Why Care? #20: Shawna Ferguson - Shifting Mindsets
“2020, the year that changed everything in all of our lives around the globe. Whether it was the global health crisis and pandemic of COVID, or looking at everyone working under quarantine, or looking at some of the social-racial unrest that has happened around the globe. We started to go from diversity, to diversity and inclusion, to that year - we started talking about belonging, intersectionality and equity.”
In Episode 20 and the Season 2 finale of ‘Why Care?’, I am joined by a phenomenal leader, Shawna Ferguson, Senior Managing Director & Director of Global DEI at Wellington Management. Shawna joins me to talk about how to respond to backlash to inclusion programmes, DEI education programmes, talent retention, and why her word of 2022 is “courage”.
Shawna started her career in HR and it was whilst in this role that she noticed the ‘untapped talent pool’ – the people who were the lifeblood of her organisations but rarely got any official recognition for it. It was when she was working for a biotech firm, focussing on talent attraction at universities, that DEI started to grow in her consciousness. Crediting the talks she had with students, Shawna decided to pitch to her organisation a proposal to fold DEI practice into her university talent attraction, and her DEI journey was born.
Shawna shares her adoption of the acronym DEBI, bringing belonging into our common acronym in this field, and expanding the ‘I’ to also stand for intersectionality. Shawna explains her drivers for this and how promoting belonging is perhaps the most important part of her practice. Shawna also explains the rest of the acronym, particularly her thoughts on equity.
We then discuss Wellington’s incredible ‘Groundbreakers Academy’ programme (which I am proud to be part of), which was created out of Shawna’s internal research demonstrating a need to nurture and develop their employee’s skills, particularly for those in their ‘mid-career’ as there was a lapse in support compared to early-career development. This programme also nurtures minority employees at Wellington, and Shawna shares how this can sometimes cause backlash from majority groups, but then shares her tips on how she’s learnt to neutralise it.
We close the episode by discussing what Shawna believes the 3 focus areas of DEI should be for 2022:
1. Shifting mindsets towards seeing people as equal
2. Promoting accountability and assessing the outputs of DEI programmes
3. Investing in small businesses owned by ‘untapped talent’ to give these business leaders their “piece of the pizza”.
Links
Shawna can be found on LinkedIn at Shawna Ferguson
For more from Wellington Management visit their website at https://www.wellington.com/en/
Wellington Management’s 2020 Sustainability Report
To hear Why Care? episodes first, sign up to our newsletter here, and you can find more from us at Avenir via our LinkTree here.
Transcript
Shawna Ferguson 00:00
Belonging is that shared responsibility, a vulnerability of saying, ‘I'm going to lean in even though I may not be in the most dominant group. Even if I'm the only woman of colour, I'm going to bring all of Shawna to the table. I'm not going to hold back because I'm by myself, I'm going to say to myself instead of, ‘I’m the only woman in the room’ and shrinking a little bit, I'm going to sit up a little bit taller, say, ‘I am the woman in the room’, and they need my voice in this conversation.’
Nadia Nagamootoo 00:29
Hi, my name is Nadia Nagamootoo, a Business psychologist, coach, speaker and founder of Avenir consulting, which creates organisational growth and success through inclusion and diversity. We've been discussing the benefits that diversity brings to a company's bottom line performance for decades with more and more evidence, but there are so many questions organisations still have about how to achieve it. How do you create a culture where people feel valued for their uniqueness and the qualities they bring? I believe it's crucial to the future success and sustainability of every organisation that they find the answer to this question to make sure that each employee is not only supported but also appreciated. With this podcast, I aim to get some of the key challenges to creating inclusive workplaces out in the open and start uncovering the solutions to embracing a culture that cares for everyone. I'm going to be having conversations with some of the most inspiring people in different countries and across industries who are pushing the boundaries on inclusion and diversity in the workplace, from topics such as parenting in the workplace, ethnicity, age, gender, mental health, and all things inclusion. I want to create a movement to change society by sharing life experiences and creating more empathy and connection. Why care? I believe that once we have organisations and societies that accept and value everyone for who they are, we become healthier, happier and better in our roles both inside and outside work.
