What's a White Guy Doing in Diversity?

My two cents on whether or not it makes a difference if white guys are running diversity programs. (04:49)

The Wall Street Journal, the Radcliffe Institute and DiversityInc.com, seem to be in a battle royale over the successes, direction and discussion over the issue of diversity.

First, the Radcliffe Institute from Harvard, began publishing a study that shows the way to achieve success with diversity initiatives. It showed that to increasee women and minorities in management, it is best to have someone responsible, and being held responsible for the effort. And the actions to be taken must be customized and specific to individual units, departments and locations to be the most impactful.

Second, on May 7, the Wall Street Journal published a story, Theory & Practice: Diversity Programs look for Leadership from White Males. DiversityInc thinks that doesn't make sense and they find it almost "comedic" to say that maybe we haven't done a good job of connecting diversity to the business. And that maybe white guys are like a lot of people - they want to hear the message from somebody like themselves.

And third, I don't think any of it matters.

What matters is what works for a particular organization. If Coca-Cola and Georgia-Pacific think they will have better success and diversity will be seen as more "legitimate" by having a white guy in charge of the efforts - then more power to them.

If they think that having someone from operations rather than human resources will move diversity into the mainstream of the business, instead of an add-on, than I say have at it.

I say you use what you got and our Development Principles: Start Small, Build on your Pockets of Readiness, Build Momentum, in whatever way makes sense for your organization and don't worry about whose leading the effort, just get it done.

You can see and hear more about all this in my others posts, Why Diversity Training Doesn't Work and Making Diversity Work and not to mention the keynote speech I have been giving for the last 10 years, What's a White Guy Doing in Diversity?

Talk to you soon, Tim.