--- title: "May The Force Be With You Championing Diversity" slug: "may-the-force-be-with-you-asu-gsv-2026" author: "" date: "2026-04-13 12:00:00" category: "Premium" topics: "ASU+GSV 2026, conference transcript, Workforce Learning, Adult Consumer Learning" summary: "SHRM CEO Johnny Taylor Jr. is interviewed by Debra Dunn on the evolving landscape of workplace diversity, AI's impact on the workforce, and the escalating crisis of workplace incivility." banner: "" thumbnail: "" --- > **ASU+GSV 2026 Summit** | Monday, April 13, 2026, 4:30 pm-5:30 pm | THE FORCE ## Speakers ## Key Takeaways - SHRM CEO Johnny Taylor Jr. - is interviewed by Debra Dunn on the evolving landscape of workplace diversity, AI's impact on the workforce, and the escalating crisis of workplace incivility. - Taylor argues that corporate DEI efforts overcorrected after George Floyd's murder, with well-intentioned but legally questionable and divisive mandates, and proposes a new framework built on three pillars: legally compliant, workplace unifying, and business secretive. - The conversation turns to AI as both a potential equalizer and a new "digital divide" risk, with Taylor warning that K-12 public education is failing to expose students to AI fundamentals while older workers face displacement. - Taylor reveals that SHRM research shows workplace incivility costs American companies $2.3 billion annually in lost productivity, with employees taking an average of 37 minutes to recover from each incident -- a trend he traces from online "thumb thug" behavior migrating into in-person interactions. ## Notable Quotes > "Is AI going to take my job? No, no. For now, it's someone who's proficient in AI. Ultimately, we may get to the point where AI takes your job. That's a different conversation." > > — **Johnny Taylor Jr.** > "We have not been thoughtful. We've just sort of put stuff and kept attaching stuff to it... The new work around diversity is going to have three pillars: legally compliant, workplace unifying, and business secretive." > > — **Johnny Taylor Jr.** > "The very beginning of the process is, we're looking for college degrees. That weeds out a ton of very talented and capable people." > > — **Johnny Taylor Jr.** > "I think we've got to start getting people back to focusing on what we have in common... The only time you get a return on your diversity investment is if people feel included." > > — **Johnny Taylor Jr.** ## Full Transcript I could not be more thrilled to be on stage this morning with my good friend, Johnny Taylor, a man who I love for his humor, his courageous candor, and always willing to kind of say what he believes, and that's a rare breed these days sometimes. I kind of wanted to start with Johnny. Johnny is leading a SHRM, as we all know. It is the dominant global platform for all HR executives and CEOs who lead those groups. It's 340,000 members globally. And HR has been, you know, effectively in the proverbial hot seat, you know, not just last year, a year before, probably a good decade, right? So it's been a pretty interesting organization to be leading. Why don't we just start out with, give us a beat on what CEOs and HR leaders are most focused on today. You know, we're obviously, a big part of our topic here is sort of the evolution of DEI and I, diversity and inclusion, and all of that, but give us a beat on what people, leaders are thinking out there. Wow, so it's quite different. There are probably three big topics. AI, who in the world isn't talking about AI, right? But particularly in the workplace. I was on this morning with the president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve and talking about this topic of what does this all mean for human beings? Like, what's the right number of people? What skills should those people have? All of that. So anything AI, and I'll break that down a little further. Secondly, and much to our surprise, is that we're in a big conversation around civility, and more sadly, incivility. The fact that we're at a point right now where CEOs are having to, and are being confronted by their employees in fairly uncivil ways, and employees are confronting each other. There's a level of just anger, right? I don't know if you all know it and feel it, like everyone's mad, and it shows up in the workplace. So the second issue is around incivility, and thirdly, related to the first, is skills. Like we all want to be in a skills-first environment. The problem is we don't know how to operate in that environment. We know we need people. We know we need them to have the skills. We're just not sure how to make that work. Yeah, and I want to come back to the AI question, particularly, you know, the view on whether it exacerbates the existing issues we have around diversity inclusion. Obviously, over the last decade, we had workforce DEI efforts accelerated in response to the Me Too movement, George Floyd, and Black Lives Matter, et cetera. Give us from your vantage point now, with the benefit of a couple of years of digesting and appreciating, is, you know, how did those moments really sort of reshape corporate America's thinking about diversity and inclusion, and where, if anywhere, do you believe organizations perhaps overcorrected? Yeah, so this is really interesting. If you stop and think about this, you know, I've been at this game long enough. I was talking to a couple of kids the other day, and I call them kids. They were probably 25, but they were talking about, Johnny, you know, this George Floyd moment, and I said, I'm old enough to have been around in the Rodney King moment. So I've seen this movie before, totally predicting that we would be where we are right now. So what happens is you have this moment, this moment where there's a