For everyone working to tackle issues around inequality and racism it has been a frustrating week so the long Easter weekend is just what we need to recharge and renew our faith in what we do.  

The proverbial ray of sunshine today was listening to Dr Doyin Atewologun in the 20th episode (yay 20 already) of The Elephant in the Room podcast. 

She has a long list of accomplishments to her credit including being an honorary fellow at Trinity College, Oxford; a former Director of Gender, Leadership & Inclusion Centre at Cranfield School of Management; an academic adviser on the Parker Steering Committee and being nominated to the People Management magazine's Top 20 Diversity and Inclusion ‘Power List’ for 2020 etc.  

In this episode Dr Doyin talks about racism, female Non-Executive Directors (NEDs) the “1 by 21” campaign, the role of legislation and targets, the ‘Women to watch’ list among other things. 

The soft spoken Dr also addresses head on questions on the efficacy of Unconscious Bias training and the debate around Black & Minority Ethnic (BME)/Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groupings……..

Listen to the full episode here 👇🏾

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-elephant-in-the-room/id1540074396

Follow the show on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts

👉🏾 Thank you Sudha, a real pleasure to be here. So I am speaking to you from the UK, I have lived in the UK for many years, over 25 years, but I was born in Nigeria and I often say that I loved, lived and absolutely embraced my life in Nigeria. And when I moved to the UK at about age 17 that's when I realised I was black. Growing up in terms of my childhood and my education I had a great family, a loving family and extended family. Both my parents were professionals, we were like third-generation university educated. I went to a really good school. My brother went to a private school. I went to one of those old you know, like colonial legacy schools. Therefore had very good education and had many people in my life who were successful you know, in all sorts ways. So there was no question about kind of like talent or reaching your capacity or your potential. And in one of those conversations with different people, I found out about psychology. I found out because my auntie is a psychologist and I didn't know what psychology was then. But she said, Oh, it's about people and you understand people. And I said, Oh, I love people. And, so that again, you know beyond interest and passion. I thought it was great. So that was the first like phase of my life. I'll just spend just a few moments, just talking a little bit more about how that evolved over, time in terms of later education. So I was very interested in psychology and I was able to study psychology at university and do a master's in psychology at work because I was interested in how people make sense of work. And then I became very curious, like I said, when I moved to the UK and started understanding what it means to be yourself at work or to be your best self at work. I just started asking questions based on my experiences and other people's experiences and my observations about your being able to bring your best self to work differs depending on who you are and how the environment sees you. And so therefore I was very interested in understanding the psychology of difference and in some ways, those are some of the key experiences or phases that brought me to where I have now. 

👉🏾 Gosh, it feels like the first time for some people doesn't it, but you know what? I think It's more of a spotlighting of what is already there, what is already present. And, I know when we, in many conversations, we talk about how the pandemic has shifted things because the pandemic has taken us back indoors. We don't have many different experiences, varied, rich as the experiences as we had. So we're all focusing on the same data, the same images, the same stories and therefore spotlighting events that have always been there, we just didn't notice. So my view is it might feel like the first time for some, but it's more of a spotlighting and an evolution of the way in which we need to really pay attention to inequalities around us. 

👉🏾 It's so funny. You ask this because. In December, 2020 in the UK on the news was information about the government dismissing the view that unconscious bias is worth spending their time on. So they were like, Nope, we're not going to do any unconscious bias training. I talk about this because unconscious bias is one of those really heavy deeply psychological concepts. Unconscious bias is essentially the idea that we carry around with us thoughts, behaviours, attitudes of which we are not consciously aware. We don't bring it to our mind, but it influences the way in which we respond to people. And so, for example, some of the things that we might find is when we are in a meeting and someone with a deep voice speaks, we pay closer attention and are a little bit more likely to be influenced by what they see, because we have an association between, manliness and, certain like deep voices and knowing the right thing. But having said that there is a strong psychological basis for how we respond to difference. I do want to acknowledge because it's very important that the origins of racism actually lie in a very conscious economic strategy. It was very explicit. I think it was a 1600 sometime in the 16 hundreds when it started, where in Europe, I think it was Portugal. Essentially there was a desire that we need capital. We want to get wealthy of labour and a way to get cheap labor is to buy and sell people. So it was a financial-economic reason and yes since then lots of things have happened such that without knowing it. Our world is organised according to different colours and we treat people based on their different colours in different ways. And we may not know about it. I think it's important to acknowledge that it came about from a conscious intention to separate people and make money from it. 

