Diversity
Speakers: Dr. Roosevelt Thomas (click here for biography)
Primetime Summit 2

Transcript of Proceedings
June 17, 2000

SONNY FOX: Dr. R. Roosevelt Thomas is a lecturer on behalf of corporations all over the country who are interested in diversity and its implications for their industries. He is also an author of a number of books on the diversity. He has flown in from Boston by way of Austin, Texas to share with you this afternoon some of the distillation of his experience in dealing with this issue. It is my distinct pleasure to introduce you Dr. R. Roosevelt Thomas.

DR. R. ROOSEVELT THOMAS: Good afternoon. I'm delighted to be here, delighted to have the chance to share some thoughts with you on the topic of diversity and of diversity management. We have been thinking and talking about this topic I guess now about 15 or 16 years, about the time, 1984, we started the American Institute for Managing Diversity.

What I would like to do today is to share with you some of what we've been doing, trying to tease out this concept of diversity and diversity management.

We define diversity as any collective mixture characterized by differences and similarities. It could be a collective mixture of people who comprise the work force. It could be a collective mixture of people who are comprised of employees. Collective mix of ideas, collective mix of concepts such as strategies, but it's any collection mixture characterized by differences and similarities. It could be a collective mixture of functions and departments.

Managing representation and managing diversity are not the same. Now that's where most organizations are. They welcome representation, not prepared for the diversity that can come with the representation. I can endorse representation without endorsing diversity.

Example. Say I am a headhunter. Say to me, Thomas, we would like for you to fill ten slots. We would like for those ten slots to be representative with respect to five racial groups. I say the way to do that is to allocate two slots per group. You say fine. I go out and I hire ten people, two slots per racial group. I bring the ten people in a room for orientation. Now as I am orienting these individuals, someone looks in and says boy, this is a very diverse group of people. That's a misstatement. You cannot tell how diverse the group of people is by looking at them. What you can say about this particular group is this is a representative group with respect to five racial groups. How diverse they are depends on how they behave. If they all behave the same way, they bring you a little diversity.

If they all behave like the people already on board, they bring you a little diversity. Most organizations welcome representation, haven't put on the table diversity.

Now, when most people talk about diversity, like creating a diverse work force, they're talking about really creating a representative work force. That's not a negative statement that's a descriptive statement. If you get representation, and representation brings you diversity and you cannot deal with the diversity, you're not able to sustain the representation that you've gained. So what you see in organizations are cycles. Bursts of representations, celebrate our apparent progress, relax. Symptoms reappear because you lose the representation and you start the cycle over again.

What we're basically saying is there's a difference between managing representation and managing diversity. If you're going to build a house for diversity, you have to manage representation and manage diversity. I want to be very clear. In our society, in our organizations, we have not gotten around to even having a discussion about diversity. We have never said we wanted diversity. What we've said is we want representation.

Now, another observation. Good relationships are not necessarily sufficient. Ultimately, our giraffes and elephants together we worry about how are they getting along. And when they have harmony, when they seem to be moving together in a very harmonious way, we celebrate that as boy, we're doing great things. The giraffe and elephant fable suggests that good relationships are not necessarily sufficient. It is important to note the giraffe and elephant got along very well. They bonded well, they related well to each other, respected each other. No problem at all. The problem is between the elephant and the giraffe house.

Now, if you focus only on relationships, you miss the fact that the problem is between the elephant and the giraffe house. If you focus on the relationship, you can make some faulty decisions. Why would a giraffe say to an elephant make yourself at home in a giraffe house? That's like saying to a bull make yourself at home in a china shop. Why would an elephant try to make himself at home in a giraffe house into which he just had great difficulty getting into? Both acted faultily because they got caught up in the relationship and the good feelings. Giraffe's the guy who said, hey, this is a giraffe house. The elephant is in my house. I haven't done anything to change this so that it was for the elephant. But yet, he said, make yourself at home. The elephant tried to make himself at home in a house that had presented great problems for him just to get in. But guys, nobody had changed the house.

