Diversity is Being Invited to the Party: Inclusion is Being Asked to Dance

Vernā Myers, President, The Vernā Myers Company
This talk is from AppNexus' inaugural Women's Leadership Forum, an invite-only conference featuring actionable strategies for leadership success. Learn more at bit.ly/appnexusWLF2015.

[@usapatriot4peace894]

KSA or DIE. If you’re a government worker or a veteran that has applied for a government job your qualifications are based upon KSA = Knowledge, Skills, Ability. DIE = Diversity, Inclusion, Equity (Equity is not the same as Equality) does nothing to prove an individual’s Knowledge, Skills and Ability to do the job. If a company feels compelled to add a DIE hiring manager or change their company logo to rainbow colors to pander to the LGBTQ group or DIE group, it’s perceived as patronizing and thus that company may have had prior discriminatory hiring practices. Bottom line…any public or private company that discriminates against a person’s race, religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation, economic status, veteran status or disability is in violation of State and Federal employment laws. KSA or DIE. Teach your children well.

[@dr.yvette9109]

I've seen this post somewhere before. DIE (DEI, IDE, EID, EDI, whatever), is not designed to prove one's KSA. KSA should be clearly outlined on an application and/or resume. As a former investigator, I have seen the repeated violation you mentioned. Why? Because many, yes many, executives are not fearful of repercussions for violating State or Federal employment laws.

[@craigsproston7378]

If you look at the data it hurts to admit that the happiest countries such as scandinavian countries are those that have less diversity in terms of race, sex, gender, ethnic minority population. Those countries that have a population with a lot of diversity cause unhappiness and division I.e. UK, US

[@projectacuhope]

I lived in Hawaii for 14 years. There are a LOT of ethnic groups in Hawaii. People of similar ethnicities tend to flock together.

[@ajohnson3020]

She has amazing energy...very detailed presentation

[@Micro_Learning]

Excellent speaker. I was looking for good videos on DEI (for a learning module I'm creating), and the two I stumbled on before this were so boring and lifeless. This one's on the money.

[@DestroyAllDemocrats]

Since America has focused on DEI we've gotten weaker economically and military. When we don't focus on knowledge, skill and experience we get DEI and incompetence.

[@zena3413]

Beatiful presentation

[@jasmines636]

This is great! She really knows how to make info stick! I’ve been to Asia and noticed the staring! Europe too actually

[@lifemotivation8708]

Lovely !! Great insight

[@edmikos6129]

So, what were the genders on the Descriptive Bias example? Answer was not provided.

[@larymcfart4034]

Because it's a sermon not an actually discussion..

[@blidderbla]

Still trying to find any metrics for it. Its good for pepole who are included, but in what mesurable way is it better for the other party? Key word is mesurable.

[@nonsensely]

I took my 9 year-old blonde-haired, blue-eyed son to China and he also experienced many photo ops. He felt like a rock star.

[@sarabavota]

Look up the origin of DEI explained by Dr. James Lindsay: you'll understand what's really laying behind these words

[@hellogoodbye4061]

Verna Myers - "I'm black and a woman and forced diversity in hiring benefits blacks and women, therefore, I will spend the next 30 minutes telling you why diversity hiring is so wonderful." Guys, I can NOT make this stuff up!

[@idiomhunters]

Such an Amazing story telling and inspiring ...Loved it!

[@jerodmckee1608]

Shouldn't job performance be more important than skin color or genitalia?

[@dr.yvette9109]

Get the job first. Then we'll look at your performance.

[@larymcfart4034]

​@@dr.yvette9109 UH OH, looks like someones putting the "doc" in "indoctrinated"!

[@MegaMahalaxmi]

You are a rock star ⭐

[@davids2338]

Great talk thanks for it. Was just a bit disturbed by the use of "Asian guide"

[@larymcfart4034]

This is a stupid comment. "Asian guide" Could be a general Asian cultural guide? European guide". Just because there are diffrences doesn't mean in the general we should bend to every child like whim that comes to mind. Woke mind virus.

[@HICKSKE]

DEI is when you suck at a job but get it anyway. I’m calling out all equity hires in the workplace. They get a special ribbon put on their door during their pander month

[@larymcfart4034]

This lady needs to take an evelutionary psycology class, cause she's just preaching a religion.

