The below transcript is from an August 2011 interview with Rosalyn Taylor O’Neale, VP, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Campbell Soup.  Interviewees for the series Diversity and Inclusion: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow were asked for their personal opinions and not those reflective of their current or past employer.  The views expressed are not necessarily those of any employer or this website.

Quick Question Links:
Personal History – CDO Role – D&I Origins – D&I Business Reason – Manager Conversation – Learning Tools – Workforce Application – Dimensions of Difference – Redo? – No Need for CDO Role – Most Advanced Country – Future Prediction

Dagoba Group: Please give our readers a brief overview of your history within the D&I space.

I entered the D&I space in the early 80’s at Digital Equipment Corporation which was later purchased by Hewlett Packard.  I worked with pioneers in the industry including Judith Katz, Kaleel Jamison and Ted Childs.  After ten years at DEC I became a consultant and built a successful consulting practice from 1990 to 2002.  During that time I had five to eight year relationships with high tech, large manufacturing  companies and consumer products.  I spent two years as the VP of Diversity Initiatives at MTV Networks before going off writing a book and then coming here.

Dagoba Group: You obviously have a broad cross-industry experience. If you were going to pick an industry you feel most affiliated, which one do you currently connect best?

Consumer Products

Dagoba Group: As a diversity officer, what are the overall responsibilities do you believe should be for a CDO?

I think the CEO should view the CDO in the same way you see the CFO.  It is the person who uses the lens of diversity and inclusion  to see the world from 30,000 feet up and is able to identify major D&I opportunities and obstacles that will affect the organization in the future.  The CDO asks, “What direction are we going and will it take us where we want to go?”  On the ground, the CDO helps the leadership team develop those practices, processes and mindsets that allow them to achieve whatever the end goal is for the organization.  The CDO’s work is to provide the D&I links, information, technology, and understanding for the leadership team in the same way the CFO provides the financial direction.

Dagoba Group: Often we hear corporate diversity initiatives originated in response to legal compliance. You spoke about going back to the 80’s with your D&I experience.  Do you believe this is true for the consumer products industry?

I think for some organizations that was the impetus.  In other organizations, it was a drive to understand how do we get a consumer base we do not currently have?  So in the consumer products companies like Campbell Soup it is identifying and understanding new and emerging consumers.  That is different from a focus on  how do we make sure we are in legal compliance.  I think in some organizations, it really did start from the affirmative action EEO.  In other organizations it started, driven by, the consumer demographic changes and highlighted by the employee demographic changes.  In the 90s a group of American Express LGBT employees identified a gap in serving  the LGBT traveler.  The resulting changes in advertising and marketing led to measurable increases in a new consumer base.

Dagoba Group:  I’m curious what do you see as a difference from a company that is coming from a place where they are motivated by EEO compliance as compared to those motivated by penetrating new markets?

Well, in B2C companies I think that the consumer motivation will resonate more with your leadership team more rapidly and more easily.  I believe that the problem with using EEO compliance to motivate people is that they will declare victory based on limited increases or only make changes out of fear. And fear is not a good motivator for change.  So the demographic change for B2C companies is one that will resonate more easily and have a longer life.

Dagoba Group:  What portion of D&I stems from the need to be legally compliant versus a legal decision within the consumer products industry?

20% around legal compliance and 80% around business.

Dagoba Group: When do you believe D&I became a business reason (non-legal compliant) focus within the corporate world? Why?

Probably about the mid 90s.  In about the mid 90s you started to see the economic shift in the US.  You also began to see more companies becoming multinational and having offshore organizations.  They weren’t really global, but they were operating outside the U.S.. They had offshore business. And affirmative action EEO (in the tradional sense ) didn’t translate as well for the leaders from non-US operations and non-US locations.   In the late 90s early 2000s there were economic results that absolutely drove it further.  Organizations began to understand that they not only wanted the traditional consumer base, but a younger, more ethnically diverse consumer base.  So they began to advertise differently.  They began to seek ways to attract a different demographic into the store.

Dagoba Group:  Do you believe there is still a lot of work to be done on developing the business case behind D&I?

Oh yes!  In part because there is a difference in understanding Scenario A which is “We take our products and make it look like the stereotype and they will buy it.” and Scenario B which is “We have to build an affinity with the people inside and outside our organization in order to be able to understand what drives buying behavior.”  These are very  views.  Scenario A sees the Hispanic and Latino market challenges in terms of whether the product has a Spanish sounding name.  The other way is to understand how Nike built their affinity with Latino youth both from an inside and an outside perspective.  That is the difference.  If you think about cereals and hotdogs or in our case soups and beverages, it is really about scenario B which is how do we build an affinity so we can authentically create products for the broader consumer base.

Dagoba Group:  It interests me that you use the word affinity. It reminds me of the story from Frito Lay.  Their Hispanic affinity group were tasked with business reasons.  They were tasked with finding ways to connect with their targeted consumer audience.  One of the products that came out was the guacamole chip.  That line is now a $100M revenue generation from that affinity group idea.  Along the line of that story, does one similar pop into your head.  Maybe like Dora Explorer which is part of MTV networks.