racial reckoning, or in the case of Me Too, there's around gender and sex, and all of a sudden, everyone feels compelled to do something. And if you're not doing anything, then you're bad. You're judged. And so what we saw over the last five years, and probably seven or eight, if you think Me Too-ish, 17, 18, 16, 17, 18, so call it a decade, is corporations just responded in the moment. And it wasn't particularly thoughtful. I remembered right after George Floyd seeing some CEOs, George Floyd's murder, that is, some CEOs say, a third of my new hires will be black. Like, where the hell did you get that from? But you just decided that you're going to decree it. It was illegal, probably. It was stupid. It was divisive, well-intended. But I think that was the beginning of this disaster that we saw. And the result is, everyone is now at this point of tension. But let me be clear, this didn't start. The easiest thing for people to say is this is a Trump administration thing. We all know, if you're in education or at a conference, right, that the Supreme Court outlawed affirmative action in higher ed in 2023. So that was before a President Trump. These cases have been working their way through the system for quite a while. More of them are coming. And so right now, I think there's this moment, yes, the President signed his executive orders the first time, and now the second time. And we have three years of this, two and a half years, whoever's counting, right? But at the end of the day, we are being more thoughtful now about this. I think this is a real opportunity. I've been in this world when it was once affirmative action. Then it became diversity. Then it became diversity and inclusion. Then it became diversity, equity, inclusion. Then it became diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility. Then they added the B for belonging. The point is, and I don't mean to be glib about it, kind of, but the reality is, we have not been thoughtful. We've just sort of put stuff and kept attaching stuff to it, and it needs to be addressed. So corporate America is now taking a more thoughtful approach, I think, to come up with inclusion and diversity strategies that work for all. And that's really the goal. So we at SHRM have come up with this framing, talking to CEOs, talking to general counsel, talking to regulators and your legislators. And it says, the new work around diversity, by the way, call it whatever you want, but the new work is going to have three sort of pillars to it. One, any inclusion work that you do must be legally compliant. Whether you like it or not, there's a law, and it must be legally compliant. Secondly, it needs to be workplace unifying. There's no point to bringing a group of people in a room and saying, everyone like you white men is bad. Your father was bad, you're bad, your son's bad, your unborn grandson's bad, everybody's bad. Because even if it were true, I'm not sure that achieves anything. Sure as hell doesn't unify the workplace. And then thirdly, it must be business secretive. So this framing is legally compliant, workplace unifying, and business secretive is the new and thoughtful way to do good inclusion work, inclusion for all. So and that makes complete sense. I think if we kind of step back at the beginning of all this, the real point in the early movements, whatever you wanted to call them, was that a view that high potential people and typically women and underrepresented minorities, underrepresented groups broadly, were not getting fair access to all opportunity. And if I kind of step back and look a bit, and I can only stand in the shoes of a woman, and so I can be in that category, I look at the numbers and I look at women on boards declining. I don't see much improvement in the venture capital industry where I've been operating, in the C-suite, in political office, although that takes some initiative there too. It just doesn't feel like we're all there. And how in light of all the changes that have occurred and people feel, you know, we had a fantastic conversation yesterday with some women around the topic of silence. And while silence may seem like you're neutral, a great point was made in a corporation, it's not at all neutral. What do you think, how can we make sure that high potential people of all groups are getting the opportunity to achieve, you know, the greatest opportunity? So, you know, I think that's what worries me in the numbers. Yeah, and for good reason. The numbers are concerning. We are seeing, we're not seeing, think about all of the progress that we made and there's some real fear that we will lose some of this. I look at the number of African American CEOs in the Fortune 500, you know, two decades ago that was a higher number. So it is of concern. I think the answer, Debra, is different. It's a very complicated conversation, but we have to be very intentional much earlier in the process of identifying talent. I mean, irrespective of their background, like talent. And I think if done properly, because I believe God does this in such a way and gives all communities genius, if we do it in the right way early on, remove some of the systemic barriers and they exist, by the way, anyone who deludes themselves into believing that everything's fair for everyone is deluded, just that. But if we are thoughtful about looking at our recruitment processes, for example, what schools do we recruit from? Do we need to recruit from schools at all or exclusively? So finding talent wherever that talent lies. I mean, the very beginning of the process is, you know, we're looking for college degrees. That weeds out a ton of very talented and capable people. And then it gets even more selective when we say we want you to have