The below transcript is from an October 2011 interview with Lynne DiStasio, VP of Employee Relations and Diversity at MetLife.  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 – Learning Tools – Workforce Application –Dimensions of Difference – Redo? – No Need for CDO Role –Most Advanced Country – Future Prediction

Dagoba Group:  Give us a brief overview of your history within the D&I space.

My experience in the insurance industry for 28 years was an employment lawyer very connected with the sales organization and compensation; which is rather unique.  Three years ago an opportunity came along to move out of law and into human resources and employee relations.  We were building a new approach to employee relations.  It was interesting to me from that perspective.  A year and a half ago, the diversity opportunity presented itself.  I have not been in the D&I space physically for a really long time, although I was the advisor to most of the work that was getting done as we formed that up.  My time sitting in a chair with the label of CDO is brief, but participation in it has gone on for a while.  By the time I stepped into this opportunity here, MetLife already had a pretty long history in the D&I space.  Right now we are working on a refresh.  I think our fundamental strategy remains completely appropriate and completely the right one to move us forward.  We had a great foundation and strong platform and now just a little tweaking to make it fit for what the company is doing today.

Dagoba Group:  If you were looking at the diversity officer position (not specifically for MetLife, but rather the field in general), what do you believe are the overall responsibilities for that position?

I think a very universal descriptor could be traffic cop.  The challenge organizations have, if they are doing this in a fairly ecumenical manner, is you have a lot of people participating in your D&I activities.  You got affinity groups.  You got employee resource groups.  You got local groups and business groups.  It gets unruly.  Really, a CDO’s biggest opportunity in supporting D&I in the organization is to keep all of those activities going.  Keep the associates engaged in the D&I space, but remain aligned to the business strategies and goals.  It is not competing or stepping on one another’s toes.  There’s just a lot of enthusiasm, which is fantastic.  There is a lot of energy which you want to keep going.  All of this fuels engagement in a big way.  You want to be sure it doesn’t lose sight of the ultimate objective.

Dagoba Group:  You have a law degree so this question will be pertinent.  You might be a bit biased in your opinion coming from a legal background.  Often we hear corporate diversity initiatives originated in response to legal compliance.  Do you believe this is true for the insurance industry?  What percent of D&I initiatives do you believe stem from the need to stay legally compliant today?

I do have a bias here, but it is probably not the one you think.  I don’t think that most diversity initiatives are purely a matter of legal compliance.  Legal compliance is still there.  You still have to do all of the things you have to do for EEO purposes.  Most of the larger companies probably do business with the federal government so you got all of your affirmative action stuff going on.  Bigger companies are probably looking to do business with the governments, the local governments, so whenever you are putting out that RFP response they are asking you for that sort of information.  The compliance piece of this is very robust.  It is very real and not going anywhere.  I think the D&I opportunity is to engage more in a conversation; bring people into the activities.  It is taking it far beyond the representation numbers that are tracked in AAPs.  Looking to engage people in the workplace to drive all of these initiatives forward.  I don’t see the two are in tandem or it is one or the other.  They share a lot of common foundational aspects.  They are two conversations.  One is more focused on the representation metrics and the analysis of your AAPs.  The other one is a much freer ranging conversation with the people that work with you.  The focus is on the things that matter to them.  In terms of did companies start into the D&I space because of a legal issue, I absolutely wouldn’t doubt there aren’t any number of instances where that was the case.  I would tell you most companies would probably deny that as the reason they are doing it.  I don’t know you have any way of digging beneath it.  I do believe diversity exists for a different reason in many companies with different audiences and approaches.

Dagoba Group:  We found if you took a survey today, more corporations are engaging in D&I for a business reason.  When do you believe D&I became a business reason (non-legal compliant) focus within the corporate world in the US? Why?

I don’t think I could point you to a moment in time.  I suspect it is a different moment in time for many companies.  I would posit, as a retail company and MetLife has a very prominent retail operation, we realized over a hundred years ago if you want to sell to people, you need to meet them on their terms.  I did a diversity presentation at the Minority Corporate Council Association and asked our corporate archivist if he could pull an in-language advertising piece for me. I knew we’ve being doing that forever.  The piece he did for me was from 1885.  No one even knew what diversity was.  It was just marketing.  If you wanted to sell to people who only spoke Polish, you needed to speak to them in Polish.  That probably meant you needed to find people in the Polish community who were bi-lingual to bridge the gap and speak to people.

