“Goldman Sachs?!” I said.  “My son just asked if I wanted to go to New York City and Occupy Wall Street with him on one of the only two days I’ll see him at college while I’m out there.  Goldman Sachs?”

I told Jacob this story on the train into New York City that Saturday. Deciding to tell the rest of the story publicly was more difficult.

“Fear suppresses the truth.”  – Anonymous comment on live streaming channel, 10.08.11

October 1, 2011 was a soggy Saturday. The subway station nearest our destination was unexpectedly “closed for construction” so I raced down Broadway after my long-legged son, dodging umbrellas. We got to the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge and stood with a growing crowd while over 700 marchers were arrested on the bridge.

The New York Police Department is, visibly, a highly diverse workforce.  Many NYPD officers were visible that day.

Diversity and the Police

There’s a unique business case for diversity in police departments. When these departments reflect the diversity of the community they serve, officers in them may establish trust or communication more quickly. That trust adds flexibility for responding to critical situations and achieving the public service mission.

At the Brooklyn Bridge, the uniform was more salient than any other identity. Officers of different ages, races, ethnicities, genders and accents formed a blue barrier between those on the bridge and those off the bridge.

Musings on Police Work

Municipal police forces do jobs that most of us don’t want to do.  When I came face to face with a man cutting my screen door in an attempted break-in as I worked late one summer night, an officer was on the scene within minutes and gave chase by foot.  When I went to administer a cultural climate survey to a division of one PD, two officers met me at the door apologizing profusely for leaving. They had just received a hot lead on a hit-and-run in which a child had been killed days earlier. They had to respond immediately.

These incidents barely touch on what’s involved in police work.

Police have to be prepared to deal with a wide range of emergency and potentially dangerous situations while also using relational skills to safeguard public interests. Enforcing the law includes both fighting crime and protecting constitutional freedoms.

Not all officers are equally good at using such a complex skill set under any circumstances.  In the past few years, police duties have become more complex while municipal budgets have shrunk and “homeland security” demands have grown.  The median salary for a typical patrol officer juggling these demands is $50,031.

This year, JP Morgan Chase donated $4.6 million to the NYPD Foundation. It is the largest donation in the foundation’s history.

Inclusion and the Public

Jon Stewart says that the media today appears to have only two settings: “blackout” and “circus.”  Someone flipped the switch on that October 1.  News teams were all over the place, capturing stories as isolated individuals began to walk off the Brooklyn Bridge.

The stories did not reflect the noblest side of the policing profession. Were marchers indeed invited onto the bridge in a friendly fashion and then closed off by the police from in front and in back?  Where they indeed picked randomly one by one for arrest?  Were other intimidation tactics and excessive force employed?  Reports from those who had been on the bridge were consistent.

On the ground, a peaceful crowd continued to grow. The police tried to move people along. Uniformed hands went up to block cell phone cameras.  “When we’re done with them,” an officer said to my son and others for  no reason I could determine, “we’re arresting you.”

In the crowd, a call and response began.

“Whose streets?” a protester shouted.
“Our streets!” the crowd responded.

“Whose city?” came the shout.
“Our city!” the crowd answered.

“Whose police?” came the shout.
“Our police!” the group answered.

Then the group chanted, “Join us! Join us! Join us! Join us!”

There was something I didn’t anticipate. A call for inclusion. No more “us” and “them?”

As we stood in the chanting crowd, I thought of my many different colleagues and clients, including those in police departments. I couldn’t help but wonder: what they would think if they knew I was here? The media portrayals had been so different from the reality.

Occupy Wall Street had been portrayed as a disorganized gathering of the young and disheveled.  The “Tea Party of the Left.”  A drumming circle.  A message-less band of malcontents. But it was not any of that.  It was multi-generational, multi-racial, multi-faceted and quite thoughtful.  It was then, and is now, a movement like the U.S. has not seen before.  Said one sign, “We’re not Democrat, we’re not Republican, we’re American.”

Without permits for microphones or loudspeakers, protesters use the now-familiar “People’s Microphone.”  Anyone can choose to communicate with the crowd by shouting, “Mic Check.” The crowd repeats, “Mic Check.” Once attention is focused on the speaker, the speaker then puts forth their idea in half sentences.  The crowd repeats the half sentences, amplifying the speaker’s words, so that everyone can hear.

