"Open For Business" Interview Part 2
Monday, January 16, 2006
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Transcript: Part 2 (see Part 1)
Gharib: Continuing now our discussion on diversity, we're back again with Dr. Bernard Anderson of the Wharton school and Dr. David Thomas of the Harvard Business School.
Dr. Anderson, let me begin with you this time about how can minorities move into the executive suite. What's your best advice?
Anderson: My best advice is for boards of directors and senior executives, to seek out and as a matter of specific goal, attract minorities and women into some of the senior positions. That is something that is rarely done in American industry today. Let me be clear. What I mean is seeking out minorities and women... preparing them... tutoring them... mentoring them... doing what is necessary to see that they rise to the highest levels of the corporation. That has been done in some cases. When you look at Ken Chenault at American Express.. you look at Richard Parsons at Time Warner. But the senior executives and the boards have to want this to happen or it won't happen.
Gharib: Let's hear what Dr. Thomas has to say.
What thoughts do you have on minority advancement in the executive suite?
Thomas: Well, I wholeheartedly agree with what Dr. Anderson has said. I would add that thinking about bringing minority executives into the executive suite has to start fairly early in the young executive's career. My observation is that many of the minority senior managers.. by the time they get to be considered for executive level.. have missed key developmental experiences and opportunities that then don't allow them to clear that bar. So I think addressing that development very early in a career is critical.
Gharib: Dr. Anderson I know that you have worked in the Clinton administration. You've worked in government before. Is there anything that the US government can do to set an example to promote diversity at the highest levels in corporations throughout the country?
Anderson: Oh yes, and I'm pleased to say that I was the Assistant Secretary of Labor responsible for the activities of OFCCP among other things. One thing that the federal government can do is to vigorously enforce the law... vigorously enforce the executive order requiring equal employment opportunity and affirmative action for government contractors.
Gharib: Speaking of affirmative action, let me ask you Dr. Thomas.. do you think that affirmative action has been a success or a failure?
Thomas: I think that affirmative action has been a success in terms of creating access at the entry levels of organizations, at lower levels in the professional ranks. I don't think affirmative action has had a great influence on the movement of minorities into the executive levels.
In part, that's because of the focus on numbers, not also on position and access in companies.
Gharib: Let me ask both of you. We've been talking a lot about diversity. Is there anything missing from the current debate and discussion of diversity in America? What should people be focusing on? Dr. Anderson?
Anderson: I think what's missing is to connect affirmative action and diversity. Diversity is a major goal. It is part of the conversation. We hear very little today about affirmative action, but let me tell you, you can't get to diversity without affirmative action. And so I will use that much maligned word "affirmative action" to say that businesses need to have policies and practices in place that seek out minorities and women.
Gharib: Dr. Thomas, what do you think is missing?
Thomas: What I think is missing in the debate and discussion is really how you connect... how we lead organizations to the desire to have diversity in an organization. If those 2 things aren't connected, I think we wind up in a numbers game that gets played at the bottom of the corporation.. and at the periphery of it.. and not at the core, and not at the top. The other thing that I think has been missing in the talk about supplier diversity is a focus on the access of professional service firms as suppliers to companies. By that I mean investment banks, law firms, mutual funds. That dimension has also been missing.
Gharib: Just to wrap it up. It is after all Martin Luther King Day and much of Dr. King's legacy has centered on racial inequality in America. Give us a progress report on where we stand on that today. What more still needs to be done> Dr. Anderson and Dr. Thomas... real quickly... just in a few words...
Anderson: I think a great deal of progress has been made in expanding the doors of opportunity since Dr. King was on the scene. However, let me emphasize we still have a long way to go. The median income of African American families is only 59 percent that of whites. The median income of women is only 75 percent that of men. We have a long way to go, and eliminating racial inequality in American economic life should be the main national goal.
Gharib: Dr. Thomas.. last word?
Thomas: I think that we need to focus more on class and education. There is a group of the African American community who are essentially being put on a path to be locked out of the economy in the 21st century. It will be a major, cataclysmic problem for this nation, I think, if we don't begin to connect that, and businesses begin to see that as being in their interests.
Gharib: Gentlemen thank you so much. We appreciate your time and your insights... We've been speaking with Bernard Anderson, Professor of Management of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and David Thomas, Professor of Business Administration, at the Harvard Business School.
