Joe Gerstandt | keynote speaker, freedom fighter, freak-flag flier

Once in a while people ask me what I do.  And this is one of those questions that I am supposed to have an award winning answer ready for at all times.  But I do not.  I actually struggle with this question.  It is not that I do not know what I do…that would be a bigger problem, I think.  I simply do not know how to accurately and concisely answer it…I have no elevator pitch.

Most folks refer to me as a diversity/inclusion consultant and speaker…and that is kind of true.  But.  It is also far from the whole truth.  I have worked with issues related to diversity and inclusion for a decade now, and in my last “real job” I was the Diversity Director for a regional healthcare system.  Truly understanding difference and understanding the value of difference is something that is woven through pretty much everything that I do, but it is really a foundational component of a broader body of work.

So, here is what I do…   

I help organizations craft next-generation cultures.  That is a bit more accurate, but it also makes sense to fewer people…maybe it makes sense to nobody other than me.  A next generation organizational culture has four core characteristics, which I will mention near the end of this post, but simply put it is a culture oriented towards better leveraging our intangible assets (trust, empathy, relationships, diversity, creativity, etc.) to better deliver on the promises that we make as organizations, communities and institutions.  If that makes any sense…

So let me break it down a couple of different ways, and you can tell me if it makes sense to you…

I facilitate.

The bulk of my work consists of designing and delivering workshops for client organizations.  Organizational culture is a product of relationships, conversations and individual behaviors, so I work very hard to make decisions about those relationships and behaviors well informed.  Sometimes these are one time events for a particular group or department and for some clients I do ongoing, regularly scheduled workshops as part of an organization wide effort.  We generally call these diversity and inclusion workshops, but I would say that they are not typical “diversity training” and actually do a good job of changing how people view diversity and inclusion and their role in creating organizational culture.

I speak.

I get to participate in 12-15 conferences per year, with about half of these being diversity and / or human resources focused.  I have also spoken at education, social work, fair housing, civil rights, leadership, social media, non-profit, health and other conferences. I am always on the lookout for new conferences to connect with as these are great opportunities to network and to introduce my work to a new group of people.

I write.

I have been blogging here for over three years now, contribute to the Talent Anarchy blog and have posted a number of other places as well.  I occasionally am able to set aside some time to put an article together and have written pieces for The Diversity Factor, The Corporate Recruiting Leadership Journal and other print publications.

I collaborate.

Jason Lauritsen and I do some work together as Talent Anarchy and I think that 2010 will be a busy year for us.  I had the opportunity to do a white paper and a webinar with The Future of Talent Institute in 2009, am currently doing some circle work with my good friend Melissa Kopplin, am on the faculty for a couple of different leadership development programs and am always looking for good people to do good work with.

The facilitating, speaking, writing and collaborating that I do is all focused on building next generation cultures which consists of four core characteristics, which tend to be my primary topic areas:

inclusive culture: helping organizations understand culture, understand diversity and the business value of diversity and inclusion and creating cultures that are able to benefit from diversity and inclusion

innovative practices: helping organizations make informed decisions about and begin implementing new social practices and tools (dialogue, learning circles, open space technology, appreciative inquiry, social media, social networking, storytelling, etc.)

intentional relations:  helping organizations understand community and networks, understand the value of social and relational capital and helping them tap into the value of relationships with employees and clients

integral leadership:  helping organizations understand and adopt a new model of leadership that is about shared behaviors rather than individual titles

Does that make any sense?

Be good to each other.