[@theresabailey7582]

Awesome Presentation! Thank you for sharing. I agree, Cultural Impacts Everything and Everyone!

[@AngelGoodwitch]

Thank you so much for giving this talk and publishing it for the world to see!

[@killersushi99]

*I hate parties and I can dance alone. Individualism for the win!*

[@bikechiatry8367]

DEI - applied to the kitchen -- every coock, cleaner, dishwashers, sur chef, chef, food server, waitress and waiter has a voice has their favourite dish, spice, recipe way of cooking cleaning etc -- lets all together design a menu and cook and serve the dish vs Hierarchical structure or the NORMAL restaurant with definitive roles, skills, DEMONSTRATED ABILITY to perform DESIGNATED task ---- to follow a fkn recipe created by their mothers past down from their grandmothers ... Which restaurant would you preffer to eat in or work in ???

[@sharoncarlton8553]

Thank you, this was deeply insightful.

[@User-of-internet]

Equity is not asking you to dance because you are an introvert.

[@larymcfart4034]

Equity is forcing everyone to cater and bend to whatever momentary thought and feeling you have.

[@hellogoodbye4061]

Oh sweet mother of God, she even uses a diversity pie chart at 23:16....

[@NMDCboyz]

Well portrayed and presented in methodical way!

[@ericy1005]

When I worked as an engineer at GE, we were in a hiring phase and the VP of Engineering called me in his office and said if Ben is a 9/10 and Harold a 6/10, we need to hire Harold. Harold is black. Harold worked out well for the couple years he stayed at GE, but we made a decision based on skin color and not on merit, work experience, etc. That was diversity according to GE. This is a common practice done at large corporations. Seems racist, but what do I know.l? This incident was in '96 and I never forgot about how ridiculous it all seemed. I left in '99 and that company has been a lousy mismanaged mess for over 20 years now. Good on them!

[@purposelypondering4292]

Maybe they needed a Verna!

[@michaeld9682]

It's getting worse

[@dr.yvette9109]

Was Harold indeed a 6/10? Based on what metric? If Harold worked out well, that should have told you something. Instead, you remember it as a ridiculous move on GE's part. Who's to say Ben would have performed well? The metric?

[@ericy1005]

@@dr.yvette9109 The metrics are 6 hours of meetings, breakfast and lunch with different engineering groups that do different specialties within the organization. The goal is to find the candidates skills and in what areas. Very probing questions about your course work, interests, school projects and any co-op work experience are discussed at length. Some basic testing is also done in an informal way to see what level you may be for a particular type of technology. Harold was not a 6/10. He was better than that. Ben was an 11/10. 4.2 GPA and very knowledgeable in hardware electronics, software and machine coding. He was actually too smart for the group I was working in. Ben would have been a great fit for the rather advanced motion control group. Harold ended up in my group and it worked out well. We really should have hired both candidates, but that was up to management. I was just a Jr engineer doing design work. My feedback was considered valuable because I had a lot of experience before I got my degree and management valued my input. I put more designs in production than my peers. When I was young I was very driven. Growing up poor in a broken home with an alcoholic father that left when I was 3 put a real fire under me to do something with my life. White people don't always have it as easy as the world might think. My upbringing was terrible. Thank God my grandma took me in when I was 11 and I have a reasonable head on me and work ethic.

[@dr.yvette9109]

Thanks for responding to my question. And thanks for sharing a bit of your own story. I don’t know if people really think no white person has had a bad life. I would like to think people know better than that. The stories I could share about white people who had it very rough would take far too long, because many of them were my students (2 sixth graders come to mind) and many others are my friends. One in particular comes to mind who recently retired as a captain with Delta Airlines. I like your observation that they both would have been great hires.

[@johannschultz3743]

Open sexism is OK as long as women are doing it.

[@ToosharAgarwal]

It is such an Amazing story telling which is really inspiring the life

[@Junaidbalakot]

Nice work. Inspiring👍

[@findkeisha]

Love this!!!!!

[@veronicahruska4765]

She is amazing! Loved listening to her.

[@dutube99]

"Inclusion is being asked to dance" - why so passive? So you (whoever 'you' is) are just going to sit there waiting to be asked? And who's doing the asking?

