Businesses have known how to value diversity for a long time

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My father, who was a lawyer, had his first job at the firm of "Slavitt, Connery, and Vardimis." Slavitt was a Jew, Connery an Irishman, and Vardimis was Hungarian. (Those were three of the major ethnic groups in the town I grew up in: I'm sure they would have liked to add an Italian name as well, if circumstances had worked out differently.)

Forty years later, after my wife and I married, our law firm for our real estate transactions was Slavitt, Connery, and Vardimis. Bob Slavitt, the son of Abe, the original Slavitt, was still at the firm. But Connery and Vardimis had both died decades earlier... and yet their names were still on the shingle. Why? Diversity! The firm knew they would attract more clients with their ethnically diverse shingle than if they had changed the name to just "Slavitt."

They did not need to hire a "Chief Officer of Diversity Initiatives" to grok this.



Comments

  1. Ken B1:21 PM

    Hmmph. No-one who truly understands the value of diversity would ban manatees.

    ReplyDelete

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