Posted on 04/07/2013 7:14:13 AM PDT by Altura Ct.
How are white male managers doing when it comes to diversity? Great! At least that's what the white male managers said in a recent survey.
What do the non-white, non-male managers think? Not as upbeat.
But according to the study, it's not entirely the fault of white male managers. What we have here, it claims, is failure to communicate.
Lack of candor was a key culprit identified in the "Study on White Men Leading Through Diversity & Inclusion," which compiled results of anonymous surveys of about 700 leaders at eight major companies.
How are white male managers doing when it comes to diversity? Great! At least that's what the white male managers said in a recent survey.
What do the non-white, non-male managers think? Not as upbeat.
But according to the study, it's not entirely the fault of white male managers. What we have here, it claims, is failure to communicate.
Lack of candor was a key culprit identified in the "Study on White Men Leading Through Diversity & Inclusion," which compiled results of anonymous surveys of about 700 leaders at eight major companies.
"This is a baseline, first-of-its-kind study," said Chuck Shelton, the report's author and managing director at Greatheart Leader Labs in Seattle.
Asked to rate the diversity effectiveness among white male leaders in their companies, 45 percent of white men gave a positive rating. Among women and people of color, only 21 percent agreed. Wide gaps were also found in the perception of white men's abilities to coach and improve the performance of diverse employees (33 points difference); build strong, diverse teams (36 points); promote diverse talent on merit (36 points); and include diverse voices in decision making (40 points.)
They are doing great when it comes to being respectful, the survey said, but fall short when it comes to saying what they really think. Too many fear that any criticism or discussion of race or gender will likely get them in trouble, so they avoid it entirely.
Silence can compound the issue. "You don't provide the feedback you would give to the people who look like you," Shelton said. "Ultimately you're discriminating because you're not allowing that person to improve and get ahead."
Shelton has been studying this topic for years and is himself no stranger to the outraged criticism from people with strong reactions to the topic. (For a sample, see the so-called reviews at Amazon of Shelton's 2008 book "Leadership 101 for White Men: How to Work Successfully with Black Colleagues and Customers.")
The survey was taken anonymously by managers at Alcoa, Bank of America, Intel, Exelon, Marsh & McLennan Companies, PepsiCo, Wal-Mart Stores and PWC. About 58 percent of the respondents were white men and about 10 percent of the managers had global responsibilities. Future studies, Shelton said, will focus on making an economic connection between company diversity and their branding, sales, marketing and talent retention.
Alcoa and other big firms that took part in the study said they're eager to use the data to help even their white men to lean into the diversity discussion.
The survey provided the companies with a lot of information to chew on, said Gena Lovett, Alcoa's chief diversity officer. "This is about enhancing our leadership," she said. "You can't fix what you don't know."
While the report revealed encouraging information, she was surprised by some of the gaps. Some managers admitted they had a hard time articulating the business case for creating a diverse workforce.
Now that we know "these are easy to resolve," said Lovett. Easy, she said, because Alcoa already has concrete examples of how diversity impacts the bottom line. They have examples of revenues rising as a business unit grows more diverse and technical innovations when they mix up the team's make-up.
In Alcoa's tech areas, it's very pronounced. "They demand diverse teams. That's the only way they can get innovation," Lovett said. One example she named was the creation of the Dura-brite™ shiny bus wheels that are lightweight and easy to clean. That team was made up of people from several countries, generations and specialities including technicians and plant people.
Also, "Our customers have made it very clear … that they want to see people who look like them," Lovett said, noting that Alcoa is in 31 countries.
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The survey also allows the companies to use numbers where there were previously only anecdotes. "Having that empirical evidence is an eye-opener," said David Thomas, dean of Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. Thomas served as a consultant on the study.
He pointed out that the companies that took part in the survey already had good reputations for diversity within their industries. The good reputations, he said, can fool you into thinking everything's fixed. "Diversity is one of those topics in which many people, many companies, they hear the anecdotes and they think they are the exception to the rule," Thomas said.
At McDonough, the MBA program now incorporates work on recognizing unconscious biases, Thomas said.
This isn't going to work for everyone, Shelton said. But "there's a huge group of white men in the middle who are teachable," he said. "That's why the baseline is so encouraging."
If only 45% of white men liked banana bread, and 21% of women liked banana bread, and even less of other minorities, then you WOULDN”T SERVE BANANA BREAD VERY OFTEN, WOULD YOU?
