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My first corporate job out of college was as a consultant at Bain & Company.
One of the things that drew me to the firm was that it was diverse.
There were more than just a handful of people of color.
And as I progressed at the firm, it became clear that the culture was one that truly valued diversity.
One of the partners who ran recruiting, Chris Beerly, was especially passionate about making sure that people who looked like me learned about Bain and had the opportunity to join the firm.
To this day, Chris is a mentor and a friend.
I cherish the relationship we developed over time.
Some of the work we did around recruiting and retaining Black consultants was institutionalized.
In 2004, the company created a head of diversity role, and that was way before this was the cool thing to do.
And by the way, Chris is white.
And usually, efforts like these tend to be initiated by people of color.
So how can we get everyone to truly champion the cause?
I'm Madoop Akinola.
This is TED Business.
Our speaker today is June Sarpong, a veteran broadcaster and diversity leader.
In this talk, she shares what she thinks is needed to be a groundbreaking leader of a diverse organization.
Then after the talk, I'll share additional strategies that have been shown to increase the representation of women and people of color in organizations.
But first, a quick break.
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When we think of our modern day successful entrepreneurs and corporate leaders, the thing they all have in common is they excel at the general cut and thrust of business, outsmarting the competition, growing the bottom line, creating a superior product or service.
But to become a business rock star, that rarefied category of a name we all know and admire, you need something else.
General good business acumen isn't enough.
The thing the rock stars all have in common is they disrupt business as usual.
They look at things the way they are and say to themselves, nah, that's not it.
Consider how we used to search and how cumbersome the process was.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page completely transformed the way we find things and each other, and even how we buy things.
And what about coffee?
For many of us, our morning brew was a rather dull experience, until Howard Schultz built Starbucks for a community of people who wanted fancy, varied, social coffee.
And of course, I can't forget Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, two men who took computers from nerdy labs and into our homes, and in the case of Jobs, our palms too.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking.
Don't worry, I will be coming to that in a minute.
So if innovators, I know what you're thinking.
So if innovators like these can do all this, then I believe they are up for a new challenge.
A challenge that no one in business has fully cracked yet.
So today, I want to talk to you about why I think, why I feel we need a rock star of inclusion.
The diversity and inclusion agenda is one that most of us are sold on.
We know it boosts creativity and profits and generally makes our lives richer.
We've known this for a very long time, but if we're honest, progress has been slow.
Nearly 90 % of Fortune 500 CEOs are white males.
And in the UK, where I'm from, they account for 90 .4 % of the top 20 roles in FTSE 100 companies.
Now that's the status quo that is ripe for disruption.
Disruptors are not afraid of doing the difficult.
They push through discomfort.
When others doubt, they see a better, more exciting new way.
A new way that others then emulate, a new way that eventually becomes the norm.
When it comes to diversity and inclusion, we need bold disruptors who are uncomfortable with the status quo, even if the status quo benefits them.
In fact, especially if the status quo benefits them.
Now the general thinking around D &I is that we have to get comfortable having uncomfortable conversations.
But there's a step before that's often overlooked.
Before uncomfortable conversations must come uncomfortable connections.
And that's something I know a little about.
I get paid, sometimes anyway, I get paid to do the two things that most people are uncomfortable doing, public speaking and talking to strangers.
Now the thing is when I was a kid my report card read must talk less.
Luckily, I didn't listen.
So, for the past 25 years, I have been working in television, first as on -air talent and more recently, as an executive focusing on D &I.
My work as a host has meant that I've had to learn how to build meaningful connections quickly with all kinds of people from very different backgrounds, but it hasn't always been easy.
There are neurological and anthropological reasons why we gravitate towards people that remind us of ourselves.
There are unspoken codes of familiarity, codes that make us feel safe.
We see this everywhere, at conferences, lunch halls, parties, even places of worship.
Now, there's a palpable feeling you get when you don't connect with someone.
