Lack of Support by Upper Management can halt Diversity initiatives!

When trying to foster in Diversity and cultural inclusiveness at the work place, one can sometimes find themselves stuck in progress. Many diversity trainers, directors, and deans find out very early that it is often times difficult to get people within their organizations to buy into the concept. Sometimes, this is a result of lack of extensive knowledge or training on how to address the issue of diversity and inclusiveness in a way that helps the organization to reach it's goals, but often times there is a lack of "true" commitment from the organization's leaders that make it difficult for many diversity programs to succeed Without the appropriate support from upper management, changing the culture of your organization can be overwhelmingly difficult, just ask former Diversity Dean of Harvard, Lisa L. Martin.

Martin, recently quit her position as Dean of Diversity at Harvard because she felt that the Dean of the Faculty did not truly support her efforts to foster in diversity on the faculty and student level.

"I think there's a bit of fatigue sitting in with people not wanting to continue having to hammer down the diversity issue all the time," she said an article in The BG News. "After really intense attention to these issues after two to three years, people like to think there's been a change, and they don't have to be on top of the issue anymore."

Martin expressed how difficult it was to try to improve the initiative with out the full devoted support of the dean of faculty. She stated that in order to make diversity and inclusion work effectively at the university, she needed to have upper management actively looking at the process with the means to actively improve it. She stated how that kind of involvement was critical for the task.

Although, Lisa Martin felt that she needed to leave Harvard because of the what she felt was a lack of commitment by the dean of faculty, she said she still understood how many other issues Michael D. Smith had to deal with,

"He had such a long list of things to do," Martin said. "We talked about things once in a while, but I think it was one of a very large number of things on his plate." Despite that acknowledgment, the former dean of diversity still felt that there was an opportunity missed at Harvard.

"Obviously, leaving Harvard is a very tough thing to do, but honestly, it wasn't that hard of a decision because Harvard did very little to try to retain me, to keep me around, so it made it an easy decision for me."

What are your thoughts?

Have you experience this situation in your organization?
What are some things upper level management can do to show their commitment?
Should the Dean of Diversity have left, or continued to build he diversity initiative despite lack of support?