 | | | "Looking back, I think my passion for diversity was planted in my childhood and early in my career where I learned first hand how damaging biases and mistaken assumptions can be." | Founder and CEO of nationally-respected Minneapolis-based ProGroup Inc., one of the country's first diversity consulting and training firms, Karen Stinson has been a true pioneer in the diversity field for over two decades. As the creator of the first corporate video-based training program ever on diversity some 20 years ago (Mosiac Workplace), Stinson is renowned for her innovative diversity concepts and tools that have served as the cornerstone of diversity programs worldwide.
Since founding ProGroup in 1986, which today has grown into a multimillion dollar firm employing over 80 people, Stinson has led in the development and implementation of a wide variety of unique customized diversity solutions for thousands of organizations in virtually every industry, including Fortune 500 companies, such as Deloitte, General Mills, American Family Insurance, HSBC Bank, Saks Fifth Avenue, Boeing, Disney, Denny's, Abbott, and many others.
Stinson created the Diversity Awareness Profile, commonly known as DAP. Licensed worldwide, DAP has helped millions of individuals in organizations improve working relationships among diverse co-workers and customers since its introduction in the 80s. DAP (and its subsequent variations geared to various organizational levels and issues) is a self-assessment tool that helps professionals become aware of their actions—both obvious and subtle—and how they affect people of different cultural, gender, or ethnic backgrounds. Stinson was also the first to define the role and requirements of Diversity Champions as Change Agents Within Organizations via the 1993 release of The Awareness Spectrum, a visual model widely used in diversity training.
Stinson's passion for diversity was planted in her childhood and early in her career where she learned first hand how damaging bias and mistaken assumptions can be. Growing up in Minnesota, she witnessed her father—disabled from a case of childhood polio—struggle to find white-collar work as an accountant. Despite being educated, he ended up working as a machinist standing on his feet eight hours a day. When she entered the workforce in the 60s as the first female welder for a computer manufacturer, and later as the first female sales manager for a construction company, this childhood lesson hit Stinson even more personally as she experienced the intimidation of co-workers who thought a female couldn't possibly do the job.
The idea for ProGroup came to Stinson in the mid-80s at the end of a 10-year tenure as a business consultant when she became increasingly aware of more people of color, more women, more immigrants, and a greater age range than ever before in client offices, factories, sales floors and patient wards. Curious as to how these new workers were adjusting, Stinson informally queried her clients' employees and found the vast majority of them felt unappreciated, misunderstood, and alienated. Unsuccessful in her attempts to convince her employer that new management strategies were needed to build more inclusive cultures, and that the emerging diversity was more than a passing fad, Stinson struck out on her own and launched the Professional Development Group, now known as ProGroup.
A graduate of the University of Minnesota, Stinson is a frequent speaker at diversity, leadership and trade conferences, including The Conference Board, The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), Linkage's Diversity Best Practices Summit, and the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), the latter which also awarded her the top Trainer of Trainers Award in the late 90s. She has frequently been interviewed by a wide variety of broadcast and print media, including CNBC, USA Today, Bloomberg, New York Times, BusinessWeek, and The Wall Street Journal. | | | "The key to my success in promoting organizational diversity has been tempering my personal passion with conversations about the business. I start with the head first, and then get to the heart." | Myrna Marofsky is co-owner and President of ProGroup Inc. and the driving force behind the instructional design of many of the company's award-winning diversity products and solutions. "Every program we deliver is different because every organization is different—that's diversity," says Marofsky. She is the author of three books, including The Art of Diversity Training, Getting Started with Mentoring (with Ann Johnston of ProGroup), and Religion in the Workplace: A Guide to Navigating the Complex Landscape (with Georgette Bennett of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding in New York City.)
As a social activist growing up in the 60s, Myrna is no stranger to the diversity issues that continue to make headlines today. As an educator, she wrote and developed curriculum that is still used today to increase children's awareness of human rights and global diversity. As a young mother, she actively worked in the political arena in the area of civil rights and women's rights. As an elected official, she learned first hand about the multiple heated perspectives that surround issues of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, disabilities and more. Today she links all of these experience together in guiding companies to make sustainable changes around diversity—not only because it's the right thing to do, but also because businesses have no choice if they want to succeed in the 21st century.
Myrna has written and developed a wide variety of proprietary training products distributed by ProGroup, including the Honoring Differences® product line and award-winning video-based training programs, such as, A Winning Balance®, The Cost of Intolerance®, Flash Judgments™, Attitudes Towards Differences, and Winning Connections.
She is frequently quoted in the press, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, BrandWeek, Entrepreneur, DiversityInc, and Chicago Tribune, among others. A national speaker, Myrna has presented at various conferences, including The Conference Board, the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), and the Women's Leadership Summit. She serves as an advisor to the Multicultural Foodservice and Hospitality Alliance. A lover of theatre and performing arts, Myrna also chairs the Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company Board. | |
| |
| |
