Category Archives: ADR Advisors

American Diversity Report Team: ADR Advisors

Around the world, Bermuda Jews History, Levine ADR articles, Religious Diversity, Social Issues

Bermuda Jews Part 3: The Jewish Question — by Deborah Levine

August 5, 2014 Editor-in-Chief 1 Comment

(The Bermuda Jews History Series was originally published in The Bermudian Magazine)

I sat in a restaurant overlooking Hamilton harbor pondering my morning researching Bermuda Jews in the island’s Archives. I’d spent many hours reviewing Bermuda’s Jewish tourism prior to World War II. Yes, my family had mentioned ‘restricted’ places where no Jews were allowed. But mostly I remembered their stories of Bermuda’s war-time kindness to Jews. Dr. Hollis Hallett, the Archives founder, directed me to documents from the 1930s showing the impact of an increasingly global anti-Semitism on Bermuda tourism. What should I write about this ugly period?

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Levine ADR articles, Teams & Leaders

The Next Stage of Global Leadership Development — by Deborah Levine

July 27, 2014 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

The complex constellation of skills required for global leadership is continually morphing. The basic leadership competencies are only an axis around which revolve the specifics of local culture and the

analytics of the target culture globally. Therefore, not only does the knowledge management evolve, but so does the audience for global leadership development. At one time, the audience was primarily executives involved in international relocation. Over time, that group widened to include those who work with them: Human Resource departments, Supply Chain groups, and professionals with frequent contact, particularly in the STEM fields: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Today, in order to stay competitive in this environment, virtually every nation on the face of the planet is extending their global leadership training into new arenas. A key area is our youth, brought up on the internet with its impersonal speed and no-holds-barred communication style. The question now becomes, how can we capture the imagination, thought processes, and commitment of potential leaders in an arena with few quick answers or short tweets.

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Around the world, Commerce, Levine ADR articles, Teams & Leaders

Why Cross-Cultural Competence – by Deborah Levine

July 27, 2014 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

We are constantly shuttling between local and global in our work today. Your markets may be in your home town one month, and across the country the next. Your consulting work can be on site around the corner, or across the country. Online night and day, we inform, coordinate, network, and market here at home and across the world. In the midst of massive information overload, the diverse team must have the expertise to cross cultures competently and the wisdom to make effective decisions quickly. In the future, the overload will only intensify. How will we master the global – local connection as it moves and morphs at lightening speed?

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Levine ADR articles, Of Women, Uncategorized

How Broken Bones Make Great Stories – by Deborah Levine

July 27, 2014 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

My kerfuffle with a department store floor ended with me lying on the floor. All that went through my mind was, “How will I get everything done for our Women’s History Storytelling celebration?” Part of me muttered, “We’re doomed!” But part of me said, “Ah, the Broken Bone Factor! This isn’t a disability – this is diversity at work! ”

This wasn’t my first experience with the Broken Bone Factor. Chicago 1990, I sat in my office, staring at the cast on my broken foot. I’d survived three years planning the National Workshop on Christian-Jewish relations, but oversee the actual 4-day conference was like running a marathon through the world’s hottest topics: Church-State issues, International wars, Life & Death. The convention center had just called yelling, “Extra security!” Sighing and muttering, “We’re doomed!” I hoped that maybe broken bones and breaking ground went together. Amazingly the planners produced the best religious diversity conference I’ve ever seen. Thank you, planning committee, always.

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Commerce, Levine ADR articles, Southern Culture

Another Volkswagen Moment — by Deborah Levine

July 19, 2014 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

The president of the Chattanooga area Chamber of Commerce opened the combination reception, celebration, and press conference at Chattanooga’s Hunter Museum on July 15, 2014. The online invitations had gone out only 24 hours earlier, but the room was packed with 800 people. It had been six years since I attended the announcement of the Volkswagen plant coming to Chattanooga in this room. This year was noteworthy because of the wrangling over union representation, politics, state funding, and various personality driven conflicts that would determine whether Volkswagen would build a second car here.

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Levine ADR articles, Women & Technology

Women in Engineering Part 1: Careers – By Deborah Levine

July 19, 2014 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

A discussion of engineering careers for women was recently held at the office of the Interim Dean at the UTC College of Engineering and Computer Sciences/ University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The dialogue highlighted issues of work-life balance, career choices and STEM education. Convened by Lulu Copeland, the diverse discussion group included the following participants from the Chattanooga and North Georgia area.

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Levine ADR articles, Of Women, Women & Technology

What Women in STEM? – by Deborah Levine

July 8, 2014 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

The Double-Dog-Dare Challenge

One of the positive side effects of the recent, rather dismal, report on Google’s diversity workforce data is the determination to see it as “a double dog dare” challenge. When PBS NewsHour alerted me in advance of the airing of the show, I leaped at the chance to jump into the fray. My thanks to PBS for providing a transcript for “Google’s diversity record shows women and minorities left behind.” Here are highlights from the PBS NewsHour conversation on the diversity of STEM nationally and how Chattanooga is responding to that challenge on a local level.

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Authors A-H, Levine ADR articles, Religious Diversity, Social Issues, Teams & Leaders, USA Culture

Does Religious Diversity Have a Future? – by Deborah Levine & Terry Howard

July 5, 2014 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

Despite an increase in lawsuits related to religious expression and workplace discrimination, religious diversity is an area of Diversity & Inclusion often missing from leadership development. The silence is due to lack of exposure and to fear, perhaps well-founded, that religious diversity training may actually increase animosity in the workplace, rather than build bridges. Given the recent Supreme Court ruling sanctioning public prayer as an American tradition, a tradition that has often been Christian, the role of diverse religions in the US is increasingly murky and contentious.

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Levine ADR articles, Teams & Leaders

Inclusion: Controversial, Emotional, but Not Optional — by Deborah Levine

June 29, 2014 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

Inclusion is not new

Six years ago, I described how Inclusion-related policies and legal regulations have long been part of economic and social change, and, at times, part of emotional and combustible debate. Inclusion took 50 years of wrangling after the first Women’s Suffrage conference in the mid-1800s to achieve a constitutional amendment granting women the vote. It took another 50 years for the Civil Rights Movement to seriously impact the workplace and establishment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Now, with COVID-19 and serious calls for racial justice, we are seeing another major societal and economic transformation that questions how we can achieve an inclusive diversity.

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Levine ADR articles, Politics, Religious Diversity

Conversation with Dr. Martin Marty – by Deborah Levine

December 9, 2010 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

In the widely-disseminated interview of Rev. Jeremiah Wright by Bill Moyers, Rev. Wright referred several times to the words and teaching of a former professor, Dr. Martin Marty. I met Dr. Marty when I coordinated the 1990 National Workshop on Christian Jewish Relations in Chicago. Dr. Marty is a religious scholar who received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He taught at the University of Chicago Divinity School, held an endowed chair, and now holds emeritus status. He served Saint Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota as Regent, Board Chair, Interim President, and now as Senior Regent. A columnist for The Christian Century magazine since 1956, Marty is the author of more than 5,000 articles and the recipient of the National Book Award and 75 honorary doctorates.

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The Double-Dog-Dare Challenge

Inclusion is not new

Global Leaders of the 21st Century