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No, the government would criminalize and outlaw banana bread. If banana bread is outlawed then only criminals will have banana bread.
Or the cast of characters from any Hollywood movie from the 1940's or 1950's about WWII; The WiseGuy from Brooklyn, the Jewish Kid, The Shy Farmboy, The Wise Indian Guy from Oklahoma, and a rotating cast of other stereotypes.
And I spent a lot of time in the 1970's and 1980's in sexual harassment awareness programs for middle management, in corporate response to that pressing need and priority.
Fortunately, Bill Clinton came along and ended the liberal emphasis on sexual harassment. As Hillary would say, "What difference does it make?"
American Companies are being womanized, monetized, and anti-male’d into the ground. All decisions are based on liking each other and not what is best for the business.
Preserve that photo. It may be one of the last ones taken of a white guy running anything in this country.
Gee, why would they think that??
Yes, we are “diverse”.....Di longer you verk here, diverse it gets.
Alcoa has smart engineers on staff - they are going to come up with innovative products regardless of the ethnic makeup of the design teams. What they cannot (and would not dare try to) measure is the opportunity cost lost when some of their best and brightest left the company or simply put a lot less effort into their work because they were denied promotion due to some diversity officer's decision that there were already too many whites or Asians in leadership roles.
A team of the most talented engineers, regardless of color, would run rings around a "diverse" team any day and everyone knows it.
Of course, the topper is that, if 45% of the white male managers gave their company a positive rating, that means that a MAJORITY (the remaining 55%) of the white male respondents gave their company a negative rating (or at least an "n/a"). So, actually, the article should be titled
"White Male Managers Decry Lack of Diversity!"
Just sickening.
Regards,
Agree that’s how diversity works,and it’s the first reason for infighting.
A key strategy of the liberals is to denigrate and villify anyone who resists their agenda. You can always count on them to “run this play”. It’s how they roll.
Agree but a white man shouldn’t be discriminated against. Many would love one of these stress-free all the benefits in the world do nothing jobs — especially if they are under-employees or unemployed.
Under current belief and practice it is a “difficult balancing act.” However,the “diversity” nonsense illustrates just how important racial factors are to those of the Third World. So important that their lobbies have imposed legal requirements on the more able white. Racial factors are just as important to white America, but we dissimulate.
Right and wrong, works or doesn't, color or culture isn't a freaking factor at all.
I guess it might be OK if your business was just stupid ideas with no right or wrong answers. Kinda like today's tests in public schools.
This diversity crap is invented BS by groups that are math impaired. They have no useful skills and want a free ride based on skin color or garbled language skills.
Imagine where we would be without white men. We would all be living in mud huts if not for their contribution to society. That’s just a fact.
” We would all be living in mud huts if not for their contribution to society.”
If Obama had a brother...oh forget that, never mind.
They are correct. Any discussion of race or gender will get them in trouble, so they are told by their managers to avoid the topics. Not surprisingly, they just don't talk about it.
Silence can compound the issue. "You don't provide the feedback you would give to the people who look like you," Shelton said. "Ultimately you're discriminating because you're not allowing that person to improve and get ahead."
Correct again, and it's because there are whole law firms filled with attorneys prepared to litigate complaints against any manager who dares to criticize a member of a protected group. Positive criticism is vital to personal growth, and it's forbidden. "Women and minorities affected the worst." Note the code words indicating Shelton is a racist: "people who look like you."
If this is a "problem," it is one of the minorities' own making.
The diversity non-sense was specifically designed to insure failure.
But this failure of white-male middle managers won’t be a problem much longer because in the very near future, there won’t be any white-male middle managers. They’ll be Chinese.
As a long time manager I have noted this for years. White males have the most opportunity because they are the easiest to fire. That makes them the lowest risk to hire. Business is about making money and avoiding unnecessary risk. That's why many minorities end up in government jobs where quotas matter and risk is not part of the equation.
I worked for the City of Houston Public Works department for a couple of years. My immediate supervisor was a portly white woman, the section head was a black woman and the department head was a black woman. Out of a crew of 12-14 people, I was one of two “token” white men. And while I was there, the city elected a lesbian mayor.
I enjoyed the work itself and might still be there were it not for the politics and the overt favoritism that permeated every aspect of the job.
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