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

Diversity means difference. Literally. Diversity means difference, and human beings are positively riddled with difference. One of the very few things that is universally true of all human beings is that each of us is in some way different. Difference is a natural part of the human experience, and it has consequences. If we are   [Read More…]

Of the many misperceptions regarding inclusion, the most common might be the idea that inclusion requires you to lower your standards – inclusion somehow means “anything goes.” Not only is there a healthy does of bias baked into this idea, it is the opposite of the truth. Inclusion is hard work, it is not the   [Read More…]

I consistently see organizations with unnecessary barriers slowing their D&I efforts down or blocking them altogether. Want to move forward? Here are six opportunities to consider. I will unpack each of these further in following posts: Clarify your foundational language and logic. This is the dead horse that I will apparently continue beating for the   [Read More…]

  I no longer remember where I first came across it, but I have kept some version of the above image in my journal for many years now. It is one of the lenses I apply to clarify my own thinking around what exactly I am doing and whether or not I am focusing my   [Read More…]

I benefit from a tremendous amount of privilege. I have, throughout my life, received the benefit of the doubt, from people, organizations, and institutions, including when I did not deserve it. When you are on the advantaged side of things, privilege is a terribly easy thing to not see. Two things seem to come quickly   [Read More…]

I am skeptical. I am not skeptical that it is true that human beings are your organization’s most valuable asset. I personally have little doubt that it is true — rather I am skeptical that you actually believe it, and here is why. If you and the rest of your organization truly believed that, I   [Read More…]

The SHRM Annual Conference is one of my favorites. It is consistently a great opportunity for me to see a bunch of folks I dig, meet some new folks to dig, and I always catch a bit of a buzz off of 15-20,000 HR professionals gathered together to talk about this stuff called work. While   [Read More…]

Most of the few posts I have managed this year have been focused on language. I think that language is one of the most powerful and one of the most overlooked tools at our disposal. A fair amount of the resistance that I meet in the workplace relative to Diversity and Inclusion work is not   [Read More…]

  One of the tendencies that I increasingly see among organizations and leaders in their definitions of diversity is to lump it together with commonality. Not a small number of times I have heard or read the statement “diversity is the sum total of our differences and similarities…” I think that you should stop doing   [Read More…]

I have been writing about moving diversity and inclusion work forward and the foundational significance of language. Language itself can be paradigm shifting, it is one of our most powerful, and also one of our most commonly overlooked interventions. If you are going to move this work forward, if you are serious about providing a   [Read More…]