An Article in a Series
By Mauricio Velasquez, President,
Diversity Training Group I believe our society is at a point of no return. We can't turn back. The days of ignoring diversity issues are over. The time to deal with these issues and ask the real difficult questions is upon us. You only have to read the newspaper everyday to find organizations that believed in these misleading lies. Too many organizations are living too many lies. Organizations continue to …. - … believe diversity is about minorities or women or Affirmative Action when it is really about creating better organizations, better workplaces for everyone (inclusive workplaces where everyone feels included and encouraged to participate and add value) - see our article on the Myths of Diversity
- … preserve their "status quo" approach to managing their human resources when "drastic change" is necessary (they are dead asleep at the wheel)
- … believe they can fight or stop change (no organization or industry can stop the these free market economic and diversity forces)
- … ignore their workplace changes (employee profile has changed)
- … ignore their marketplace changes (customer profile has changed but they have no clue - car dealerships)
- … believe that by ignoring or "sweeping their diversity issues under the rug" they go away (they don't - they only fester to blow up in your face later)
- … believe they have a choice in dealing with their diversity issues (it is not a question of if you will deal with your issues, it is more a question of when)
- … ignore the "human side" of management by not acknowledging, nurturing, tracking and encouraging good people or management skills
- … promote technical competence ahead of managerial and human relations competence (we have seen managers who should not be managing animals let alone people)
- … believe they are "above the law" and "they won't get sued for their horrible management practices
- … not know any better (they have never had to face or deal with so many diversity issues
- … forget we are in a huge talent war, the tightest labor market since WWII and we need talent in all of shapes, sizes, forms and backgrounds - hire and retain
- … be reactive versus proactive, they wait too long, they wait for an outside force to force them to do something versus implementing changes because it is the right thing to do in a very proactive sense
- … believe discrimination is acceptable today
- … believe the media and reporters don't care about these issues
- … believe "we had no idea" (dkdk) and "we didn't mean it" (intent vs. impact) will hold up in court
- … believe their employees don't notice anything
Will effective, productive, high-impact diversity training and consulting go away? Forget about it. We have never been busier. Study your issues. Acknowledge them and work on addressing them. Develop your diversity business strategy and plan and implement. That is what DTG is all about. We are planners and implementers. Thank you for your time and consideration and stay the course. This work is more about the journey and less about the destination. Stay focused and be diligent. |
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