It's awkward, it's horrible, and you just want it to be over.
But if you push through to find common ground, even if it's small, just to get to the breakthrough.
That's when the magic happens and something changes in both people.
A game -changing moment came for me early on in my career when I was interviewing a high -profile actress who shall remain nameless.
She was starring in a movie that was considered quite controversial at the time and as a result had been subjected to countless insulting interviews.
So by the time I got round to her, things were tense.
And to make matters worse, we had absolutely nothing in common to fall back on, with her being a high -profile A -list actress and me an up -and -coming host.
In that moment, I knew I had two choices.
One, to carry on as we were, which would have been very uncomfortable for us both, and probably ended in the interview being cut short.
Or two, try and find a breakthrough.
Now, this was a well -seasoned actress, and it wasn't a particularly big budget movie.
So I knew there had to be a bigger reason as to why she'd accepted the role in the first place.
So I decided to focus on the character rather than the controversy.
And she immediately opened up.
And we were able to have a deep and thoughtful conversation that was actually enjoyable for us both.
And she even thanked me at the end.
I learned so much from that encounter in terms of what can happen when you don't give up on an uncomfortable connection and how powerful it can be for both people.
To this very day, that moment still serves as a template for me of what to do whenever I find myself in a similar situation.
Now, if we are to move society forward, this is a journey we all have to make.
However, I believe when it comes to the workplace, those with the most power and agency must make the biggest leap first.
Let me tell you about John Landgraaf, the CEO of FX.
In 2015, Variety magazine wrote a scathing article about the least diverse networks in America in relation to directors.
And at the bottom of what was a pretty bad list was FX.
Out of the 168 episodes that had aired on FX and FXX between 2014 and 2015, 88 % were directed by white men, 5 % by white women, 7 % by men of color and 0 % by women of color.
What happened next was interesting.
Instead of doing the usual corporate thing of trying to defend the indefensible, rather, Landgraf held up his hand and pledged to diverse creatives that he was going to act and act quickly at that.
So he and his team set about putting together a concrete plan which included a significant financial investment in diverse creatives and in their suppliers to find, hire, nurture, and develop diverse creatives from industries where there were transferable skills, such as music videos, advertising, and theater.
Within a year, Landgraf had turned FX from being the least diverse network in America to one of the most, and they had also managed to increase their diverse directing pool to just over half.
Critical and commercial success would follow, with hits such as Atlanta and Better Things, and there would also be an upsurge in paid subscriptions, all because Landgraf stopped following the crowd and instead decided to disrupt in an inclusive way.
I would call that rock star behaviour, just saying.
Now, someone else that I think is already a rock star in more ways than one is Gareth Southgate, the current England men's team football manager.
Now, before becoming England manager, Southgate was a soccer player himself in the early 1990s and 2000s and witnessed firsthand the racist abuse his colleagues of colour were subjected to, with monkey chants being screamed at them during matches and banana peels thrown onto the pitch.
This searing knowledge would serve Southgate well when he became the custodian of the careers of a new generation of England players.
He knew he wanted to create a better world for his players, so he educated himself on racial injustice and then did the same with the whole team by bringing in Owen Eastwood, a New Zealand performance coach whose modern -day interpretation of the Maori philosophy waka papa, we are all connected, therefore
we all belong, would become embedded in the psyches of the whole team.
Now, this England squad was like nothing the country had ever seen before.
Vibrant with swagger, as the young people would say, ethnically diverse, and aligned to movements such as BLM.
So when American players, led by Colin Kaepernick, decided to take the knee, Southgate's players did so too, in solidarity.
A public backlash ensued.
Rather than bow to public pressure, Southgate penned an open letter to the nation saying, I have a responsibility to the wider community to use my voice and so do the players.
It's their duty to continue to interact with the public on matters such as equality, inclusivity, and racial injustice, while using the power of their voices to help put debates on the table, raise awareness, and educate.
