BBC: Microsoft in web photo racism row

[heruamon]

@crumas2

One thing I've learn in organizational behavior training over the years...people tend to fall back on what's comfortable for them, and barring some mechanism to motive them to change their behavior, they will take the path of "least" resistance....that's just human nature. A perfect example is Xerox, which now has an African American female as the CEO (Ursala Burns), and she relieved a white female...that is really astounding, but it shouldn't be...it should be no big deal. My point is that if you look at the progression of Ms. Burns, and read about her path to getting to where she is...it was because of a corporate culture that valued diversity, and one that found that it was the right thing to do...not because of some AA laws on the books, but because it made great business sense. By promoting diversity as a corporate culture, you increase the pool of the talent pool you have to nurture into getting the long term benefits. So, in my corporate retreat this year, this topic was one of our focal points of discussion, and we pretty much when down the path of Xerox, in valuing the benefits of what diversity means, vice trying to answer the mail for some Federal mandates. The other thing it that somehow, diversity always seems to mean issues related to African Americans…as if Hispanics and Asian Americans, and even Women aren’t “minorities” in corporate America.