Hello, and welcome to the Season 2 finale of Why Care. My name is Nadia Nagamootoo, and I am your host. In this episode, I speak to an absolutely incredible and inspiring global DEI leader, Shawna Ferguson. Shawna is a Senior Managing Director at Wellington Management, and Director of Global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Shawna is responsible for implementing diversity education programmes, developing best practices and strengthening the firm's ability to attract, develop and retain diverse talent. She also consults with Wellington's clients and vendors globally on diversity and inclusion issues. In this conversation, you'll hear her speaking about key DEI concepts, what they mean and why they're important. She also talks about one of the leading DEI initiatives at Wellington that she and I have been working on together. We look at overcoming backlash through data, and she offers her top three focus areas for 2022. Shawna has won awards for her role as an active DEI leader, although she humbly doesn't share this widely. To me, she represents the ultimate consciously inclusive leader, open-minded, demonstrating vulnerability in owning her own biases, truly listening and actively engaging to hear all voices, and challenging, yet supportive. She has a values-driven agenda for equity, not just in the workplace, but in health and economic distribution too. Enjoy. Shawna, oh my goodness, I have waited such a long time. I've been pursuing you, hot pursuit of Shawna Ferguson. Thank you so much for joining us on the Why Care podcast show.
Shawna Ferguson 03:29
Thank you, Nadia, I'm glad to be here. Thank you for the opportunity. Sorry, it's so hard to nail down.
Nadia Nagamootoo 03:35
Do you know what? It's a sign that you are in demand, and quite rightly too. I think everyone will understand why after they've listened to this podcast show. So, I'm interested, I always start my podcast shows just to get to know my guest a little bit better. So, what has been your career path? How have you landed this role in the area of diversity, equity and inclusion?
Shawna Ferguson 03:57
That's a good question. And it's funny, a lot of my peers say that they were destined for this work, where they really focused on their undergraduate degree to become a Chief DEI Officer. My story is a bit different. I started in HR and human resources management because I knew I wanted to be in the people field. So, graduating from university, I tried social work and changed my major to more of a business human resources management major. And after spending several years rotating across into several HR functions, I started to notice a pattern, a pattern of what I just affectionately call the untapped talent pool of folks whose names were not being brought up for career opportunities and promotions. But they were the worker bees, they were the people that kept the lights on, that were performing as what some might call in my field ‘a needs expectation’. But I kept seeing something more than just needs, I kept seeing them as the lifeblood of the organisations that I was working for. So, how I got into this field as I was working for a biotech firm in their HR department, and we decided to focus on University Relations for a while. And I started with the campus, really looking at, how can I take on the special assignment to build the organisation? At that time, it was a biotech firm called Genzyme Corporation, how could I help them build their campus college career presence?
And I would have to actually give the credit to the students who started telling me their stories of what they wanted to be upon graduation. And those students came from a mosaic of backgrounds. I mean, women, men, international students to the US, students from the local US cities and states, but they all had big dreams. And the one question that came up no matter which school I went to was, ‘how many folks do you have at the top that look like me?’ And so, I started to research this field. And at the time, Nadia was called Equal Opportunity Employment, EEO and affirmative action. And I said, ‘well, I really don't want to be a lawyer’, that wasn't my gift to the world. I wasn't looking to be an attorney or work in more of a legal field. And to wrap up this question, I would say that I started to interview people who were EEO officers, and affirmative action officers, and I bumped into maybe two or three people like Ted Childs, who was a Diversity Officer and learned about how you lead through talent, through the vision of people, all people. So, I made a pitch and said, ‘I think I can combine campus and this role of a diversity leader’. And thankfully, I was working for the type of company that said, ‘listen, let's try it’. And they did. And that started my career in DEI leadership.
Nadia Nagamootoo 07:00
That's a brilliant story. And particularly one, because it feels like this profession and this area, has evolved so much, you've just gone back in time to equal opportunities. And then it's had so many different shapes and forms. And we've got to a place now where we talk about diversity, equity and inclusion, or equity, diversity and inclusion, it’s lots of different acronyms for the same thing. And I know that you have a particular acronym that you use, is it, DEBI?
Shawna Ferguson 07:28
Yes.
Nadia Nagamootoo 07:29
So, share a little bit about that, because that's the first time I've heard of DEBI.
