Diversity And Dilution

The never-ending struggle of Blacks for parity.

- Rosalind McLymont

When The Network Journal held its first diversity roundtable on 2010, the very concept of “diversity,” with its race and gender association, was still struggling for respect. “Diversity, while still important in many organizations, has really descended on the priority list, where, perhaps publicly, people are talking about it, but where the rubber actually hits the road it’s not high on the priority list. If it doesn’t bring in some kind of revenue, or you haven’t linked it to the business, then it becomes even less of a priority,” said Sherry Snipes, at the time director of diversity and inclusion at The American Institute of Architects. Snipes, a participant in the TNJ roundtable, is now the founder and CEO of Global Diversity Collaborative and president and co-founder of the Diversity Academy Awards + Leadership Institute.

Yet, the shift away from diversity to the broader concept of “inclusion” had already begun. Jackie Glenn, at the time chief diversity officer in the Office of Global Workforce Inclusion at EMC Corp., described this shift during the roundtable. “When you hear ‘diversity,’ a lot of the time it comes with a negative connotation, like, ‘Here we go again; here comes the woman.’ You really want to move the needle and really light a fire under people so they know that it’s not just about race and gender. There is so much that makes up diversity: race, gender, religion, sexual orientation — just a myriad of things. Inclusion helps you to take a broader brush of the entire program. So more and more companies are shifting to include “inclusion” either in a title or in everything they do.” Glenn now is vice president of global diversity at Dell Technologies Inc.