Take Five with Anthony Carter, CDO at Johnson & Johnson, No.#1 on DiversityInc’s Top 50 Companies for Diversity
I recently met Anthony Carter when we were the featured presenters to the Cox Communications diversity councils at the invitation of Cox’s Chief Diversity Officer, Mae Douglas (thanks Mae!). An executive level corporate communicator most of his career, Anthony has always given of himself to the quest of advancing diversity and inclusion. He now gets to do this full time as Johnson & Johnson’s Chief Diversity Officer reporting directly to the CEO. In October 2009, J&J was named #1 on the coveted DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list. In the shared limo to the Atlanta airport I took five with Anthony.
Take One: I know it takes a lot to earn the top spot on Diversity Inc’s list, but when I hear you talk about this achievement, your stance is humble and cautious. Please share the statement you always make and why you make it.
AC: Johnson & Johnson’s placement on the 2009 DiversityInc list is an acknowledgment of our leadership’s unwavering commitment to the men and women across our businesses, Our Credo, and our service to patients and customers. While we are humbled and appreciative of the recognition, we believe it represents a significant milestone in our diversity journey — not an endpoint.
There is still much work to be done, and we remain focused on driving our diversity and inclusion goals forward, helping to ensure that we stay competitive in the global marketplace, furthering the development of our people, and advancing in the pursuit of being recognized as an employer of choice for global talent.
Take Two: What were one or two of the key strategies or practices that made Johnson & Johnson #1 on DiversityInc’s list of companies?
We believe that the future success and sustainability of our business demands that we take a proactive and aggressive approach to managing diversity. This means integrating our diversity and inclusion practices into every element of our business, using the power of D&I to drive superior business results.
To achieve this we’ve focused our efforts in several areas. We’ve re-structured our organization to align more closely with our businesses and their respective goals. We’ve established a broad and connected network of diversity champions and councils to help coordinate local and regional efforts throughout our decentralized organization. And we’ve worked extensively with Senior Management and Human Resources to embed D&I into the employee experience so that it becomes a standard component of how we proactively develop our people.
Take Three: What is unique about how Johnson & Johnson has addressed LGBT, disability, and generational diversity?
We are guided by a 65-year old document – a business approach – called Our Credo, which demands that we uphold certain responsibilities to our patients and customers, to our employees, to the communities where we live and work, and to our shareholders. We take these responsibilities to all our stakeholders and partners very seriously.
Regarding LGBT, we are proud and humbled to have achieved a 100% ranking on the CEI Human Rights Index over the past few years because that helps us continually raise the bar on what we can achieve. And our involvement with the Point Foundation, the annual Out and Equal Workplace Summit and Pflag have enabled us to build good relationships with external partners and make advances on matters relevant to the LGBT community, both inside and outside of the Company.
We have a comparable focus on the areas of work/life balance, disability and generational diversity, as they all have significant implications for our current and future workforce.
Take Four: How does addressing diversity enable Johnson & Johnson to create more effective health products?
When I speak with my boss, our Chairman and CEO Bill Weldon, and ask him to define what diversity means to him, he puts it in the context of innovation. To him, diversity drives innovation, and he defines innovation as bringing the different men and women within our family of companies together to find solutions to problems that we don’t even know exist yet.
This perspective has significant implications for how we capture and nurture the diverse talent required to move our business forward. It also has extraordinary implications for how we look at gaining critical insights from our diverse customers to better care for their health and well-being. We are seeing the outcomes of this in action today across many of our businesses and markets.
Take Five: Why do you do this work and what gives you the greatest sense of satisfaction?
I’m driven to do this work because of my faith – my faith in our mission and our ability to achieve our goals, which ultimately deliver immeasurable benefit to our businesses and the people we serve. Like many of my colleagues, I have a deep commitment to our work and the confidence that together we can make a tremendous difference. This faith guides me every day, in everything I do.
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