Shawna Ferguson 07:32
I will say I've played a little bit with the alphabet soup that has taken over this field of work. We think back to prior to 2020, the year that changed everything in all of our lives around the globe, whether it was the global health crisis and pandemic/COVID, looking at everybody working under quarantine or looking at some of the social racial unrest that has happened around the globe, you started to go from diversity to diversity and inclusion, to that year we started talking about things like belonging, intersectionality and equity. And so, I started to think about the real definition behind all those words. And what I try to do, at least at Wellington and other companies where we partner, is give people something that is familiar, give them something simple. And so, getting to know DEBI means getting to know how you want to lead strategically by understanding each of the letters of those words. So, the D in DEBI stands for diversity. And that really focuses on representation. The representation of your talent, the representation of your suppliers, or vendors or consultants that you work with. But it's really looking at the state of differences, the mixture that is helping you serve your customer or client base. The E in DEBI represents two different words that people often get confused about. There's equality and equity, I see you nodding.
Nadia Nagamootoo 09:10
It comes up time and time again. And it is a challenging one if you're just presented with the words to understand, is there a difference? But there is such an important difference, isn't there?
Shawna Ferguson 09:20
There is. And it's funny that in our strive to actually level the playing field as we often say in this line of work, several of us have even gotten the two terms confused. And how I try to really get clear on words, because words can help or hinder both your relationships, but they can help or hinder your strategy. When it comes to equality, at Wellington we look at equality as, what are those benefits that all employees should have equal access to. It's taking that EEO principle where I started in this field, and putting it into today's business practices. So, for example, at Wellington, all employees have an equal chance to develop, and all employees have equal access to benefit coverages, like medical, health, and wellness benefits. But what you might need, Nadia, as a mom, as a parent, may be different than what I need as a single woman, I don't have little ones to make sure that their healthcare is covered. So, that's where equity comes into place. How do you customise your programmes and practices to the unique individual needs of the unmet needs of different communities? So, I'll give you an example of this. So, while we all have access to development, some of us may require coaching. And that relationship between coach and employee is so unique that we have to make sure that there's a match there with the individual.
Some of us as women may feel safer developing through a women-focused leadership programme, whereas some of the others as women of colour may want to go to a racially diverse programme that develops all people of colour, because there are some commonalities in terms of how we’ve experienced the world, and in business. And then some of us may say, ‘well, you know what, I don't want to be separated out, I actually want to develop with the majority group’, and those are inclusive programmes. So those two E's live hand in hand at Wellington through our practices, then with the Is, I'll just speak quickly to the other two, and then I'll pause. So, for the Is, I think of intersectionality because none of us is one-dimensional. We may be women, we may be men, we may come from different racial backgrounds, some of us may have military experience, some of us may also be disabled and have different abilities than others, and some of us may come from a different sexual orientation on top of our gender, on top of our race. And so, intersectionality, there's a growing consciousness around it, and understanding that you can't put everybody into one box because they might crossover in the boxes, and that's okay. And then there's inclusion. Now, here's the thing people also get confused with inclusion. I will often hear whether it's at Wellington or outside of Wellington, people say, ‘well, we're done with diversity, we're going to move on to inclusion’.
Nadia Nagamootoo 12:29
Yes, yes, I've heard that.
Shawna Ferguson 12:31
And I say to them, ‘then you haven't really understood the differences between diversity, talent representation or vendor representation’. And yet, Nadia, it's a firm or an industry that's done with the D in diversity.
Nadia Nagamootoo 12:47
Well, I hope that no organisation or industry ever is.
Shawna Ferguson 12:51
Yeah, honestly, I hope we are, I hope we work our way to a point where differences are so accepted, it's so engrained into all the levels of our organisations, all the business practices, that we can say with good faith that we have the true mosaic at every part of our business. But I haven't seen one yet in 25 years. And inclusion though, that's something that I really lean into our leaders, because inclusion is a behaviour. It is the act of extending the proverbial olive branch, that says, ‘Nadia and Shawna, we’re having a board meeting, and we want your voices at the table. We don't want you in the room taking notes,’ what they often do to women like us, ‘we actually want you in the conversation, we need your intellectual horsepower’, as we say at Wellington. ‘Because the way you've experienced the world, your unique identity, your unique cognitive intelligence is going to bring a different thought process, a different type of solution to our decision-making process.’ So, inclusion is something, it's an active state, bringing others into the decision-making process, into the incubator of innovation and idea generation. It is something that we ask at Wellington of our managers and our leaders to extend, and our employees to new employees. So those who've been with us longer, we say, ‘reach out and welcome new hires into your team meetings, take them out to lunch, have a virtual happy hour with them, get to know them on a deeper level, share some of the rules of navigating the culture’.
