Years ago, I worked for a major ad agency and our biggest client was a car company. The auto industry has become more diverse, but it's still pretty much dominated by White male executives. At the time that I worked with this car company, there were some women in top positions, but no people of color in executive positions. In fact, there were very few people of color in the organization at all.

This car company had a big heart, a corporate soul, if you will. They always tried to do the right thing, not just the most cost‐efficient thing. They rarely terminated anyone—they'd demote them to some lower level job if the individual wasn't performing. Their corporate culture was big on caring for their employees.

As “diversity” became a topic that more and more large companies were facing and addressing, this car company tried to address it too. They promoted Barbara, an administrative assistant, to the role of diversity marketing manager. Barbara is Black. She fit their requirements for “diversity” because of her race. The problem was, she didn't fit the requirements for a marketing professional, nor had she ever managed anyone or any department or project before. She's been in a support role her entire career. She was outstanding in that role, and—you guessed it—she was terrible in the role of diversity marketing manager.

The car company did what they thought was right. They wanted to show their associates and the world that they embraced diversity and promoted from within. Heck, they wanted to show that they even had a diversity marketing department—with its own manager! But it was a house of cards and was doomed to fail from the start. There was no diversity work being done and, therefore, the “diversity marketing manager” had no one and nothing to “manage.” More important, she didn't know the first thing about marketing. She had no training, background, or experience in marketing of any kind.

Barbara tried mightily to learn her job and make contributions. But she was ineffective because she was in over her head. She knew nothing about marketing—not even the “lingo”—how could she? She'd never even been in marketing meetings before!

Because Barbara didn't have the skills to do her job, it was a disaster. She made bad decisions and costly mistakes because she lacked experience. It was very difficult for all the people who worked with her because they had to stop and explain the most basic things to her. They had to spend tons of time discussing fundamentals, essentially training her, on a daily basis. This made her coworkers frustrated, and sometimes even mad. They were exasperated, impatient, and resentful. Worst of all, they didn't respect her in her position because she clearly wasn't qualified. Behind her back, there was eye‐rolling and conversations about how “she only got the job because she's Black.”

Poor Barbara. None of it was her fault. She didn't hire on at the company as a marketing manager, she didn't aspire to that role, heck, she didn't even apply for the job! Upper management just appointed her to it because of the color of her skin.

It was a terrible decision. There was no way she could succeed—she didn't have the training, background, or resources. She had nothing but a title and everyone knew it. And this terrible decision caused a domino effect that put their entire diversity initiative in a bad light:

1. Promote Barbara because she's Black.
2. Barbara doesn't have the skills to do the job.
3. Barbara fails in the role because she's not qualified.
4. Everyone sees Barbara failing and they say, “She can't do the job. She only got it because she's Black.”
5. Because she's not qualified or effective, everyone dismisses Barbara.
6. And they also dismiss the entire diversity effort because it can't be taken seriously. Ugh—what a mess!

Barbara ultimately left the company. I think her experience in that role was so painful that she no longer wanted to work there. She knew people resented her and didn't respect her in the position. There were whispers of “tokenism.” She could feel the eye‐rolling and she was miserable.

This is not what the car company intended. They meant well. They truly wanted to do the right thing, but it was a colossal mistake. They inadvertently damaged Barbara's reputation within the company, which damaged their entire diversity effort—along with management's credibility with decision making. And, at the end, they lost a good employee. What an awful outcome all the way around!

In hindsight, it seems so obvious: any time you put someone in a position they're not qualified for or ready for, and you give them zero training and support, they're almost certainly going to fail. No matter how much you like a person or how sincerely you believe in equality and giving people chances, if that individual is not qualified to do a job, but they get the job because they have a certain skin color, or a disability or they are a certain gender or belong to any other minority group, you've probably made a bad decision.

But you're reading this book because you value diversity. You know it's important, and you want diverse perspectives and experience on your team. What should you do when it comes to hiring? How do you get the talent you need and avoid creating a situation like the one Barbara was in?

IT'S NOT AS SIMPLE AS “THE BEST PERSON FOR THE JOB”

You've heard it: “Just hire the best person for the job.” That's a good goal, but in today's business world that approach doesn't always go far enough. The truth is—and business psychology supports this—we all gravitate to people who are like us. We gravitate to those who either look like us, have similar backgrounds or experience, or share our views. It's doesn't make us bad people—it's how we are wired as humans. We seek out—and are most comfortable with—those who are similar to us.

But we need diversity to be leading edge and innovative. How do you hire diverse talent and avoid tokenism?

