The Anti-Racist Organization. Shereen Daniels
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in your corporate calendar to give this the attention it needs is a delaying tactic your colleagues and stakeholders can see through. If people and culture are the bedrock of your company, then anything detrimental to the psychological and physical safety of your workforce needs to be addressed and prioritised.
Doesn't it?
We really want to do something about this, but my organization is not quite ready. I need to do more to convince them. I'm embarrassed to say it, but I'm being honest. This is what I'm dealing with.
Global chief diversity and inclusion officer, 2021
So in this case, timing doesn't necessarily equate to a better outcome. Yet by the same token, claiming you are too busy or there is too much activity in your corporate calendar to give this the attention it needs is a delay tactic your colleagues and shareholders can see right through.
Like most things in business, it's not always about what you did or didn't do. It's the why behind it that makes all the difference.
Whether you did a little bit of something or a whole lot of nothing, can you articulate why that was? Does your reason sound plausible? And if you had your time again, would you have done the same thing?
It suddenly struck me just how white my leadership board is. I'm embarrassed to say this but I never really noticed it before.
Founder and CEO, 2021
How Tokenism Became the Answer
It's the ultimate elephant in the room, isn't it? Despite decades of proclamations of diversity and inclusion, boardrooms have basically remained the same.
You might not have noticed, but others certainly did. Your colleagues would have noticed, and your shareholders too. Not everyone would have cared, of course, but it would have been noted.
In years gone by, it was enough simply to talk about diversity and inclusion initiatives, and to proclaim commitment to encouraging everyone to be themselves, to accept people for who they are and what they bring to the table. Authenticity was a key word, used repeatedly, a badge of honour to ensure that talented colleagues felt like they belonged. Yet despite this emphasis on recognising and valuing difference, corporate boards remained mysteriously the same. And in fact, it was seen as a ‘positive’ to have a majority white cisgendered male board, one gleaned from a specific socioeconomic background.
Homogeny was dressed up as culture fit.
But not now. All those perceived positives have suddenly shifted to become negatives. And they're not just negatives for large conglomerates or listed corporations. These factors affect small operations too, because as long as you have colleagues, investors and clients, specifics will now be asked of you. In order to succeed in the post‐2020 world, your company will need to get really comfortable about answering the tough questions about the climate crisis, gender and now race and ethnicity.
If you're reading this believing that you've made real inroads into tackling systemic racism within your company, I promise you there is still value in reading this book. Consider it this way: How confident are you in your ability to demonstrate credible action plans rooted in clearly defined problem statements, which themselves are based on the right quantitative and qualitative data sources and where your impact centres those most affected by racism?
Consider these scenarios:
If an investor was ready to invest £100 million into your company on the proviso that you could detail the specific actions you've taken to address systemic racism within your workplace, how confident are you that you would get the full £100 million?
If a regulatory body was reviewing your licence to operate in new territories or markets, on the proviso that you could detail the specific actions you've taken to address systemic racism within your workplace and extending to the products and services you offer, how confident would you be that your licence would be granted?
If your government was about to award continued funding to enable you to serve the general public, on the proviso that you could show how you understand the interconnected elements of how race, gender and social class contribute to exclusion and marginalization within your workplace and the communities you serve, and demonstrate the steps you've taken to address that, would you still get the funding?
How would you score if your entire workforce was to conduct an appraisal of how you've performed? Part of the evaluation criteria would look at:The extent to which your leadership and managerial teams understand the context of racism and their role in being part of the solutionHow far you have listened to Black colleagues and regularly solicited feedback on initiatives and programsHolding leadership teams to account, including tackling individuals whose behaviour consistently does not align with professed statements and commitmentsEvaluating the formal and informal ways decisions are made to ensure there is representation, that the loudest, most senior, and most privileged voices are not always the ones that are prioritisedHow safe colleagues feel to raise issues and feel confident that you will do something about it, without scapegoating, tone policing or gaslightingHow far you've delivered on public pledges to do better and do moreWhether everyone understands that equity isn't reverse racism or discrimination in disguise
Questions like these go beyond equality initiatives and the blanket solution of hiring more Black executives. Instead, they query the culture inherent in your company. Challenge your judgement: How is it you never saw that your board and senior leadership teams consistently remained so white? And question the actions behind your publicised commitments to change.
It isn't about rolling out the blanket statement of ‘we are still on a journey’. Yet conversely, it's not about perfection either. Instead, it's demonstrating that you have done the work to at least ensure there is clarity about the root causes of the issues, not just the symptoms. That you're designing considered and intentional action plans and executing with the right metrics that extends right through your ecosystem. Rather than doggedly holding tight to something just so you can tick it off your to‐do list, you're experimenting and course‐correcting based on continuous feedback.
Until the summer of 2020, racial tokenism was a societally accepted form of ‘solving the race issue’ and was considered sufficient for bettering equality and being seen to do the right thing.
But that was all it was: ‘being seen’.
That's okay, we'll just hire more Black people.
Chairperson, 2021
Tokenism was accepted because race is so visual. You can appear to be doing something by, for example, putting a smiling Black woman on the cover of your annual report or promoting a Black man to senior management. Even better if they are Black, have a visible disability, look gender fluid and their sexual identification is open for debate.
Brilliant. Killing two birds with one stone. Let's have some of that. The job is done. Mission accomplished; you now have a diverse team.
But it is pretence. It's too easy. And it's lazy.
When we asked about the single most important attribute being prioritised in the board's next director search, racial/ethnic diversity topped the list (25%). It ranked higher than traditional areas like industry expertise (20%) and operational expertise (14%). Gender diversity ranked much lower, at 12%, perhaps because boards have done a lot of work to bring on female directors in the past few years – if only one or two.
PWC Corporate Directors Survey, 2021 (pwc.com)
Due to the ease of visual representation, for years we've ended up with these surface‐level gestures of racial equity and after the summer of 2020, we just amped it up a bit more. Note also that the term ‘racial equity’ came later, amid concern that the word ‘racism’ was too divisive.
That approach of doing of something merely to garner output is no longer enough. The representational box‐ticking exercise of ‘how many