Zoe Amar 0:04 We are delighted that this episode of Starts at the Top is sponsored by Arvato Connect. Arvato Connect is a socially conscious customer experience and business optimization partner. For organisations who are ready to reshape and reinvent how they work and connect with those who matter most. They develop and deliver innovative technology led solutions to enable their clients to form strong connections, increase loyalty, create efficiencies, and ultimately grow and confidently embrace the future. To find out more about how Arvato Connect could help an organisation like yours and to receive a free no obligation chat visit their website arvatoconnect.co.uk/ Aggie Mutuma 0:59 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 1:10 Welcome to a brand new episode of Starts at the Top, our podcast about leading differently. I'm Zoe Amar. Paul Thomas 1:18 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 1:37 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 1:53 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 2:01 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 2:16 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 3:58 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 5:53 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 6:10 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 7:34 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 8:05 Absolutely. Well, we will see what we can find on that front. Paul Thomas 8:09 So now for our interview with Aggie Mutuma. Zoe Amar 8:13 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 9:49 Thank you for having me Zoe it's great to be here. Zoe Amar 9:52 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 10:32 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 13:29 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 13:46 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 15:46 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 16:04 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 17:11 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 17:54 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 20:32 And what would your advice be to leaders who want to create that kind of safe space for these discussions? Aggie Mutuma 20:39 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 23:15 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 23:40 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 24:48 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 25:21 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 27:07 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 28:05 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 30:31 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 30:52 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 31:11 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 31:44 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 33:07 Don't worry at all, don't worry at all. Aggie Mutuma 33:09 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 33:55 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 34:34 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 35:40 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 36:41 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 39:16 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 39:35 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 40:58 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 41:47 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 45:45 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 46:05 Exactly. Zoe Amar 46:05 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 46:30 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 49:00 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 49:30 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 49:54 We look forward to it and we'll put the link to your website in the show notes as well. Aggie Mutuma 49:59 Thank you Zoe Amar 50:00 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 50:07 Absolutely. Thank you for having me. I've loved it. Thank you. Zoe Amar 50:11 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 50:19 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, really does help us to reach more people. So if you've enjoyed what you've heard today, please do share us with a friend. Zoe Amar 50:48 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 50:55 See you then and bye for now. Zoe Amar 50:56 See you next time. Transcribed by https://otter.ai