Thank You so much! It is greatly appreciated.

One thing to consider regrading advocacy is the there are many roads to town. I've been fortunate in my career to travel to many places. I've been in factories all over the US and others in Canada, Mexico, Europe, South America and Asia. What I've noticed is that organizations take on their own personalities, for whatever reason. What may play well at one location could very well bomb at another. I retired from Corning, Inc. and a long-standing thought is that in many facilities you had to check the sign outside to know that you were in a Corning facility. While that might be a bit facetious, it does reflect the sort of variance that you would see. That would suggest that it is good to sort out what kinds of messages work well in your setting.

One of the powerful things behind Corning's diversity and inclusion efforts is the realization that great ideas, insightful decisions, etc. have no associated gender, sexual orientation or ethnicity. If you want to be the best, you have to attract the best people you can find. Creating or allowing artificial barriers that prevent finding those people and retaining them keeps you from that goal. That's important because you don't want to give people reasons to believe that your organization is not a good place to be. One caution is that people sometimes get stuck on the notion of the "Best and Brightest". Unfortunately it is possible to wind up with people who have excellent credentials but cannot work together. Definitely a Buzzkill!

I mentioned the HRC's Corporate Equality Index. If your organization isn't already looking at that, it's a great yardstick for comparison. It isn't a static thing as they ratchet up the requirements every couple of years or so. And you don't get points just because you say you do something. You actually have to present detailed evidence, so it is a pretty serious deal.

I can see the dilemma that you mention. All I can say is that people appreciate sincerity. None of us have this all figured out; NONE of us. It is always a work in progress. When you speak about where you were, where you are and the difficulties involved in getting from one place to another, it paints the picture of a journey and that's the story that we have to tell. People may be uncomfortable with what you say, but they cannot fault your honesty.

One of my favorite quotes is from Rachel Maddow:

"The single best thing about coming out of the closet is that nobody can insult you by telling you what you've just told them."

DeeAnn