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

This is my flag. I love this flag, it has seen a lot of the world with me. It was given to me during my time in the United States Marine Corps by a guy that had been in longer and seen more stuff. I was young and stupid and sloppy and he had decided   [Read More…]

Some of the folks that I get the most resistance from when talking about bias are recruiters and hiring managers. They love to say things like “bigotry is stupid and bad business,” and “I just want to hire the best person for the job,” and “I don’t care about race.” The word “bias,” is probably   [Read More…]

One of the things that makes efforts toward greater inclusion difficult is that inclusion itself remains a very vague and abstract thing in most organizations. Even leaders that strongly advocate inclusion seem to have a hard time providing clear and concise descriptions of what it is, how it happens, what it feels like, etc. A   [Read More…]

I do not have a lot of heroes, but one of them is Bayard Rustin. A really visionary and courageous guy. I wish that his story, his work, his life were more well known. A true pioneer…there should be monuments. I presented yesterday at the SHRM Annual Conference on The Future of Diversity and Inclusion: 5   [Read More…]

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 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…]