There would soon be another moment of truth when three of his black players, Marcus Rashford, Bakaya Sarko and Jadon Sancho, missed their penalties in the Euros Finals.
A barrage of torrid racist abuse would follow.
Again, Southgate stepped up and not only defended his players, but took the blame as coach.
And the beautiful thing that also happened was because of the education piece that had gone before, the whole team rallied around the players, seeing an attack on one as an attack on them all.
The unequivocal solidarity that Gareth Southgate has been able to create within this England team is truly a profile in courage.
The level of emotional intelligence and understanding that he has displayed means that he is now leading one of the most unified sports teams in modern times.
There's no reason this can't be a template for business too.
There are hierarchies of inclusion that exist in every society, with those at the top on the inside and those at the bottom cast outside.
I grew up in London as the daughter of African immigrants, so I know what it feels like to disrupt the world the way it is and to break through.
As a working -class black woman, somehow I had a different vision for myself than the one the world had created for me.
Fortunately, we are now starting to see more and more women of color progress, but it shouldn't be on us.
Now, I know many of you will have noticed, because I saw your faces, I know you did, that the list of business leaders that I opened my talk with were all white men.
And all white men from mainly affluent backgrounds at that.
That isn't a coincidence.
No one group has a monopoly on talent or ability.
But as a result of the detrimental impact of imperialism and colonialism, Up until very recently, at least from a Western perspective, this group has had a monopoly on access and opportunity.
We are heading into some very turbulent times economically, and socially we're at a crossroads too.
In the past, difficult times has often meant that diversity and inclusion has been put on a back burner.
I would argue now is the time for us to dig deeper.
We know inclusion grows the bottom line and the leaders who truly understand this will be the ones that not only win, but win the right way.
So, these innovators, these guys, these rock stars who have taken on everything from computing to commerce to coffee, wouldn't it be cool to see them disrupt inequity too?
to look at the world the way it is, just like Gareth and John did, and say to themselves, nah, that's not it.
I don't know about you, but those are the kind of rock stars I want to see.
Thank you. So June talks about the rock stars we need.
But what additional strategies can disrupt inequity and increase the representation of women and people of color in our organizations.
Frank Dobbin, a Harvard sociologist, and his collaborator, Alexandra Kalib, analyzed three decades' worth of data from more than 800 U .S.
companies who are required to share their diversity statistics with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
They also interviewed hundreds of managers and executives to understand the tactics that can help companies in hiring, retaining, and promoting women and people of color.
They found that companies are more successful at increasing diversity when they implement programs that spark engagement, draw on people's desire to look good to others, and increase contact between different groups.
For instance, although this might seem obvious, five years after a company has introduced a recruitment program that targets women in college, the share of women in its management across all ethnicities rises by about 10%.
Another example, mentoring programs.
Now, I was lucky enough to find Chris as a mentor because I was assigned to a case with him.
But there's lots of research showing that women and people of color have a tougher time finding mentors than white males.
This is why having formal mentoring programs can be helpful.
And Dobbin and Caleb found that these types of programs boosted the number of women of color by 18 to 24 percent.
The researchers also discussed the benefits of rotational programs.
You know, like when you have employees rotate through different jobs at a company, giving them targeted training to broaden their skills and deepen their understanding of the organization.
This type of cross -training can help increase diversity by connecting people to each other who would otherwise rarely interact.
These programs can boost representation of women in management by 3 % to 4%.
So practices like the ones I just mentioned, when propelled by rock stars, can make a world of difference in creating more inclusive workplaces.
So which of these do you have in place in your organization?
And which ones can you start up in an effort to advance both gender and racial equality at your company and beyond?
That's it for today.
This episode was produced by Brittany Brown and fact -checked by Julia Dickerson.
Special thanks to Anna Phelan, Michelle Quint, Corey Hajim, and Colin Helms.
I'm Madupa Akinola.
Talk to you again next week.
Transcription by CastingWords Terms and conditions apply.
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