How could the word "Diversity" become a verb for inaction and apathy? A word now confounded that its meaning is lost. Exactly how did it go from communicating something fervent to cynicism and suspicion? The answer is found through a combination of overuse, ambiguity, inertia, and narcissistic purposes.

Several years ago, during a Silicon Valley conference designed to strategize the lack of diversity in a male-dominated environment. The head of the said firm, anxious to announce their new offerings of raising the bar, proudly noted how they invested in diversity by putting its employees through unconscious bias training.  The company executive John Doerr quipped, "We have two new partners who are so diverse, I have a challenge pronouncing their names." Read the article in Money/CNN

Doerr quickly apologized for his "unfortunate joke." However, his merging of exciting additions with substantial changes in hiring and recruitment habits unintentionally revealed what's so frustrating about the omnipresence of the word "diversity."

 It has become both an understatement and a platitude and expedient shortcut that points to inclusivity and representation without taking either sincerely.

Many firms are rushing to hire executives to focus on diversity. There are frequent openings for "Head of Diversity and Belonging." Although at companies large and small, women and minorities even now make up an abysmal fraction of the skilled workforce. The limited exceptions are always held up as evidence of more widespread change, which is moronic as if a few people could by themselves constitute diversity.

Diversity has become an empty descriptor. While we still firmly believe in its possibility. We prefer the word "equity" to "diversity." Diversity has been diluted the roots of multicultural movements of years past. Diversity has become a code word for "those other folks." The problem with such terms is that they're lazy and useless: Instead of specificity, they are broad and give traction for apathy. Leading to meanderings of:

I don't know how to do this

What does it mean?

Can someone else do the work for me?

Talk is cheap and all too common. One can get the impression that the people talking the most about diversity are doing the least successful work.  

When the word diversity is proudly used from a corporate perspective, it acquires a specific luster. It gives an individual or company moral integrity, i.e., racial capitalism. It is signifying a person or group gaining value from the racial identity of another. As though one's cheerfully and frequently speaking, the word "diversity" is comparable to doing the work of actually making it a certainty.

This disengagement isn't limited to any particular segment.  In a survey of employees, 89% of white respondents did not identify any actual change in the racial composition of the workforce despite increased attention given to diversity. And yet, as is the case with numerous organizations, small victories are zealously celebrated as evidence of more tremendous shifts.

Why are there such disparities between the advancement that leaders and managers claim they want to act out and what they do? One element of the problem is that no one has resolved what diversity entails. Is it a variety of types of people on boards or those given plum diversity and inclusion positions? Is it unprocessed numbers? Is it those who are positions to recruit and terminate and shape culture? Perhaps it is in the underrepresented who may be in power someday.

About Jim Woods

Jim Woods has been a global diversity and inclusion expert since 1998. He advocates linking strategic interventions to bottom-line business results. He is a D&I innovator and respected thought leader, having written numerous leadership books and contributed to many publications on the subject of strategic diversity and inclusion and leadership solutions. As President and CEO of Woods Kovalova Group, he has had the privilege of working with clients that include Whirlpool, the U.S. Army, Homeland Security, Deseret Bank, Seimens, and myriad organizations and individuals everywhere.

He has taught fifth-grade math and science along with teaching human resources and leadership on the university level. Mr. Woods holds a bachelors’ degree in business administration and leadership. Including a master’s of science in organizational development and human resources.

He delights crowds as a speaker and is an accomplished children’s book author. Mr. Woods landed his second Fortune 1000 client while homeless living in his car. Work with Jim.