Phoenix principles rising - Business Courier of Cincinnati:

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But the founding partners of alsouse storytelling, guidinyg the reader through the fablr of the phoenix, who has landed in corporats America and is rotating through a management Phoenix isn't doing too well. She or he - the gendetr keeps changing - is about to be fires when a vice president provides one last chancee to succeed by leading adiversity initiative. The tale illustratea the principles of diversityt and inclusion and how they can benefita company's bottonm line. It distills the how-to into five key points, the "phoenix Reporter James Ritchie sat down with Reid to discussthe book. Q. Can you explaihn the concept for the book and how it waswritten ? A.
People who read the book, especially those who are practitionere of diversityand inclusion, inevitably see themselves. If it's a male readinb it, the person will say, Phoenix is a man about 50-some-odd years old." It worke d beautifully. In every other chapter of the book the voicer of the phoenix changes from the masculine to the femininse andso forth. In part that was because Vincenf and I are male and but that wasreally Vincent's to have the phoenix not have much more identityh than that. On the other hand, the vigoer around the measures andso forth, that' s more my piece.
I would say the writingf of the book frankly was the process of literallu playing out all of thephoenizx principles. Q. Why did you choose the fabl e format as opposed to drawing specifix examples from your yearsof experience? A. The fable is becausre we wanted the book tobe transcendent, to go up over any singular corporate example with this so that it reall y could touch upon the very reader and not be outsidee of the reader, so to speak.
The other reason we chos e to do it this way is that in most busineszsbooks there's a kind of pedagogy, an academic It's not that this doesn't have that; clearlyg there are tools and all kinds of instruments in here that can be However, we wanted to be able to take this into a realmm that can allow people to imagine a corporate culturde different from what they currently have and imagine themselves as leadersw different than they've been in the So ultimately this book is about transformation - personal transformation, corporate culture The premise is that you cannoty lead a diversity and inclusion initiative effectivelt unless you allow yoursel to be transformed. Q.
Early in the book the phoenixs is assigned this diversity initiativee and it appears to be the castofft that nobody else wantsto do. How big of a proble m do you think that is incorporate culture? A. That is oftej how the assignment begins. Becauses often with corporations that are new on the diversitgy and inclusionlearning curve, they don't understand the profound impac t that it can have on bottom-line benefits. They almost look at this as somethiny that somebody oughtto do, that's a great thinb to do for all the social that's sort of tangential to the profitabilityg of the business.
So they give it to people as broadening assignments or as the phoenizgot it, as sort of a last-ditcgh thing. ... We made Phoeniz practically on his or her way out the but it's not too far off from wheree most corporations begin. Q. Are there companies that don't need this? A. No. Therew are companies that don't realize that they do, but there are no companiesd that don't. None. Even if your company only does business in theUnited States, it will have a worl customer base, because the world is representee here in the U.S. And if you don't understand your you're out of business. Q. What do you think is the first step for a corporation to takein starting?? A.
People ask me quited a bit whereto begin. I always say begin with the "What is the reason for undertakin diversity and inclusion withinyour corporation?" We call it the compelling purpose within the five phoenix principles. In essence, if you can'y find the link betweenj diversity and inclusion and yourcorporate profit-makingb purpose, then there's no reason to undertake For example, say you have a retailer who has done very well in the Americazs and Western Europe and that retailer is now interested in movingv into Asia or Eastern Europe. When you thinkj about diversityand inclusion, then you must think abouty them within the context of an international framework.
You have to thinkl about it then in terms of how do we take productss that have been successful in the America s and see what fits and what needas to be developed differently for the Asian and EasterhnEuropean markets. And let me use a term that we usequit often, "cultural dexterity," the ability to understand cultural to be able to articulate the unarticulates needs in those environments. If you understanc that that is your reason for diversity and then that's where you need to start. From therd it is, "What do I need to Perhaps I need to ensure that I have Asia n and Eastern European business leaders for global expansion projectsthat I'm working on.
Perhapse I need to make sure that I have global teams set up behind those products such that informationn that we have already learned in North Americaw and Western Europe can be Perhaps I need to have global HR policies that can alloq me to recruit and retain the best of the best in Asia andEasternj Europe, and those policies may look a little bit different than what's happened in the Americas. Q. I pickedd up a theme that havinvg a diverse work force is not the same ashavinyg inclusion. A.
Let me be crystal clear: You need People need to be able to see that therr is in fact diversity throughout the And you have to look at it by level - you have to make sure it is diverswe above midlevel in the organization. But you can be diverses as the dickens. Sittin g here at a table with 10 people, we couldf have one of every different kind of different ages and allof that. But if I only spokse to you, then we have diversity at the but it's not inclusive. Inclusion is taking the diversityy that exists and ensuring that all voices are hearde and that people have the ability to brinvg all of their talent into the workplac e and that that talentis leveraged.
New Village Publishing, Cincinnati Web site: phoenixprinciples.comj