Jelly Bean: the Sequel
Feeling cornered, and rightly fearing that the corporate name will never be cleared, the company will contribute to Jesse Jackson when he appears on the scene, and it will redouble its commitment to "managing diversity." This can mean hiring a new level of executives with no known function. It often means forcing employees to endure "diversity training," the only function of which is to ward off lawsuits. "Diversity training is generally nonsense," Alexander said in an unexpected burst of candor that preceded his hiring by the beleaguered folks at Donnelley. "Many managers who go to them think they're laughable." Many columnists think so too.
The loss of face can be enough to make the company lurch toward a quota system. Check out the words of the obviously wounded Texaco chairman and CEO Peter Bijur talking about the "goals--they are not quotas," which have now been "set by determining what the demographics of Texaco's work force are likely to be in the year 2000." Promising to meet demographic-based goals-which-are-not-quotas is diversityspeak for the English sentence: "We are going to have quotas."
Corporate America has not adapted to the new era of huge settlements that are drawing more high-rolling litigators and revenue-hungry diversity entrepreneurs into the field. The Donnelley case shows that three years' worth of diversity programs is no protection. The Texaco case shows that a huge company can be brought to its knees quickly, even by questionable evidence. Somehow sensible policies have to be framed around the right message: Diversity is not a goal; it is the natural byproduct of a genuinely open company that hires and promotes by energy and talent.
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