A Room Full of White Men.

A number of years ago I had a speech called "A room full of white men".
It was a speech that addressed the concept of diverse talent in the work place. I delivered it eight times to a number of corporate audiences and one in a public arena. It was controversial, and intentionally so. I wanted to tackle the concept of diversity and inclusion and whether it was something that could supported by economic evidence or whether it was driven more by a political agenda.

Now for the record I have no issue with diversity in the workplace. In fact I am all for it, but I think like anything else, with all the best intention in the world, the message will lose some of it's impact if the messenger is cack handed.

I find myself asking the same question years after I parked this speech

Does diversity training work?

Do diversity initiatives succeed in the way they are delivered in the work place work?

Whether it's quotas to have women on boards.
Leadership programmes targetting non white staff.
Sensitivity training for working with LGBTQI staff.
Language awareness around disabilities and mental health.

Do they work or do they just wind people up?

The premise for a room full of white men came about from my own experience as speaker, facilitator and coach. A lot of my work involves me being "the only black guy in the room". Although the proportion has changed over the years since I first crafted it is still much the same. For many people this may not seem like any issue, but if I was to ask you to name five business speakers from the UK, how many of them would be black?

It was this kind of shortage that go me thinking as to why there weren't more, not just in my role, but the audience who I faced as well. In addition I wanted to know why so many panels I was invited to had no women? I wanted to know why many organisations were insensitive to the needs of people who did not define as heterosexual? So many questions.

Ironically, when I first started to deliver this speech the audience most unsettled by the title were black professional networks in some of the larger corporates. The feedback was that before I started others who saw the title might get alienated.

Having co delivered a number of storytelling and communication workshops as part of diversity and inclusion programmes I have seen a far amount of push back. When terms like micro-agressions, micro inequities, and unconscious bias are introduced into a workplace lexicon individuals don't want to be labelled as some kind of closet racists, misognyistic or homopohobic. There is inevitable push back.

This is not to say that people don't have these things. We live in a society and in our small communities were prejudices are rife. Even if we don't admit it they are not dropped as soon as we walk through the front door of the office.

All this to say, it got me thinking whether diversity training was burning more bridges than it built.

Skepticism on diversity data

My specialism is in effective interpersonal communication. It's my job and passion. Much of what comprises  my thinking is evidence based. It didn’t used to be but when I found out so much stuff shared in my space is just repeated from others I had to be. Reputation is currency. For example the amount of speakers and communication trainers who I still hear spouting things the Mehrabian myth that 93% of our communications is non verbal. I did this and soon as I found it, it was a misrepresentation I told colleagues, but many still stuck to it. 

I am skeptical of many ideas that come into the workplace as the latest trends, and try to ensure that my work is a solid as possible.  I am skeptical of NLP, MBTI, Emotional Intelligence, Mindfulness and Mindset programmes, especially in the  way they are fed through training programmes as some kind of panacea. Often packaged very differently from the way the author intended or totally lacking in any kind of evidence base. In this same vein I am skeptical about the claims and evidence of diversity training. Not to dismiss it as irrelevant but to ensure if I am hanging my hat on something that I can at least back it up or verify it as quantifiable and measurable.

I came across a report by Frank Dobbin from Harvard which showed that much diversity training has negligible effects and in fact creates more backlash. Yesterday  I read a blog by Donald Clark where he cited other studies such as Kidder et al 2004, Rynes and Rosen 1995, Sidanias et al 2001, Naff and Kellough 2003, Benedict et al 1998, Nelson et al 1996, who reached the same conclusion. 

If the current diversity training is not seeming to work, then what?

Moving Forward

I should state at this point I have no issue with diversity and inclusion practices in any organisation. I think anything that can highlight and address any conscious or subconscious inequality when it comes to talent acquisition and retention needs to be faced head on. 

Whilst I dislike quotas, I know many people broke barriers because of them. Yes of course many outliers believe they done it based on sheer hard work or leaning in, but for the majority of people who have come up against walls of miscommunication and missed opportunity , they will be looking for other ways.

I am a fan of mentoring, coaching and sponsorship in the workplace. I have personally seen a number of women who seek senior roles benefit from the latter. I think those run alongside communication programmes which get people to think deeper about the customers they work with, both internal and external to the company probably will put less people’s backs up. 

For me many boardrooms and speaker panels for corporate and non profit organisations, will be dominated by middles class white males for the foreseeable future. It has been for years because at its roots it is a reflection of our education, political and economic systems. The workplace is not some magical haven that will address what is  at is heart a bigger issue at the heart of our society.

That said, I have no problem speaking to power so that that norm can be challenged bit by bit. Not for some kind of singular racial or gender redress. Not just to stop being the only black guy in the room, but to recognise and provide evidence that a diverse workplace of talent, not restricted to one demographic, can work. And very well.