “Blackface with voices” line.

I think it’s always been true that you are more likely to make a bad decision with a homogeneous group. In our multicultural country—in our hyperconnected world—your bad decision will reach millions far more quickly. Further, nonmajority people feel more empowered than ever, and more white families have taken on diversity internally through marriage, adoption and awareness of LGBT relatives.

Volkswagen, you can do better than this.

The post Video: Is the VW Super Bowl Ad ‘Blackface With Voices’? 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.

The post Stereotypes: Embrace Them or Deny Them? appeared first on DiversityInc.

Now that Congress has overcome obstructiveness and ended “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT), and now that many states voted to recognize same-gender marriage, we need to keep in mind that it’s still perfectly legal in 29 states to fire someone because they’re gay—and you can fire someone over their gender identity in 34 states—according to the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Campaign.

The discriminatory laws and lack of protections in these states tell us that it is not good enough for your particular work area in your particular company to have a “safe workplace.” We need all workplaces to be “safe”—as well as “safe sidewalks,” “safe schoolyards” and “safe neighborhoods.” There must be universal, nationwide protection of civil and human rights for LGBT people in all 50 states.

The good news is that we now have openly gay veterans, with Combat Infantry Badges, Air Medals, Purple Hearts and Silver and Bronze Stars walking proudly and openly in our society. No matter how red the state is, I don’t think it will be tolerable to treat combat veterans with such cruelty as to fire them for their orientation or gender identity. It’s a shame that we have to leverage veterans that way, but my hunch is that they won’t mind. I’ve never met a fellow veteran who didn’t agree with John Adams, who wrote, “Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives.”

LGBT Rights: How Your Company Can Promote Diversity & Inclusion 

Most of our readers work for large corporations, and this is directed at that group: I implore you to use your influence on your organizations to continue to push the political process in the right direction in all 50 states. If you want a basic, pragmatic argument, tell your corporate leaders that this is about workplace productivity, customer service and higher-quality market share. It’s about building the right relationships with LGBT people—and their heterosexual family members, friends and neighbors who care. Leverage your veteran and LGBT resource groups to send a clear message to top management: It is good business to promote the end of LGBT discrimination. It is in the best interest of shareholders, employees and customers that corporate leaders be proactive in making that reality.

Now is the time—we now have openly gay service people and veterans (they are there now and were always there, but not openly) and we have Ted Olson’s brilliant legal logic against California’s Proposition 8, all of which underscores this reality: LGBT civil and human rights do not impinge on the rights of any other group. They are in the logical progression of our American revolution, which remains alive and well.

Let’s finish this job.

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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