Marchers who had been held on the wet bridge for hours slowly gathered.  Some were upset; some seemed dejected. It was getting dark. Then a man shouted, “Mic Check!” He said, and the crowd repeated, “It’s time we march…   on Police Plaza One!” He was referring to NYPD’s headquarters, a few blocks away.

The crowd was restless.  Some people started to move in that direction, but a woman shouted, “Mic Check!”

Some of the moving crowd said, “Mic Check!”
“MIC CHECK,” she said again until the full crowd responded.

“We are not…”
“We are not…”

“A mob mentality!”
“A mob mentality!”

“I suggest…” she politely shouted.
“I suggest…” the crowd politely repeated.

“We march back to the park….”
“We march back to the park…”

“Regroup, and rethink our strategy.”
“Regroup, and rethink our strategy.”

As soon as the crowd finished repeating her words, everyone turned and marched back to Liberty Plaza – on the sidewalks, stopping for lights.

Meaning of the Message:  Equity in the United States

“We are the 99%” is a reference to Nobel Laureate and economist Joseph Stiglitz’s study showing that the top one percent of Americans control over 40 percent of U.S. wealth.  It is also a simple but powerful statement that tells a coherent story.

“We are the 99%” speaks to a shared humanity.  It acknowledges that a successful economy is driven by the many rather than by the ultra elite.  And it calls attention to the undermining of equity, of shared prosperity.  While hand-held signs across the country in this movement may seem on the surface to speak in different voices to different  issues: joblessness, poverty, sustainable energy, degradation of the environment, bailouts, the mortgage crisis, Citizens United and corporate personhood among them, they have in common a call for the equity that is the promise of this nation.

Back to Business

Since my trip to NYC, Occupy Wall Street has become a household phrase.  While large OWS encampments have been dismantled, often with unnecessary – and sometimes shocking – force, and while some small OWS groups have made real mistakes that turn off even staunch supporters, there’s a lot to learn from this movement. These lessons can even be applied to building a high-functioning team or a business. Let me put it this way: if OWS was a product that had spread across the country this rapidly, my financial advisor would be buying stock in the company for my retirement plan.

Here are a few of the top line lessons:

• Lesson 1.  Question what you think you know. Make decisions based on data rather than on assumptions, fear of what people might think or what you see in the media. Go ahead.  Go to New York – or whatever that equivalent step is to get out of the box in your thinking. Gather new information and apply it to current challenges.
• Lesson 2. When confronted with conflict, include. Many formal conflict resolution methods begin with prioritizing the relationship between those in conflict. An invitation to “join us” – to work together on a shared problem or to at least consider commonalities between opposing sides – can defuse conflict.
• Lesson 3.  Make space for different viewpoints. Better results happen in environments that accommodate opposing voices.  Under those conditions, even a lone voice may raise a better idea and steer the team onto a more productive path.
• Lesson 4.  Stay focused on your mission. There will always be obstacles and forces bigger than your endeavor.  While these obstacles may seem to demand immediate and dramatic response, it’s often wise to step back, regroup and rethink your strategy according to the bigger picture.

It’s taken me months to decide to post this blog, in part because the Occupy Movement has been so miscast that I feared repercussions in my business.  Yet, truth will out.  There’s increasing evidence that equity offers a superior model for economic growth, and that some corporate diversity efforts have missed these and other key lessons that would allow them to achieve equity – the ultimate diversity goal.

As many now turn to diverse traditions of bringing light into times of darkness, this truth and this story again seem worth telling.  And there’s a question worth asking, too:  what role will these lessons play in your planning for 2012?

“The choice today is not ‘are people scared or not.’ People are scared. The problem is who will determine the meaning of this fear.  This is our work.” – Philosopher and critical theorist, Slavoj Žižek, speaking at Liberty Plaza on 10.08.11.

Women in the U.S. still make about three-fourths of what men make for comparable work. For those who have served in the military, especially in recent wars, stigma persists and unemployment in some areas is more than double that of civilians.  Services for the disabled are disappearing.  Young people cannot find a job no matter how responsibly they approached their education.  People of color have lost jobs in greater numbers and the wealth gap between black and white is worse than it’s been since World War II. Thirty years ago, the top 10 percent in the U.S. made as much as the bottom 30 percent; today the top 10 percent make as much as the bottom 90 percent – regardless of race, gender, age, ability or creed.