BRING IT BACK TO BUSINESS

I think some business hires are made so that the company, or the hiring executive, can “check the diversity box” and feel they've done the right thing when it comes to bringing diverse talent on board. But as the case with Barbara showed, if you don't take care of the business, you're not moving forward; you're just creating problems of a different nature.

When I say “taking care of the business,” I mean using business goals and business objectives as your driving motivation for diverse hires, not some politically or socially correct mindset or “we are the world” mentality. I'm not putting those motivations down—but you're running a business, not a campfire “kumbaya” singalong.

Start with the business situation that is calling for diverse talent. For example, when CoverGirl cosmetics launched ads with their first Muslim model wearing a hijab, it wasn't to appease liberal customers or demonstrate how trendy and inclusive they are. The Muslim personal cosmetics and personal care market is worth more than $54 billion as of this writing and is expected to exceed more than $80 billion in the next few years. There are millions of Muslim women who want to express their faith and that they're fashion forward, and makeup lets them do that. Sure, CoverGirl does get credit for being inclusive with this ad campaign, but there is a true business opportunity at the root of it, and that's true of all successful business initiatives.

DON'T HIRE THE WRONG PERSON—JUST TO SATISFY A DESIRE FOR DIVERSITY

The tech industry is closely watched for so many reasons: business growth, jobs creation, innovative products, and global impact as the whole world will eventually be online and connected to one another. Diversity hasn't been tech's strength though—most tech firms are still overwhelmingly staffed by White men. Tech firms are trying to change this and that's a good thing. But at a Denver tech conference, a panelist stated that the next hire at her company would be a person of color. A fellow panelist quickly chimed in and urged caution: “Be careful about making that next person a token and making them representative of everyone else that is not like your current team.” It was wise advice.

It's good to look for opportunities to diversify your team, but I like how Julie Penner of TechStars sees diverse hiring: she sees it as “what's next?” That's a great way to keep diversity rooted in business and avoid tokenism. When CoverGirl looked for markets that are expanding, they saw the growth of the Muslim market and their research found that observant Muslim women want to adhere to their faith and still look pretty. Expanding their marketing efforts to reach Muslim women was a logical “what's next?” step.

TOP DOWN BEATS BOTTOM UP

Adding diverse people at the beginning of the hiring process, or top of the hiring funnel, is the way to start. That way, you're looking at a candidate pool that is diverse and then making the best decision for your company from the pool of candidates. That certainly beats hiring a diverse person and hoping you end up with the right skill set and chemistry for your team. If you include diverse talent throughout the process, you'll find that your hires will become more diverse over time and you'll be hiring the right person for the job.

How do you find good candidates to include at the beginning of the hiring process?

Here are four effective strategies that companies use:

1. Recruit in nontraditional venues.
   • If you always advertise job openings in the same forums or recruit from the same schools or peer groups, you'll continue to attract the same kind of talent you've always gotten. Think of new, nontraditional ways or venues to broaden your recruiting. The New York Times works with the National Association of Black Journalists to broaden their applicant pool. They've also developed outreach programs in historically Black colleges and universities to attract top Black talent.
2. Provide mentoring.
   • Make sure that your diverse associates have the mentoring they need to succeed. Mentoring not only guides associates in decision making and problem solving, it also gives the person being mentored a sounding board to discuss corporate culture and what it takes to be successful in a particular environment or team.
3. Offer parental leave or leaves of absence and review your jobs for pay equity.
   • Research shows that, even in married households with two working spouses, women shoulder more of the household work and responsibilities than men do. And many women are single parents, caring for aging parents or loved ones in addition to juggling a busy household and a full‐time job. If you want to attract more women associates to your company or team, it helps if you have benefits in place that women tend to need. The ability to take time off to care for a family member speaks volumes about a company and may help you recruit women executives who are in demand. The same goes for pay equity. If you want top talent, compensate fairly and equitably.
4. Standardize the hiring questions you use.
   • This is a subtle but important step. Because we tend to gravitate to people who are like we are, we tend to speak in certain ways when we are around those who are like us. You don't want to “tilt” a candidate's response to an interview question, so it's important to ask questions in the same way. This helps avoid any bias in interviewing and gives candidates the same opportunity in responding to questions.

When you hire talented associates who are not like you, and you do it the right way, for the right reasons, you'll be amazed at how your team will perform. You'll not only avoid tokenism, you'll reach new levels of productivity, employee engagement, and financial success. Your business will flourish and so will your team.

In the next chapter, we'll tackle the next level in managing diverse teams: how to navigate the waters of promotions and professional development for your people.