C arlson Restaurants is an international restaurant chain whose flagship restaurant is TGI Fridays. When Richard Snead took over as CEO, he wanted to focus on diversity issues and make diversity an important part of the culture at Carlson Restaurants. Such a focus was not new to Snead, as he had successfully implemented diversity initiatives at LensCrafters and Burger King prior to coming to Carlson. Snead strongly believed that diversity was essential if an organization was going to have restaurants in different countries and in cities and states with different cultures. The diversity effort focused on three separate areas: hiring, training, and employee development. The implementation phase included conducting a needs and culture assessment, creating a high-level diversity team that sought input from employees and managers, and evaluating each location and manager on its diversity efforts and success.

What factors would you advise the CEO to consider when implementing such a change in organizational culture? What should he do to increase employee acceptance of the change?