By John Eckberg
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Janet Butler Reid, co-founder of Global Lead Management Consulting, has been dealing with diversity in the workplace for more than a decade.

Her passion - and Global Lead's efforts - to increase corporate diversity took a quantum leap forward earlier this year with the release of Dialogue on Diversity, a computer-based training tool for executives and workers alike.

Dialogue on Diversity enables companies to explore diversity awareness on an individual basis through interactive, streaming video brought to personal computers. She spoke with Enquirer staff writer John Eckberg.

QUESTION: Tell me about the parallels of being a brand manager for P&G's Sunny Delight, ethnic marketing and the quest for corporate diversity?

ABOUT REID

Janet Butler Reid co-founded Global Lead Management Consulting in 1998 when her firm, JB Reid and Associates, merged with Lynch Brown and Associates. The company has its local offices in Roselawn, as well as offices in Baltimore. She says she is a frustrated interior designer and architect. Her favorite Web sites are: • www.bbitalia.com • www.interior-resources.com • www.ligne-roset-usa.com • www.guild.com • www.roche-bobois.com Books she is reading now: • The Leader's Voice - How Your Communication Can Inspire Action and Get Results by Boyd Clarke and Ron Crossland • Nuts! Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success by Kevin and Jackie Freiberg • Ethical Issues in Six Religious Traditions edited by Peggy Morton and Clive Lawton • The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra CDs in the changer • Spirituals in Concert by Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman • Believe by Yolanda Adams • Songs of Promise and Praise Live Praise and Worship at Hope Church

Answer: Well, Sunny Delight was and is a great brand for Procter. It has a huge distribution within African-American and Hispanic populations. And what we wanted to do was flood that market and, of course, widen it out. We had to learn a lot about the buying practices of African-Americans and Hispanics to do that.

We had to learn about purchase reasons, how they buy the product, why they buy the product (mothers buy it for their kids, so the persuader is the kid).

All of this culminates in this: to market to any particular group of people, you have to be intimate with them. You have to know their psychology, you have to know their economics, you have to know everything there is to know about them.

What's required for a leader is the same thinking that is required by marketers.

Q: When you look at diversity training over 15 years, tell me about the changes.

A: Huge changes from 10 to 15 years ago. The primary change is that 15 years ago, people were asking what is the business reason why. They were saying, isn't this just dealing with special interest groups? Isn't this just reverse discrimination? Isn't this lowering standards? They viewed diversity as only an issue of man, woman, black and white. There was tremendous resistance.

Now what people see: There's no more questioning about what is the financial reason why. Everyone knows that a diverse group of people develops better ideas.

Now people are asking how do I learn more about people who are different that who I am, how do I market to a consumer base that's different, how do I deal with the differences that I have in my workplace?

Q: It seems to me that attitudinal changes happen best in a social, non-work setting but that racial groups don't often interact and when they do, it's a powder-keg kind of thing: the all-white youth baseball team and the all-black youth baseball team. You get all kinds of socioeconomic assumptions. People will see the negative instead of the positive.

A: What you're asking is a pretty deep question. I look at it a couple of ways. Do attitudinal changes happen inside of work or outside of work? How do you avoid the very human dimension or emotional response to things that are different, that is, things that are different are not as good or just flat-out bad. The third thing is: how do you have faith that things will be any different?

Let's talk about the first aspect: Can you broaden your attitude more outside of work and then bring it into work or vice-versa? The bottom line is, wherever you get it - get it. The issue is what is it that you do with it once you get it.

Outside, in terms of sports, it's a phenomenal way for people to get to know each other. But the issue outside and inside of work is that proximity does not mean familiarity, comfort and trust.

Unless you make a concerted effort to build familiarity, comfort and trust, then it will just be a basketball game or it will just be an opera singer you saw who was Hispanic.

You have to have within you the desire to overcome the initial discomfort of dealing with people who are different than you.

Q: Will the workplace always be a crucible of social change? It seems to me that people of different races do not come together very often - maybe at the Thursday night softball game or the coffee machine at the workplace?

A: That's absolutely right. And the third place is at war. The military. That's why the workplace is critical. But again, you can be forced together with people but you can even use those interactions to reinforce stereotypes.

This is interesting: we deal with many CEOS, many executive vice presidents and where the breakthrough comes is when that CEO sees a personal self-interest. Sometimes it's not even about their company making more money.

Let me share a secret: many CEOS, being in their mid-50s or early 60s now have daughters who are in the workplace. When they see their daughters hitting the glass ceilings, that's when it dawns on them.

Q: Dialogue on Diversity enables behavioral changes to occur at all levels of an organization, doesn't it?

A: That's the beauty of it. People can go through it in about two hours and get a personal diversity lesson. It is powerful and has been powerfully effective.

It is so highly interactive. We have found CEOs and others yelling back at the computer screen. Or laughing. Many questions are asked; you're tested all through it. You can sit there and erase your ignorance in the privacy of your own office.

And that is a powerful tool.

E-mail jeckberg@enquirer.com