Factors internal and external to the diversity and inclusion (D&I) field are part of this picture.

Internal Factors

Individual enterprises have embraced good diversity practices with excellent results. However, three challenges inside D&I have kept the field from having its full impact:

1. Definition. D&I professionals haven’t arrived at a clear and common definition about what diversity means and who is included.  Where there is consensus, that definition has not been articulated meaningfully to a broad audience.  Some simply prefer to avoid the D-word.
2. Measures.  Consistent indicators of diversity success have yet to be adopted.  Measures are not meaningfully employed. Of course, it is harder to assess progress with regard to something that hasn’t yet been defined.
3. Standards of practice.  There are “best diversity practices,” a strong business case and benchmarks within the field. There are also organizational exemplars. However, there is no agreement as to who “owns” diversity, and therefore no agreement as to what constitutes appropriate standards of practice:  things that those implementing diversity practices should and should not do.

External Factors

D&I efforts take place in a social context.  A number of factors in this external environment also act upon D&I.

A 2003 book, The Assault on Diversity by Lee Cokorinos, provides a well-documented analysis of social factors that have impinged on D&I results.  Cokorinos uses the narrow definition of diversity and describes a highly organized, well-funded, systematic and strategic effort to eliminate social justice gains in the United States dating from the early 1980s.  This effort has been consistently carried out by a network of think tanks, private foundations and legal advocacy groups that work in several areas:

1. Political strategy.  Legislative action and ballot initiatives like California’s Proposition 209 and the copy-cat legislation it spawned in other states ended efforts to improve access for underrepresented groups in public employment, public education or public contracting.
2. Legal strategy.   Targeted litigation and networking ensured the success of legal challenges to positive public policies, especially in state university systems such as in the case of Hopwood versus Texas.
3. Media strategy.   Several standard-setting media tactics have been used over time to shape public discourse such as 1) the use of figureheads like black businessman, Ward Connerly and Latina activist, Linda Chavez, to head anti-affirmative action and “English only” initiatives; 2) language appropriation, with names like the Center for Equal Opportunity and the American Civil Rights Institute for groups that work solely to undo gains; and 3) opinion pushed out into the public discourse as “research,”  such as the works of Charles Murray, Richard Herrnstein, and the professionally discredited Paul Cameron.*  The current media environment takes these tactics to ever more sophisticated levels.

The “assault on diversity” has opened on extraordinary fronts in the years since Cokorinos published his book.

Next Stage Diversity Leadership

As diversity consultants Lee Gardenswartz and Anita Rowe have noted, “This work is not for the faint-of-heart.”  Those doing the work of D&I going forward cannot hope to be successful without full awareness of the challenges.

These challenges will not be met by pot lucks and festivals alone; by training without accountability structures or by staff beholden to layers above.  In fact, it is possible for even the best-intentioned efforts to add to the problem by covering up what’s really wrong; by becoming complicit with practices that undermine the fundamental goal of D&I.

That goal is equity.

Beyond the data that illustrate superior performance by diverse teams and by companies with good diversity practices, there is growing evidence that equity may provide a basis for superior economic growth.**  In other words, a healthy team, a healthy business and a healthy economy ALL have something in common:  they depend on equity; on the active involvement and contribution of the many – not the few.

Today’s diversity leaders must answer profound challenges in order to help companies and communities achieve results.  Success most often involves a planned process of positive cultural change that takes place over time.  Clearly defined terms, meaningful measures of change and professional standards for implementation add value even as the field of D&I struggles to catch up with these ideas.  It is, however, in the discovery and careful telling of truth that real promise lies.  In so doing, diversity leaders may gain allies, build equity and thus ensure the sustainable business practices most suited to turbulent times.

It is in the most trying times that
our real character is shaped and revealed. – Helen Keller

*Murray and Herrnstein resuscitated long-over ideas about race-related deficiencies.  The Bradley Foundation contributed $100,000 to fund the 1994 publication of their book, “The Bell Curve,” which asserted that African Americans are genetically inferior to whites. (Bean, L.  2003.)  Cameron’s target was primarily the gay population.

**Treuhaft, S. & Madland, D. 2011.  “Prosperity 2050:  Is Equity the Superior Growth Model?”  Center for American Progress.  Thanks to Hamlin Grange of DiversiPro for this resource.

“You better get out of bed, sweetheart,” I said.  “You don’t want to be late.”