And then the B in DEBI is really a sense of belonging. And that's where I hope those listening to our conversation today understand, that this is not a forced action. Belonging is something that is shared. So, for example, today, you invited me to this conversation, but I can't invite myself. So, you were inclusive to extend that olive branch, but then I have to do something by accepting that invitation. I've got to lean in, I can't join an organisation and then say, ‘well, it's up to them to always reach out to me’. Belonging is that shared responsibility, a vulnerability of saying, ‘I'm going to lean in even though I may not be in the most dominant group. Even if I'm the only woman of colour, I'm going to bring all of Shawna to the table. I'm not going to hold back because I'm by myself, I'm going to say to myself, instead of, I'm the only woman in the room and shrinking a little bit, I'm going to sit up a little bit taller and say, I am the woman in the room, and they need my voice in this conversation.’ So that's where I think belonging is something where we're all just unpacking, getting to find our DEBI inside us, getting to find our DEBI in the cultures that we're leading in organisations so that people start to all feel a sense of they're part of the mosaic, they're part of the puzzle that make up the culture of the firm.
Nadia Nagamootoo 15:55
Yeah. What I really love about what you’ve just said about belonging is that it doesn't take away from the accountability, the responsibility and the ownership that an individual, even if you're in the nondominant, or minority group, can have over. And it's important actually to lean in, to achieve that sense of belonging, that it isn't just the organization's power over an individual or minority groups to offer inclusion, to try and achieve diverse talent across the different diversity characteristics, but actually, in order to achieve belonging, this is what I just heard, that an organisation needs to have all staff leaning in, being able to show up for their true selves and feel confident that they have legitimacy in that space and for the organisation to equally demonstrate that that is the case.
Shawna Ferguson 16:49
Yeah, you're right. Our responsibility as organisational leaders is to create the right social conditions that would invite those who are new to your culture, and new to your business to lean in. Or maybe they're not new, but they've been present but invisible, to say, ‘it's okay for you to make the invisible visible’, but then us being those who want to be seen and heard, we have to then say, ‘okay, this is my time to speak up, to share my thoughts and my opinions’. I think at least in my years in this work, there's been too much of the, ‘I'm waiting for them to do their SOP’, or a statement that actually rubs me the wrong way, sometimes, when people say, ‘well, I just wish all of these underrepresented groups would lift themselves up as my forefathers did, pull themselves up by their bootstraps’. Well, that's really hard to do if you don't have boots. And so, I think now we're in a state of change in human history.
And we've been here before, you and I are talking on the birthday of the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and I sit and I listened to a lot of his speeches, and I listened to some of my favourite quotes. I’m a bit of a graduate of Martin Luther King Middle School in Boston, Massachusetts, in the US, and I think about, ‘oh, my goodness, look how much history has repeated itself’. And while we've made some progress in certain areas, we are reliving some mistakes that we didn't learn. And so, when I think about what we could do around the shared responsibilities, now we have a moment, where people are tired, they don't want to go backwards to 50 years ago, they refuse to raise children in that kind of environment. And we have those of us who said, ‘well, I'm exhausted with teaching and showing the majority rules’, I'm now asking us to all of us dig deep into our retainers of energy, dig deep, don't let exhaustion or nostalgia sit in, and find the courage, that is going to be my word for 2022, find the courage to push through and keep staying united. They have this saying now all the time, ‘see something, say something’, I'm saying, ‘see something, do something’.
Nadia Nagamootoo 19:04
I agree because actually, we can have all the knowledge in the world, why racism exists, the structure or the history behind it, how it's deeply embedded in the foundations of society, and yet, if we see something, we don't challenge it. So, there needs to be some action. And this is where we talk about allyship or advocacy, don't we? So, if you were to wave a magic wand, all of the leaders in Wellington, and in any organisation in the world could act and behave in a certain way, in order to achieve greater inclusion and to lean into that sense of belonging, what is it that we need to see.
