Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Harvard Business Review and the Interest Convergence Principle

I recently wrote a laudatory post about Harvard Business Review's case study on gender transition in the workplace. A reader of this blog raised a strong objection, apologizing for "raining on my parade."


Dr. Weiss,

According to the 2008 2nd edition of HRC's "Transgender Inclusion in the Workplace" report, you and a few other transgender "activists/consultants" are listed in the report as the "go to" people that companies should contact for diversity training about transgender workplace issues.

My question then is if you folks are going to "consult" companies already as to how the rest of us should transition in our workplaces, then why promote a case study in the first place soliciting outside opinions? It would appear to me that companies will take both your, Out and Equal, and HRC's advice as gospel anyway, like they have already done in the past when adopting transgender policies, so why bother with anyone else's opinion? The little cottage industry already seems to be firmly in place with little hope of new people coming in to educate...


I see this as a very, very important question that goes to the heart of "workplace diversity.

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