Here’s something you don’t expect to hear from an HR professional who helps companies with their D&I strategies: “I think stereotyping is a perfectly legitimate technique.”
When that’s how a speaker opens a talk about diversity and inclusion, you know you’re in for a different kind of presentation. And B.J. Glover delivers.
In her DisruptHR talk — “We’re So Fake About Diversity & Inclusion!” — Glover gives us three examples of how organizations are being “fake” about diversity as they applaud themselves on the progress of their programs. It starts, she says, with stereotyping.
Quoting author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about stereotypes — “The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete” — Glover says we make a permanent judgment based on the stereotype. “How many times have you seen a supervisor, manager or HR professional categorize a person based on a first impression or a stereotype, but then place a permanent label on the person for the duration of their career?”
They “prematurely pass judgment on the person’s ability and potential and then their unconscious bias rises to either bless or doom the person so they’re selected or not for development and opportunity. And that is so fake.”
Glover offers us two other examples of where D&I falls short. Take the next 5 minutes to discover how we’re being fake, and what organizations can do to get real about D&I.
In partnership with DisruptHR, TLNT presents some of the best Disrupt presentations from events across North America and now the world. Disrupt talks are modeled on the TEDx concept: Short, to the point talks on all things HR — talent, culture and technology.