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Top is sponsored by Arvato Connect. Arvato Connect is a
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Aggie Mutuma: If you always do what you've always done, you're
going to get the same results. So in other words, you need to
do something differently. And it always has to start with your
why.
Zoe Amar: Welcome to a brand new episode of Starts at the Top,
our podcast about leading differently. I'm Zoe Amar.
Paul Thomas: And I'm Paul Thomas. Our podcast exists to
help leaders and their teams understand what they need to do
differently today to prepare for the world of tomorrow. We
started Starts at the Top as a podcast about digital disruption
but we soon realised that leaders were telling us
something more important and urgent about how traditional
ways of leading had changed forever.
Zoe Amar: So we make it our mission to speak to leaders who
are carving out new ways of leading and we cover topics
ranging from emerging tech to inclusion from remote work to
mental health and climate change. Basically all the
subjects that today's leaders need to be across in 2024.
Paul Thomas: Our podcast isn't about shiny case studies. It's
about lessons learned and progress made the hard way and
crucially how that can inspire others.
Zoe Amar: On this episode, we're sharing our conversation with
Aggie Mutuma, CEO of Mahogany Inclusion Partners, a boutique
consultancy that offers tailored solutions to organisations
exploring inclusion and racial equity strategies.
Paul Thomas: Aggie's work involves collaborating with
executive leadership teams to implement comprehensive DEI and
anti racism strategy. So it was with great interest that we read
the latest Parker Review Report issued this week. And the Parker
Review just to give it a bit of background we will share links
in the show notes is an independent framework made up of
a group of volunteer business professionals, who each bring a
wide range of gender and ethnically diverse perspectives.
In the seven years since the publication of the first report
into ethnic diversity of UK boards in 2017 some let's call
it steady progress has been made. So the 2024 review says
that there are now 12 ethnic minority chief executives in the
footsie 100 and this is up from seven in 2022. However, overall,
only 13% of senior management in footsie 100 firms were classed
as ethnically diverse. Also, people with ethnic minority
backgrounds now hold 19% of all director positions. That's just
the rise of one percentage point from last year. So it's a change
but in the right direction, but it's not a big change. And for
the first time, the Parker Review also gathered information
on board representation from the 50 largest private companies in
the UK, it found that less than half, that's about 44% of those
businesses had an ethnic minority director on their
board. But we do need to state here that only 36 of the 50
companies the review contacted responded, so it hopes to
receive a greater number of responses in future reports. So
there's clearly much more that we need to do to improve
diversity in the business world. So Zoe how does this compare to
the charity sector? Yeah,
Zoe Amar: Yeah so there's some not dissimilar trends here in
some way. So I think, generally, my reflection would be before we
talk about the hard numbers, it says that, and this very much
led to our need to speak to someone with Aggie's expertise,
that is there quite the same momentum around the drive for
inclusion that there once once was, obviously you and I know
and many people listening to this podcast will know it is
still a very urgent issue. But that is not reflected in the
numbers that we're seeing. So if we think about the research
we've seen from ACEVO, which was back towards the end of 2023. So
they did a piece of research, which showed that the proportion
of charity leaders from Black, Asian and minority ethnic
backgrounds had remained at 7% for the second year running. And
actually there was some really shocking stats on other areas of
representation as well. So one of the things that they saw was
that the number of black charity CEOs fell to below 1%. So that's
from ACEVO's research in October 2023. So pretty shocking stuff
there. So everyone's talking about these kinds of issues. But
yet we're not seeing the change really feeding through into
representation. And Jane Ide, who is the CEO of ACEVO, who
we've had on this podcast, actually, as many people might
recall said that she was disappointed and frustrated by
the findings of that study. So great work from ACEVO flagging
that lack of representation great that they're keeping this
issue firmly on the sector's radar. And obviously, there's a
lot more work to be done in this area by people who are hiring
charity professionals and charity leaders.
Paul Thomas: And I guess one thing we ought to say is that we
tried to be across the private public and third sector. So we
haven't got much on the public sector in this intro, but what
we'll do is we'll have a look and see what we can find
something on the latest stats, and we'll share that in the show
notes as well, just for just for fairness and parity.
Zoe Amar: Absolutely. It's always interesting to see those
points of comparison isn't it. I guess what I'd take away from
the data we've seen here from the private sector, and also the
charity sector is clearly this is an issue that lots of
organisations are struggling with, even if they might not
admit that, that publicly there's a basically a gap
between words and action, isn't there? That's the fundamental
challenge here. And it's a very topical subject for today,
actually, because as we're recording this, this Wednesday,
there's obviously a lot of stuff going on in the news around
inclusion, and how people talk about marginalised groups in
government. And indeed, this is an issue which all the political
parties seem to be feeling their way through at the moment, no
one seems to be immune from this challenge. We've seen a lot of
stories of this nature over the last few months. And obviously,
Parliament is a workplace like any other. And I think there's
this fundamental question here of what is acceptable, what
isn't acceptable? What does redemption look like? What does
forgiveness look like? Where do we draw the line? Where do we
call things out? And that's, I think one of the things leading
to a lot of tension at the moment.
