DiversityInc - Special Issue 2007

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Business From A People Perspective

Editor’s Letter

Don’t Roll Your Eyes

At This One

Itaught a senior-level college course on journalism ethics for years at Rutgers University. I prided myself on how well I communicated with my students and engaged them in dialogues. But a student I had a couple of years ago made me rethink this. This month’s issue on bidirectional communications showed me how often people in leadership positions in corporate America shut their ears to those not saying what they are comfortable hearing.

Despite classes sometimes exceeding 50 students, I always became involved with several students. I would have exciting discussions with them, and I valued their opinions even when we came from different political perspectives. Many became friends for life and some came to work at DiversityInc.

I didn’t gravitate toward them based on race, religion, gender, orientation, ability or socioeconomic status, but they all had one thing in common. They all were the type of students who sat in the front row, were prepared, raised their hands constantly, and were deferential.

Then I met Belmax. She sat in the front and was smart and prepared, and she participated willingly. But instead of agreeing with me, or politely disagreeing, she challenged me on every assumption I had. She was argumentative, assertive, in my face, and put me constantly on the defensive. In the beginning, I shut her out, cutting her off and rolling my eyes at my “favorite” students.

It wasn’t so easy to dismiss her, though, because she was smart and she made many valid points. Then she came to talk to me. “I know you don’t like me,” she said. “You think you know all the answers, but from my perspective, you don’t. The world is changing and your perceptions may need to change as well.”

She was 21; I was 50. She was a student; I was her professor. And yet she opened my eyes to a whole new way of thinking about the subject matter and how I listened to people.

And that’s what bidirectional communication is all about. We all are most comfortable with people like ourselves, whether it’s by race, by orientation, or, in my case, by personality type. Companies that listen to all their employees, creating real bidirectional communication, benefit enormously. In this issue, you’ll see stories of top executives getting real profit-making ideas from employee-resource groups and how companies on The 2006 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity^®list make the most of the ideas of ALL their employees.

What happened to Belmax and me? We learned from each other. She softened her approach and realized those in authority can have good advice and that change is effected more easily without alienating people. I learned that those who come on strong, and disagree with me, shouldn’t be dismissed, which has changed me as a teacher and a professional. A few months ago, I wrote her a recommendation for law school. If I ever get in trouble, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have as my advocate.