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.
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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."
“...The Third World is a model of failure...”
It is a disaster to bring its denizens here and to promote them to positions of authority, as you aptly said.
Interestingly enough, Ayaan Hirsi Ali makes this point in her book. However!!! she still buys into the liberal nonsense even though her life itself is an example of trying to escape the failed cultures.
It is impossible to wake these people up.
By the way, for all the years I worked there (over a decade), I had many managers, project leaders and group leaders, and I worked for one white guy the entire time. Two if you count the time I was loaned out to another department for a few weeks.
And liberal white women who in my opinion are worse.
As far as I concerned EVERYONE of these surveys I ever took were worthless, Anonymous or not. The big wigs already had the answer(s) they were looking for, the survey(s) were put out as a “cover” and rarely matched what they were looking for.
How do I know, we got together once and answered the survey exactly the same. What was reported back was pure BS.
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.Gosh, never saw that coming.
The truth is, if any manager runs his business based on leveling the “diversity stage” instead of getting the job done and making profits, the business is probably going to fail anyway. Ask Detroit.
My company used to do quarterly surveys about how the employees “felt” about their jobs and work environment. At first the responses where anonymous, and flaws in the management could be seen. So, one day management announced the surveys would no longer be anonymous, but would instead have our names on them. They said it was the only way to find and fix the problems. I told the boss (in a meeting of about 100 people) that if the goal was to eliminate the flaws, it was a perfect plan because a person would have to be drop-dead stupid to indicate anything less than a 100% perfect score for any and all questions asked.
Who in the heck wants to put their livelihood on the line just to help a middle-manager meet a goal?
After that, sure enough all the surveys started coming back with perfect scores, and the whole survey thing was dropped within a year.
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.
THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE
Roman Architecture 27 AD
If diversity for the sake of having diversity is such a great idea why don’t we have more diversity in the NFL and NBA?
White Males know that “diversity” is code for “Whitey need not apply” and is therefore racist BS.
Good post. The fact that management first went with the anonymous approach and then flipped to wanting names shows they didn’t know what they were doing in the first place. In the world of business, anything you say can and WILL be held against you.
Correct. This was over 20 years ago and I was just a pup, wet behind the ears, and I knew better than to complain in that environment.
It was a very large company, and the CEO, a third generation owner, ran it into he ground.
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