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As companies and other organizations fight for survival in the current recession, their leaders find it increasingly difficult to focus on diversity. A panel of experts convened recently for a Leading Edge Associates webinar argues that diversity remains as important and relevant as ever.

The webinar was titled, “Diversity in Media: New Strategies.” It attracted not only media participants, but also human resources practitioners and a handful from other industries interested in moving the diversity needle in their organizations.

Panelists included Dori Maynard, president of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education; Manny Garcia, executive editor of El Nuevo Herald in Miami, and Michael Stoll, director of Public Press, a nonprofit journalism initiative in San Francisco.

As LEA’s president and moderator, during the event I discussed how best-practice organizations were ramping up diversity efforts, not curtailing them, in pursuit of bottom-line results: new audiences and greater market share.

Leading Edge recently concluded a study for the Newspaper Association of America that spotlighted three such companies, Wellpoint Inc., CNN and McDonald’s. That research, and LEA’s experiences with other clients, indicates that best-practice organizations:

• Tie diversity efforts explicitly to key organizational and business objectives;
• Have a strong focus on anticipating and satisfying customer needs;
• Have a culture that encourages community outreach;
• Gather and utilize data to make decisions about customer service, new products and marketing;
• Understand that diversity helps fuel innovation, and have created a structural framework that supports both goals;
• Have a CEO that is a visible champion of diversity efforts.

Dori Maynard, president of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education (www.mije.org), said diversity activities have been put on the shelf at most media companies, given the disruption in that industry. But she said she was encouraged by new strategies being employed at the other organizations represented on the panel.

Garcia took over the top spot at El Nuevo (www.elnuevoherald.com) last March after many years as a newsroom manager at its sister paper, the Miami Herald. He said both newspapers have long known the importance of recruiting and developing a diverse staff to serve their community, most of whose residents have roots in Latin America or the Caribbean. Garcia was among a diverse group of middle-tier managers who were tapped in the past two years for a hands-on management development program that not only groomed participants for growth, but also helped improve collaboration on inter-departmental projects.

Stoll said he has been conscious from the start about incorporating diversity into Public Press (www.public-press.org). Its goal is to provide quality journalism in California’s Bay Area using a nonprofit model. Public Press has begun operations online and hopes to launch a print edition within the next one-two years. Stoll hired Michelle Fitzhugh-Craig, a prominent local African-American journalist, as the site’s managing editor, and has reached out to a highly diverse set of possible advisers, donors and employees.

For more information about how your organization can maintain a focus on diversity that produces concrete results, contact Larry Olmstead at larryo@leadingedgeassociates.net, 408-997-2905.