On epiphanies and opening doors. An interview with Luke Visconti
Where old paradigms of business persist, you can bet business is floundering. Luke Visconti, partner and co-founder of DiversityInc, said it best of those companies that fail to effectively reach today’s multicultural buyers: “They have no depth of relationship because they don’t understand who their customers are.” We caught up with Luke to talk about the life events that have inspired him in his work.
Q. What was the genesis for DiversityInc?
A. My background is that I had spent time as a Navy helicopter pilot. On my last tour of duty, I volunteered for officers recruiting. They asked me to be responsible for minority officers recruiting. I learned things while doing that about what white men don’t see in this country; what biases actually do exist, and what people actually go through in their day-to-day lives. It really awakened me to a reality that I don’t think many white men get to see in their lives.
And my business partner, Foulis Peacock, emigrated here from the U.K. His Mom is Persian and his Dad is Scottish. So he understood being from different cultures. He understood issues of emigration. So we both got very excited about diversity as a subject. We started doing free ad sections a year for Forbes. In the second year, we started the DiversityInc website. And in the third year, we divested ourselves of all of our rep business, hired some journalists and focused ourselves on this subject.
Ultimately, our success in the marketplace has motivated corporations because of the Top 50 Companies for Diversity competition we do every year. There’s nothing like a competition to get hard-edged corporate executives—Type A people—motivated to do something.
The darker side to it is there has been an escalation of lawsuits being settled and paid. In the last few years there has been a billion dollars worth of class-action settlements on race. That scares people and it should because there is a liability to shareholders. It’s the simplest business case, really. You can go on and on about changing demographics and how white people are going to be the minority by 2050. But you know what? For the average executive, when you say that stuff, it bounces off like popcorn. What does become meaningful is when they see Coke take it on the chin or Wal-Mart all of a sudden turn itself around.
"People are very reluctant and resistant to change. But that doesn’t work in a world economy. It doesn’t make for a competitive company."
Q. What was one of the defining moments of your experience with the Navy?
A. I had an African American guy come in with his Dad. He had a 3.0 grade point average from Rutgers, which is an extremely desirable and scarce kind of person, who is going to be recruited heavily by all sorts of people. He really wanted to go into the Navy to be a pilot. His Dad sat down in front of me and said, “I have a Ph.D. I’m not telling you that to impress you; I’m telling you that because I want you to know that the Navy only thought that I was smart enough to serve coffee to people dressed like you.”
At the time, I really hadn’t known how deep the bigotry was systemically in the Navy in the '60s and early ‘70s. That meeting was very tense for me—this guy was reliving something that was extremely unpleasant in his life. He basically asked me, “How do you expect me to give my blessing for my only son to go into the Navy?” And I said, “You know what? You’re right.” Bottom line is he didn’t join the Navy. So I learned about the fact that African Americans were only allowed to be stewards—kitchen workers and waiters in the Navy—right up through the early ‘70s.
I became very sensitive to the perspective of history and what people have gone through in their lives. It opened my eyes to a world that was right there in front of me but I did not see. It’s basically become my entire life. So I’ve become knowledgeable about the role of race and gender, culture, orientation, and age, in the process of selling and marketing and recruiting and retaining. In essence, it is the building of relationships. When you get down to it, this is where the shareholder value is. The shareholders are going to realize that the end effort of all of those executives is building relationships with customers. And in a lot of companies in this country, it stinks. They have no depth of relationship because they don’t understand who their customers are.
Q. Have you noticed improvement in the way we do business since you started your business a decade ago?
A. There is a difference but I don’t know that it’s marked across the board. There is a group of companies that have become increasingly not just passionate but disciplined about their approach to diversity management. There are also whole packs of companies that are oblivious to the issue. If you think about the shrinking of the world—telecommunications and e-mail and the price of a telephone call, the ability to send video around the world—I think this subject will crush certain companies and they’ll never even know why. They’ll never see it coming. There’s been an improvement, certainly. Is it a dramatic improvement overall? No.
Most people are not bigots. They don’t perceive themselves to be bigots. But they also don’t understand what they’re missing. You’re asking the majority, which at this point is still white people, to give up certain things that they hold to be true. This includes the idea that this country is a meritocracy. This country is not a meritocracy. There’s extreme bias by race, gender, sexual orientation. White people don’t own up to this or see it. People are very reluctant and resistant to change. But that doesn’t work in a world economy. It doesn’t make for a competitive company.
Q. That is part of what you discussed as a speaker at the Chief Diversity Officers Forum at Bennett College last month.
A.Yes, you’re right. One of my topics was “White Males and Diversity Leadership.” The white man is critical to diversity leadership. I’ve seen top CEOs who are truly on top of this subject and they each have something in common: they’ve had an epiphany in their lives, like I had that epiphany when that man was sitting in front of me and telling me, while gripping the armchair, the humiliation of serving coffee when he knew he was smarter than everyone in the room. When you’ve had that epiphany, you can never see things the same way again.
The power of being a white man in this country is unbelievable. The beautiful thing about that white privilege is it never goes away, and you can hand it out to all sorts of people and it never diminishes your power. You can help people accomplish things, open doors, provide access and it doesn’t hurt who you are. If you are not a white man, then you need to look for those organizations that have enlightened white men who are willing to lead their organizations into the future.
To find out more about how our Diversity Services team can help you with your diversity initiatives, contact us at: 888.438.9911
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