In This Issue:

• Affinity Groups
• Profile
• Woman Talk
• Managing Diversity
• Management Tip of the Month
• Book Nook
• Ethics Dilemma

GOT DIVERSITY?

Click here for information on our "Strategic Diversity" seminar to be held September 25-26, 2007 at the Meeting Center, Silicon Valley's Techmart, Santa Clara, CA.

PROFILE:
George Lauro

Each month we will profile someone in the business, non-profit or government sector who has shown superior leadership or management skills. If you know someone who should be profiled, please send the person's name, title, organization and contact information to edgeline.

NAME: George Lauro
TITLE: CEO-Founding Partner
COMPANY: Alteon Capital Partners, Campbell, CA

George Lauro has 25 years of engineering, operating and venture capital investing experience in the IT, electronics and semiconductor sectors. He holds 23 patents for inventions in GPS, RFID, RFICs, portable power supplies and inertial guidance.

What is most exciting about your current role?
The opportunity to work in Silicon Valley side-by-side with the world’s leading technologists and entrepreneurs. Participating in, and contributing to, the transformation of raw technology concepts into significant new products and businesses, especially when they are industry-firsts.

What is your biggest challenge?
Spotting winning teams and product/technology concepts at a very early stage, before other VCs do, and picking the right ones —investing time and money in teams that actually achieve commercial success.

Briefly describe an experience that taught you a lot about leadership or management.
As a young manager at Astronautics Corporation, I led a team that developed and manufactured guidance systems for spacecraft. We had huge hurdles both in design and in manufacturing and we were very late in delivery to the spacecraft integrator. I learned quite a few hard-knocks lessons on motivating teams comprised of diverse personalities (ranging from PhD engineers to production line assemblers), many 25 years my senior.

What two or three traits or qualities will leaders need to be successful in the future?
- Ability to set clear objectives and priorities for their team, to provide guidance and empower team members, and resist the temptation to micromanage, unless it is absolutely necessary.
- Ability to create an exciting vision, to communicate this to the team and get them motivated to be part of making it happen.Refusing to accept failure. Knowing my limitations. A willingness to give 100 percent effort to bring about a successful outcome. Serving with humility.

What personal strengths have led to your success?
I am able to focus, work hard and avoid distractions. Really having fun in my various career positions has helped a lot.

When faced with a thorny business dilemma, what are the key questions you ask?
What are the long-term effects of your actions and the degree to which they will meet overall goals of the organization? As a VC investor, a lot of this revolves around the return on investment and taking actions that maximize shareholder value while staying strictly within the norms and values of the firm.

Tell us about your outside community interests, hobbies and activities.
My Number 1 activity is spending time with my family— hiking, going to Monterrey and Santa Cruz, enjoying the incredible natural beauty of California. I like astronomy and astrophotography, fishing, beekeeping. I try to run three times per week.

What are three tips you would offer to aspiring managers and leaders?
- Be committed to both the project and the people that you lead and manage.
- Be knowledgeable, and if possible, the most knowledgeable.
- Understand and embrace the diversity of people.

---

George Lauro

Born: October 9, 1958, in Philadelphia

Family members and pets: Wife, daughter, son, two squirrels in the attic, and five ravenous gophers in the back yard

Favorite book: Any well-written science fiction book

Management Tip

Good leaders value conflict. Different views increase the quality of decisions and ensure that problems receive attention early in the process. Dissenting views go underground if they can’t be safely placed “on the table.” The key is to recognize negative forms of conflict —when positions become entrenched, disagreements get personal or the group is so bogged down there’s no movement.

—Rebecca Kuiken

 

Affinity groups can energize

sales and outreach efforts

By Rebecca Kuiken and Larry Olmstead

Are affinity groups good for business? Here’s a success story to keep in mind

In a 2004 Harvard Business Review article, Prof. David A. Thomas reported that IBM’s People With Disability network helped shape a strategy for making the company’s products more broadly accessible. That effort, he said, will produce more than a billion dollars in revenue over 10 years.

IBM is not alone. Diversity Best Practices, a consulting and research firm, says affinity groups are in place, or envisioned, at about 90 percent of the Fortune 500. Companies like Aetna, Cisco and Nike have long benefited from such groups.

