"Obama Nominates Sonia Sotomayor - first Hispanic - for Supreme Court" - Diversity Lesson for Business?

By Pete Turck

If you can separate yourself for a moment from the politics of Supreme Court appointments maybe there's a business lesson that can be learned from President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor.  First, she would be one of the most qualified nominees ever to be appointed - well that sounds like a pretty good business decision metric. Second, as Hispanic she comes from one of the largest and fastest growing constituencies in the country - well that sounds like a pretty good business decision and.....according to most reporting, she is incredibly smart and hard working. 

So I know what you're thinking - Pete, get to your point!  So here's the point, many people I talk to still think of diversity as a Department of Labor statistic that needs to be adhered to because they have Federal Government contracts.  The great thing about diversity, from a business perspective, is that that each individual brings a uniquely different perspective.  Their view of the business environment specifically and the world in general is based on age, culture, language, sex and many other factors.

When Lou Gerstner became CEO of IBM he made diversity a cornerstone of his strategy and saw his company's bottom line increase significantly.

I remember my first strategic planning session when I became a General Manager. My guidance to my managers was that we needed to REALLY "think outside the box".  Bottom line - we couldn't do it!  As I made my closing comments for the session, I looked around the room, and for the most part we were male, Caucasian, middle-aged and many were prior military. Note to self: Lesson #1 Mr. New General Manager, if you really want to "think outside the box" you better find some people who live outside the box....and fast!

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