Those of you who read this are probably thinking I'm some sort of Right Wing Conservative who is against Affirmative Action and Diversity. You may even feel that I'm a closet supporter of Ward Connerly the outspoken opponent of Affirmative Action and founder of the American Civil Rights Institute, which in my opinion is a misnomer both in name and in mission. In fact, I am a strong supporter of Affirmative Action and a great believer in the need for diversity in the workplace. It may surprise you that Diversity Training and Affirmative Action consulting is part of my consulting practice. In fact, in my Master Thesis -- thanks to Michelle Obama references to our Thesis are now in vogue -- I discussed at length the need for corporate diversity initiatives and programs if they wanted to be employers of choice for minorities.
So with this supportive background why would I write about why you should not hire a diversity consultant? It is a fair question, and I have five -- though there are more than five -- reasons why I think you as a CEO should not.
Reason One: Your Human Resources Manager said you should:
Many Human Resource managers feel that to attract top talent the company has to demonstrate that it values diversity and embraces differences. They feel the best way to accomplish this is to hire a diversity consultant. They mistakenly believe that those well versed in the area of diversity and with a little awareness training management will 'get it' and it will become a haven for top diverse talent to come running to work for your company. If the HR manager tells you that you need to do some awareness training, you need to ask, awareness around what. Just what are we training people to be aware of? Your company may well need to visit the issue of diversity, but as the leader of the company, you need to consider how this will impact the entire organization. Doing some, awareness training is not going to deal with organizational dynamic issues. For diversity training to be effective, it has to go beyond the typical areas of race, gender, and inclusion you will have to deal with the impact it has on company culture. To make the concept of diversity work, will require the support of your entire management team working together to integrate it in your overall business strategy. So without understanding the organizational impact that diversity will have with your senior management team any suggestion from your HR manager to hire a diversity consultant now would be premature.
Reason Two: Results from your employee satisfaction survey:
Employee satisfaction surveys are fascinating but not always correctly understood. You can get a great deal of information from them and with incorrect interpretation you could end working on the wrong problem. If your HR Director brings you, the results of a recent survey and he starts talking about how it shows people are concerned about the lack of diversity in the company. As the CEO, you need to question your HR Director in detail on his interpretation of the results. Depending of what the survey was designed to measure as the CEO you need to know the context on how the data is being interpreted. The survey results may provide an indication of a potential problem but you need to know if it is an isolated situation, or really the symptom more deeply rooted problems. Without further investigation do not go off and hire a diversity consultant because of a first time employee satisfaction survey. If you feel a problem indeed exists, then as the CEO you should lead the charge in finding out how deep this problem goes. You start with you direct reports first not with the hiring of a diversity consultant.
Reason Three: To get on some magazine list:
If any member of your staff comes in with a copy of an article on how your competition made a Best Company list For African-Americans, Hispanics, Women, or any other group. They further suggest that perhaps it would be good idea to hire a diversity consultant so your company can make the list next year. Thank him for bringing the article to your attention and if you know the CEO of the company call them up and congratulate them on the award, but do not rush out and hire a diversity consultant to help you get on a list. As CEO, you should ask your management team why it is important for the company to be on some magazines' best places to work list. How is being on this list going to contribute to profitability and increase customer loyalty. In addition to those questions, ask him by hiring a diversity consultant how this action will improve accountability, communication, and teamwork within the company. You should then politely walk him out of your office while instructing him that at the next staff meeting you expect him to be prepared to discuss this with the rest of the staff. But do not stop there. At your management team meeting you share the article with them and ask them the question, as a company, do we know how our employees of color feel about working for this firm? What is preventing women and minorities from advancing? What are we doing, as a team, to encourage minorities to come and work for this firm? Do not be swayed into thinking you need to hire a diversity consultant to find the answers to these questions. Make your management team do the work, come back to you, and tell you how they intend to address the problem.
Reason Four: You are going global:
Let's say you have plans to open offices in Japan, Sweden, Brazil, and London. You sit down with your senior staff, and the marketing and sales discussion turns toward the cultural differences and norms of doing business in each of this countries. Your EVP of Sales and Marketing suggests hiring a local diversity firm to come in and have one of their consultants do a half day discussion on how to deal with cultural differences. To everyone sitting around the table this seems like a good idea. Once everyone has offered his or her opinion on the correctness of hiring a diversity consultant and they all are congratulating themselves for embracing the idea. You as the CEO need to look them all square in the eyes and tell them in terms and tenor that's that not happening. If your sales and marketing strategy doesn't include plans for getting people familiar with the country by bringing people over or spending time in countries you plan on opening offices, then hiring a local diversity consultant to do a half day session on culture, norms, and values will yield you little value, in fact it may do more harm than good. This involves more than just understanding norms and values. I suggest as the CEO, you take a bold stance and delay the roll out until you had the opportunity to spend quality time and effort on understanding what it will take to sell and market in these countries.
Reason Five: It will make you look good in the community:
Do not waste your time or money hiring diversity consultants if you do not have a well thought out and comprehensive business case for diversity in your company. If the only reason you are hiring a diversity consultant is to look good in the community, it will not work and people will see it for what it is worth, a sham. If you want diversity to work in your company then as the CEO you will have be an exemplar. This starts with developing a concerted business case for diversity and it requires action on your part as the CEO of the company and holding your direct staff accountable so they will hold their direct reports accountable. If anyone on your staff suggests hiring a diversity consult to do this for you, politely thank them for their suggestion, but tell them before you bring in any diversity consultants, you feel that together as a team you can and will start to lay the ground work for developing a business case for diversity. Diversity is of no value if the only reason is to get people to talk nice to each other, or you are trying to fix an isolated problem. As the CEO, you want diversity to work because you have the fiduciary responsibility to mange and effectively use the assets of your company. This means ensuring that all your people regardless of their gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, or age have the opportunity to contribute to the success of the company. In summary, I realize this may be a bit controversial and counter intuitive to those inclined to support diversity. So save your rotten tomatoes, cabbages, and eggs and email blasts for a later time. Because if this article has inspired you to want to through rotten produce at me (figuratively of course) then I've done my job, because it means you are thinking of five reasons why you should hire a diversity consultant and that will be the topic of my next article.
© Timothy A. Wilson 2008. All Rights Reserved
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