The Challenge of Taking D&I Global
Last week, I was in Chile meeting with HR counterparts and business stakeholders. It was a fantastic trip, and an opportunity to engage with colleagues and culture in ways that I hadn’t done in quite a while. Midway through the trip, I was on a conference call with the HR Managers from each country in our Latin American region, discussing Diversity & Inclusion (D&I). During our conversation, it became clear that any effort to have a discussion about “diversity and inclusion in the Latin American region” would be built upon a certain amount of falsehood. It became clear that there could be no single regional focus, because there was no single regional set of needs. What matters right now to the team in Brazil (LGBTQ issues) is different from what matters to the team in Chile (gender equality). And as we move forward, I fully expect to find that the needs in Mexico and Peru are as diverse as the respective workforces in each country.
It started me thinking about the pitfalls inherent in the implementation of a global D&I strategy. When we began this work at Joy Global, I had someone advise me that we should start in North America – that we should “walk before we run.” And there’s certainly some validity to that approach. But it didn’t feel right to me at the time. It felt “off” to talk about the importance of including everyone while we formed a D&I effort that was focused on a single geographic region.
So we pulled together an Advisory Council from around the world, and as we head into the next phase of our implementation, I’m realizing that it’s not quite enough. In fact, our Advisory Council member from Brazil, who was initially charged with “representing Latin America” came to me to suggest that he needs representatives from each of the Latin American countries where we do business, so that he can engage those representatives in our local implementation efforts.
Like so many things on this topic, we’re learning much, much more as we go. In a 2009 report from the Conference Board, titled “Diversity and Inclusion: Global Challenges and Opportunities”, authors Charles Mitchell and Stephanie J. Creary write:
“Taking diversity and inclusion global is not about the export of specific programs, but about creating a movement and infusing energy into a global corporate value system that holds diversity and inclusion as a fundamental tenet. A critical issue that D&I professionals struggle with is how to keep the uniqueness of their national culture and still address the shared goal of embedding diversity and inclusion into day-to-day operations.”[1]
Here again, there’s a balance to be struck. A global mindset that informs local action – and local needs that help to inform global strategy. Not surprisingly, a picture emerges of global D&I that is more complex than initially imagined. The good news is that, in order to even ascertain the complexities of D&I in a global organization, you need A LOT of people to be involved. And having a lot of people – a lot of advocates – means that movement that Mitchell and Creary refer to can spread much more quickly.
So where does that leave our burgeoning D&I strategy at Joy Global? I think it looks something like this:
At the global level – D&I vision, strategy, policy, and some (most?) educational sourcing – focus on gender diversity, generational diversity, innovation (diversity of thought), and confronting unconscious bias in our common global processes.
At the regional level – Local leadership buy-in, leveraging local communication tools and processes – focus on language and linguistic bias, differences in organizational culture, and cross-cultural competency.
At the country level – Identify and focus on D&I business drivers that resonate most clearly with employees – focus (as appropriate) on issues of race, ethnicity, nationality, class, sexual orientation, physical ability, and religion.
It’s not a surprising development. In fact, we knew it was coming a while ago. For example, discussions about race are much more urgent in the United States than in China or Chile. In Chile, there’s a desire to focus on issues of physical ability and disability. In China, language and national culture are key. In South Africa, this topic has been managed in a very different way for decades, and we'd be wrong to charge in saying that we have the answer because we're dealing with issues of race in the U.S.
As D&I practitioners, we need to be willing (and equipped) to assess, integrate, and guide the local implementation of global strategy. That means adopting a global mindset. It means listening more than talking. And it means being open to learn from our colleagues around the globe. Because really, if there was ever an area of the business that defies a “one size fits all” approach, it’s got to be D&I.
[1] Charles Mitchell and Stephanie J. Creary, “Diversity and Inclusion: Global Challenges and Opportunities”, www.conference-board.org, 2009.