Dora The Explora was an excellent example of how diversity impact positive business results..  The head of Nickelodeon was Hispanic.  As is true for some white Hispanics, many people did not know he was Hispanic/Latino.  In the early 2000s he met with a Latino friend of his who said, ”I have this character and think it would be really great because little kids like learning languages and like playing with different words that mean the same thing.”  Because the executive was Latino he was open to having the conversation about Dora The Explorer, a little Latino girl who spoke both English and Spanish. She became the number one character outselling Mickey and Minnie.

Dagoba Group:  Last time I looked it was a billion dollar year enterprise for them.

Yes, phenomenal! Just phenomenal.  I think what really happened was the executive became much more comfortable being Latino and he was more open to having the conversation.  I am not sure that someone else might be as open to the the idea of Dora.  It was just at the right time.  It was early in the Hispanic/Latino movement.  It is a perfect example how an inside employee, especially since he happen to be the EVP of Nickelodeon, really can influence a trend that had unbelievable economic impact.

Dagoba Group: When you are looking at the line manager level what conversation have you found to be most engaging?

There are two ways to engage the line manager; as an employee and a business leader. At the employee level the question is, ”Would you be interested if I can help you figure out how to engage employees who have a different cultural history than you do?”  Whether that culture is ethnic, religious, where they grew up or whatever that cultural difference is. If I can help you have engaging conversations with people who are different from you, especially when you want to give them tough messages would you be interested?  Managers say, “Yes, I would because I am tired of feeling like I am walking on eggshells or worring that I am probably going to screw this up.”   The other side of that is if they have a P&L. “ If I can show you ways that D&I can have a positive impact on your P&L either because it reduces your turnover, reduces your cost of attracting talent because you get referral from folks, or increases the length of stay the people are there.  If I can show you how to impact your bottom line, are you interested?”  The answer is always yes.

Dagoba Group: If you are looking at the tools that form that conversation, what tools worked best in the past for educating the corporate world in D&I?  Are they still effective today?  What do you believe is the best method for development for today and tomorrow?

The tools we had yesterday were classroom, classroom and more classroom.  The tools we have today are more virtually accessible; internet, webinars, some classroom, and focus groups.  The tools of tomorrow that I think are always truly the most powerful are experiential and creative.  They are things like film clubs.  They are experiences where groups of people go together to visit The Museum of Tolerance and then go have some drinks and discuss the experience over dinner

Dagoba Group:  What I see a lot of today are the employee originated videos from a first person perspective.

Yes, absolutely.

Dagoba  Group:  When you look at the classroom, we have seen this space in the past to be more lecture based.  It has become more experiential.  How have you seen that evolve over time and where do you think it will be five years from now?

I think learning in the workplace is a lot like the classrooms in our educational institutions.  They have gone from rows of chairs side by side to small groups of people who form teams and share with other teams what they learn.  That is really going to be the classroom model I think that will work in organization.  It is not leader led, but rather team exchange.

Dagoba Group: We talked about how the method of conversation is provided.  Now let’s talk about the application. For the consumer products industry, within the workforce D&I area (recruiting, promotions, raises, team development, retention etc.) which one do you believe is the most advanced (meaning leaders have more of an inclusive decision making process)?  Which has the greatest need?

I think the industry is doing an excellent job around recruiting.  I think retention is always the place where we have not moved the needle as far as we must…not as far as we want to, but as far as we must.  I think that we moved the needle a great deal on creating fairness, focus and efforts.  We have affinity groups, efficacy programs and women’s leadership programs.  I think where we have to continue to really drive things is in creating inclusive cultures, a place where not only different people come into the room, but we actually bring their voices into the decision.  That is where we we have work to do.  And you see that when you look at the makeup of the leadership team  -there is always a dominant group and a subordinate group. The dominate group may come from the same geography, religion, nationality or gender.  So  it is not about bringing people in the door – it is about bringing voices to the table.  The work tomorrow is really to incorporate their voices into how we think and what we do.

Dagoba Group: Let’s take a step back and look at the dimensions of differences in our workspace being gender, cultural, religious, age, ableness, sexual orientation, ethnicity etc.  For your industry, what do you see as the most wide spread or popular area of development today?  Where do you see it moving in the future?

I think it is women/gender.  It is where the greatest amount of energy is put globally.  One reason is because it is one of the few dimensions you can do globally.. In the future the focuse is going to be  generational.  Partly  because it is easier for us and less contentious and less loaded.

Dagoba Group: What is your take on a lot of the work which is done under the field of Unconscious Bias.  You have been in the field for 30 years so  I am curious about your opinion?

