Breaking out of your comfort zone
“When you’re almost 160 years old,” says Scott Haldane, the YMCA of Greater Toronto’s President & CEO, “the natural tendency is to go back to the same old well as you move forward.” This had always worked in the past but was no longer serving the organization whose community had changed around it.
Haldane explains how his own personal biases were limiting the organization from becoming more diverse at the leadership level. When they were looking to fill the position of chief development officer he informed the board that they would have to by-pass their diversity policy. “I thought there was no diversity in fundraising,” he says. But the board insisted on the application of a diversity lens in the recruitment process so Haldane directed the search firm to go global. In the end, an ideal candidate emerged out of the UK, a top-notch fundraiser of Nigerian descent. “We got the best – and only because we had access to the widest pool of talent.”
When speaking about the process of diversifying their leadership, he’s clear that making the transition is not easy. “You can’t get there without taking some risk.” When they identified a new chair for their board of directors – a high profile business and community leader from the south Asian community – it required significant movement from both sides, taking the organization out of its comfort zone. “We had to be open to becoming something very different.”
In the end, he confesses, both the organization he heads up and Haldane himself have changed for the better. He talks about how discussion at the senior management and boardroom table has evolved as has his leadership style. “We think differently and more creatively. We’re more willing to consider new options and try new things.”
The YMCA received a Maytree Foundation Diversity in Governance Award in 2008.
