DiversityInc - February 2010

EDI TOR’SLE T TER

;DIVERSITYINC BENCHMARKING;

The Dangers of the
Two-Year Plan

Q If your child was competing to go to a top-rated college, would you advise her to skip her junior year of high school so she could reflect on what she had learned in her sophomore year?

Q If you and another executive were vying for a top job, would you take a year off to mull over what you needed to do while your rival surged ahead?

A Of course not. Why, then, do some companies think it is a good strategy to benchmark their diversity efforts every two years, taking a year off to assess and implement recommendations?

To use a tried-and-true cliché, it’s because they are “penny wise and pound foolish.” They’ve been given an action plan on what they need to do to get to the next level, so they tell us they’ll put it forth, get some results, and then come back two years later to see how they are doing. This approach ignores reality, however.

The business world is increas-
ingly competitive, and strong
diversity management more and
more is the differentiator between
getting business and going out of
business. Companies that excel at
this—and their number grows each
year—are constantly evaluating
what others are doing and using
that information to create their
own solutions. In the war for
talent, which yields the innovative
ideas that drive business, if you
don’t stay ahead of the game, you
fall behind quickly.

In the early years of the DiversityInc Top 50 survey (now in its 10th year), we noted how some companies would rest on their laurels and fall behind, or off the list, while newer entrants surged ahead. Those on the two-year benchmarking plan should take a lesson from those companies, many of which never recovered and some of which are no longer in business. This subject requires attention, vigilance and persistence. That won’t work on the two-year plan.