👉🏾 Just to go back to my point around spotlighting, what's already there. So spotlighting, but maybe in some ways, exacerbating making worse.

So there's a couple of things we know for many different reasons, including economics, but also culture that if you live in the UK, certainly. And I think this is probably the same in other parts of the world where they've gathered the data. That if you live in a multi-generational household, i.e. for example, you live, grandchildren and grandparents, and in a close family setting number one. And if you live with more people than average, you know, again, if we think culturally it is much more likely that if you're from an immigrant community or from a minority ethnic background, you're much more likely to draw on those family resources pay attention to your grandparents and also live together. And unfortunately, when we think of what we know about the pandemic is that it spreads through people, people loving each other people, hugging each other people live in together. So this is one way just one way, there are many other ways, but one way in which the pandemic has a differential impact a disproportionate impact, on people who come from a minority ethnic community. But the other thing, and I think this is, you and I, we are you are in your location. I'm in a different location, we're using technology. We are, in some ways, even though we're both women of colour, we also work in a context where we are professionals and based on our own kind of social class, we're able to do our work virtually. So we are more protected in some ways because we can get our income even by staying at home. But when we think about other members of the minority ethnic community, or, just more broadly, when we think about class. We know that there are people who don't have a choice who have to go out and work in service roles, service industries, cleaners, people who might be cleaning or, driving buses, et cetera. So in some ways some people are more protected than others. And I think when we think about COVID, in addition to, like I said, spotlighting technology, everybody can now see videos of, terrible of, you know, police brutality, of riots and all of that. There's also actually when we think about how we live and how different people have different exposure in terms of different lifestyles, how it just makes it tougher for particular people and perpetuates some of the inequalities. 

👉🏾 Wow. You know, thank you for introducing that topic. When we think through the progress that we need to make at this level, we need to remember that there's two sources of talent. For example, when we look at non-executive director level, the vast majority of positions are external. So the pool is much broader and the other advantage that we have, and I'm using advantage in air quotes is that the same woman, for example, can take up multiple roles and fill in the gender balance for different organisations. So some and I would probably be one of those people, would say that actually it's quote-unquote easier for some companies or some boards or some executive search firms to work towards gender balance by looking at NEDs. When we look within your organisation at your pipeline, at your director level, your senior manager level, what are you doing within your business.

There are barriers that organisations have put into play in terms of, for example, assumptions, that the only people who can do this job, have to show up in the office from, you know, 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM. In fact, you know, I know a lot of us are saying this, that the pandemic has completely disrupted that. So to explain the differences, it is because we need to do a lot more within the organisation to release the talent that's in the pipeline. 

👉🏾 Oh, Sudha You're making it tricky now. You're putting people on the spot. This is great. Thank you for that question. And for, listeners Sudha referring to the Parker review, which is the review that I've been involved in. It's a government backed review that focuses on ethnicity on the FTSE listed companies in the UK. And the target or strapline that we used when we kicked off a few years ago was. 

But of course we kicked off, I think it was about 2016, 2017. And here we are 2021 is, you know, it's a matter of a couple of weeks away and Sudha is saying, okay, so what's happened. I think on one hand, I'm not as discouraged as I think many people would be. I only say that because based on the work that we've done on the gender diversity on boards. It was a little bit of a slow start. It really was. Although some people listening might say, well, that was four years ago really? 

👉🏾 How slow is the start? So I take that. But the work for many of us listening the core, we know that the work for gender equality has been ongoing for many would see for a number of decades. Even if we're just looking at gender equality in the workplace many, many decades. So on one hand, I am saying that the research suggests that it took us a little while to just get into it. When we thought about gender and then there was a real quick, a very rapid movement. So I'm hopeful that if we think through that trajectory, that it will be a similar basis or similar experience. And certainly the events of the summer, I think in many ways might be the impetus that some people are looking for. 

👉🏾 I think it's an important placeholder and important, and in fact, not placeholder with regards to being clear on what our minimal standards are. Think legislation is important to say, you know what this is the minimum required to meet, i.e. no discrimination on the grounds of ABCD. But we do want to do more. We do want to aspire, we don't want to just have no discrimination. We actually want to be conscious and mindful about inclusion, about making sure that we all are not just free from discrimination, but actually we have opportunities to bring our full selves to work. 

👉🏾 It's the base it is the base. I mean, it may be actually Sudha that there's something around maybe we need to be more creative in terms of our legislation. But if we looked at the law right now, that is essentially what it says and we can't just be satisfied with, okay do not discriminate against .  