Paul Thomas: Yeah and Aggie touched on some of that in the
conversation that we had so looking forward to sharing that
we ought to also make the point that this is an annual report so
we make a note in the diary for this time next year, when we're
introducing our podcast. Hopefully, we're seeing a big
shift in in the upwards direction. But it seems to me
that it's going to be continual baby steps. It's going to be
small shifts in the numbers and not huge. But we'll see maybe
the public sector numbers will surprise us.
Zoe Amar: Absolutely. Well, we will see what we can find on
that front.
Paul Thomas: So now for our interview with Aggie Mutuma.
Zoe Amar: We are very excited to welcome the wonderful Aggie
Mutuma to the podcast today. Aggie is CEO of Mahogany
Inclusion Partners. She's a multiple award winning leader
and the CEO of Mahogany Inclusion Partners with
remarkable expertise in inclusion and anti racism. She
is a passionate advocate, executive leadership coach and
engaging speaker dedicated to fostering thriving cultures
within organisations. Her achievements have earned her
recognition as a top 20 Most Influential HR thinker in 2022
as voted by her peers. Aggie's impactful work involves
collaborating with executive leadership teams to implement
comprehensive DEI and anti racism strategies. Her clients
span a wide range of industries, including global footsie 100
organisations, consultancy firms, retailers, as well as
third sector and public sector entities. Utilising a
combination of strategic thinking and compassionately
challenging coaching methods Aggie guides exco teams and
their organisations through transformational change,
cultivating psychologically safe spaces that encourage behaviour
change and the development of inclusive cultures. Renowned as
a trusted advisor for the CIPD Aggie is also a captivating
speaker who has spoken at prestigious events, such as the
CBI and the CIPD and Your Conference. Aggie, it's a joy to
have you here. Thank you so much for coming on Starts at the Top.
Aggie Mutuma: Thank you for having me Zoe it's great to be
here.
Zoe Amar: Oh, well, we're delighted to have you here.
Thank you so much for making the time. And we're especially
pleased to be talking to you because we're hearing all kinds
of contradictory fascinating things about the state of play
with EDI and organisations through our networks. Obviously,
EDI should still be the same urgent priority that it always
was. But given things like the cost of living and all the other
challenges that are going on at the moment, do you think
organisations are losing focus on EDI? Are they as committed to
it as they once were? What's your take on what's currently
happening?
Aggie Mutuma: Yeah, great great question Zoe, it's definitely a
conversation that's been had by a lot of people in the people
space and definitely the EDI space. I guess I see two
questions. Are they losing focus? And then is potentially
the commitment waning? And I would say losing focus? Yes,
that's it. That's a definite. And what I would say to that is
that I've had about two and a half decades experience in the
people space. So prior to my time in EDI or my focus on EDI
through mahogany inclusion partners, I've led people teams
for organisations like Tesco stores, limited McDonald's
restaurants, etc. And what I know to be true is that anytime
there's an economic challenge or downturn, any people activities
do get defunded and deprioritised. So whether that's
recruitment, you'll see recruitment freezes, won't you?
You'll see that training has been cut, you'll see that
potentially organisations are downsizing and making
redundancies. So the fact that DEI is part of those people
programmes will have an impact on DEI so I think an element of
what we're perceiving potentially as a lack of
commitment, or what we're experiencing as a lack of focus
is going to be due to that. Just the cyclical nature of economy,
and then the impact on business and therefore the impact on
people, activities and strategies. And then in terms of
the commitment question, I would also say yes, to a degree, and
I'll add that caveat to a degree, my assumption stroke,
and it's also based on conversations as well. Or my
view was that, at the beginning of our conversation, the big
wave of conversational and DEI, so I'm gonna say about three,
maybe four ish years ago, there was a lot of activity around
awareness. And wow, we didn't know there was such huge issues.
And yes, we do need to do something differently. And yes,
we do need to think about inclusion in our organisations.
So the beautiful intent was there, because most of us are
values driven individuals, what organisations and leaders
started to understand as they sort of delved into DEI was a
lot of the changes needed are wholesale structural changes,
and cultural changes. It isn't just an awareness webinar that
will fix everything. It isn't just a tweak of the website that
will fix everything, it's actually about how we engage
with each other those moments of truth, and also what our systems
and processes are. So as organisations realise the
gravity and extent of the work that needs to be done. Some are
either put off by it, or others are kind of stuck and thinking,
I don't know where to start, and how do I do this? So I think
there's an element of that as well, that realisation of how
much work there is potentially, but also forgetting the outcomes
and forgetting the benefits and forgetting the the beauty of
diversity inclusion, and really great cultures and workplaces.
Zoe Amar: Wow thank you Aggie that's such a interesting take
on the state of pain, a worrying one as well, because obviously,
that underlying need for us all to be more inclusive and to do
the work to make our organisations more inclusive is
still there, right?
Aggie Mutuma: Definitely still there, definitely still there.