“Hey, Mom?  An airplane just crashed into the World Trade Center,” said Jacob.

“Oh, son.” I said, and I remember sighing. “That’s not funny. You know I don’t like the things those DJs say, even as jokes.”

“It’s not a joke,” Jacob said.

The act of writing even this much brings a torrent of emotion from those moments and from what transpired in the next minutes, hours, days and decade.

What we’ve come to call 9/11, and the succeeding years of political cacophony and conflict, are a large part of the childhood history that shaped my son and his entire generation. Jacob is now in college, a grown man.  And the president of this college, Michael Roth, has written THE most thoughtful piece I’ve seen anywhere as this country prepared for the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

Roth says, “Let us commemorate, if only for a few moments, without agenda.”

In just a few beautiful sentences, Roth describes the ways trauma has been and can be used to advance causes and shape the telling of history. And he calls on us to stop and simply remember, with piety.

Please read Roth’s September 9th blog. It will only take a few moments.

If the link above does not work, cut and paste this into your browser: http://roth.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2011/09/09/commemoration-without-agenda/?ref_homepage.

Cuba and Beyond is a collection of four exhibits now at the Sangre de Cristo Arts and Conference Center in Pueblo, Colorado.  Whether your personal voyage would be to explore cultural identities, to venture into the world of the transcultural – that complex merging and converging of cultures – or simply to travel the distance to Pueblo, Cuba and Beyond is worth your effort.

The art.

The Art of Leandro Soto

Walking into the gallery exhibit entitled “Cuba in the Southwest:  The Art of Leandro Soto” is like walking into Wonderland.  Soto was one of the first in his generation to explore  intercultural issues and Cubanidad, or Cuban-ness; he’s lived in many different places over time, including the U.S. Southwest for eight years.  Soto layers, intermingles and blends images of his Cuban heritage and his adopted cultures into his pieces.  “I work with the complexity of being Cuban, a cultural heritage that is composed of diverse cultural presences,” he says.  “In my view, that which is apparently dispersed or diffused is also linked to the magical….”

Carlos Manuel Cardenes’ photographs line foyer walls throughout the building.  In “Faces: 100 Cuban Artists,” Cardenes pays breathtaking tribute to the artists who began arriving in the U.S. in the 1960s.  Some of these artists are featured in the other two exhibits:  “women.embodied: Cuban Women’s Art from the Diaspora” and “CAFÉ XII: The Journeys of Writers and Artists of the Cuban Diaspora.”

One striking aspect of “CAFÉ XII” is the absence of frames on almost every piece.  The art is, instead, fully “installed” on the walls. Extensions of each work are painted out onto the walls of the gallery. This makes the merging tangible on yet another level. It creates a sense of fluid boundaries that speak to adaptation and survival; it suggests the possibility of honoring and preserving one’s own unique heritage while living in shared society.

CAFÉ XII

CAFÉ XII

Cuba and Beyond is colorful, exciting, provocative, honest, distinctive and accessible.  Every voyage it launches will be unique to each voyager.

Lessons about diversity and inclusion.

I thought about these exhibits – and you should, too – as a free educational opportunity for anyone who wants to learn or talk about Cuban experience, diversity and culture with colleagues, friends or family members.  Each exhibit, however, will urge you further into the human experience.

We are living in a time of extreme polarization, when folks are lightning quick to define “us” and “them” and then increasingly ferocious in assigning blame.  Maybe it is possible to take a lesson from these artists of the Cuban diaspora and see that we are, in fact, one with the world we create and we do have choices.  Cuba and Beyond illustrates the possibilities in choosing, even under dire circumstances, to merge and preserve.

If you can’t make it to Pueblo but will be in Colorado, learn more about Cuba Transnational and related events through October 2011.   The Sangre de Cristo exhibits are curated by Andrea O’Reilly Herrera, Grisel Pujalá, Karin Larkin and Soto.  If you are unable to make it to Colorado at all,  Herrera has written a book about the ongoing CAFÉ project: Cuban Artists Across the Diaspora: Setting the Tent Against the House.

His question:  “‘Proactive business-driven paradigm.’ That’s quite a statement. I wonder what it means?”

His comment reminded me once again how easy it is to fall into jargon. Those of us in the culture (in this case, of D&I) don’t even realize we’re in it till we’re out of it.  It’s that fish in water thing.

