Difference Is Power

In 1996, IBM announced that it was adding domestic-partner benefits, after which I spoke at an employee meeting. It was the first time in my career that I had been heckled, which actually intrigued me. People were upset about this policy. Finally, I said, "I think you guys are right. We shouldn't hire gays, and we shouldn't sell to them either. We should just walk away. It's a matter of principle. Walking away is going to cost some jobs, but the principle is important. Now, which one of you wants to be first to give up your job?"

Of course, no one moved.

Honestly, though, it's hard to imagine that those task forces have had an impact on something as complex, something as human, as barriers to diversity inside a company. What's the connection between their work and genuine results?

Let's take the women's task force, for instance. The senior-executive sponsor for that group was Ned Lautenbach, who at the time was senior vice president for worldwide sales and distribution. That's a major chunk of IBM's employee population. Before those task forces, Lautenbach's staff members would give him a slate of candidates from which they wanted him to choose someone to fill an executive position. He would generally approve the slate.

Well, he stopped doing that; he started rejecting the slates. He would ask, "Why are no women on the slates? I want to see women on the slates. And if these women are qualified to be on the slates, what's going to happen if we pick them for executive jobs? Is something bad going to happen?" He would ask logical questions to find out why people thought that a man would be best qualified for a particular job. And frequently, there wasn't a reason.

Somebody in power who was reviewing jobs had to push for fairness, and that person was Lautenbach. Before the first Global Women Leaders Conference, in 1998, Lautenbach wrote a letter to general managers around the world. He told them, "I want you to get back to me by September with your strategies for addressing our global-diversity challenges. And to help you, we're going to host our first Global Women Leaders Conference."

I added a couple of sentences to the letter, and after Lautenbach signed it, I got nervous. I went back to him and said, "I want to make sure that you read the entire letter, that you didn't just trust me and sign it." And I pointed out my addition, which read, "I want you to talk to our women leaders about the barriers to their advancement. I don't care about the opinions of the men." He said, "I read it. It's going to put starch in some collars, isn't it? But we've got to let these guys know that we're serious."

I wanted the men to understand that they were not going to determine what the issues were. They had to allow themselves to be influenced on the issue of the advancement of women by the views of the women. And that has happened. Since 1996, we've gone from one to 13 women executives in Asia; and we've gone from 5 to 46 in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Men are listening to women.

In 1998, I spoke about diversity to a group of employees that IBM had just contracted with. A few weeks earlier, women from that group had set up a women's network. I told them, "That's great, and I'm going to announce it at the town meeting." The women were worried because they thought that it would upset their male bosses. They wanted to keep it quiet. I said, "Trust me."

At the meeting, I said, "I'd like to congratulate the women here who have established a new women's network. And I'd especially like to congratulate their managers, who had the foresight to let this happen. You embody the values that we stand for at IBM." And I never heard about any problems.

IBM still isn't very diverse at the top. Why not?

That's true. Among our top 50 executives, we have only 2 African-Americans, 3 Asians, one Hispanic, and 4 women. But change is under way. Glass ceilings exist here. But they exist at the entry level. If you fill the pipeline with qualified, talented people, they will break through. We have an extraordinary pipeline, but we have to focus on that pipeline. We have to look down, not up.

The task forces are continuing their work. This year, each one will hold an executive forum. About 150 women are expected to attend this year's Global Women Leaders Conference, in July. In May, 700 people participated in an IBM Women in Technology Conference. Plans are also under way for a black-executives forum, a disabled-executives forum, a gay-and-lesbian-executives forum, a Hispanic-executives forum, a male-executives forum, and a Native American-executives forum. I recently went to Japan to speak to 1,600 women IBM leaders, at their second meeting. That's historic stuff for Japan. Pre-1995, that never would have happened.

I think this train is moving. We can argue that the pace is too slow. But I've been to a lot of places that I wouldn't have visited 10 years ago -- including Lou Gerstner's office and the Oval Office. We're on a journey. It's not over.

Keith H. Hammonds (khammonds@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company senior editor. Contact Ted Childs by email (childsjt@us.ibm.com).