Diversity is a hot topic in corporate management today. Corporate managers have been implementing diversity initiatives since at least the 1960s, but the issue has exploded in interest in recent years, as the Black Lives Matter movement has grown and authors like Robin D’Angelo and Ibram X. Kendi have become popular as diversity training consultants and pundits. Meanwhile, political opposition to diversity initiatives has also grown, with charges of hypocrisy and reverse discrimination becoming increasingly common. Fortunately, corporate managers could address these competing demands with a strategy they already know well—product testing.
It might seem odd to subject racial and gender diversity measures to the same process used on new mechanical equipment and mobile apps, but the underlying goal is the same—to achieve the highest quality with the fewest costs. If we acknowledge that some diversity programs are better than others, it follows that corporations should use the ones with the most advantages and fewest liabilities. Unfortunately, few companies seem to have made any attempt to do this.
A growing body of research has documented the repeated failure of large employers to exercise any significant quality control over the diversity trainers they invite into their boardroom and workspaces. The cost/benefit ratio of new diversity initiatives is often so poor that their implementation often makes racial and gender relations in the workplace worse than before.
