2. If you were the shipping and receiving or human resources manager, how do you think you would feel about working at Draper? What are some of the challenges you might face at this company? “You see what I’m up against?” asked Ralph Draper wearily as he escorted Ted Hanrahan, a diversity consultant, into his modest office on a rainy October day. Ralph was the new CEO of Draper Manufacturing, a small mattress manufacturer. He’d recently moved back to Portland, Oregon, his hometown, to take over the reins of the family-owned company from his ailing father. Ralph and Ted had just come from a contentious meeting of Draper’s top managers that vividly illustrated the festering racial tensions Ralph wanted Ted to help alleviate.

It hadn’t taken long for sales manager Brent Myers to confront shipping and receiving department head Adam Fox, an African American and the only non-white manager. “Why can’t your boys get orders shipped out on time?”

Brent demanded. “Isn’t there some way you can get them to pay a little less attention to their bling and a little more to their responsibilities?”