What has been the experience with this programme?
Our commitment to diversity made possible many of our key business wins. Today, we have more than 300 alliances, joint ventures and other partnerships in over 50 countries. All this needs a diversity of individuals, thoughts and perspectives.
Did Lockheed Martin seek to patent its AA programme?
Actually, we could not patent our AA since it is based in law. However, we are in the process of patenting an innovative model we have developed to measure the success of our diversity efforts. Our diversity maturity model (DMM) is based on an engineering construct, therefore easily understood by our predominantly technical workforce. Most importantly, it provides us with a common framework and definition to guide our diversity efforts. The DMM is an innovative way to take the measurement of diversity to a completely different level—one that goes far beyond race and gender to embrace the many ways that diversity and inclusion contribute to the success of our business. A key element of the DMM that distinguishes it from other measurement tools is that the scoring system we use is most heavily weighted toward an employee survey conducted annually. We are most concerned with how our employees actually view the organisation from a diversity standpoint and not as much by other factors such as the race and gender makeup of the workforce.
Does your programme differ from those at other firms?
I believe the DMM helps us capture, to the best of our ability, what amounts to a cultural transformation of our business. I don't think many business enterprises can claim to have such a tool to measure cultural transformation—other than perhaps a database that is tracking the number of women and minorities in any given organisation.
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