January/February Dilemma Results: "Delivering the goods" without losing your integrity By Patti Digh and David Robinson, presenters of Session 1: January 23, 2007: Leaning into our discomfort around inclusion The January/February Dilemma asked participants what they would do when asked to choose between their CEO and their integrity. After you were hired to create a diversity strategy for a pharmaceutical company, you discovered that your CEO doesn't really believe that business has a social responsibility, but knows that a "commitment to diversity" will help the company get on the "Top Places to Work" list. You are passionate about diversity efforts, unlike your coworkers, who balk at the mention of diversity training. They say diversity isn't relevant to their work and they let you know it at every opportunity. The CEO has her eye on Fortune magazine because it's the time of year to rank companies on their diversity efforts. Her goal? To be on the cover, the envy of her peers! She calls you into her office to tell you that you will be interviewed tomorrow by Fortune and that she expects you to "deliver the goods." You know that nothing has really changed in the organizational culture since you arrived. You have more people of color on staff but the retention rate of women and minorities is still low, and while you've conducted diversity training every quarter for the past year, you can see no difference in the organization. What would you do? Support your CEO and give a glowing report about the diversity successes of the company. Challenge your CEO saying this is an opportunity for the company to distinguish itself, to discuss what others won't, that is the deeper challenges of diversity work within organizations and the truth about how difficult it is to measure intangible rewards in a system centered on tangible ones. Ask that the reporter also interview people of color within the organization to get their perspective. Refuse to do the interview. Update your resume. Other: Results: Top Choice: B. A large majority (62 percent) of participants chose to challenge the CEO. This would be a great opportunity to discuss what others won't and for the company to distinguish itself. Second Choice: C. 14 percent of the respondents would ask the reporter to also interview people of color within the organization to get their perspective. Third Choice: D. 11 percent would not compromise their integrity and refuse to do the interview altogether. Fourth Choice: A. Only two participants (5 percent) would support the CEO by giving a glowing report about the diversity successes of the company. Three participants gave additional comments: I believe allowing people that make up the diverse components of the organization should provide feedback regarding how well diversity is or is not embraced. Engage the CEO's self interest that this is a way she can show her ability as a leader. I would also be updating my resume in case even this suggestion is unwelcome. Challenging the CEO is admittedly the toughest thing to do, but in my mind, the only thing not only for your integrity, but also for the health of the company. A total of 37 people participated in the January/February Diversity Dilemma on DiversityCentral.com November/December Dilemma Results: How would YOU handle negative feedback? By Michael Hyter, presenter of Session Six: November 8, 2006: Recovering from taking a wrong exit: Turning negative feedback (failure) into a positive, capacity-building outcome The November/December Dilemma asked participants what they would do in the face of negative feedback. In this instance, imagine you are a Senior Customer Service Specialist for a company that is slowly but steadily losing market share to an aggressive competitor, in spite of developing some impressive new products. Your company's new CEO has challenged all employees to contribute to the company's turnaround. He wants to get everyone in the organization thinking and focused on solving these problems, and coming up with ideas to reverse the company's slow decline. The CEO creates "Customer Satisfaction Committees" (CSCs) for each major product line. CSCs are charged with identifying workable ways to improve customer satisfaction and product loyalty. Employees have been asked to submit their ideas directly to the CSCs. You are intrigued - even excited - by the new CEO's vision and have spent a considerable amount of time coming up with some ideas that you believe will improve customer satisfaction and may even increase sales. You decide to take your ideas directly to Joe Phillips, one of the members of the CSC. When you finish your presentation, he says, "I don't think this is something we can afford to do. Your recommendation is way too aggressive and way too costly - but you should feel free to share it with the rest of the committee." What would you do in the face of this negative feedback? Your options: A. Think you've wasted your time and decide to forget about your ideas. B. Decide to disregard Joe Phillips' comments and give the presentation to the other three members of the committee. C. Decide to ask your manager for support and work with her to tighten up your recommendations and present them to the whole committee in a more persuasive way. D. Other Results: Top Choice: C. Overwhelmingly 83 percent of participants would ask their manager for support and present their ideas to the entire CSC committee. Second Choice: B. Six percent of the participants would have disregarded Joe's comments and presented their original idea to the other members of the committee. Third Choice: A. Only five percent of the participants would have forgotten the whole thing. Another six percent of participants choice other responses: I would ask the person for the rationale behind why he thought the idea was too risky and costly - hear him out and then figure out if there are other alternatives to get to where we needed to be in terms of addressing his concerns. Get support from manager and also get feedback from other members of the committee before making the presentation. I would ask for specifics from Joe regarding what areas he felt were too aggressive and costly. Then I would present an alternative to these specifics, as well as present justification and facts to show how the additional spending would eventually benefit the company. Then if the proposal were denied, I could walk away with a clear conscious that I had made an effort and they would have to live with the rejection. A total of 62 people participated in the November/December Diversity Dilemma on DiversityCentral.com More: Participate in our current Diversity Dilemma back to top

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