“Affinity groups” are employee networks based on such characteristics as ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation. They help companies identify new marketing opportunities, improve employee retention and strengthen community outreach.

Leading Edge Associates recently prepared a report on affinity groups for the National Association of Minority Media Executives. The report gives these tips for introducing – or re-energizing – affinity groups in your organization:

Purpose: What is the goal of creating the groups? Are you looking to boost employee retention? Address unhappy employees? Tie diversity to the bottom line? Having clarity of purpose will help in deciding how to go about setting up and supporting the groups. Also, consider whether affinity groups are the right tool for the job – other diversity initiatives may work as well.

Ownership and legitimacy: The best affinity groups are volunteer organizations. Management can help create them, but must avoid being seen as being the principal drivers. If you are contemplating affinity groups, hold discussions with legitimate opinion leaders within that employee population.

Establish criteria: Most companies avoid groups with political or religious purposes. Make it clear from the outset what kind of groups the company will support, and why. Affinity groups should represent constituencies that speak directly to the company’s business needs and opportunities.

Ensure that membership and participation is open to all: This is a key best practice. It helps avoid the perception of exclusion; helps the group find resources and allies, and addresses the reality that some people might want to join a GLBT group, for example, simply because they are interested in knowing more about gay culture.

Engage senior executives: Make sure they buy into the idea and serve as advocates, sponsors and mentors, helping the group navigate the company bureaucracy in order to execute its ideas.

No whining: “Don’t let it be used as a place to gripe, or to replace established human resources processes,” said Ethan Loney of NBC Universal.

Open the pocketbook: Even a little funding support can help affinity groups establish events and services that further the organization’s aims, such as sponsorship of speakers and social events.

Provide support for leadership development and mentoring: Encourage group members to coach one another, and provide ways both formal and informal for the group to link with the company’s development and mentoring efforts.

Look outside the walls: Affinity groups can provide an important boost to the organization’s external relations efforts, whether they are in the areas of philanthropy, community outreach or development of cultural- or gender-sensitive products or services.

WOMAN TALK: Supervising women requires deft touch

By Dinah Eng

If you are a woman manager, you have probably noticed there is a difference in the way men and women respond to your orders. If you wonder why, Susan Murphy has a few answers that may surprise you.

Murphy, a business and organizational consultant, says workplace relationships between women are all about power — the issues that women have with power, and the relationship they expect of one another.

“Women in the workplace want close relationships with each other, and men don’t,” says Murphy, co-author (with Pat Heim) of “In the Company of Women...Indirect Aggression Among Women: Why We Hurt Each Other and How to Stop.”

“What women managers need to keep in mind is to not flaunt their power, because women expect women bosses to be inclusive and involve them in decision-making. Guys have a command-and-control style, and women accept that. But they don’t like it in other women.”

To get the best productivity from female employees, Murphy recommends using three communication tools, which de-emphasize the overt exercise of power:

- Add a disclaimer to soften the message.
Instead of saying, “This is what I want to do,” say, “I’m not sure about this, but I’d really like to go in this direction.”

- Use a hedge phrase.
Instead of saying, “We’re going to pursue this direction,” say “Perhaps we should move in this direction.”

-Add the tag-on question that asks permission, even if you don’t need it.
For example, after saying, “We’ve got to get moving on this now,” add on, “Okay?” Or rephrase the sentence, and add, “What do you think?”

“Women feel competitive with one another, but don’t talk about it much,” Murphy says. “We were taught to get along and be nice to others. Women enjoy relationships with other women, and if the power is not balanced, it can affect the relationship.”

Women bosses, she notes, are often criticized for managing too much like men. “It’s a double-bind for women who are creating their leadership style, depending on whether we’re dealing with men or women,” Murphy says. “With men, we need to be more direct in our communication style. With women, we need to be more indirect and use disclaimers to flatten out our power.

“Women can make great leaders. None of the differences in the way women work with other women are right or wrong. It’s just fascinating to study. When women get along well, the morale and productivity skyrocket.”