And even if we were to pop DEI, just for a moment, just for a
moment, my advice has always been with in organisations, even
when there was an economic downturn, even when there's a
cost of living crisis, that is not the time to cut back on our
people priorities, it really isn't, if anything, is the time
to actually focus on them even more, because we know our people
are going to be facing challenges. So if we're bringing
back EDI into the conversation, we know that in an economic
downturn, certain groups experience that more. So if we
start if we start with social economic backgrounds, those who
are from the less privileged socio economic backgrounds, they
experience, economic downturns more, so do women, so do people
of colour, many underrepresented groups are actually DEI is more
important. And for some people, work can be that safe space work
can be that place of, you know, looking after your own well
being and stepping away from the realities of, challenges of life
potentially. So again, workplaces have this beautiful
opportunity to step in and focus even more on their people. And I
would say this is not even just my, my view. McKinsey recently
was released, they're updated, why diversity matters, I think
is core to diversity still matters or diversity matters if
at all, or something like that, essentially, diversity matters.
And in that report, they also spoke to the fact that at the
times of economic downturn, that is when to absolutely focus on
inclusion, absolutely focus on your people, because there will
be a recovery. And if you think about it, if we're recovering,
and we've got less people in the organisation, they're less
engaged, we haven't trained them, we haven't focused on
them, then we're not going to be able to maximise the benefits of
that recovery as well. So it's almost like, you know, when they
say, you know, if it's, if it's raining, you're not going to
say, I'm not going to fix my roof because it's raining are
you, your house is going to get wet. So it's that piece.
Zoe Amar: Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree with that. And you
talked about the scale of the work earlier as well. Do you
think some organisations have simply got scared of the extent
of soul searching and change that they will need to
undertake?
Aggie Mutuma: Absolutely, absolutely. In many
organisations, if you look at their values on their websites,
they talk about things such as fairness and doing the right
thing, and everybody's welcome. You know, most organisations
have values that speak to that. And if you speak to most people
about their own values, most people have values around doing
the right thing. Justice and again, words that sort of are
around those themes. So when you talk about diversity, inclusion
and potentially discrimination, which does happen in society,
you does happen in our organisations as well. People
find that quite challenging and organisations find that
challenging. So there is that reticence to engage to kind of
step back from it. And then when organisations start to hear the
experiences of their people and understand the experiences of
their people, they then understand how big their gaps
are potentially, and then there is that sort of, okay, what do
we do about it? How do we do it? Is it too huge a problem? And
yeah, so people do become scared, I guess, to use your
words, they do become scared when they look at the gravity of
the issue.
Zoe Amar: And it's interesting, isn't it? Because one thing I've
noticed I was talking to wondeful Yasmine from your team
a few weeks back as how that conversation about EDI
programmes in the media seems to have shifted over the last few
months, perhaps because we're now all in this run up to this
extraordinary swathe of political elections that we're
going to be seeing this year. So for example, there was an
article in The Economist, which I was quite surprised was
somewhat negative about EDI programmes, which is very
surprising to see that. Do you think there's a danger during
this year that things like EDI programmes are going to get
weaponized in the culture wars?
Aggie Mutuma: Yes, yes. And I think we're seeing it already,
aren't we? There's a war on woke and, and all sorts of things.
We're seeing that and very high profile pupils, such as Mr. Elon
Musk, saying things such as DEI must die, and you know,
interesting, clever play on the words, but not very helpful,
either. And I think there are many reasons behind that some of
which we've spoken about already. And then also, I do
believe that some of the ways in which we and I mean, global we,
not us on the call, clearly, global we have the conversation.
It's hard in a very moralistic way, in that you're a good
person, so you don't do discrimination and stuff, and
you're very inclusive, or you're a bad person, and you do
discrimination stuff. And you know, and that's how we tend to
have the conversation. And actually, human beings don't
operate like that we're not one end of the spectrum or the
other, we tend to be somewhere in the middle on so many
different topics, don't we? So what I think there is a space
for compassionate challenge, is backwards on my screen looking
at it now. But you'll see above my head, the words love, the
word love is written there. And I think that's that's what we
need to bring to how we manage people in the workplace anyway,
but definitely to this conversation in meeting people
where they are, assume positive intent. And yes, the impact may
not be good. And we need to deal with that as well. But how do we
have these conversations where people do have different views,
people do have different experiences, and to do that in a
way that is relatively safe and moves us in the right direction.
So yes, that polarisation becomes quite easy when somebody
steps in a politician, and we won't mention his name. But that
gentleman from the States, who I think is probably the catalyst,
not him, the person, but the fact that he opened the
conversation for people who aren't on board yet who don't
quite understand it, who don't necessarily agree, proves that
it does have a place to speak, they didn't, they didn't feel
like they had a validity. So that platform is now open. So
people are coming out with their views. And what I think
organisations need to do and what I certainly coach leaders
to do is to create that space where we can have those
conversations. If you don't agree, let's talk about it. If
you feel as though DEI has gone too far in your organisation,
whatever that means. I don't know. Well, let's talk about it.