Here’s one answer to the question:

The “proactive, business-driven paradigm” concept is closely related to what we have called, “The Business Case for Diversity.”  Whether as a D&I sales tool, an opportunity for real education, an example of speaking the language of decision-makers  or an adaptation to a changing external environment, the D&I field has come to conceptualize itself in this way.

PROACTIVE means that instead of waiting for lawsuits or natural demographic change, instead of waiting to lose talent or to be outrun by the competition, organizations choose to “go to where the puck is going to be.”

BUSINESS-DRIVEN means that instead of diversity hanging out like an appendix waiting to be lopped off at the first sign of discomfort or unease (not even disease), D&I concepts, strategies and goals are integrated with ALL business strategies and goals. Ideally, diversity goals and organizational goals are understood to be interwoven and mutually dependent. A company or industry may survive for a while without it, but no business today can maximize its potential or be sustainable without integrating every aspect of the way it does business with D&I.

Finally, this is more than an approach or a flavor of the day.  It is a PARADIGM – a model, a pattern, a defining set of ideas/ideals – for the field and for those who want to leverage what the field has to offer for their enterprise – public, private, non-profit or academic.

And the paradigm is poised to evolve.

Your turn.

Which brings me to questions of my own:

• How, and of whom, do you ask questions you need to know about D&I?
• How are you engaging with others in the conversation?
• What languages are you speaking about the field?  Are they languages that reach your audiences?
• How are you helping each person see themselves as part of the larger picture of D&I and feel the urgency of action?

NOTE:  In an earlier post, I mentioned the diversity discussion started by Rob Jones on LinkedIn.  It’s still going strong, generating ideas and relationships. Check it out. Chime in.  Things are percolating!

If someone says or does something that crosses a line – say, they make a disparaging comment about some person or group based on some characteristic of that group like ethnicity or gender – and I look the other way, I am complicit in the line-crossing. I am colluding. Same goes in a company, professional association or other group.  If there is a systemic practice that excludes or adversely affects some group and I remain silent, I am colluding.

Collusion has never been a simple thing.  My colleague Kristin once told me about a time she observed a large man verbally abusing a waitress with ethnic slurs.  Then a young student of diversity herself, Kristin could not bear the thought of colluding. She confronted the man about his behavior.  He waited for her in the parking lot and followed her to her car.

Battles must be carefully picked.  Sometimes it’s a choice assignment, a promotion, a key relationship or even a career that is at stake.  Sometimes it’s physical safety.

What’s new.

Since Kristin was a student, the lines have changed and behaviors have become more subtle.  Multiple factors have contributed to these changes, among them:

1.  The field of diversity and inclusion (D&I).  Over the past 20 years, the field has advanced awareness of bias and its detrimental effects in companies and communities, not just on people, but on the bottom line. Costs of turnover, lost productivity and lawsuits have been enough to move things forward in some ways. However, behavior – individual or institutional – that is controlled by the threat of punishment is only temporarily suppressed.  It is not really changed. Unless positive behavioral alternatives are experienced and consistently rewarded, biased behavior just goes underground and re-emerges in new, more subtle forms.

2.  The Internet.  With vast freedom of expression and endless opportunity for anonymous commentary, the Internet blurs many lines. This is one great place for bad behavior to pop out in new ways.  Plus, “hits” and comments are the currency of the Internet so editors, bloggers and discussion managers have little incentive aside from their own ethics to responsibly exercise their delete buttons.

3. Current U.S. culture.  Politics and the public conversation of our day make the lines progressively harder to discern.  In his 2003 book, The Assault on Diversity, Lee Cokorinos describes an “ideological convergence between the anti-government theology of the libertarians and the ‘states rights,’ anti-constitutional fundamentalism of the traditional segregationists…” (p.29).  Cokorinos describes ways in which, even at the time he published, this blend had come to dominate political, legislative and judiciary processes as well as the media.  This is the cultural context in which we operate today.

What next?

There are ways to help individuals develop the skills necessary to recognize and respond to various types of bias in themselves and others; there are ways to teach alternatives to collusion.  However, even the best new skills and behaviors will only be maintained in a culture that supports them.  Diversity and inclusion practices must go beyond pot-luck celebrations and annual training if they are to truly create that type of culture. Drawing attention to this issue can be, well…  like confronting a big bully before you head to the parking lot by yourself.

