Talking about Race and the Global Economy

One of my favorite business authors, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, just put up a post on the Harvard Business School blog about the Gates arrest and its connections to global business management, “Henry Louis Gates and the Global Economy.” She went straight for the jugular on this issue, emphasizing that:

The incident is about race, regardless of Sgt. Crowley’s intention, regardless of whether the officer reacted appropriately, and regardless of whether Gates should have held his temper.

Then she drew a parallel with the situation of a white American manager working for an Asian company, who “felt increasingly marginalized, stereotyped, racially profiled, and excluded from inner circles.”  The point is that race is embedded in the context in which we work, whether or not there are active racist intentions at play.

She concludes:

Obama’s election, and now Gatesgate, moved discussion of differences from under the table to the center of the table. Business executives everywhere should start talking about this topic openly. If we can mention it, we can transcend it. And transcend it we must, if we are to prosper in a salad bowl of a global economy where talent comes in hundreds and thousands of varieties.

She said it much better than I did!