Let's have the conversation, let's help you understand why
it's important, let's help you understand how it links to our
values. Let's help you understand that it's not about
you being a bad person. It is just about the society we find
ourselves in, and how we can make those changes to make it
more fair.
Zoe Amar: And what would your advice be to leaders who want to
create that kind of safe space for these discussions?
Aggie Mutuma: Lots of things that I would say. So either
bring somebody in and who can help you because these
conversations are so vital, so important, and if not managed
correctly, can be more damaging than you would have intended, or
could leave things worse than they actually were in the first
place. So ensure that the people/person who is managing
those conversations with you is skilled and is able to hold that
space in a way that allows everyone to share, but also
protects everyone as well. So I'd say that first. And if the
leader themselves wants to hold those conversations, then again,
I suggest maybe some coaching around that. But what they'd
want to be able to do is to be able to almost park their own
views and park their own experiences and be able to
openly listen to understand, which is a very interesting
skill because we tend to listen to rebut as an argue back maybe
if you're maybe a lawyer or something but you might listen
to argue back or you listen to try to convince somebody else to
come to your side of the conversation, listening to
understand is a very, very different skill, it's hearing
the personnel, letting them know that their views are valid, you
might not agree, and that's okay. But it's valid. So I would
say is definitely around to ensure that they've got those
skills and those abilities, but really being able to take
themselves and their views out of the conversation, and asking
questions such as you know, who has a voice here. And, you know,
every time we do this in organisation we get really,
really great insights that we can we can share with leaders.
And you know, have you ever been discriminated against here? I
think the number is 53%, it might be even more of people who
have been discriminated against in the workplace, whether it's
regarding their gender, or their sexuality, they don't speak up,
they don't share, they don't tell their employers, they
suffer in silence, they might leave, they might start having
high abstinence rates, they might start underperforming, so
they don't actually speak up. So there are lots of stories we
haven't heard yet. You know, do you see yourself being here in
the next 12 to 18 months, a really good indicator of
engagement. And again, in all the organisations that we
support, in around these topics, there are always differences in
experience, and always new insights for for leadership
teams as well. But yeah, so I wouldn't necessarily say you
could ask, you know, do you feel like you belong? But it's about
asking those tenants of inclusion and belonging? Do you
have a voice? Do you see yourself being here? Have you
been discriminated against? Do you feel like your opinion
matters? Do you feel like you're voicing alternative opinions? So
those types of questions now I suggest they ask.
Zoe Amar: I love those questions, because they're
really, really specific. And they speak to specific
challenges and everything that I am learning about inclusion, and
you obviously are such an amazing expert in this, you
know, the thing that I'm hearing for a lot of people right now is
that having an idea of the specific challenges that you're
trying to solve is really important, isn't it?
Aggie Mutuma: Absolutely. Because every organisation is
different. And I've always said this, even thinking about people
strategy, just like, you know, the two of us or three of us, I
can see another person, which everyone else can't see. But
just as the three of us here are all going to be very different,
I have a sister often use my relationship with her as an
example. She's my sister we've got the same parents. So she's
also a black woman. She also works in the people space,
there's about 16 months between us in terms of age, and we live
around the corner from each other, I can look at the back of
my back garden and ask what's for dinner, and she can do the
same. So we're in lots of different ways we would tick the
same boxes, but we're also very different, the way we engage the
world is quite different. I'm an extrovert, she is not so much.
When we go on holiday, we often joke that you know we should
meet on the plane, because for me, it feels like she wants to
get to the airport three weeks beforehand. And for her, it
feels like I want to get on the plane just before it takes off.
Which is probably probably true, actually, to be fair. So in lots
of different ways we're different. So it is about
understanding your organisation. What are the challenges here?
And then therefore, what are the solutions that we need here as
well.
Paul Thomas: And that's the bit where it starts to get
difficult, isn't it because you're looking in inwards at
your own organisation. And I've wrote down one of the first
things you said here, change his hard, in all the different
disciplines and all the different topics we've covered
on this podcast, it keeps coming back to change is hard and
change within your own organisation is really
difficult. It's easy to point to other organisations that are
doing things badly, or examples of where it's not so good. But
as soon as you start to see or hear those examples from within
your own four walls, it becomes a much trickier discussion for
leaders.
Aggie Mutuma: It's really hard. And I think there's so many
things, so many things in my mind that I would say about
this. So I think the first thing I'll say is, even on a personal
level, there's I don't know who's saying it is but they say
something like when you point a finger, so if you actually point
a finger there are three fingers pointing back at you, so that
there's that piece so obviously pointing out other people's a
lot easier, but actually what are we doing in our
organisation? And then also, my belief and I hold this belief to
be true. And it serves me well to do that is that in most
organisations, leaders have great intentions. So when they
write on their website, we're an equal opportunities employer,
they mean that that is their intention. When they have their
values on the websites. That is their intention. They want a
fair organisation, they want an organisation where they hear the
best ideas and people have energy and they want to be there
and then they're part of the fabric of the organisation. And
then on top of that, they also then apply their own experience
and assume almost that that is the experience of everybody else
in the organisation. So often, even when it's an engagement
survey, any survey that you you conduct in an organisation,
leadership will always have a much rosier view of the
organisation than the rest of the organisation and so when
they do hear when we do conduct the insights programmes, whether
it's surveys or Safe Space conversation or feed that back,
there is always this wow, we didn't realise this on our
organisation, we thought things were a lot better. But the
important thing is, yes, have that reaction because it's
understandable. But how do we move to action? How do we move
to addressing these issues? And how do we speak to our people?
