Two (Not So) Secrets & The Big Worry

Supplier diversity is an empowering corporate initiative. People want to 'feel good' about the progress we are making - and rightly so. It is a movement that many are passionate about, and that has the potential to change thousands of lives at a time.

But nothing that is real is also simple. When you are dividing people into groups based on identity and using that information to influence or alter decisions involving their lives and/or considerable sums of money things get complicated, very complicated - and fast.

I started this week by sharing a case example from outside of the corporate supplier diversity arena. Brian Flores, former head coach for the Miami Dolphins is suing the NFL and a few teams over the Rooney Rule. Intended to increase racial diversity at the highest levels of professional football coaching, this rule requires that at least two minority candidates be included in the interviewing process for each top level position. Unfortunately, rather than leading to harmonious diversity, it has sowed further division and shaken everyone's confidence in the hiring process:

• Minority coaches that are interviewed AND HIRED are left to wonder whether they only got the job because of their race.
• Minority coached that are interviewed AND NOT HIRED are left to wonder if they were only included in to satisfy the requirement.

This type of 'box checking' activity does little to advance meaningful diversity and a lot to increase frustration and resentment.

Having the opportunity to listen to sports commentators and diversity advocates alike discuss the intersections of intentions and actions provided an excellent opportunity to reflect on the same challenges in the corporate sphere. It also proves that this challenge is much larger than procurement teams might realize.

Fortunately, it also suggests that we can build a broad coalition of advocates, supporters, and problem solvers - and we are going to need considerable diversity of thought and perspective to achieve the supplier diversity vision.

The Two (Not So) Secrets

This week, I took some purposeful risks. I have been interviewing people in all roles within the diversity movement since December, and I have heard many statements made time and time again, only to be followed by the statement: "too bad we can't say any of this publicly."

The risk I took this week was saying the quiet part out loud (to borrow from The Simpsons). If we care... if we want to drive change... if diversity means anything... we owe it to ourselves to speak up and find solutions to these pervasive problems, beginning with the two (not so) secrets:

1. Despite having the best of intentions, most supplier diversity efforts are 'box checking' exercises, with more talk than action
2. Most successful certified diverse suppliers would have been successful regardless, and they use their certifications not in place of a value proposition, but as a differentiator

What happens if we don't start to openly address and solve for these two (not so) secrets? We will have to face 'The Big Worry,' something I polled my community about and shared my perspective on.

What do you think poses the greatest threat to supplier diversity?

In this week's poll question, I challenged participants to share their own 'big worry' for supplier diversity. I'm not surprised by the top response, but I am surprised how overwhelming the agreement was:

In a PACKED Friday morning LinkedIn LIVE audio event with Philip Ideson, Helen Mackenzie, Canda Rozier, and Heather Fotch (which you can now listen to on demand here), we had the opportunity to discuss these results as well as what procurement can to do address the problem - which is laying squarely in our lap. The key takeaways were:

• Supplier diversity may be treated as an "adjunct initiative" in part because procurement doesn't know what "good" looks like.
• There is only so fast that we can drive change, especially if we don't know how seriously the rest of the organization is taking supplier diversity.
• Procurement ultimately needs to change mindset at the budget holder level if we want to deliver different results - around supplier diversity or anything else.
• It all comes down to accountability... who owns that?

Next week's poll is already open. We'll be talking about the nature of corporate / diverse supplier relationships, including if and how they differ from other supplier relationships. Click here to participate.

Perspective from a Minority-owned Business: Lenwood Ross, Founder and CEO of Accelery, Inc.

I had the opportunity to interview Lenwood Ross who shared a very interesting - and unique - point of view about what diverse-owned businesses REALLY need from their larger corporate customers. Here are some of his thoughts from that conversation...

Being a certified minority business is not the best route to expand a micro business or start a new business. Business owners have to demonstrate that they can create a value proposition apart from their diversity certification.

If diverse businesses aren’t careful, they can end up on the 'workshop hamster wheel.’ Public sector agencies?mean well, and they want to be seen as encouraging minority business development; however, micro minority-owned businesses can be misled. Everyone needs to get beyond the veneer of diversity and enable minority entrepreneurs to build real businesses.

In startup culture, there are very few superstars: people like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Then there are a couple percent of companies that do very well. The other 97% are likely to fail. It is those top few that leads the others to take the risk. Founders need to be perfectly clear on why they want to be entrepreneurs and understand how it will affect them personally.

The minority business community would be better served by real talk about entrepreneurship than specialized coaching based on their diversity status.

I think Lenwood is really on to something here. I've been transparent about the fact that I see no reason to have Buyers Meeting Point certified as a woman-owned business, but I would be all over programs designed to make me a better, more successful entrepreneur!

This Week's Video: The 'Big Worry'

What difference does it make it we don't attack the two (not so) secrets? Well, if we let them linger long enough, we're going to be confronted with the possibility of the 'Big Worry' coming to fruition.

I described that in this week's Supplier Diversity Discussions video, which you can watch here:

My goal is not to be negative - far from it. But with so many competing pressures on our desks these days, sometimes what it takes to get us focused is a little urgency. If we fail to address all of the problems, secret and otherwise, that threaten to weaken supplier diversity programs from within, we're going to be toe-to-toe with the 'Big Worry' before we know it.

"How can corporates become more accessible to diverse suppliers irrespective of their diversity status?"

- Jason Roberts, CEO & Founder of Kaleida

What's planned for next week?

From February 14-18, Supplier Diversity Discussions will be all about relationships. No, not in honor of Valentine's Day, buyer / supplier relationships. This is an area where procurement has struggled to scale and gain a foothold for all suppliers, so I suspect that (given the added requirements and expectations from diverse-owned businesses) we're not hitting the mark.

Look for thoughts from Vested relationship model pioneer Kate Vitasek, veteran-owned business organization NaVOBA, and Pamela Eason, President and CEO of the Women's Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC).

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