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

A great week ahead! …especially if the travel gods are on my side. I am currently sitting in Phoenix on my way to ELEVATE, the 2011 California Society of Association Executives annual conference.  I wish I was going to be able to spend some quality time in beautiful Monterey, but this will actually be a   [Read More…]

What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity. -Chip and Dan Heath I was recently having a conversation about my work, and the senior leader that I was talking with took issue with the way in which I was using the words diversity and inclusion.  I was accused of watering down diversity and   [Read More…]

Pretty cool way to start the week… I get to talk about diversity and inclusion…on the radio…with Dr. Julianne Malveaux.  Pretty good stuff.  The show is The Sound of Ideas and it airs Monday morning at 9am (EST).  My understanding is that they will be livecasting the show (though I will not be there in   [Read More…]

My session at SXSW this afternoon: Where do good ideas come from? Diversity. There is a growing body of evidence showing that cognitive diversity can play a powerful role in increasing the ideation and innovation capacity of a group or community. This session unpacks cognitive diversity, shows how it can drive better outcomes and examines   [Read More…]

There is a lot of talk about talent.  There are books and conferences and blogs that focus solely on talent and I think that most of them miss the mark…by a long way.  There is always some interesting conversation around what talent is and like anything that is really important talent is hard to define   [Read More…]

“We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.” -Anais Nin …a great quote and one that I refer to often in my work.  And it is true. We see things as we are…which also means we see things and situations and behaviors differently. Social stimuli (including the behavior of others)   [Read More…]

Bias. Amazing. Really? I came across a post (thanks to Twitter as usual) recently about academic bias against conservatives. “John Tierney of The New York Times offers a really important report on the Society for Personality and Social Psychology’s recent annual meeting. As Tierney writes, “Some of the world’s preeminent experts on bias discovered an   [Read More…]

Diversity  – A Hindrance? During graduate school, I learned about the Homogeneous Unit Principle. Simply put, the theory states that people are most comfortable in groups of people like them. Robert Putnam’s book, Bowling Alone, reinforces the idea of the Homogeneous Unit Principle. His extensive study and research found that people are increasingly isolated within   [Read More…]

If you have visited this blog before you know that I see diversity and inclusion as incredibly misunderstood.  Most organizations have sloppy definitions of diversity and it gets even worse when they talk about inclusion.  I am not suggesting that everyone define or view inclusion the same way, but there does need to be some   [Read More…]

a draft… Diversity 1.0 Diversity means difference. 1.1 Difference takes many forms. 1.2 Diversity in our social identities is paradoxical. 1.21 In some ways we are all alike. 1.22 There are various and many social groups we belong to which we share specific things with. 1.23 In some ways each one of us is completely   [Read More…]