Now is truly an exciting time in the United States of America. Our new president’s focus on diversity gives this country the steppingstone to significant cultural change. It is amazing to me that with so much focus on diversity for so long, in so many ways, that the US has not progressed faster or more substantially. In the corporate world, many Diversity & Inclusion officers have been appointed, yet substantive cultural change has not happened. But the numbers game that D&I has been turned into, has been won. Since when has the phrase “our number of women is good enough” been acceptable? We are still losing our youngest and brightest from the Technology industry before they hit middle management. When asked, most will say privately and quietly, that they don’t feel the ability to succeed. I guess the Diversity numbers game has not been so successful after all. Checkbox unticked.
Your diversity challenges will continue if you are playing the numbers game. The reason for diversity is to change thinking, become more productive, make the people happier, and in the end, yes, make the company more successful. If you and I are not on the same page, I suggest you stop reading. Now. These programs cannot be run by HR or treated as a numbers game or box ticking exercise. If progressive leaders (who are real Change Agents) don’t run these programs as part of their business initiatives the corporation will never truly change. When I ran a 5,000-person global technology organization, I knew I had to change its culture. That meant I dropped into the organization to understand and run many litmus tests. Attending scrums, holding skips, drop-in sessions, answering tweets, if you can’t be involved in the change, you won’t have change. And this is why I can write authoritatively on the need for infusing diversity into digital transformation.
Why did I change my career in 2020? To focus on Transformation and Diversity? I am at that stage in my life where my impact on organizations/people is far more important to me than my actual resume successes. My passion for Diversity Focus while digitally transforming organizations can now be combined with unique results. If there is one phrase everyone is using today, that’s “Digital Transformation”. If you are going to digitally transform, it makes sense to inject diversity into the technical teams. This is an excellent place for retraining women with current skill sets. And it’s a great way to inject cultural change.
Let’s take advantage of the current US political situation and take it for a ride! And…Let’s change the culture of the country. Truly.
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Gabriella Szasz
Sr. Partner