[@GaryMorin]

A diversity and inclusion video that isn't captioned - again, diversity that's really diverish :( disappointing.

[@erickasteckel130]

It has caption capabilities now : )

[@GaryMorin]

@@erickasteckel130 Please note that relying on KZbin's "auto-generated captioning" is lazy and cheap. It's not affirmatively or proactively adding professional (accurate and synchronized) captioning. it shows a superficial appreciation of diversity when accessibility and the inclusion of people with disabilities is begrudgingly and sloppily done.

[@GaryMorin]

@@erickasteckel130 the more I listen to her, the more the parallel is obvious - sticking one women's toilet in the basement is the same as relying on KZbin's auto-generated cRaptions.

[@craigsproston7378]

Much of what she says I agree with. However we have to watch out for people associating themselves as part of a 'group identity' and 'social justice type' and not as an individual. What I mean by that is a PERSON may be black, disabled and lesbian. If you break down differences you eventually come down to the INDIVIDUAL NOT THE GROUP THEY ARE IDENTIFYING WITH. In other words 'group identity'; a feeling that the only thing that is vital is the group of which they are part. This talk for instance should be for everyone i.e. people. By people I mean different races, all sex, all ethnic groups ie EVERYONE not just black, female, gay, pakistani etc. This will create hatred between the groups NOT inclusion particularly if you think that the whole of western society is predicated on it being governed by white male, and white privalege white supremacy rubbish. My other concern is bias. On Verna's final slide it listed things such as 'don't allow colleagues to say offensive things' 'correct inappropriate language and terms' 'don't laugh at jokes'. This then begs the question what constitutes offensive language? What is the issue over laughing at a joke. For example I heard that an estate agent had to remove the word 'master bedroom' from its description of a bedroom of a house up for sale because a black person said 'master' is a reference to the slave trade. I am a musician and I teach young children to play a musical instrument. Am I going to be offensive if I describe to a black child that a crotchet (quarter note) as having a black notehead and a minim (1/2 note) as having a white notehead and has a longer duration? This strategy will in the long term create 'speech codes' and 'safe spaces' and people will start losing their jobs because of this. Indeed I read that a black actress lost her role in a play as a lesbian because she tweeted she wasn't lesbian. Success in a career is all about taking individual responsibility, intelligence, hard work ethic, conscienciousness, interested in things or people, family choice and whether one can work the long hours necessary to be a top manager, free choice and more importantly COMPETENCE. Of course no-one should be disadvantaged because of skin colour, sex etc but one has to be careful when accusing someone of being a racist or sexist i.e. when someone is not being racist but the person accusing someone of being so simply by consciously looking for it for instance. An example of this is if 2 people walk into a shop one black the other white who do you serve first? If you serve the white person first the black person could think it racism. If the black person is served first the white person could think it racism. Do you see how complicated this all is? Did someone not get a job because of the colour of their skin, sex, gender, religion etc or simply because the person who got the job was more competent? Finally I am not saying racism, sexism etc does not exist but it far more complicated than what the group identity, social justice people think.

[@5ak872]

you so free to type out this whole paragraph?

[@anilogo682]

Well spoken Craig.

[@deephouse733]

Well invite you to the party when you invite us to the cookout.

[@perrinefarque]

What an inspiring talk! Well done Verna!

[@sumit14011994]

👍🏻👍🏻

[@splatcave3145]

Unless it's a diversity dance 😁😁😁

[@AnonYmous-dc1ed]

The tech sector needs to apply this is asian and white men. Stop dropping them from interview pools, include them in all conferences, and stop giving cash bonuses to executives to not hire them.

[@peacheskong2245]

Cash bonuses to executives to not hire asian and whites?

[@shirronellis8362]

I'm wondering if black family. Not welcome in mix baby. That family face jail. Those groups name black lives matter group. If law All black lives matter group must hav light skin baby.

[@Seremonii]

😩What are you saying?

[@zannahmartell9813]

@@Seremonii Word salad !

[@letharemington9591]

@@Seremonii WTF?????