So what this says, there's an implication, you have to move beyond harmony and respect. Now am I saying you don't want harmony? You want harmony. You want respect. But you also have to look at the house. What do we mean when we say look at the house, the culture of the organization, the basic assumptions that drive the organization, the systems, the policies, the practices. And if you don't look at those, you run the risk of having an elephant having the difficulties with the giraffe's house, even as he or she gets along with the giraffe.

Another observation. Isms may not be the issue. Often when giraffes and elephants have difficulties, we look for the isms, racism, sexism, ageism, any ism. Now isms often are present. In this case it's not clear that isms are present. It's not clear that giraffes have any isms. Just giraffes built a house for giraffes. Didn't anticipate elephants would be coming in. So it's not clear there are isms, but it is clear that the giraffe may be diversely challenged. What does diversely challenged mean? Now diversely challenged is not assaulting. Basically it's saying this giraffe has difficulty dealing with mixtures characterized by differences and similarities. I'm basically saying that you could substitute for the elephant any other non-giraffe and the giraffe would have difficulty because of the differences presented. And you can tell when a person is having difficulty with diversity. Because it's an across-the-board kind of difference.

A good example is Archie Bunker of All In The Family fame. We often refer to Archie as a bigot, as a racist, as a sexist. May very well have been. But Archie was also severely diversely challenged. What was the clue? He had difficulty across the board. He had difficulty with race, with gender, with ethnicity, with political differences, with economic class differences, across the board. Now the implication here is that there is a possibility in our society, we are going to wake up one morning and say we have made great progress with containing the isms. But yet we still see the symptoms and that's because the symptoms are often related to diversity management and not necessarily to the isms.

So, if you're going to build a house that works for diversity, you have to address the isms and also diversity challenges. Now I can be very clear about this, diversity challenges have not been addressed.

Now, another observation. Being qualified is not necessarily sufficient. The elephant is qualified. Nobody doubts the elephant is qualified. The giraffe says the elephant is qualified, the elephant knows he's qualified. The problem the elephant has, he doesn't fit. Qualified, but doesn't fit. Now, what's a qualified person? One who meets the requirements. There's a distinction between the requirements and personal preferences. Requirements and traditions that are not requirements. Requirements and conveniences. Many of us are driven by non-requirements.

I sometimes talk about foxhole diversity. I'm in a foxhole. The enemy is active all around me. I'm trying to decide who is going to get in the foxhole with me. There are basic questions. Does each candidate that gets in the foxhole with me have his or her faculties? Does each have a gun? Does each have the ability to shoot, does each have the will to shoot? That's about it. Nothing about their race, their gender, where they went to school, what degrees, whatever. Just can they do the job?

I use this with a group of managers and an executive raised his hand and said Roosevelt, let's be very clear. In my foxhole, I want people who at least have their faculties, who have a gun, who can shoot, who will shoot, and who meet my preferences. I said well, whose preferences count? He said well, I understand what I'm saying. I'm just being very candid. I'm not ready for a requirement driven organization. I'm not going to hire qualified persons regardless of whether they fit. Most of us are not ready for requirement driven organization.

One manager said to me, he said Roosevelt, I understand what you're saying. I got to tell you, around my table, if the people there were not my friends as well as competent, I wouldn't be as effective as I am. So what he's basically saying is around my table, I want my friends there. So a qualification, he's treating like a requirement, is friendship. So he's literally screening out people who are competent, but not likely to become his friend. He doesn't realize he's doing this, but that's what he's doing. This is a major, major, major challenge.

Another observation. And this is an observation I don't agree with. The essence of diversity management of a giraffe house is that it works for everyone. Now some people would say an accommodating giraffe house. One that can work for an elephant, it can work for a lion, a horse, a dog, whatever. I disagree. There are problems with an accommodating giraffe house. First of all, an accommodating giraffe house is still a giraffe house. Secondly, the word accommodating, that's a troublesome word. It says if you're going to accommodate me, you're going to tolerate me, you're going to allow me, you're going to grant me a marginality. I don't mind coming to your house and saying my electricity was put out by the storm. Can you allow my family and I to come in for a couple of nights? I don't mind doing that. I don't mind that you're accommodating me for a couple of nights. But I do mind being accommodated for a year, for five years, for ten years. It's not a good feeling to be accommodating. To being tolerated. We use to pat ourselves on the back, we are a tolerant group of people, and we are a tolerant organization. Beginning to understand? It's a good thing to be tolerant. It's not a good feeling to be tolerated. So if you're accommodating a giraffe house is not what we want to do, what do we want to do? We want to build a mission house. What's a mission house?