I think an awful lot of companies can’t remember a time when they weren’t profoundly aware of the importance of being respectful of the differences people might approach.  You see it in advertisements.  You see it in recruiting materials and programs companies offer.  I don’t doubt there are companies out there that were trundling along and didn’t give this a moment’s thought, but I happen to work for one that has been acutely aware of the importance of D&I for a really long time.  I suspect there are many out there.  They never not called it D&I.  The nomenclature is new.  There are companies out there that understood the importance of valuing people and allowing them to express themselves for a significant period of time.

Dagoba Group:  When it comes to measuring the return, every company is in the business to make a profit and add shareholder value.  Do you believe there is still a lot of work to be done on developing the business case behind D&I showing that ROI within the insurance industry?

I think those kind of metrics are difficult to come up with.  You have so many different corporate activities all trying to point to one or two metrics as indicating that they have succeeded.  Wonder if it is to the point of “you ran that survey” or “I did that program”.  I don’t really know.  Certainly diversity practitioners are challenged when rolling out any sort of program to demonstrate the ROI to managers.  What is in it for you?  What is in it for your people?  I think everybody is building that in.  It is not unique to D&I.  People are so pressured. 

There is always a “what’s in it for me” aspect.  It is something that everybody wrestles with.  I don’t know what the best metrics are in every case.  I think a lot of that hinges on what it is you are asking them to do.  What is it that brings you to that point?  I don’t think D&I gets pressured to do that any more than pretty much anything going on in a company right now.  Looking for a share of people’s time, let alone their money, is something you got to be prepared to talk about the outcome.  How will this help?  How will it make you stronger or better?

Dagoba Group:  If you are looking at a specific conversation not for the c-suite level, but the line manager level, what have you found to be the most engaging?

I think at a certain level for that group engagement is probably one of the more significant activities that you point to.  If people are participating in the diversity activities, it is drive associate engagement.  They will be more enthused.  You will basically get more out of people.  They will be willing to give you that discretionary extra effort over and above the absolute bare minimum you need to do to keep your job.  There will be some enthusiasm.  People will feel more connected.  I think when you are speaking to front line, it is about the associates themselves driving greater commitment.  That extrapolates into greater retention, less turnover.  The recruiting expenses are down.  More productivity.  It translates into a lot of good things.  That point it is a lot more about the associates themselves.

Dagoba Group:  Taking that conversation.  Obviously there needs to be a medium for that conversation to be translated.  In the past, the tool for educating the corporate world in D&I it was very often a classroom lecture.  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?

Lectures are in this day and age so hard to get people’s attention.  What had been a lecture presentation, can now be reduced to a memo; a one sided conversation.  It is not something you get people’s attention for.  There are a lot of more interactive training sessions.  One’s like the diversity activity provided by The Dagoba Group we had at MetLife several years ago.  We brought together diversity champions together and had some training at that point.  It impacted people for that time they were there.  It perhaps opened their eyes.  One issue for those kind of things is the self selection that you are definitely preaching to the choir at that point.  People who attend those events are people that occupy some sort of space in D&I; whether they are a champion or an executive sponsor.  They are already connected.  I think on that point, you think what is the way to reach people now.  We are looking at how to articulate the refresh strategy.  How to capture people’s attention?  In this day and age, face to face meetings are becoming quite a luxury.  I think the diversity conversation is the one that is advanced with interactivity.  In older sessions, you would have actors doing a little play illustrating certain interactions among workers that would sort of make it very real.  I think there is something that resonates when people get into the situation and feel it a little bit more.  The challenge now is how to create that in a remote situation where you will not be able to have lots of people sitting in a hotel meeting room.

Dagoba Group:  D&I has many different pathways.  It could be the marketing you spoke of or reaching out to your clients or supplier diversity.  What we have found is the main focus is in the workforce area.  Within the workforce D&I area (recruiting, promotions, raises, team development, retention etc) which one do you believe is the most advanced for the insurance industry?  Which has the greatest need?

Actually let me speak more a little bit more to the negative piece on that as opposed to an opportunity.  It is a very insular industry in a lot of ways.  Our biggest challenge in really taking a really good solid step in progressing on diversity and inclusion issues is going to be opening up beyond the insurance industry and finding people to hire to us from different backgrounds.  To the extent we want people to have insurance history experience for certain positions, that basically means we are hiring from the same pool.  There is not that influx of difference because we are just pushing people around from one company to another.  Breaking that perception of what kinds of experience people have to have in order to be really good in jobs that we have is one of our challenges here.  I think as an industry I don’t know there is one universal place where we are really excellent.

