Reaching Everybody
I was
having a conversation with the CEO of a major company about how to reach 57
million peple in the United States. When I mentioned that I was talking about reaching
the Hispanic consumer there was a pause and a palpable change in the
conversation. The enthusiastic CEO went into automatic mode accentuated by polite
comments that indicated interest and understanding. Then the entire project was
handed off to the person responsible for Diversity — a death knell for
meaningful work.
The Chief
Diversity Officer is a C suite position without budget responsibilities that
lacks the clout that is necessary to execute. These positions are meant to
deflect challenges to the status quo rather than define the possibilities and
the opportunities in a growing market. With neither a place in the chain of
command nor the portfolio that could make the necessary investments it is a place
where ideas go to die. The Diversity person is there to make the company appear
like they are doing something to serve their diverse consumer base.
Just like EEO
Offices of decades past or the more recent renaming of similar offices as Minority,
Disparities, Equity, or some other politically palatable name of the moment these
offices do little more than develop plans and do training. Most companies take
a 20th century approach and establish an employee group that is made
up of the targeted community to advise them; hire outside expertise on the
targeted group; create an advisory group of stakeholders; create a diversity,
health equity, multicultural, or alliance development office; translate
existing documents, webpages, etc. to the target language; add pictures of the
target group; add food selections at corporate cafeterias that cover a variety
of countries; and, sponsor “Month of…” events.
While these
may be well-intentioned the totality of activities make it obvious that what
has been accomplished is mostly veneer. Even worse they can be seen as a
defensive response devoid of the tools to create the type of meaningful inclusion
that produces financial results. This is bad for business and for our economy.
Reaching
Hispanics or any target group means reaching individuals with an image, work,
and product that resonates with who they are and what they want. It takes more
than a diversity office to do that…it takes leadership and the commitment by
every person in a company. That
leadership is hard to come by when Hispanics are one in six persons in the U.S.
but at Fortune 500 companies are less than 2% of the CEOs and less than 4% of
the Boards of Directors.
Trust and brand loyalty go
hand-on-hand and today each individual wants to know that a company knows who
they are and what they want. Too often I hear that Hispanics are too diverse
and because of that it is hard/incorrect/disrespectful to get a single message
that resonates with everyone. That type of strategy reveals a lack of
understanding of the American marketplace.
With the rare exception of being in a
building that is on fire and yelling ”Fire,” it is unlikely that a single word can
reach everyone. The era of the single message went the way of having only a
handful of major networks. Each person wants and expects to be reached with a
message that is tailored to them; that is why Google has been so successful.
Google knows each of their users and craft messages for them.
So when I am asked how do you reach
Hispanics? It’s the same strategy that you use for everybody—use language and
images that are meaningful to the individual, make clear that you understand
what they want and desire, and as a result earn trust and respect. You do
different things at different times. Reaching everybody is no longer a one shot
deal.
