Author: Susan E. Reed
Year: 2011
Publisher: Amacom
Pages: 294
Doing business today isn’t like it was 30 years ago. The typical clients have changed: They are more savvy, men and women of all age groups, and are smarter about where they shop.
But has your staff changed with the times? In The Diversity Index: The Alarming Truth About Diversity in Corporate America … and What Can Be Done About It, author Susan E. Reed writes that you can strengthen your workplace by letting go of archaic hiring practices.
The problem is, Reed saves her solid ideas for readying your business for the global future until the end. Her book really is more of a history of how we attained the progress we have.?
For example, President Lyndon B. Johnson and the presidents of several large defense corporations, including Boeing and Lockheed, signed several contracts that stipulated that the companies would expand their efforts to locate, employ and train minority workers, and place them in management positions. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People dismissed the idea, called Plans for Progress, as “nothing but hype,” but the contractors eventually succeeded in integrating their all-white management teams.
Still, Reed writes, “almost 50% of the Fortune 100 companies employed no African, Asian, Hispanic or Native American men as executive officers in 2009,” and workers today are stymied by what she calls a “white ceiling” that might or might not exclude women from positions of power.
By mixing politics and the past, Reed shows that the road to a less-homogeneous workplace has been pitted with struggle. This history is interesting, though dry as dust, and I was disappointed. I wanted more information on how to make diversification happen, and it’s just barely there.