And thank them for telling us? And then also tell them what it
is we're going to do to address it?
Paul Thomas: Do you think some of those best employer lists and
things like that those badges that appear on websites,
Investors in People, those sorts of different things. Is there a
bit of a badge waving exercise here that says, you know, and I
wonder if, there's two points in this question, you're nodding
for our audio listeners, you're nodding. So there's a sort of a
badge waving thing here that says, well, we've got the badge
on our website. So it's all good job done, you know, fresh off
the hands and move on to the next challenge. And there are a
lot of challenges out there for leaders as listening to this
podcast, we're here on a weekly basis. But also, does that mean
that there's a challenge of people from within
organisations, not necessarily the leaders and the executive
people like you to come in and help them, but also sort of
cries for help from within organisations? So when I joined
this organisation, I've got these badges on the website, but
none of them are being lived up to so there is still work to do.
Aggie Mutuma: Yeah, absolutely. I think in terms of the badge
waving, I was nodding, in that a lot of and not to criticise any
particular badge necessarily, but a lot, a lot of the badges
are self certified. So if I'm a leader, and I've got these great
intentions around inclusion, and the people experience and well
being and promotions, etc, I've got those great intentions, or
I'm the HR person, I am going to fill in that survey or fill in
that badge application with, again, what I called earlier and
more rose tinted view of the reality. So there's, there's
that element. So whose view are we seeking? Are we marking our
own homework, which often we are. So I think that there's
that element of that. And then also, I think those badges if
organisations see them as indicators, maybe of movements,
so if you've gone from a bronze to silver, your next stage is to
go from silver to gold, it's about how do you ensure that
that is still the case? Because yes, you could be doing things
on a very general level really, really well. And what we often
find in organisations is they'll have an inclusion survey, or
even an engagement survey. And they'll say, you know, we've
done quite well, you know, 75% of our people feel that they can
speak up. That's amazing. That's great. That seems like a great
number, right? 75%. But when you drill down by identity, so if
you compare men to women, you'll see that actually is 99% of men,
and only 51% of women feel that they can they can contribute or
that their voice is heard. When you break that down in terms of
people of colour, you'll see that one group feels really bad,
and the other one feels really, really great. So those
overarching numbers tell one part of the story. But when you
then start to look at the less represented groups and how they
feel, then you can see actually, there's some gaps and our
support for organisations about how do we plug that gap. How do
we bring those lowest scoring identities at higher and improve
the experience for them. And that's just one dimension and
then look at the intersectional lens, which is where two
identities come together, you can see that even even worse
done in most organisations. So if you look at women, members of
the LGBTQ plus community, their experience tends to be a lot
lower than their two counterparts separately. If you
look at women of colour, if you look at women with disabilities
as an example, you can see that there are disparities in
experience there.
Paul Thomas: Yeah, so it becomes as we've talked about, you know,
at times of financial stress and worry or difficult times, it
becomes even more important, as you said, to keep that constant
level going regardless of economic downturn and other
contributing factors.
Aggie Mutuma: Absolutely. And most organisations will have an
employee assistance programme, they'll have wellbeing
programmes. So again, over indexing if we can use that
terminology on those in those moments. So people who do need
the help know that it's there. People do need that space to
speak and share and communicate know that is there as well. It's
really important.
Zoe Amar: Yeah I mean, those are really important issues, aren't
they? And what that's also got me thinking about the needs of
the different communities is you've obviously done all this
amazing work across different sectors. Do you find that
different sectors like say if you were comparing the way that
a bank was developing its EDI programme compared to a charity?
Do you think there are different approaches, are different
sectors approach EDI in different ways? Do they need to
approach it in different ways? What's your take on that?
Aggie Mutuma: Sure, thank you. I don't know whether they need to
approach it in a different way because of their sector, I would
say what drives how you need to approach it is the voice of your
people and experience and your insights and what you understand
to be the qualities that you have. And that would come from
speaking to your people and surveying, etc. So that should
determine how you approach. I think what you do see definitely
is that if we think about a charity and the humanitarian
field of which we support a few organisations is that from a
cultural point of view, there tends to be more of an
understanding, as you think about what they do is that they
tend to be giving they tend to be more humanistic in their
approach. So you'll see that in the culture, what you'll then
see is that when you do when you do share the feedback, when you
do share the outcomes of any insights programmes, it's
actually even more difficult, because there is that
intentionality about being humanistic. There's that
intentionality about doing good in the world. So hearing that
they might not be doing that is quite tough, or can be quite
tough for them. And then when you think about banking, again,
we've got a couple of banking clients. They, they have... I'm
pre menopausal, perimenopausal, I keep losing my words, I've
done well, so far, actually. So I hope you'll forgive me.
