I just love these Diversity Groups, don’t you? All for one and one for all … Yaaay!! What a great time to be alive. Since the death of the late George Floyd and so many other precious black folks, everyone has jumped on the proverbial ‘bandwagon’. I stand Amazed!! Did you ever hear of IR … IR, you know! Well, I hear it’s here to stay.
KEEP IT REAL!
Let me tell you about it. It kinda looks like this… you know when you were a teenager and your mother was downstairs cleaning and you were up in your room diligently cleaning with sweat on your brow …. Keep it Real!! The truth is when you heard her footsteps coming up those stairs, you were falling off the bed and over yourself trying to lunge for the garbage and dirty socks that were still there when she checked the last time. Mom reached the bedroom door and she suspiciously did an eye sweep and said something like “okay, keep at it” you thought you fooled her but when she left your gaze she rolled her eyes, later to return and look into your closet and under the bed?
INCIDEOUS RACISM
Yes this new IR, this Incideous Racism … As if the diversitor (the company) & the diversee (management) … yes I’m making up words … don’t know what’s going on. We know both parties are aware of what the diversee’ motives are. It shouldn’t be shocking that most diversity groups are ‘hard-pressed’ to be truly effective. The parties are well aware that the ‘diversee’ feels like a Beta test being prepped for an ‘online’ course! Perhaps has no desire to participate but it’s their job, so effective or ineffective; fait accompli!. Where does this leave IR? On the Rise.
This has been going on for decades and the diversee (manager) cannot be corporately manipulated into instituting effective change. There is only one way this can be done and it’s truly not rocket science. What is it? Well it’s obvious, isn’t it. If the manager cannot see it they will not believe it. If they see it they will know what it looks like and then implement change. So you may ask, how do they see it so they can believe it? How do they know what it looks like so they can implement change?
WHAT TO DO??
Put managers on the front line of course. Let them experience the tangibility of the problems, the challenges. A ‘cookie-cutter’ approach will never work, or a ‘do it because I said so’ either. This hasn’t really worked for decades. Now a quality 2-day training would be very effective just before you strategize as to how this new tangible approach to their new management style needs to be implemented; Register all employees for the two-day training. Doubble Consciousness Fundamentals and Doubble Consciousness Advanced. What an amazing and very effective opportunity! Register now!!
Sandra McKechnie
Doubble Consciousness
(Double Consciousness W.E. B. Du Bois)