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

I don’t get into a lot of heated debates at conferences. Maybe I should, but I think that my socks intimidate people. And sometimes my zipper is down. I did, however, recently have a bit of a debate following one of my sessions. During the Q & A, someone shared that they were brand new   [Read More…]

This is not a finished slide deck (there really is no such thing in my world) but it is getting close, and I will post the complete deck after my session. There is a handout as well. If you are going to be in Orlando this coming week, I would love to connect! Be good   [Read More…]

Is it true that “birds of a feather flock together?” Apparently so, and in the 1950s, a couple of scientist gave this tendency a name; homophily. In “Friendship as a Social Process: A Substantive and Methodological Analysis” (1954), Lazarsfeld and Merton looked at both status homophily and value homophily. Status homophily describes individuals with similar social status characteristics that are   [Read More…]

The Forum on Workplace Inclusion is one of my favorite D&I conferences, I highly recommend it (March 17-19, 2015!). At the 2014 conference I facilitated a pre-conference session focused on the future. It was a very interactive workshop, and the participants were tasked with coming up with a vision of the future (I think we   [Read More…]

There is more and more good writing about organizational diversity and inclusion work showing up on-line all the time. A lot of this writing is done by the usual suspects, folks that are and have been actively involved in doing this work. The Winters Group, for example, consistently shares thoughtful and actionable information on their   [Read More…]

I have clearly not gotten much blogging done this year, but I have been productive in other ways. I have been on the road spreading the good word, and trying to mix things up a bit. One recent highlight was delivering the opening keynote for the HR West conference, where I threw in both a   [Read More…]

It has been far too long since I have posted here. I am working on a series on inclusion that will start here this week, but today I am just going to express some gratitude. Sometimes I get a little caught up in the challenges of my work. I think about how having work that   [Read More…]

This is easily one of the more common question that I get. Whether I am talking about authenticity, diversity and inclusion, creativity and innovation, social media or social capital…this is one of the questions that always shows up. I use to have several soft, mushy, sympathetic answers for this question. I use to say things   [Read More…]

I am attending and speaking at one of my favorite diversity conferences this week, and on the trip here I overheard a conversation in the airport among 3 co-workers who were taking one of their peers to task, I mean they are letting her have it! Unfortunately for her, and for the organization that these   [Read More…]

My work has been focused on diversity and inclusion from the beginning, and over the past 2-3 years, authenticity has become my third primary focus. There are a number of reasons for this. 1- I am trying to fill my buzzword bingo card. 2- My own personal experience tells me that authenticity is hard work   [Read More…]