MANAGING DIVERSITY: Get strategic about recruitment

By Jacqui Love Marshall

It’s a familiar cry among managers. “We can’t find any qualified _________ candidates!” You can fill in the blank with almost any group – Black, Hispanic, Asian – even Gay or Disabled. All too often the protest comes at the end of the recruiting process, just as the manager is about to hire the top candidate. So, what to do?

First, acknowledge that recruitment is an essential business strategy for your company. It is strategic and competitive, and cannot be an afterthought or a perfunctory effort. If you strive for a diverse workforce, the challenges are even greater, so there must also be sustained commitment and attention to recruiting talent of color.

Here are some strategies for finding talent of color:

Get your house in order and tell your story: Don’t start actively recruiting talent of color until your company is ready to welcome and treat them well. Once you have a good company story to tell, share it broadly – on your web site, in your annual report, in recruitment ads, with candidates, etc.

Hold managers accountable for diversity success: Most best-practice companies achieve strong diversity hiring, promotion and retention results because managers’ evaluations and bonuses are tied to these results. As the saying goes, “what you reward, gets accomplished.”

Clarify what “qualified” means: Job qualifications can be applied subjectively by hiring managers. Educational, skill and experience qualifications may eliminate strong talent from non-traditional paths. Review job descriptions and listings to be sure the qualifications are relevant, and not overly restrictive. Then, be sure hiring managers are using qualifications to hone in on the best candidates rather than eliminate them. Allow managers to override certain qualifications to take a calculated chance on outstanding candidates.

Conduct diversity & recruiting skills training: Diversity training helps your recruitment efforts pay off long-term and helps retention by encouraging a hospitable work culture. Include bias-free interviewing techniques in your recruitment training so that candidates of color receive competent and thoughtful consideration from hiring managers.

Don’t wait until the job is vacant: The biggest inhibitor to strong diversity recruiting is the urgency to fill a job. Encourage managers to continually identify candidates of color for potential hiring and maintain a database of top candidates of color within your industry. Pre-screen or interview them before job openings so that they know you are interested.

Tap Employees and Affinity Groups: Employees are the best informal source for recruitment and this is even truer with employees of color. Deploy your best employees as recruitment ambassadors within colleges, professional networks and member organizations. Seek candidate referrals from your in-house affinity groups.

Get Known in the Local Community, Sponsor In-House Job Fairs: Conduct in-house job fairs to recruit local talent of color and advertise the job fairs within communities of color.

Offer Internships & Work-Study Programs: They provide an opportunity to meet and evaluate high-potential students of color before graduation. They also create pipelines to new recruitment sources.

Finally, sustain your diversity reputation over time. Don’t rest on old diversity laurels. What are your latest diversity successes and achievements? Perhaps 10 years ago, it was the company’s hiring records, five years ago your diversity training efforts, and currently your launch of a new product from diversity market data. Who wouldn’t want to join a company that consistently talks the talk…and walks the walk?

 

BOOK NOOK

ETHICS DILEMMA: Thou Shalt not Steal (company supplies?)

Jerry Ceppos will answer questions about ethical issues every month. Along with two others, he received the first Ethics in Journalism Award of the Society of Professional Journalists. Write Jerry at jerryc@leadingedgeassociates.net .Tell him if you don't want your name used.

Q. I was in the office on a recent Saturday and saw an employee who had just quit packing up his belongings—and stealing box after box of office supplies from the company. I’m no giant booster of the company, but it galls me that someone would be so blatant after working here for years. Should I turn him in?

A. You’ve answered your own question. The thief’s nerve and lack of concern about being seen add up to an undesirable person who shouldn’t be protected. Some good news: If you turn him in, you’re not alone. Wonderlic, the employment testing company, quoted a survey by Express Personnel Services of Oklahoma City. Express asked 1,000 working adults about large corporate theft—and 71 per cent of employees said they’d report a theft of $1,000. The theft in this case sounds less costly. On the other hand, the thief’s stupidity in stealing while you're watching makes up for the lower dollar value. Report him.

 

Edgeline is published the second Tuesday of each month by Leading Edge Associates, a consulting firm engaged in management training, organizational change, succession planning, executive coaching, diversity and media. Rebecca Kuiken, managing editor of Edgeline, can be reached at (408) 960-9472.