I think it is extremely helpful.  I have been talking about it for what seems to be twenty years at least.  I think it is very helpful because it crosses all of the geographies.  I can talk with my colleague in Australia about the unconscious biases Australians have just as easily as I can about those that my colleagues in New Jersey have.  It is a very valuable tool.  It will resonate with people because of the word “unconscious”.  People say, “I don’t have any biases.”  This tool allows us to help people understand how unconscious biases are formed and how they impact behaviors.  I think it is a very important conversation and it is as foundational as micro-inequities.

Dagoba Group: If you were able to turn the clock back and redo a particular engagement on D&I (either one you have given or experienced), what would it be and why?  How would you do it differently?

That is really interesting.  Probably because of my personality, I have no regrets.  What comes to mind immediately is I used to have a differentiation exercise with men on one side and women on the other side.  That is an easy one.  You can then go Whites on this side and People of Color of the other side.  That gets really uncomfortable for people.  Then I go age 40 over here and 40 under here, and then they were able to breathe.  Then I go heterosexual here and non-heterosexual over there.  I have done this twice in my life in large groups.  The response has been the same both times.  In the room people cooperate.  Afterwards they would say, “Oh my god you “outed” people.”  It has been a huge blow up.  You would think after the first blow-up I would not have not done it again, but I am not one of those women.  So there is a part that says, “Wouldn’t you do that differently?”  Both times it blew up.  I say to myself, “Well outside of the heat I had to take, I really would do it again because when stretch a rubber band you have to stretch it to the greatest length so it does not return to the same place.”  It’s the cost of change.

Dagoba Group: Some say it is the role of a D&I officer to work themselves out of a job by creating an inclusive workplace which will no longer need the D&I focus.  How do you respond to this statement?

That is like saying the CFO works him/herself out of the job of being the chief financial officer.  The reason that does not make sense to me is…by the way I think CDOs should only stay a maximum of 7 years with a company… the role will always be relevant.  It is important to have someone who is looking at the horizon, the direction of the ship and the future with a view thru the lens of diversity and the lens of inclusion. The notion of working ourselves out of a job would make sense if I believed that there will come a time when there are no groups, no group issues and no unconscious biases.  I do not believe that day will come, at least not in my lifetime. If you ask me if my great-great-great-granddaughter should be a CDO- we’ll see .

Dagoba Group:  I want to go back to the notion where you said CDOs should only be with a company for a maximum of 7 years.  Could you expand on that opinion?

I think our job is to make our people uncomfortable.  Our job is to continually help leaders see things they may or may not want to see.  To help stretch the organization to include that which is not used to including.  I think that after about five years you get to a place, I get to a place, where I am willing to overlook something.  I think after about seven years you begin to overlook a lot.

Dagoba Group:  Is that because you become part of the culture and do not have that external viewpoint?

Yes. You don’t mean to, but you have no choice.

Dagoba Group: You mentioned a number of different countries in our conversation.  This question is on the global space.  Which country have you found to be the most advanced in the corporate D&I space? Why?

Advanced is an interesting word for me.  Let me answer it slightly differently. I know in the US we have had more conversations about D&I than most other countries.  I believe the US really does have a leadership role in this space.  What is fascinating to me is that no matter where I am in the world,  D&I is both different and the same.  The challenge I found when working in Johannesburg is identical to the challenge I have in New Jersey. It is that we have in-groups and out-groups.  The in-group is the most powerful.  The out-group is the least powerful.  The in-group and the out-group have very solid stereotypes about the other.  That is true everywhere around the globe.  Who the in-group is differs.  It may be women in Korea.  It may be Mexicans in California.  Companies are just made up of human beings who bring their own unconscious biases.  I don’t belive there is a country or a company that has it “right”.  There are companies where two thirds of the employees are ahead of the other third.  Your two thirds may be ahead of my one third.  And my two thirds may be ahead of somebody else’s one-third.  That is my answer. I don’t believe anyone is ahead.  I believe the US has had more conversations.  I believe there are diversity practitioners who have been in it for thirty years like me have probably answered more questions than my European colleagues.

Dagoba Group:  The last questions requires you to take your crystal ball out.  Ten years from now, where do you believe we will be?  Should be?

We will be where we should be because that is how the world is.  If you ask where would I love for us to be that is a different question from where do you think we will be.  Why don’t I answer that question because it is the only way I can frame it.

It is like we use binoculars.  The problem with binoculars is you can see far away, but can only see a small amount of things.  Your vision is limited by the circumference of the lens.  So we will look at gender or we will look at generations or we will look at religion.  I think we will still be doing that in ten years. My dream would be that in 10 years we understand the fluidity of our differences and similarities.  We would be culturally intelligent with the ability to say, “My sense of what is…is just mine.  And if I really want to engage you I have to understand what your sense of what is…is without judging it in relation to mine.  And seeing it is as valid for you as mine is for me.”

Dagoba Group:  It is wonderful to share this information with our audience from someone who not only has a long history in D&I, but also a very broad base of experience in industry, countries and groups.  Thank you for your time.

Interviewers Mason Donovan and Mark Kaplan are principals at The Dagoba Group, a global diversity and inclusion consultancy, and authors of The Inclusion Dividend (Bibliomotion, 2013).