Zoe Amar: Don't worry at all, don't worry at all.
Aggie Mutuma: Thank you. They have the XVA and the PRA. And
I've still lost the words. I can't tell you what they are,
but they are governing bodies. There we go. Not quite that. But
we'll use that for now. And they are developing stipulations
about what they expect to see when it comes to diversity and
inclusion in all organisations at all member organisations. So
you'll see in banks that they're thinking about an assurance, how
do we ensure that we meet the obligations of the PRA FCA? How
do we look at governance? How do we ensure that we have our
leadership team on board? So there's an element of that sort
of push? Not quite legal, but again, I've forgotten the words,
I do apologise, regulators, it's back. Yeah, so in terms of
regulators, then there's more of a push around that.
Zoe Amar: And that's really interesting, because my very
much laypersons observation is sometimes when you have these
very sector specific, perhaps quite scandalous cases
happening, that seems to from the outside to drive change. So
if you think of some of these hedge fund cases we've seen over
the last year or two, it feels like that starts to spark a
flurry of activity. Do you think that is the case? You know, does
having a high profile news story, get people thinking, I
really need to do something about this, because I'm in this
sector as well.
Aggie Mutuma: Yeah there's definitely an element of I don't
want to be caught out. I don't want to be to fall victim to
this thing that's happening, I don't want to necessarily be in
the news for the wrong reasons. So it does spark some, some sort
of action. And then also, if you if you think about how we
started a lot of these conversations, it wasn't an
industry specific issue. But it was the murder of George Floyd
it wasn't it that then sparked a lot of conversations around anti
racism and therefore inclusion in an organisation. So I think
society, industry network, whatever the terminology is, it
does spark change. And some of it is because we then sit back
and reflect and think, Oh, my goodness, Am I guilty of this?
Could I be doing this? Or are we guilty of this? Can we say, and
again, sitting around board tables conversations tend to be,
can we say hand on heart that this is not happening in our
organisation? And in most cases is that no we can't say that,
Oh, my goodness, let's go do something about it. So you do
see those stories are prompting action.
Paul Thomas: One of the questions that sort of came up
today, and there's a couple of employers involved, I guess is
you mentioned as well, you know, the name who should not be
mentioned from across the pond politician who is and you also
mentioned Elon Musk. And I just wondered, one of the
conversations or the topic of conversations we're having at
the moment about safe spaces, and places where people can be
and exist is social media. And social media is becoming even
more polarised at the moment and I guess one of those platforms
or the most the public platform that comes up for discussion
most on this podcast, and certainly amongst Zoe and I is
Twitter, now X and that is becoming a bit of a space. What
do you think about the sort of the safe spaces outside of
organisations where people can start to share their experiences
with each other? Is that a contributing factor that those
spaces just don't feel safe for many minorities at the moment?
Aggie Mutuma: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, great question. And the
answer to that, I don't know. But what I can say is that, I
guess as you describe that piece around, potentially having a
situation at work, which is not very inclusive, and it might be
something as seemingly inconspicuous as
microaggressions, and I say seemingly because it still hurts
to outright, you know, a behaviour that we know is wrong.
And we know it still happens, because we see it in employment
tribunals all the time, it still happens. So if you're in that
situation, and then you're on social media, and you're
scrolling, or you're commenting, and then you see the responses
that come back, and I've had that myself, and I've got, I've
got quite thick skin, because I'm a coach and the work that I
do, etc. But I remember, I was telling someone the other day, I
posted something on TikTok, and it was just well, I don't know
why I'm trying to be young but anyway, I thought I'll do that.
And it was just a thank you. Thank you, 2023. And just some
highlights of the year and awards and things I've been to
etc. And some person I don't even know, just responded
something like, well, that only happened because you've probably
got loads of handouts, because you're black and blah, blah,
blah. And it was quite horrible that oh, my gosh, that's awful.
So I guess if we're describing that as people's experiences as
well, you can then start to see a lot of the data that's around
actually the impact of discrimination on people's
mental health. So there's a lot around the impact of sexism on
mental health, the impact of racism on mental health, their
impact on homophobia on mental health. And a lot of that is
because it's not just in one space, it's in lots of different
spaces in lots of different ways. It can be showing up to
somewhere and you're thinking, well, why am I the only woman in
the room? It could be a comment around Oh, all right, darling,
make us some tea, you know, seems inconspicuous. But given
all the other stuff that woman has potentially been through or
even on that day, that becomes the thing that then takes them
to a bad place. And, and that's why often you'll find groups,
either in the workplace or outside of the workplace,
setting up affinity groups. So it's, you know, groups of women,
and then we talk about women's stuff. And we whatever it is
that we need to talk about, groups of people of colour, and
we're able to talk about our experiences, groups for the
LGBTQ plus community, which often people don't understand,
they're like, oh they're excluding us, because they're a
group just about the men or they've got a group just for
people of colour. What about white people? And, and you hear
that, but what you've just described to Paul is part of the
reason why these groups formed because then they become
people's safe spaces.