college degrees from the right schools, in the right majors, with the right GPA. In other words, we are actually engaged in an exclusionary process, which is why you can't go 20 years forward and say, oh, my gosh, we don't have any diverse talent. Well, because you've weeded them out. That's the problem. So at its core, this is going back to the beginning and being very thoughtful about how we make our recruitment efforts inclusionary versus exclusionary. Can you talk a little bit? I mean, AI is interesting. You talked about at the front end. On the one hand, you could view it as creating more divisiveness amongst folks. And then the other hand, it actually, you know, it's a very accessible technology. It's not like coding. It is very accessible. And so in many ways, it could potentially level the playing field. People are in paralysis right now, I would say it's the deer in headlights phase that we're all in, and I've seen it everywhere. You must see that all the time. Just love to hear what you think about just kind of at that. Like, how can AI allow us to tap into more diverse pipelines, you know, et cetera? Just love to hear. Yeah. So this is, again, I'm old enough to now talk about this. Remember the old digital divide language we used to use? She's nodding. This is an opportunity for everyone in this room in particular if you're engaged in PK through 12 and arguably PK through 16 education. This is your moment. This is the opportunity. It is very frustrating to me when I see certain communities not being exposed to this new technology. I'm reminded of the day when any of us actually started talking about AI. It wasn't that long ago. Actually, I was at your conference in 2023. But I remember the day, November 30th of 2022. That's when chat GPT was introduced. We act like it was a long time ago. It wasn't that long ago, and I was right here at your conference in April of 23 talking about and having this conversation. The reality is many of our PK through 12, especially public school kids, are not being exposed to the fundamentals of this technology, how to use it, what it is, and how not just to play with it, but to actually understand it and use it to build a career. So from a skills attainment standpoint, I lay this right at the feet of PK through 12 public education. I mean, it's public and private, but the idea is it's an education challenge. But doesn't it also become a challenge for your customers? I mean, we've had this long-held view that corporations are the fourth education system they have to be. Doesn't it fall at their feet as well? Big time. So it's interesting. Yes, young people, PK through 12, that's our future workforce. But the reality is we've got now a significant and growing population of 45- and 50-year-olds who are going to be displaced by this technology. You know, the question is oftentimes, is AI going to take my job? I said, no, no. For now, it's someone who's proficient in AI. Ultimately, we may get to the point where AI takes your job. That's a different conversation. But right now, you're being replaced by people who have the skills and who are familiar with this new technology. And so we are doing two things. In corporations, we have, and if they're learning and development professionals, I'm on the board of Guild, for example. The absolute responsibility of ours is to educate that person who is not a digital native so that they have a longer career. And we need them. You know, we have a birth rate problem in this country, number one. We have a significant birth rate problem. And it's in a lot of the developed world. And then we also have a skills gap. So there's interesting paradox where on one hand, we say we have 4.5% unemployment, 4.3% or so percent unemployment. And then we have people saying, but I can't find a job. Significance. There's paradox. And then employers are saying, but I can't find talent. So we have this problem that we're trying to sort right now in the workplace. But most of it is foundational. We haven't trained people to do those new jobs. So new jobs are coming. We just don't know that people have the skills to do those jobs. And then I have to layer on top of all of it, our research team is now calling this, you know, catfishing as a concept. They're now calling it skill fishing. This notion that people present themselves as having skills that they actually don't have. The resume is beautiful. They actually show up the right way. And now we're stuck with this person who actually can't do the job. And that was the beauty of the degree, was at least we had more confidence that it was a proxy for this person has the skills to do something. Now people are coming up and they're skill fishing us. And so you hire the person with a beautiful resume and everything and they come in and they fail miserably. So it's a really interesting dilemma. Corporate America is trying to sort that right now. Yeah, it's a complicated time. No question about that. I want to really sort of finish off the conversation with something I think you've taken tremendous leadership on. You've had an embracing our differences. You've led at SHRM encouraging companies to help their employees embrace difference. And you spoke about this at the front end, but about the pressure that folks are under around workforce civility, employees showing uncivility to employers, but also within the within the. So I'm just talk to us about kind of initiatives that you're you all are helping companies develop. I think it is, you know, we've talked about we've got a power of love, a power of, you know, how are we teach? What are we teaching people about power, actually? And and how to and how do they behave with each other? So I just love to hear. I think this is a