Decades of data show that innovation, excellence, competitive edge, sustainability – just about any types of success that matter to companies, communities and societies – are furthered when differences are effectively brought together in service of a shared purpose.  Yet businesses today are not all bringing different people in or together as effectively as is needed.  To be sure, this is not a small undertaking. It requires shared understanding, substantive accountabilities and sustained systems change.

The alternative is decline:  where there are no checks on in-group and out-group dynamics, positive results are always diminished.

Contact us for more information on addressing bias, providing alternatives to collusion and creating positive cultural change in your organization.

* Alyn, J. (2010). Diversity Terminology.

It was a conversation for which I’d been longing. The field of diversity and inclusion (D&I) has made progress and regress.  The regression has been alternately striking and insidious. While research and field work converge around some clear “best practices,” these practices are not as widely recognized or implemented as they should be.  After the economic collapse, diversity budgets were among the first on the chopping block, people of color were losing jobs in disproportionate numbers, attacks on protections for women were increasing and conversations in the public square were proclaiming a “post-diversity” world. Really?

How and where do we talk about these things?

In less than six weeks, the LinkedIn group generated a 150-page tome. Volumes have been added since then. The comments are forthright, respectful, insightful and often brilliant. Among the commentators are internal diversity officers, human resource professionals, external consultants and those completely outside the field; some with vast experience and some with little to none; those of high profile and those who are relatively unknown. The group spans continents, countries, disciplines, sectors and areas of expertise.  The conversation has been wide-ranging and specific, detailed and broad-brushed, concrete and abstract, intellectual and passionate.  It’s also been one more remarkable illustration of the power of social media.

This online discussion has, in a few weeks, mirrored the process of the past few decades within what we can loosely call the D&I field.  Loosely, because this “field” is made up of multiple sprawling and unruly bodies of theory, research and field work; it has developed in a constantly changing and increasingly difficult context and it has never been fully integrated into the fabric of business or any other sector of U.S. society.

The same questions have also surfaced in this discussion as have arisen in the field at large:  What is diversity? Whom does it include?  Who owns it?  How do we measure it? What will it take to get the top leaders to fully engage?

And to this has been added a new question: Is this the end of the line, or were the tracks damaged in the night?

Some of us have some answers that have worked well to move things forward in some organizations.  I’ve written about those things on this blog in the past and will post developing ideas as they take form.  What’s most exciting about this LinkedIn conversation are the possibilities it generates: for yet a new level of development in the field now called diversity and inclusion, for the chance to practice what we preach and bring our differences together to innovate in service of a shared mission, for the opportunity to learn continually and maybe – just maybe – for the birth of a new paradigm that at once transcends past thinking and includes all of the elements that have brought us to this point.

See past posts about defining diversity, compliance and culture and more.  Post a comment. Join the conversation.

Thus ends a tour and begins a series of cultural transitions that is at once unique to each service member, common among service members and unimaginable to many civilians.

Our country learned at least one lesson from Vietnam: that even violent disagreement with policy makers never justifies dissing – or discriminating against – the soldiers who carried out that policy. Veterans were added to the list of legally protected classes in 1974 to give that lesson some teeth. Did it end there?

From Compliance to Inclusion

Differences between military and civilian cultures continue to affect workplaces and communities. Service members may be subjected to assumptions or stereotypes, especially where their numbers are few.  Co-workers may ask inappropriate questions[1], may expect one service member to answer for all or may avoid them completely.  Other identities that are important to each soldier may be disregarded, even when those identities show the way to common ground.  These factors can complicate relationships on the job but can also make it more difficult to even get the job.

Service members can also become a majority. Organizations may experience another type of diversity challenge when, as one example, retired officers from the same service branch make up a majority in company management.  The U.S. military was the first institution to racially integrate; it was a pioneer in “diversity training,” tackling again primarily issues of race relations where reliance on order and each other was paramount.  That training alone, however, did not prepare many retired officers for the workplace diversity of today.

Then there are the dependents.  Last Mothers’ Day, my neighbor’s daughter and I sat under a tree, ate watermelon, talked about puppies and about how many kisses were left in the jar.  Long separations from loved ones and nomadic lives in diverse communities can shape unique challenges, abilities and resiliencies for those in the military dependent subculture.

Next Monday is Memorial Day, a day our country ostensibly remembers those who have fallen in service.  As you think about what you’re doing on your day off, it might also be an opportunity to simply thank those you know who have served.  It is certainly an opportunity to think more deeply about the diversity among us and those questions of inclusive culture that begin where questions of legal compliance end.

