inclusion for their group, having
an impact on the buying decisions
and image of our products with
our customers, and letting us know
about external relationships that
we need to build and/or enhance.
One of the design principles is that
the executive sponsor cannot be a
member of that constituency group
because we want their advocacy to
be unfettered, and the governance
for our diversity will change from
the structure that we’ve had to the
co-chairs of all 10 of those groups.
WILEY-LITTLE: Back in December [2006], I brought in all of our
employee-network groups … to
have one conversation. They were
so excited about the connectedness
that they had that now we’ve set
up an executive board that really
works with all of those groups.
These are the officers, leaders, and
they’re really moving the mission of
these employee-network groups in
a really forceful way in the organization, much stronger than they
could in individual groups. All of
the employee-network sponsors,
who are officers of the company,
have formed a board. This board
really drives the actions of these
employee-network groups, so [it
is] really connecting the things
that they find in common and
bringing these groups together.
They can take the
integrity of what’s different
about them and appreciate them but also bring
those collective ideas
together. And they’re a bigger
force for the organization, when
you have this one group talking
and having a similar conversation,
versus just one of those sponsors.
LESSON 3
LESSON 2
LARSON: We’ve been building out
a whole new model for employee-resource networks. Ours is what
we call an enterprise ERN council,
when the leaders of the ERNs come
together, but we also use a little
executive-adviser structure—one
within identity, one across. We’re
laser-focused on building out the
strategic partnerships between the
employee-resource networks and
the organization. So we’re literally
developing partnership agreements
between the ERNs and business
units within the organization.
