Unfinished Business: The Diversity Promise

Citation

Cassell, C. (2000), "Unfinished Business: The Diversity Promise", International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 21 No. 6, pp. 511-515. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijm.2000.21.6.511.2

I offered to review this book for the journal because I was attracted to the title. Unfinished Business: The Diversity Promise with the subtitle of Perspectives on Moving Beyond Diversity Awareness Training suggested to me that this book may fill a much needed gap in the market: that for a critique of managing diversity interventions generally together with an analysis of useful future directions. This however was clearly a significant error on my part as this review highlights.

A consultancy firm publishes the book and in the preface the Editors, both managers in the firm, outline the background to the organization. A list of the company’s services is also provided at the end of the text. One of the Editors in explaining the purpose of the book states that “In the journey to find ‘something extra’ in diversity awareness training, I asked diverse consultants from around the country for their perspectives on the latest trends in the diversity industry” (p. xiv). Unfortunately the result of this exercise for the reader is a hotch potch collection of ideas and platitudes put together with very little, if any, editorial control.

As I read through the book I became increasingly frustrated with some of the language used and the lack of critical analysis of the diversity field. In Chapter 1 we are told about the link between “inner life and leadership” in a chapter with sub‐headings entitled “Taking risks”, “Telling the truth” and “Communicating purpose”. There is no explanation as to why this chapter is in the book or what the aim of the chapter is. It is unfair to single out this particular chapter for examination; most of them suffer from the same problems. Some of the chapters are merely lists of points and recommendations about aspects of diversity or cultural change that will be very familiar to any practitioner or researcher in this area. Fortunately there is a little more sensitivity in places. Chapter 5 by Finn on “Garden‐variety white fear” demonstrates some insightful analysis of the processes underlying racism. Chapter 6 by Lynn Clark Pegg outlines some research and some lessons to be learned from it: a rarity in this text. She focuses on the experience of women of colour working in US corporations and provides a set of recommendations for corporate change to promote cultures of acceptance and appreciation.

Overall this collection of short chapters is very North American focussed, evangelical in places, and, underneath the clichés, does not seem to offer much that is new. Although I recognise that the authors wanted to represent diverse views within the text, this does seem an excuse for lack of any editorial control. After reading it I am unsure as to who the intended audience is. Clearly it is practitioner focussed, but many diversity practitioners operating in this area would require something a little more sophisticated and analytic than is indicated by this text. This book could potentially be of use to those who are interested in an introduction to some of the ways in which diversity practitioners are working, but beyond that, readers, given the title, may be left a little disappointed.