If I had to choose an area where it is second nature, I would go back to marketing.  It is very fundamental to the way we sell our products.  It doesn’t translate exactly into our workforce, but it ensures there is always attention to it.  How it translates back to the workforce will vary. I think that is a consistent issue for all of the companies in that space.

Dagoba Group:  We spoke about the engaging conversation and the tools for the way that conversation is provided and then the focus of that conversation.  Now let’s take the next step and look at the dimensions of differences in our workplace.  You spoke very well about the differences of going just beyond those with insurance background. There are many dimensions of differences within our workplace (e.g. gender, cultural, religious, age, ableness, sexual orientation, ethnicity etc).  For the insurance industry, what do you see as the most wide spread or more popular area of development?  Where do you see it moving in the future?

I think an area you have seen a lot of focused attention and maybe some strides is in the development and advancement of women.  That is a conversation that has been going on for quite a while.  A lot of studies are about why it went as far as it went and then seemed not to go forward from there.  What might be different?  A lot of academic in that space as well.  I think that is probably the place where the broadest place of conversation is going on right now.  When you listed all the different dimensions of ways people focus on nowadays in the workplace, that to me is the sweet spot where D&I truly has the place to take the EEO compliance discussion to a whole new place by  not being limited to the things the government is focusing on; recognizing a tremendous spectrum of things that matter to people.

I was surprised at a recent conference to find as many companies that I did that have employee resource groups based on people’s religion.  It never would have occurred to me that people would necessarily be clamoring about that.  I was surprised.  They were very popular.  The people within them were engaged.  There was actually a rather robust conversation around should there be one for each religion going forward or do you want them all together.  To me that is really the exciting opportunity to give people an opportunity within the workplace to connect with others, to confront similar issues and a point of engagement.  It can be a point of market intelligence for the company savvy enough to listen in and invite those conversations with the right people.  Understand what matters in a particular space.  I would be comfortable identifying the one most going on to be women.  I am not exactly sure there is another group forming up behind it that is so similarly across the industry.  Others are a little bit more in pockets.  I don’t think there has been one that has really stepped forward.

Dagoba Group:  In our CDO conversations, when they spoke of the future they mentioned self-identifying differences (for example ableness, sexual orientation or religion) which require the individual to self identify for that dimension.

It becomes a point of people becoming comfortable self-identifying.  Some instances people are a little reluctant to say something.  One group you didn’t mention in the expanded industry of financial services which has a lot of focus and attention is on veterans.  It is a place where there is enhanced focus in the compliance space now on veterans self-identifying and employers should track this.  In a much broader sense there is a recognition of the importance of veterans.  There is some horror at the rate of employment veterans are experiencing when they return from tours of duty.  There is actually a lot of focused attention in that space right now.

You are required to invite people to self-identify as veterans. There is a little compliance component down there, but there is an appalling lack of self-identification.  I had asked one of our veterans what that was all about.  I did not understand why that group was so reluctant to say anything.  It actually is a legacy from the Vietnam era.  At that point people returning from that unpopular war somehow tainted the returning vets and they never wanted to identify.  For some reason that seems to persist in the approach today.  The feds are finally getting to a realization that maybe they need to engage a little bit better with business in terms of helping the veterans depart from the service and enter into something meaningful in civilian life.  It is a challenge to translate the skills some might get in military service into a civilian experience.  There is some attention and focus in that space.  It begins with the self-identification and then becomes a challenge because a significant number of people do not self-identify; including people who ask you for time off because they have reserve duty.  They have not identified on your Vet100 form.  We are trying to get a little more comfort in that place so people are willing to share that part of their background.  We launched an employee resource group for veterans.

Dagoba Group:  Often we do not hear of ERGs for veterans.

The prevailing wisdom on creating employee resource groups is it should be grass roots.  It wasn’t happening, so we went to them.  We felt it was important enough for the company to show its support and to find more ways to reach out in a meaningful way.

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) either a webinar, workshop or a process, what would it be and why?  How would you do it differently?