[@thegreatinterpreter8382]

Imagine two Jewish children sitting in the back of their 3rd grade classroom in 1935 Nazi Germany... while the teacher says, "And now class, we're going to talk about the wonderful Arian race and how the Jews are our nation's eternal misfortune." The two girls nervously look at each other like, 'this aint good.' Now fast forward to modern times. Imagine two white boys sitting in the back of their 3rd grade classroom in a Detroit public school... while the teacher says, "And now class, we're going to talk about the wonderful black race and how white people are responsible for all their misfortune." The two boys nervously look at each other like, 'this aint good.' But Conservatives are the Nazis, right?

[@larymcfart4034]

Anyone who disagrees with a leftist neomarxist cult is the problem. In NA it's injustices by racial lines, In Europe it's colonialism. All of them could have general sex based, religon based, class based, race based issues that these people can pull a card out for. Reread your national history remember all the good andimperfect things, but stand by your principles. We end this shit by not changing our world views and accept that we have to destroy what we value because theirs imperfections in an imperfect world! Remember, they are explicitly saying, "Guys, your only and have always been bad and were only good because we said so, so give us the power so we can bring on utopia." Then will get another repeat of Good ol' communist utopia. where hundreds of millions can paint the nations red...

[@lisacolclough2589]

Such a great storyteller! Made an impact...

[@meganboby1749]

Excellent talk - very well said.

[@andyiswonderful]

BUT, you have to be worthy of being invited, and worthy of being asked to dance.

[@crystalagyei]

Love love loved this presentation - thank you Verna Myers

[@donnalittle5453]

TRUTH BE TOLD!

[@arvinpareftsid2039]

She’s so well-spoken, really enjoyed the presentation

[@faye633]

This was inspirational and informative as someone trying to break into DEI Consulting Spaces. Thank you!!!

[@dennisdubin2126]

Seriously? "Turn to your neighbor and say 'you are awesome.'"? Good bye.

[@itsmorphed6416]

Identity Marxism this . Hope she's been fired .

[@ghiderusval4282]

Good news buddy... She got fired 🎉

[@conf.organizers95]

"Diversity is being asked to the party, inclusion is being asked to take part in planning for the party" Abdelaziz Zohri

[@nithinmanjunath3909]

Inclusion!!!

[@JoeSexPack]

In things we didn't build!!!

[@hellogoodbye4061]

Diversity is NOT about being invited to the party, but rather, replacing the white male guests with women because, um, because, um, because, well, because we're women. Damn, this video has not aged well, considering the mainstream public's current backlash against this kind of nonsense.

[@peacheskong2245]

If not for the awareness campaign, would you even think about the having a lady's restroom if it wasn't there before? It's about not dismissing capable people on the basis of their gender or ethnicity. The fact that the men in the 50s didn't even consider a lady's restroom before the women mentioned it is just to mention the things that are neglected if not addressed.

[@hellogoodbye4061]

@@peacheskong2245 You whine about the past, but in TODAY'S world, the NOW, western middle-class white women, who comprise the vast bulk of mean-spirited feminists nowadays, are the most privileged and entitled subset in the history of the world. We all know that "awareness" is feminist code for "think like I do and do what I tell you or I will label you every ot - ism - phobia in the book." Straight white men - bad, bad, bad!!!!!

[@batterybuilding]

@@hellogoodbye4061 , straight white men aren't labeled bad; just you.

[@hellogoodbye4061]

@@batterybuilding Your insult/comment seems to indicate that you do not get out much. Um, newsflash, straight white men are the sole targets of woke fools like this Myers woman and yourself. Again, get out more, for the war on straight white men under the guise of "diversity and inclusion" permeates throughout the Western world.....or perhaps you are simply in denial or opting to insult anyone who points this out. Likely the latter. One more time, get out more.

[@letharemington9591]

@@hellogoodbye4061 Chickens coming home to roost much??

[@bademoxy]

single straight men today have given up on asking modern masculinized women out, let alone to go dancing. "we don't need men" has been shouted at them for decades while their jobs were offshored and the few new positions handed out in quotas to anyone BUT these men. good luck independent career "ladies" . dance with your cat

[@batterybuilding]

Jesus Josephine Christ you have a real self-pity problem! "Modern masculinized women"? Are you really that scared now that you can't figure out how to dominate them?

[@hellogoodbye4061]

@@batterybuilding White knight alert, guys!! Take cover!! Incoming!!!!!!

[@michaeld9682]

Dei is wasting money