TrailBlazers: How Top Business Leaders are Accelerating Results through Inclusion and Diversity

Chapter 10. Global Diversity and Inclusion

"If you have not created an inclusive meritocracy in your home country, I don't know how you have the skills to go and do that with people in a different country whom you only talk with primarily by phone and deal with mostly by conference calls and emails. I just don't know how that's possible."

——Ron Glover, Vice President of Diversity and Work Force Programs for the IBM Corporation

Adopting a Global Mindset

The conversation around global diversity is not a new one; in fact, it's been going on for well over 15 years. What is different is the level of awareness and appreciation that Fortune 100, 500, and 1, 000 organizations have obtained regarding inclusion and global diversity today versus what it was more than a decade ago. This knowledge is based in part upon the realities that the recent recession has forced into the conversation. People collectively understand better how highly interconnected—environmentally, humanitarily, and economically—we truly are. Our understanding now is greater, perhaps more so, than it was before the 2007 time frame when more and more countries were coming to grips with the dire effects of both the recession and devastating natural disasters. This increased comprehension of our global economies' interdependencies has underscored this truth at a very fundamental level; a truth that most of today's high school students recognize with crystal clarity by way of their economics courses and volunteerism experiences. ...