I probably look at this one a little more broadly.  I would not point to a single event. When I got involved in the D&I space, I talked to a number of people, companies and industries.  To get a sense of what they were doing, how they got to where they were, what was working, what was not…to sort of get the lay of the land and understand what our opportunities should be.  The one thing that became clear to me was an awful lot of companies got involved in diversity in a very particular way ten years ago when the consultancies really started to pop and a lot of that sort of conversation was going on.  We found an awful lot of companies now at a point looking at their representation numbers which are a lagging indicator of the success of these D&I initiatives.  Really a shocking number of companies that did a lot in the D&I space and got a lot of recognition for it were scratching their heads and wondering: “What happened here?  We have done all of these things.  We participated in all of these initiatives.  We marched all of things we were told to march out.  The numbers have not changed dramatically.  What is happening?”

I think what I am seeing right now is an awful lot of companies have taken a breath and now looking at things with fresh eyes and embarking on what you might call Diversity 2.0.  The emphasis is not so much on mandating certain percentages in your representation and, a surprisingly very compliant approach, to a lot more of the development activities.  Pipelines are so important.  Making diversity part of the culture on a more voluntary basis than on a mandated “you must” do certain things basis.

I think if I had a moment to redo something, it would probably would have been a more organic realization that we had to make a few tweaks in the D&I space.  I think it was more disruptive to be the way it unfolded.  As a country practically, on a certain way perhaps taken those first steps, but in a more seamless way that we needed to rejigger, we needed to reprioritize.  It would have just built on all of the prior successes and kept moving forward.  There was definitely a point here where way too many companies that had to basically take a step back and ponder why the old approach seem to not have taken them all the way to where they thought they were going.

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.  Have you heard this statement before and how do you respond to it?

I have heard that before.  I don’t agree with it.  I think the role of a D&I officer ought to shift over time.  Harkening back to my answer to your previous question, I think in the beginning there was a sort of task master approach to it; pushing people to do certain things.  As time has passed, less go in that space.  It is more about keeping people aware of the value behind it; continually selling the business proposition.  Making sure that the company is doing the right various things to start bring about those changes. 

I think the role of the D&I officer  is not to eliminate their job but to make it the kind of job where you are more orchestrating and keeping all of the various components of an inclusive organization functionally aligned with the company’s strategic direction.  I would not envision, in even the most accomplished inclusive company, you wouldn’t have affinity groups and you wouldn’t have business that would have diversity councils.  And you wouldn’t have local groups that would want to celebrate this, that or the other.  The challenge would be at that point to be sure everybody is focused on the company’s strategic imperative and the organizations are approaching things in an aligned manner.  It has the potential to become rather raucous out there if you got lots and lots of organizations with lots of enthusiastic people not all heading in the same direction. The role of the CDO will probably entail making sure that it all continues to work together and support the company.  Some of the conversations will not be necessary.  Some of the issues that are big today, may not be a point of discussion in that future.  I don’t see the role of a person to help us keep heading that way would necessarily be going away; at least not terribly soon.  There would need to be awful lot things to be different before a company can say, “we don’t need that any more.”

Dagoba Group:  Our conversation has focused around the US.  If you were to look at the corporate conversation, which country have you found to be the most advanced in the D&I space? Why?

We have really only had a truly global footprint since November.  I’ve  participated in groups that included people from all over the world.  We had conversations about the notion of D&I.  I think to a certain extent different countries focus on different things.  You always got to be so mindful when talking about these certain things to do so in a culturally sensitive sort of way.  I don’t know if I could possibly come up with a nominee for best country.

Dagoba Group:  We are asking you now to take out your goggles to look into the future.  Ten years from now, where do you believe we will be in the corporate D&I space?

Hopefully, we will be at Diversity 3 or 4 or 5.0 by then.  I would like to believe at that point we would have solved some of the cultural riddles.  We would have women being sponsored as frequently as men.  We would have people able to interact in the workplace that makes them feel valued.  They can deliver their contributions in a way that is received with respect.  I would expect at that point there would have been some cultural changes. 

We might still have five generations in the workplace.  There will be a really different crowd.  I am anticipating a few of the traditionals will be around and the boomers will not have exited en mass yet.  We will have a really diverse mix of experiences and world views.  I think you will still need working around the edges to keep things working smoothly with so many profoundly different groups.  I would think conversation would be a little bit different. It would begin in a different place with greater acceptance, greater tolerance and greater appreciation for the value that people who have a different background that bring to the conversation.

Dagoba Group:  This information will be very valuable to the diversity and inclusion practitioner world.  Thank you for your time and thoughts today.