Paul Thomas: Yeah, we were saying, we've said in several
conversations, actually recently that those spaces are
disappearing from online, you know, they're still there, they
might be in WhatsApp, or they might be somewhere that it's
private. But they're disappearing from those public
spaces. Because those public spaces are just becoming places
where people don't feel that they can get that support.
Aggie Mutuma: Yeah. And again, in that same conversation about
that TikTok thing, and there's something on X as well, as I'll
call it now. Similar experience on X as well. And someone made a
really good point to me, which was, obviously if you can do it,
if you can do it, is if you can do it, try not to leave those
spaces. Because if we leave and I said to my team, right, we're
not using X anymore and bla bla bla, as a lot of organisations
did. But I am reflecting on that now because if we start leaving,
if people who do have a different voice, if people who
are inclusive of people have even just a different
perspective, and that's fine, are leaving, then those spaces
become even more dangerous, because the only voices that are
there are potentially the voices that are counter to what we're
talking about. And if you want to make change, you know, which
I absolutely, absolutely do. I want to make the world a more
inclusive place and spread more love. So if you want to do that,
then speaking to people who already share that view is
lovely and great and affirming. But you're not going to
necessarily change and it's only by speaking to those who have a
different view in a respectful way, you know, in a
compassionate, challenging way. That's when you start to make
those changes, and otherwise it becomes a very them and us and
they're scary and too woke and then we're like they're scary
and discriminatory. But yeah, not quite reality, I don't
think.
Paul Thomas: Yeah, I think it sort of all links together,
doesn't it? Because you're right, if organisations decide
to leave those spaces because of how they're being managed then
really important things like employee branding and things
like that, where, you know, certainly 5-10 years ago, it was
really, really important for brands to be all over social
media to talk about the experience of coming and working
for our organisation. And if that's disappearing, then what
that's going to lead to is is the new blood new young people
coming into organisations who aren't seeing that because big
businesses and organisations and charities have left those spaces
behind. So it comes back to that point about how you know how
organisations are recruiting diversity into the workplace.
Aggie Mutuma: Yeah and I think it's just to loop back a little
bit into the X conversation. Sorry, Elon, we're talking about
X, about the X conversation specifically, I think for
organisations, I was speaking more from an individual point of
view, I think, for organisations, it is about
speaking to their people, I think with anything, speak to
your people. I mean, if your people are absolutely no, we
can't be anywhere near and it's just shocking. It's terrible,
then you do need to hear that as well. And think about that. But
I think from a personal point of view, definitely for me, I
haven't done it yet because I do not have a thick skin at all
when it comes to direct meanness, but I'm thinking about
how I go about doing that, but I put my arm around it first and
then do it. But anyway, back to recruitment. So nicely swerved
back into recruitment, and how organisations are recruiting a
diverse range of people. The first thing I'll say is that if
you've always done, if you always do what you've always
done, you're going to get the same results. So in other words,
you need to do something differently. And it always has
to start with your why. So back to your organisational outcomes
back to your why around your values and why you want to be a
more inclusive and diverse organisation having that real
understanding. Because there is a lot of I guess, conversation
out there about box ticking and people feeling as though Oh
look, another person or another organisation has put black or
brown personnel woman as a CEO or whatever it is on their
website. But is that the reality? Are they box ticking,
so people are quite wary of organisations potentially
playing lip service. So it always has to go back to your
why. And that's important for you as an organisation because
then that will then determine how you approach this and who
you work with and how you make that happen. It's also important
for your recruitment team and your managers to understand the
why as well, because a lot of naysaying, if we're going to
call it that is just because they don't understand why are we
box ticking? Is this wokeness gone mad? Is this political
correctness gone mad? But if we're able to connect it to our
why, our organisational outcomes, our values and help
our leaders see why then it's really important, then the rest
of them, that's probably the hardest part, the rest of it, to
be honest, it's just easier. I'll say that because honestly,
that's what we do for a living. But it's understanding where
your advertising is looking at, first of all, how do you design
your job? So is it that you know, I don't know, I wanna make
up some names, Trevor's left finance now so we need to
replace the role exactly the same as we had it. And we need,
Trevor was great. So let's just look for someone who's like
Trevor, and then, you know, recruit him? Or are we thinking
ah so Trevor's left, it's a shame, we're gonna talk to him
and understand why, and see what we can do differently. But if he
decides to leave, actually, what can we do differently with this
role? What's missing in the team? You know, how can we bring
in, I don't know, AI, how can we bring a different way of
thinking, how can we bring in collaboration with different
teams. So almost reimagining those roles. Then when it comes
to job design, but also thinking can it be done part time, as an
example? Does it have to be that full time FTE? Can we have a job
share in here? All these questions that we can ask
ourselves about the art of the possible? And then it comes to
things like in a job descriptions, what language are
we using? Is it very masculine or not? Will it put people off?
