Diversity: On the curve to infinity, we never truly get there…but we don't give up, we keep pushing forward, always working to improve...

This was also true 27 years ago also, when I was a young 20-something and relatively new manager at Sara Lee Corporation (the Hanes Division); Sara Lee Corp to its credit was a pioneer in workforce diversity training back in the early 90's first for its management team and eventually the entire company. The primary goal then was awareness and education, following with goal setting and accountability. But there was no finish line. Like I learned in my first calculus class way back in the day, with the curve to infinity, you never truly get there. Its easy to ask the question (I love the 'there's a long way to go' in the title line of this article, of course there is!), but with diversity, who gets to decide what the finish line looks like? Can there ever truly be a "finish line". I don't think so. Maybe there are multiple finish lines? At what point would any sane, responsible manager and leader, female, male and of any race, in the Fortune 500 arena or any other look up one day from their desk and exclaim: “we’re here, we made it! we’ve solved diversity, we are finished!’?? Similar to what we did at Sara Lee Corp i think the path forward lies in awareness, educating (an understanding that within diversity, there is strength, non group think and actual improved performance), goal setting and accountability > continuous improvement. No finish line or maybe multiple finish lines, but the good news, in my mind, is we can continue striving to improve together, along the journey to infinity...????