very important thing that you've been out in front on for quite a while. And it's it's hopefully coming home to roost. And I would just love to hear kind of what's on front of mind for you and how you want to lead forward in your massive organization on this topic. Yes. So this is this is a topic that that we've been talking about in so many ways for years, but now it's real. 2019, we started doing some research and the word toxicity began to show up in the SHRM research. And we thought toxicity was race, gender, national origin based. You know, someone's discriminating against me in the workplace. We also thought that it was my managers creating a toxic environment because historically our data would tell us, Deborah, that people don't leave companies, they leave their managers. For the first time, we began seeing something different. And it was I'm leaving the person who sits next to me. They have made the workplace so toxic for me because we are different and managing differences. See, it's great to say we're going to bring a whole bunch of different people together, but that creates its own new set of dynamics, right? It's not easy for people to get together who are different. They naturally don't operate that way. So human beings don't. You walk into a room and I say to people, we are always looking for a commonality. So one of the things that we are focused on here at SHRM is the conversation around, I get it, we've said embracing our differences, tolerating each other. I don't know that that's a good way to talk about it. But anyway, people are focused on our differences. I think we've got to start getting people back to focusing on what we have in common. The reality is if I go to a reception and I meet that gentleman on the front row, I don't walk up and say, hey, how are we different? No one does that. Human beings say, where'd you go to school? Where'd you grow up? We're trying to find those things that we have in common. And we know that we have a lot more in common than we have different. I think one of the fundamental challenges with the diversity at work was we focused disproportionately on our differences. And as a result, we shouldn't be surprised that everyone's focused on our differences. And so we have to think very differently. The entire construct has to be, what do we have in common? How can we achieve diversity and at the same time ensure that everyone feels included? In fact, that's the only time you get a return on your diversity investment is if people feel included. So these things are inextricably intertwined. We are committed forever. We know that our diversity is our strength. The big question is the inclusion component of it. Now, here's the challenge for us. People have become incredibly uncivil toward each other. There's a case right now that's before the National Labor Relations Board. I'm a lawyer, so I won't get too wonky about it. But a CEO decides to reorganize the business, de-layer it, change titles, et cetera, lay off 5% of the workforce, what have you. During the CEO convening, an employee stands up essentially and says, you're a rich jerk. Goes at the CEO in the middle of a meeting. The employer fires the employee. The National Labor Relations Board says, eh, that person was engaged in protected behavior. The CEO appropriately says, no, no, that's uncivil behavior. That's not the behavior that we can model in an organization. And thus the legal battle goes on. So that'll work its way through the courts and up through the National Labor Relations Board, et cetera. My point is we have now, we've got to teach people how to be civil, which is shocking. We are at a point, I just cannot imagine that we are at a point. And it all started, I believe, I don't know where things start, but a lot of it started online because I call people thumb thugs. And that people don't like to term, but yeah, you get online and you say very mean things with your fingertips. And now it's translating into in-person behavior. And civility is at an all-time high. Our data suggested that usually it goes up and it crests after an election cycle. It is fever pitch. Our elected officials aren't helping things. That's all I'll say, right? But putting that aside, I've refused to get political on your stage, right? But what I will say is we have an overall need to bring the temperature down. If we don't, we're going to have a real societal breakdown. Last point. CHERM's research says that after a person has experienced an incident of workplace incivility, it takes them about 37 minutes to recover from a productivity standpoint. So companies are losing, American companies are losing about $2.3 billion a year in lost productivity. Just think about it. You walk into the building, someone attacks you. You have a workplace active incivility. You can't be expected to immediately go back and do your work. So this is a business issue for CEOs. It's a societal issue for all of us. We have got to do something about this incivility. And I think it's about bringing people together and focusing on what we have in common, less about how different we are. I'd be a lot more than 37 minutes. But anyway, I want to thank Johnny Taylor so much. I think the idea of civility as a leadership imperative is so critical to the future, to our forward motion, and for education and skills. And can't thank you enough for being on our stage. Thank you. Thank you. --- *This transcript was put together by our friend [Philippos Savvides](https://scaleu.org) from Arizona State University. The original transcript and additional summit resources are available on [GitHub](https://github.com/savvides/asu-gsv-2026-summit-intelligence). Licensed under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).*