Note:  Soldiers today are returning to civilian life with combat-related disabilities that are more difficult to see, diagnose and treat than ever before.  These conditions impact service members themselves, their families and the communities to which they return.  The Wounded Warrior Project was founded to assist the new generation of injured service men and women, and is an information resource for all who would like to contribute.

Contact us for additional resources and activities you can use in your workplace to build understanding of this and other diversity dimensions.

[1] Former US Army Ranger and Purple Heart recipient, Dale Collie, wrote an article entitled, “Military Veterans – What Not to Ask.”  Contact Dale for more info.

Except for this phone call, I had never met Jeff.  His request caught my attention.  In all my years of calling references, this invitation was a first and I told him so.

“It takes a whole lot of ‘attaboys’ to make up for one bad experience,” said Jeff.  He had put his own name on the line and wanted to make sure my experience was positive.

Reputation matters.

Reputation is more influenced by negatives than positives. A study that relates e-Bay reputations to sellers’ final bid price illustrates Jeff’s insight.  Turns out, positive reputations (e-Bay reputational ratings) only mildly influenced the final bid price while negative reputations were both “highly influential and detrimental.”

Your organization’s reputation has tremendous sway in your success.  Good reputations attract top talent to fill positions as they come available. They build loyalty among both employees and customers. A good reputation also allows well-regarded companies to get top prices for their products, incur lower costs for goods and have more stable revenues. Reputation is a strategic asset, says author Charles Fombrun. “This is why, in the long run, it’s in a company’s self-interest to build a strong reputation by serving all of its constituents.”

There are a number of things that any organization can do to encourage trust, build credibility and act responsibly – all of which contribute to and protect a positive reputation.  In his conversation with me, Jeff illustrated one of the fundamentals. That is, treat every person in every interaction like they are a valued customer; like they matter to the success of your endeavor.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a one-person operation or an international corporation.  Even the most seemingly insignificant exchange is an opportunity.

Diversity’s role.

Good diversity practices are, at their root, about serving all constituents. No surprise then that inclusive practices enhance reputation and that both are related to a better bottom line. A 2010 study titled “Investor Reactions to Diversity Reputation Signals” showed that a firm’s diversity reputation is “recognized and rewarded by the market” while earlier studies showed that investors bid up the prices of companies with good diversity reputations and that corporate reputations tend to endure over time.

Check out some other diversity tips and tools blogs here.

The events of that day rocked communities, from those that watched her grow up to those moved simply by how much she was like so many they raised.

This anniversary commands remembrance, not just because her mother, family and communities mourn this profound loss, not just because the day comes and will always come so close to Mother’s Day and not just because this death was part of pervasive patterns of violence against women.  This anniversary commands remembrance because so many people have responded with such positive action: with lasting celebrations of Johanna’s life, and with organizations that work to transform despair into hope.

Shining Hope for Communities is such an organization.  Founded in 2009 by Wesleyan University students and leaders Kennedy Odede and Jessica Posner, Shining Hope works to improve the life of women and girls in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya where Kennedy lived for the first 23 years of his life.  Kennedy was moved by the lives of his own loved ones to find ways to change the position of women in his society.

Johanna, too, had planned to dedicate her life to helping women. She was particularly passionate about women’s access to health care. Shining Hope organizers – Johanna’s friends – said, “The best way to honor Johanna’s memory is to support causes in which she believed.”  The Johanna Justin-Jinich Memorial Clinic of Kibera opened its doors next to the Shining Hope school in November 2010.

This year, the Mother’s Day Movement (MDM) is asking people to consider making a donation to Shining Hope in honor of the holiday.  MDM is a group of women who thought the $14 billion a year spent annually in the U.S.  on Mother’s Day cards, gifts and meals might alternatively serve some who have less.  MDM has a vision for cultural change.

Shining Hope says:  “If you make a donation to Shining Hope by May 8th and note ‘MDM’ in the gift purpose line, you will help [us] reach the MDM $10,000 matching grant challenge. Your donation will help to pay the salary of our nurse midwife for a year, as well as provide thousands of women with high-quality health care.”  Donate now.

On this day, your donation will also remember Johanna’s vibrant life, her dedication to good and the friendships through which her passion lives on.

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