(my) Nissan Diversity Project Wins Award

While my role was small, I'm very proud to see Nissan winning the 2008 Catalyst award for their work on gender diversity. They are the first Japanese company to win this award and the advancement of women into managerial roles is a national issue in Japan, not just a company specific one.

I'm impressed that Nissan is making a significant effort on this despite the pressing short-term concerns of the the punishingly competitive auto industry. The full payoff--a lot of new female talent in the company--won't be realized for years; so this is an inspiring example of managing for the long run.

It's quite odd that I should be involved in selling a diversity project in Japan. Diversity is not my primary expertise, I don't have an office in Japan, and I don't speak the language. However, it was a matter of being friends with great Japanese consultants (Minori), a leading expert on diversity (Barbara Annis) and being in Tokyo due to my work with Recruit's Works Institute think tank. I just happened to be in the place to put the pieces together. It's non-linear, but it's a demonstration of the power of a business model that is based on nurturing resources.

The core aspect of the program was changing the mindset of traditional male Japanese managers so that they could understand the upside of diversity and how to make it work in practice.

(P.S. The photo is of Nissan's Pivot concept car, and no sadly I didn't design the car, I just helped get the diversity project off the ground. Perhaps one day a woman engineer at Nissan will design a great car and I will think, 'Gee I had a tiny but recognizable role in the causal web that led to that.')