A mission house is driven by what do we have to do to achieve the mission that we are seeking. That's a major departure. Most organizations don't have mission houses. Here in Los Angeles, I'm a great fan of Phil Jackson. I think Phil Jackson is a great manager of diversity. I think he managed diversity well in Chicago with Dennis Rodman and Michael Jordan. You may recall the last three years he was there he won three consecutive championships. Brought on a fellow named Dennis Rodman, very different from everybody else. You're familiar with Dennis, right? Yeah. Dennis and the rest of the team are a diverse mixture. One of the things that Phil Jackson does well is build a mission house. Even here in Los Angeles, inherited a house, Shaq's house, a Kobe Bryant house, he built a house for the mission. It may not feel good for the giraffes all the time, it may not feel good for the elephant all the time, but if you're committed to the mission, you're okay.

Now one final observation I think is that all of the components of the mixture must address diversity. And we often act as if because it's a giraffe house, only the giraffes have to be skilled at managing diversity. We're beginning to understand that the giraffes and the elephants have to make decisions. A giraffe has to decide under what conditions, if any, would I be willing to talk about changing the giraffe house, this award winning house, this nationally known house. When will I be willing to change that, if at all? And that's a heavy decision.

Let's bring it to down to your successful industry. There's a lot of money on the table. When, if at all, would I be willing to talk about changing the house? Elephant has to decide when, if at all, am I willing to go away to an aerobic studio, ballet studio, come back less of an elephant? And elephants are more than racial elephants here. Gender elephants. Elephants with respect to did you come up through the organization or are you an external hire? Acquisition merger, there are elephants and giraffes. Is there a danger that I'll get caught up somewhere between elephant land, giraffe land and no animal land. And being in no animal land is a very painful place to be.

I was talking to an elephant about two years ago. He had heard me present about a year or so ago. He said, "Roosevelt, tonight you didn't say anything about the giraffe and elephant". I said, "I didn't get around to it tonight". He said, "well, a friend of mine and I were talking and we were talking about the fable. And we said we believe our corporation is a giraffe house, not likely to change in our lifetime". I said, " that might be the case". Then he went on to say my friend tells me I have been hanging around giraffes so much I act like giraffes. And I was about to respond in a joking way and I just happened to glance at him before I responded. And I saw pain. So I started to try to be encouraging. I said, "well, you've done well in a giraffe house, you've earned a lot of money, you've gone far up the hierarchy, you've provided well for your family, a lot to be proud of". He just looked at me, never said a word. Turned and walked away. The look said however, at what cost. I'm in between. Don't feel good about it. Now if we say everybody has to address diversity, that means that the organization has to support effective diversity management by all.

Now these are implications of creating a house that works for diversity. Now you talk about educating. A major educational point we have to make is to help people understand what diversity is, what is diversity management. Most people talking about diversity don't mean diversity. We have not had a discussion about do we want diversity, if so, how much, if so, what kind. We haven't had that discussion. We've had a discussion about representation. And we get nervous about that discussion because we started saying how much it reminds you of quotas.

But if you're going to talk about representation, you have to count. So here's a final point of integration and desegregation. A mission house is an integrated house. A giraffe house of all other kinds of elephants and animals in it is a desegregated house. A desegregated house is an unstable house. There are all kinds of animals jumping around in the house. House not built for them. Now we haven't put integration on our table. We act as if integration and desegregation are the same thing. They are not the same. I can have a representative group of people in the organization, and it still not be integrated.

It would be desegregated, but not integrated.

So these are big things I'm seeing. These are the conclusions that we have started to reach about what do we have to do to make progress. We've been talking about representation for 35 years or more. If we don't put diversity on the table, 35 years later, 2035, we'll be talking about diversity, about representation. And there is really no sign that we are ready to talk about diversity. That's a challenge for you, that's a challenge for the industry, it's a challenge for our country.

We can celebrate representation, but know that it would not be sustainable if you don't talk about managing diversity. Thank you.