#74: DEI Aye-yi-yi (Part 1)

Hope Meets Business Reality at Ball

In September 2017, I sat in a DEI training class (yes, that DEI) at Ball Corporation’s Williamsburg, Virginia, plant.

The instructor, an experienced and well-regarded consultant who continues today to teach workshops on “psychological safety” (what I assume is a more politically palatable term for what used to be called “diversity, equity and inclusion”), had just asked the class about nicknames.

This was the first image in the 2011 Ball D&I plan I wrote with Jim Stevens. It immediately emphasized Ball’s decision to focus on “inclusion” and working together instead of “diversity” and differences.

The class, a mix of plant management, hourly supervisors and a handful of hourly employees, started tossing out nicknames they used for each other.

One hourly employee started chuckling and asked those seated around him if he should bring up “Jose.” The instructor caught that and asked for more.

The employee explained that the plant had a long-time employee named Jose whose son had joined the plant team. The son’s name was also Jose, which led to confusion now and then.

So the plant workers nicknamed the son “Jos-B.”