Breaking Through
Jason's observation of a small slice of the association leadership landscape--Old White Dudes--is more than a little terrifying. Stale and pale, I expected, but cloned?
His back-of-the-envelope stats, though, sound like the U-curve of association demographics for race, gender, and age. Changing that mix requires more than board policy or an enlightened nominating committee. It requires a much larger scale response.
Associations are reflections of those we serve. The most successful tend to join associations and those they are willing follow, rise to the top. As Malcolm Gladwell points out in his new book, Outliers, those who succeed benefit from a 'web of advantages and inheritances,' not available to all, but possible for associations to replicate.
That's what is being attempted in commercial real estate, and a dozen associations serving that industry are trying to build a new leadership pipeline. Their story is in the new Volunteer Leadership Issue of Associations Now, that I wrote entitled "Breaking Through."
I point it out here because other bastions of old white dudes are being forced out into the open. Last Friday, the New York Times reported on the NAACP's focus on Madison Avenue and the lack of diversity in the advertising business. The agencies' associations mobilized a response to this opening salvo of media attention, but high visibility lawsuits and pressure on advertisers are sure to follow. Stay tuned.
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Comments
I look forward to your upcoming post on the NAACP's board of directors, "Old black homeys."
Clearly, any group of people who have something in common -- whether it's an occupation, an interest, skin pigment, age, a disease, etc. -- all think alike and march in lockstep, incapable of independent thought or exposure/acceptance of outsider's experiences.
Posted by: Old black homey | January 13, 2009 2:48 PM
Ann:
Is your cloned remark in relation to the overlap people expressed on the style/personality instrument?
If so, I'm not sure that it particularly unusual. MBTI, DiSC, or any of the instruments have dominant styles that a healthy majority of the general population share in common. That often increases when people of the same profession or similar positions gather together. And this is just one of the many lenses through which people make sense of the world around them, so it doesn't suggest people will make the same choices, infer the same meaning from situations, etc.
My comment in now way should be seen as suggesting we don't need to make significantly more progress on diversity. But are our folks "clones?" Not so much from my vantage point.
Posted by: Jeffrey Cufaude | January 13, 2009 9:41 PM