During a Wednesday panel discussion about diversity, equality and inclusion at the Raving NEXT: Indian Gaming Analytic & Marketing Conference, panelists debated what DEI measures entail.
Jason Younker, University of Oregon Assistant Vice President and Advisor to the President on Sovereignty and Government-to-Government Relations, pointed out what DEI is not.
“The very opposite is diversity, inequity, and exclusion, which is the acronym DIE,” Younker said. “And so, you have to figure out where you are, and that is the base of where you should start as an organization (addressing diversity, equality and inclusion).”
Younker participated in the panel discussion Are We Getting Diversity and Inclusion Right – How Do We Manage This Issue From Not Only a Staffing Perspective but From a Human Perspective? Other panelists were moderator Tal Moore, foundation director of the National Native American Human Resources Association and a member of the Kalispel Tribal Economic Authority; Comanche Nation Entertainment CEO Mia Tahdooahnippah; and Mille Lacs Corporate Ventures CEO Joe Nayquonabe, Jr.
Younker’s point about the importance of DEI initiatives were echoed by the other panelists. Tahdooahnippah said it’s easy to celebrate the concept of diversity, but it’s harder to practice. She noted that of her company’s more than 800 employees, 63% female are women.
Tahdooahnippah also is the first woman to serve as CEO for Comanche Nation.
“My perspective is, do your customers see themselves in your business? Are they comfortable?” Tahdooahnippah said. “We want our guests to be as comfortable as our team and vice versa. We want everybody to feel welcome.”
Nayquonabe said that diversity is an important tool to “humanize our company” in order to attract consumers or clients. “There’s all these soft benefits and these feel-good things about being inclusive.”
But DEI initiatives should extend beyond hiring practices, Nayquonabe said. That might mean using a vendor that practices diversity instead of one with lower prices, he admitted.
“We want our supplier base to look like our community,” Nayquonabe said. “In Indian country, we have this immense opportunity. We have these magnets of power and influence in spending that would never exist in rural America if it wasn’t for tribal gaming. And if we have to pay a little bit more and jeopardize a little margin, you support a local woman-owned business.”
Diversity isn’t limited to sex or race, Tahdooahnippah said. Generational equality means the Comanche Nation has 18- and 75-years old employees working next to each other. She also noted that accessibility is a subset in DEI initiatives often overlooked.
“Is there accessibility for things in the different groups we talk about?” Tahdooahnippah said.
Raving CEO Deana Scott said Wednesday’s panel “was the tip of the iceberg of the discussion” on DEI and that the organization hopes to plan a master class webinar to foster further dialogue.
But the bottom line, according to Nayquonabe, is that DEI initiatives are “just shrewd business.”
“The research shows diverse teams create the best outcomes,” Nayquonabe said, “and they also create the worst outcomes. And the difference between the teams that create the best outcomes and the teams that create the worst outcomes is cultural competency. So we work and spend a lot of time trying to move our organization and help our folks become more culturally competent. And that’s a very personal journey. A really unique thing about DEI is that you can’t just have a rah-rah session with your entire employee base and hope that everybody’s going to get diverse at the same time, or even at the same pace.
“The fact is, we’re all on this continuum of how culturally competent we are.”
