Tokenism & Accountability

I am reflecting honestly with myself around a few things, have I allowed companies to get away with tokenism with no real accountability? ?To be honest with you, two things that annoyed me is the number of enquiries we get that are nothing less than tokenism. To seemly be able to tick the #Diversity & #Inclusion box. I always get “Nathan 4hrs that will be two long haven’t you got something shorter” I try to explain that to unpack, explore and create an effective action plan that is robust enough for behavioural change takes time.

If you are serious, we need to be dedicating a full day at a minimum with pre & post meetings for planning and debriefing and reviewing the action plan. That for so many is a turn off, I got so many in 2022 asking can you just attend for say 15mins at our away day or conference share a thought and leave. For me it goes against my values of Time (Spending quality time with the company or client I am working with) and Integrity. Please tell me how can I unpack years of racism, lack of diversity, encourage you how to be more anti racist, consider why representation matters, get you to understand the psychological & emotional impact of something like what happened to George Floyd, how it feels to be a Black man living in Britain entering corporate & senior leadership spaces and you are consistently the only Black face in the room at a certain level but you keep asking me can you just share a few words to our workforce of 500+ staff about microaggressions, change, diversity and inclusion or how we can improve our stakeholder engagement with diverse communities. To be honest sometimes quite frankly it hurts, because the truth is if just one of the companies I have worked with or had enquires with truly invested in the agenda. Let’s be honest I would be so busy with the team because we are talking about companies with workforces 5,000+ some employing 10,000 staff but you are speaking to me about talking to 20, 30, 50 to 70 staff members. I don’t get it, so it leads me to ask the question, are people interested in change or is this just a tick boxing exercise? Recently seeing how Jeremy Clarkson was basically allowed to write and publish those vile thoughts and still sit comfortably with all his high paid jobs, tells me clearly all I need to hear. That there is NO accountability here for racism. Reading the vile comments from the British public and the racism in them is simply crazy to me, especially with the backdrop of our government trying to deny racism exists, we saw it after the euros final 2022, if Megan sneezes it is a problem. We are NOT blind, these people with these views go to work somewhere, stop behaving like having the conversation is not important. It just doesn’t make sense to me. It also leaves me to ask “where is the LOVE” who outside of social media posts or comments under peoples post who speak out against racism? Where is the action plan? where is the evidence? where is the real investment outside of tokenism and initial emotional reactions? It still blows my mind that in 2020 after George Floyd was murder enquires shot up 300% ask me how the enquiries were in 2022 just two years later is evidence people don’t care beyond social media outrage and the fear of getting called out seems like people panicked and said let’s do a few things just in case our staff say something or the public come for us.

This is me thinking and reflecting aloud, respectfully just like the crazy last minute Black History month speaker requests leave me out. I am NOT your Black pop up bring me out for Christmas I mean Black history month so that you can show your friends (colleagues) I am not racist.

As I always ask in our training Navigating the Terrain of Race, you keep telling me you’re NOT RACIST but are you Anti Racist?

For me if it is not quality, if we don’t spend quality time, planning, understanding each other’s objectives, ethos & values, developing a robust action plan, creating a safe space so that we can facilitate an honest, open & authentic space for honest heart felt discussions, which feed into deep reflections and transformational action plans. That have clear accountability touchpoints to check and be accountable to the actions set out. It doesn't make sense. Rome wasn’t built in a day, the impact of the transatlantic slave trade that lasted over 300 years has helped to build up the massive wealth in this country can not be unpacked in just a few minutes or in a one-off event. This is a journey that we must go on together, we must navigate it together, unfortunately tears might be shed but it is much better than innocent blood that has been shed in history just because of the colour of a person’s skin.

They are many rivers to cross, together honestly and authentically if you are serious let’s have a conversation. I would like to write more and share more but honestly there is lot of work to be done behind the scenes and I like to spend the extra time I have with my family and really be present with them and any extra time I do have, I pour into the charity that I founded.

I am wishing everyone remarkable success in 2023 I am sure in diverse ways we will have challenges; I hope and pray your challenges won’t break you but make you. You have got this and if it does ever get too much, please unapologetically take enjoyable time out, self-care is critical in the times we are living in, mental wellness is vital, and retreating is key when you need to retreat. Your LIFE matters so take good care.

Thank you to everyone who has journeyed with me either via our consultants through training or through the charity, I appreciate the relationships and the work we have done together but let’s get rid of any form of tokenism and let us make sure everything we do has better accountability around it.

TOGETHER we can make a difference

Finally please don’t tell me you are serious about change if your board and SLT still look like the snowy white peaks in the alps

Nathan Dennis?

Learn more about Navigating the Terrain of Race here: https://legacyconsultants.co.uk/navigating-the-new-terrain/