An Industry in Denial

For people dealing with a drug or alcohol problem, denial is their handmaiden. My father was a prime example. A man born just before the Great Depression, the notion of being an alcoholic was tantamount to being called a street bum. So when I faced off with him some thirty years ago and called him on his problem, he wrote me out of his life. He went to his grave denying that he was an alcoholic, despite all evidence to the contrary, all the stories, the bottles, the detritus that he left behind.

Ask anyone who has ever dealt with someone with a similar problem.

Struggling industries can have that issue as well, and supplier diversity is no different. For the last fourteen years or so I've worked and trained in this supply chain business, and watched it begin a slow and now rapid decline. What one top executive calls from Benchmark to Question Mark, which nails it precisely. Not for all industries, but for too many.

She came from telecom, which set the bar high. She and I recently had a long discussion about the challenges facing executives in supplier diversity. From full time staffers in a business often marked by only one person in a multi-billion dollar corporation in the first place, now those same people, if there even is one, are struggling with slashed budgets, part time staffers if that, and vastly reduced resources. Often a corporation says that the supplier diversity functions will be farmed out throughout the supply chain which is corporate speak for saying "nothing's going to be done whatsoever."

Those of us who are CPSDs know how vast the job really is, how complex and demanding the role can be. "Farming it out" to other supply chain folks who already have their hands full is not only ludicrous but a death knell to a critically important function, a corporate responsibility to minority, women, veteran, LBGT, disabled and small business operators who have struggled for their rightful place in the corporate supply chain for decades.

This executive also pointed out that a parallel trend has occurred with the quieting down of the once powerful advocacy groups, whose corporate scorecards and toothy assessments of business performance had major corporations very concerned about their image. Where are they now? Where is the NAACP? Rainbow PUSH?

Recently I wrote on Facebook in response to a Harry Belafonte interview where this Black Royalty Civil Rights fighter spoke about Colin Kaepernick's actions. He said that it's all too easy to not speak up when you have a lot to lose these days. And that's the whole point. If corporations have given you huge grants, that's a perfect way to keep you quiet. That's precisely how South African apartheid leaders shut up a number of Black agitators. They learned that if they gave them nice houses, money and a nice car, suddenly the activists had a lot to lose. Have America's advocacy groups been bought off? Have they lost their teeth because of grant money? I don't know. But I will say it's awfully quiet out there these days on the advocacy front (other than Black Lives Matter), and a great many minority, women and veteran owned businesses and others are losing out as a result. Other issues such as immigration and police brutality have taken over the airwaves. When major corporations are not being held to a higher standard, supplier diversity programs are cut, they are not valued, and we see what we see now: good people laid off, and nobody seems to wants to talk about it publicly.

The industry itself doesn't write about it, either. I've seen no articles that directly address the loss of top executives in the industry. Plenty of articles desperately arguing the case about "aligning with corporate strategic goals." Well, folks, we all know that. What may be far more essential is to call out the elephant in the room. This industry is in serious trouble. We have a flood of supplier diversity consultants on the market which is a euphemistic way of saying a whole lotta good folks got laid off. Some top corporations have pulled their memberships out of the certifying organizations, or some are choosing either NMSDC or WBENC, or some are working only regionally. This is causing a lot of financial pain and resource jealousy.

While yes, part of the challenge lies with finding the right suppliers - always an issue- and part of the challenge lies with better trained and skilled CPSDs, that's still not enough. The BDR is addressing this latter issue with a new supplier diversity executive training program with Tuck School of Business. The much larger issue is that there has been a sea change in advocacy all across the United States. If our major national agitators are going quiet, and we don't have enough Nuns on Buses going around demanding social change, then we are losing the fight. Let's face it. Jesse Jackson is 75 years old. The laurels we've sat upon for far too many years are sagging.

Very good and smart people are at work on these issues quietly behind the scenes. While that's wonderful, to not openly discuss this in the media, in the MBE forums and magazines and call it out for what it is does the industry an injustice. When too many people are beholden to their corporations for funding and their positions, it's perfectly understandable that most are staying quiet. But can we honestly and truly justify rewarding a corporation for its support of minorities and women when it has only one person or half a person on staff in supplier diversity? Can we honestly say this is justifiable support of the effort to engage this community when all they are really doing is helping keep the doors open at the council rather than actively and substantially contracting with minority/women/veteran etc. suppliers? If not, then all we are doing is accepting grants and financial support rather than a corporations' genuine effort to engage suppliers in their supply chain. That's hard, complex work. And it means the whole community has to be engaged - from the schools to the advocacy groups to the legislatures right on up. Have we forgotten what the whole point of supplier diversity was all about in the first place?

No, we haven't. However, while I've had plenty of discussions off line with passionate people who continue to care deeply, it seems that there is a dearth of folks who are willing to lay this on the line in front of the folks who need to hear it: our corporations. That's the job of the advocacy groups, the legislators, the people who are most adept at putting pressure on the folks with a lot to lose.

SD professionals cannot risk their positions by calling their bosses to task. However all of us can get back to work re-energizing the very organizations and people who, not too long ago, were veritable tigers when it came to social justice. They did a lot of the work for us in the market place. While we can all do our jobs better as internal strategic partners, it is even more important that we put fire back into the bellies of those who seem to have lost their voices: community organizers, politicians, advocates, those whose opinions our employers care a great deal about. Who are they now? What do they care about? It's our job to find that out and engage their involvement. Without that very public pressure, you can be assured our budgets will continue to shrink and more "consultants" will hit the market.

Supplier diversity is in trouble. Again, not in every industry, but in far too many. As we head for yet another fall season and yet another NMSDC party, I challenge all of us to think hard about what we're all willing to do about it. When an industry is in a bit of chaos, and we are, it's the single best time to make necessary changes. That time is now, ladies and gentlemen. You can hunker down, or you can agitate. As Captain Ramius said in The Hunt for Red October, "A little revolution now and then is a good thing, don't you think?"

Indeed.