👉🏾 Yes so I think in addition to legislation, so to go back as we think through what are the different levers, what are the different things that people need to work with? I'm of the view that targets are in the "Yes! Let us implement. targets category" and I say that partly as a psychologist, right? Targets, they help focus, they quantify, you can measure. As human beings when we think through behaviour and behaviour change. One of the things we know from behaviour and motivation is goals work, setting a goal for human beings gets to them to act, of course, you need to think about how you communicate. Of course, you need to do that in addition to other things. But one of the things actually that some of your listeners might benefit from is the 20,20 Cranfield report on the female FTSE. So we just call it so female FTSE report. We do it every year. The 2020 report has a piece on whether targets work and how targets work. So there's some research there that's up to date where some of my colleagues looked at different organisations to ask them about targets and some of the pros and cons of that. So I think readers and you can possibly put it in your notes as well 

👉🏾 Indeed, indeed. So I said a few moments ago that the work on gender equality is something that we, compare when we look at the work and ethnic equality. So yes we are not there yet in terms of parity for women at senior levels, we're not there yet, but often when we think about gender diversity at senior levels many of us often think about a particular type of woman. We don't really think about different types of women. So when we pulled together the women to watch list. It was like a special edition, so to speak. We said, you know what? We have had 10 years of spotlighting 

about a thousand women. And we thought, actually, this year. Let's focus specifically on women of colour so that we can uplift and showcase all of the talent there, because we don't necessarily think of women of colour across sectors as potential, many of us, particularly executive search firm don't consciously think let me look through a list and actually where are the women of colour here? So we thought we'd make it easy for people to access. 

👉🏾 Oh, it's not, again, I think that's another useful like lever to pull. And ethnicity pay gap helps us quantify, helps us depending on how sophisticated our analyses are, help us understand where the challenges are. And if we at least focus on providing some sort of balance or equitable experience in terms of income than we are contributing in some ways to fairness and equality in some ways. But there's so much more that we need to do all sorts in terms of education, in terms of criminal justice, in terms of access to healthcare. I mean, there are just so many other ways and that's outside in society. And meanwhile, in organisations, there's like promotion, there is access to mentoring and sponsorship. That means there are many other ways in which there are inequalities that we need to rebalance. 

👉🏾 So I would say at like a basic entry-level. What you should do is encourage data collection through self-reporting. Like just figure out who your people are. And when you do that, when you're asking people to just fill in their data, explain why, explain what you're going to use it for, because just to go back, many of us, you know, some of us say, if it doesn't get measured, it doesn't get done. If it can't be counted it doesn't count. I mean, there are many reasons to have that data as a starting point. And my other recommendation with this first point with regards to gathering data, is to analyse it intersectionaly. And by that, I mean don't just put your different categories in separate boxes so say, well, you know what we have these men, these women, we have these people with a reported disability we have these people who don't. We have this proportion of people who are of these various ethnic groups. Do what you can to combine that for example, if you can combine your data around gender with your data around ethnicity, and that gives you a richer picture of what's happening in your business.

👉🏾 So that's the first thing they can do. The second thing I would encourage is remember that we all in our society and we all in our organisation have a role to play. When we think about diversity and inclusion, it's not just for HR or it's not just for people of colour or it's not just for the LGBTQ community, the lesbian gay, bisexual, trans and the queer community in your organisation. 

👉🏾 No, it's for all of us and so one of the things that I do in the work that I do is I talk about involving the whole inclusion ecosystem. So we might say if we're working to diversify leadership from an ethnicity perspective, we might say, okay, we will work with people of colour in a particular level in the organisation the senior managers to help them think through coaching or like you know, kind of understanding what it means to be an authentic leader. But in addition to that, we'll work with the senior leaders in the organisation about being mentors, about being advocates about being champions. And then we would also say actually, we'll also work with your line managers, to understand how they themselves like you perpetuating bias.

So it's about working with different people in the system in order for it to change. And really my third point broadly is around while you focus on data and you focus on the people, you also need to focus on the practices and the processes. That means even if you're convinced that nobody is being biased and nobody is treating anyone differently. If you see that there are different outcomes, then there's something in your process that's going wrong. There are some things, for example, in terms of how you've defined what leadership looks like in your leadership framework, that is advantaging some people and disadvantaging others. 

👉🏾 Indeed. I have an opinion. Don't worry. I'm going to introduce the concept called social construct in this conversation. A social construct is a thing that is not real. That's not tangible. We cannot hold onto it. It's not hard. It is something that all of us through our language, through our ideas through you know, just through...