Super Bowl Win

After the Patriots’ loss on Sunday night, I tried to find solace in the positive. The Patriots had their turn, I told myself; Bill Belichick has never left me feeling warm and fuzzy; unlike his rival Peyton Manning, Tom Brady has not endeared himself to me by donning a wig and mustache.

Despite my efforts, nothing sufficed. I was gloomy -- that is, until I arrived at work the next day and read that the Colts’ win had made this Super Bowl historic -- it was the first time in 41 years that two African American head coaches made it to the nation’s uber sporting event.

With African Americans comprising approximately 65 percent of NFL players, according to this book, my expectation would be that such a historic moment would have happened long ago. Apparently, it took the NFL’s ruling that at least one minority candidate be interviewed for each head coaching vacancy to push the number of African American head coaches up to seven.

The news prompted me to look into how much more diverse management as a whole has become across industries. What I found was that African Americans were doing better. According to a study by Peopleclick Research Institute, the number of minorities in management jobs grew by 830,000 from 1990 to 2000, and their share of management positions increased from 13.0 percent to 16.7 percent. The study based its findings on 2000 US Census figures.

But Frank Dobbin, professor of sociology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard, seems to warn in his work against taking too much from such findings. “Although the likelihood of minorities holding management positions has increased, the raw percentages of minorities in management remain quite low,” he says.

And studies such as the one done by the US Office of Personnel Management show relatively low numbers of African Americans receiving senior pay.

How do we change that? Dobbin’s work suggests that diversity training aimed at reducing managerial bias may benefit Caucasian women to some extent, but the percentage of African American women in management actually showed a decline following such programs. And African American men benefited even less.

But Dobbins also reports that some strategies can work. “If no one is specifically charged with the task of increasing diversity, then the buck inevitably gets passed ad infinitum. To increase diversity, executives must treat it like any other business goal.” You could argue the NFL did exactly that, with measurable effect.

Once more, progress is being made on other fronts as well, if not necessarily in management. With five African Americans, two Hispanics and an Asian, the lineup of Oscar-nominated actors was the most ethnically diverse ever.

For more on this topic, check out these resources:

• Richard E. Lapchick, Chair, Business Management, University of Florida statement 
  
• “Black Coaches Rise to Top in NFL Poll”

Share this post: Digg, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, Facebook, Twitter, etc.