PERSPECTIVE: “Did Earn It.”
Date Posted: March 6, 2025
Posted In: Discussion, Ideas, Workforce,
by Tom Finan, Executive Director and Co-Founder
On Wednesday I spent the better part of my working day at AGCMO’s first (my journalism profs wouldn’t let me say “Annual” until there is a second) Diversity and Inclusion Summit.
I listened to 18 panelists and took nine pages of notes. Did I learn anything new?
Yes and no. I heard a lot of what I’ve been hearing in meetings and similar gatherings for 50 years. And that’s neither all good or all bad. Opening the session after lunch Wednesday, AGCMO President and CEO Len Toenjes told the audience that his organization intended to stay the course. AGCMO’s leadership in this space founded its training program a year before Percy Green climbed the leg of the Gateway Arch while the monument was under construction in 1964, and has persevered over the years.
The Workforce 2000 report, which came out in 1987, said that by the year 2000 most of our workforce would become increasingly more female, brown, and black. It also said that we needed to upscale disadvantaged people. In the introduction Roger Semerad, assistant secretary of labor (under Ronald Reagan) wrote, “I have been struck particularly by the paradox that the drastic reduction in the availability of qualified young labor force entrants during these years may imperil the nation’s competitive position, but, at the same time, offer a window of opportunity to integrate disadvantaged youth into the economic mainstream.” Semerad concluded,
Here were my three biggest takeaways from the AGCMO summit:
1.) It doesn’t matter what you call it. The American Dream means that everyone has the opportunity — given their level of skill and their tenacity — to build a good life. My favorite moment of the day was when one of the panelists said that when some insinuate that one is a “DEI hire” the proper response is, “That’s correct, I DID… EARN… IT!”.
One of the downsides of DEI the way it has played out in our industry and in business and society is that we fail to recognize talent and hard work when we see it because we have our DEI goggles on. Personally I find all the dithering over semantics, such as the redaction of the term “DEI” from some OSHA regulations, rather silly. But we live in silly (and scary) times.
2.) People are frightened. I heard more references to God and family yesterday than I have encountered in any business gathering in a long time, perhaps in my working lifetime. People, not just in our industry, but generally are becoming unmoored. I am reminded of the two ground rules in our household: 1.) Be kind, and 2.) “If you’re really unhappy, don’t let the door hit you in the backside.” Last time I checked, those of us who are disturbed by all this uncertainty (“Tell us five things…” and “Clean out your desk in 15 minutes.”) constitute a very large family. So we need to be kind to one another and focus on what we can do as a family to make things better.
3.) It’s the small things that count. I heard some of the panelists relate examples of small things that had made significant differences in their organization. It’s not the massive initiatives that change the world at the end. It’s an incremental bending of the arc, the iteration, the correction, and the consistent improvement.
Last week when the Forum had over 60 candidates and seven employers at an information and recruiting event for our pilot Survey Technician Apprenticeship, I was struck by the variety of the candidates in age, color, sex, and ethnicity. We partnered with St. Louis County Workforce Development and community-based groups to get to that moment. That partnering intentionally leveraged the efforts of others who have similar missions in opening the doors for all community members.
When this first cohort of 15 or more people complete their training two years from now, I hope they all feel they can proudly state, “I Did Earn It”.