Are we expecting that somebody has a first class degree from
Oxford? Do they really need that? Maybe there are some jobs
out there that you do absolutely need to have that? Maybe? If we
can justify it great, but most jobs? Probably not. So how do we
then expand the pool that we're looking for from and then who
are working with agencies wise to ensure that we're bridging
that gap? There's so many things I could talk to you about it for
days really but the first piece, I would say is that
understanding the why understanding how it connects to
delivering what the organisation needs, and then understand that
if you do what you've always done, you're gonna get the same
results. So really reimagine the thought process.
Paul Thomas: It's absolutely the case I remember, if you needed
to recruit someone, you'd go to the shared drive, you'd find the
old job description. Give it a glance and then you publish it.
And then you'd wonder why you ended up with somebody who was
exactly like the last person you hired. I mean, it's just not,
it's not rocket science, is it? But it is a bit of fun surgery
perhaps.
Aggie Mutuma: Exactly.
Zoe Amar: Yeah. That's all brilliant advice. Thank you
Aggie. So what would your final closing thought be for any
leaders out there who are thinking, I really need to move
forward on EDI, but we've got so much going on, the economic
climate is so challenging. You talk earlier about commitment.
What is a really important thing that a leader could do tomorrow
to start really renewing that commitment to EDI?
Aggie Mutuma: Yeah I would say, I'd ask them a question
actually, and ask them to reflect on a time when they
didn't belong. It may be a new team they joined, it may be a
school, it may be a new football team or sports team. And maybe
they moved to a new neighbourhood. A time when they
didn't belong. And most of us have that. And I ask this
question to leadership teams all the time and of all the time,
and hundreds of people I've only had one person who said,
Actually, I have belonged everywhere. And like, that's
amazing. That's brilliant for you. Let's make sure we do that.
That's amazing. We want that for everyone. Right? So that's great
for them. But also yet, think about a time when you didn't
belong? What was going on for you? How did you show up? Did
you show up as yourself? Did you bring your best ideas, does your
people around you see the best of you and who you are. Often
people talk about maybe shrinking themselves a little
bit, or the opposite, just almost be more overt than they
really are. They'll talk about maybe leaving or not showing up
or definitely not showing up as their best. And then also ask
yourself, what could people around you have done to make you
feel more included in that situation? And then the last
question would be the people around you, do you think they
realised that you felt like this? And more often than not,
they'll say no, they probably didn't, I didn't speak up, I
didn't share. I didn't say anything, I just shrunk myself,
or I just left or just showed up, I've not really showed up as
who I was. So the lessons from that are one, that feeling of
belonging is a human experience. It's not just the women or the
people of colour or the LGBTQ plus community. It's a human
experience that everyone experiences and wants to
experience that belonging piece. When you don't belong, you don't
show up as your best self. So if they think about their teams,
and then that wider organisation, if there are
people who were there who aren't feeling included, they're not
showing up as our best selves. We're not getting their best
ideas, we're not getting their best performance, necessarily.
And then two more than the other one around what could people
have done to make you feel included? Are we doing that? Are
we training our people to do that for their colleagues? Are
we raising awareness around these issues that people can do
that for each other? And then lastly, did the people realise
maybe we don't realise we're not including people ourselves as
individuals, as leaders as organisations, as well. So you
asked for one thing, I remixed it a little bit. It's like one
point a b, c, d. Yeah.
Zoe Amar: Oh, amazing. So, so much great insight there. Thank
you, Aggie. Well, thank you so much for today. It's just been
such a pleasure to talk to you. And I can really hear that depth
of experience that you offer to everyone you've worked with
through the stories you've told and the experiences you've
shared. So any organisation that gets to work with you is
extremely lucky. So please do look out for Aggie. Aggie, where
can people come and find you if they want to work with you?
Aggie Mutuma: Sure. Thank you Zoe. So I'm on LinkedIn. So
Aggie Mutuma. I'm the only one so far I suppose. So I'm on
LinkedIn. So find me there. And then
mahoganyinclusionpartners.com is our website. So you can either
click on the Contact Us button and you can get through to us.
And then when I get brave, I put my armour on you will see me on
TikTok.
Zoe Amar: We look forward to it and we'll put the link to your
website in the show notes as well.
Aggie Mutuma: Thank you
Zoe Amar: Amazing. Thank you so much Aggie. It's been a joy. And
please do keep in touch and we'd love to talk to you again
sometime in the future.
Aggie Mutuma: Absolutely. Thank you for having me. I've loved
it. Thank you.
Zoe Amar: Thank you to Aggie for joining us on the podcast. What
a wonderful discussion with someone who's very much at the
forefront of EDI.
Paul Thomas: We'll share all of her contact details, Aggie said
them at the end of the podcast, at the end of the recording. So
we'll share them all in the show notes so you can get in touch
with her because as we said in the intro, there's really still
a lot of work to do. As always, though, we really do appreciate
you've listened all the way through to the end of this
episode. Thank you so much. You can support the podcast by
leaving us a five star review wherever you listen to us,
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friend.
Zoe Amar: Thank you so much for listening today. And we'll see
you in a couple of weeks with a brand new episode of Starts at
the Top.
Paul Thomas: See you then and bye for now.
Zoe Amar: See you next time.