How to Handle White

Middle-Managers
by Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.
President & CEO, Thurgood Marshall College Fund
Former Chairman, Society for Human Resource Management
N NEARLY 20 YEARS OF WORK AS A LABOR AND
employment lawyer in a multi-national law firm, as an
in-house counsel for large companies, a chief human resources
executive for a Fortune 500 company, and as the Chairman
of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM),
nothing has proven more challenging than convincing white, male
middle-management types why diversity should matter to them. But
I think I figured it out. About 10 years ago, after banging my head
against the wall trying to articulate a succinct and compelling case for
diversity for this important subset of the corporate world, I developed
a less emotional, very practical approach.
Rather than making them feel guilty (you need to do this because
these poor, diverse people have been victims for too long) or scaring
them (youre going to face a huge class-action lawsuit and your kids
are going to be embarrassed to call you Dad), I said diversity is simply
one more thing you need to embrace if you want to be successful. I
found that when you simply engaged in conversations about how to
make them successful at their jobs, you took away the emotionally-
charged debate of whether diversity was good or bad, necessary or not,
or should be compulsory or voluntary.
For example, years ago I ran human resources for a Paramount
Pictures division when many of our geographic markets had unem-
ployment rates below two percent. I knew a diversity recruitment
initiative was a possible solution to our staffing woes, but I also knew
the conservative, white, male district manager running this particular
market was not going to be receptive to anything labeled diversity. So
I took a different approach.
I explained to him that we needed to fish in different ponds because
he was leaving money on the table by not having enough employees on
the retail floor selling his product. I ar-
ranged a meeting between him and two
community leaders from the Latino and
Asian markets in California and suggest-
ed we develop hiring partnerships with
them to identify talented employees.
Careful not to mention diversity, I
showed him how this new population
presented an opportunity to staff his
business. He immediately got it. In less
than a month, he was fully-staffed and
his districts financial performance was
fabulous. More importantly, within six
months, he had promoted two of his
new employees to supervisory roles
adding to the diversity of his manage-
ment team. This all worked without
forcing a diversity initiative down his
throat.
In my experience, entry-level profes-
sionals and senior-level executives are
not as resistant to diversity initiatives as
the white, male middle-manager. And
instead of ramming diversity initiatives
down his throat, which may create
diversity but never results in inclusion,
solving a real-life business issue for him
by tapping into diverse markets was a
better strategy. PDJ
t a c k l i n g t o u g h p r o b l e m s
In my experience, entry-level professionals and senior-level
executives are not as resistant to diversity initiatives as the
white-male middle manager.
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www. diversi t yj our nal . com MAy/ j une 2 0 11 41