Shawna Ferguson 19:41
We talk a lot as leaders at Wellington. And I always start with the mindset, because mindset drives thoughts, thoughts drive feelings, feelings drive behaviour. And so, from a mindset standpoint, I think in the past, we have said we believe in equality. I'm going to go back to my DEBI and say, I want us to dial up the equity, because folks, there will be a need for different strokes for different folks. And don't shy away from giving individuals what they need to be excellent.
Nadia Nagamootoo 20:12
Do you get pushback on that? Because I find there's a backlash against that because we are talking about intangible measures here. We can't say, how much does Shawna need in terms of creating equity compared to Nadia? So, there's that very clear image, isn't there? When you look at equality and equity, and there are three people, they're standing looking at a baseball match, and the equality is the same height box, but they're all obviously at different heights themselves. That doesn't help. Equity is when you create the right height box to give them all the ability to watch this baseball match. And I think everyone gets that concept because it's tangible, we’re talking about height, and we can measure it. But when we're talking about people's background, when we're talking about the systemic advantages of some people over others, dominant groups over nondominant groups, when we're talking about how our organisations are set up, built in this very foundation, that it isn't fair, how do we then start levelling that playing field when we can't measure it?
Shawna Ferguson 21:14
So, I think there are things that we can measure, actually. So, I'll take a couple of practical things. And I won't point fingers at any particular companies, I'll talk about my wish list as I like to. So, a lot of companies come at this from a philanthropic endeavour, and they invest in communities. My wish list would be for those leading philanthropic dollars or investments, where they may have said, ‘well, our philosophy is to only invest in one type of need’, it might be we're just going to invest in education. That's something we do; we invest in education. What I put on the table for leaders is to think about some of the other unmet needs that are out there in underserved communities, like affordable health care has been on the topic for people of colour for years. And so, while going to university is great, and that will change the trajectory, if you're not healthy, you won't make it through those education programmes. Quality food service programmes, and really thinking about, how those communities from lower socio-economic status get quality food programmes? Nadia, I'm going to tell you something that only a few people know about me. I grew up in a neighbourhood where my parents taught us to drive to the richer white neighbourhoods to get our groceries because they knew that the grocery stores in our neighbourhoods didn't have the best food, the best products, and the healthiest things for us. And it wasn't until six years ago, when I moved here down south, that a friend of mine called me and said, ‘Are you on your way to the white neighbourhoods again to get groceries’, I didn't even realise I was still doing it.
Nadia Nagamootoo 22:59
So deeply ingrained that that's where the best quality food is that you still do it in adulthood.
Shawna Ferguson 23:04
I still do it in adulthood. So, when I talk about, what can leaders do to challenge the status quo? Look at your practices and your philosophies around how you run your business. Start at the mindset of, when you say, ‘we only’ or ‘we focus on’, flip that statement to, ‘what if we could add one more?’ ‘What if’ instead of saying, ‘we only’. I love the magic of threes; the brain can digest the magic of threes. What if instead of having one focus area, we have three, that will still make a difference in unmet needs? And right now, when we think about the state of healthcare, that's one of the topics I would ask people to lift those boundaries. Because whether it is COVID or some other threat to our society, healthy employees make for good business, and healthy communities make for good clients and customers.
There's no argument there. But there is fact and research that shows that there are a lot of diverse communities struggling to be healthy. That should just be a basic human right. And if we go from healthy and we're looking just at the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs, then we can think about economic distribution, helping that generational wealth. So, if you think of, ‘we only’ that's where the only thing comes in. We only go to this grouping of suppliers, we only use this grouping of brokerage firms, and we only invest in these types of companies. I ask leaders, challenge yourself, who else are you leaving out from that decision? What if you could add one or two other companies? What would they look like that is different from what you've used today? So that's where I'm asking people to change their mindset and really push us, Nadia, and stop saying, ‘well, I have to be fair’, but redesign what fairness looks like to those who haven't had any part of fairness for decades. It is fair to target some programmes, because just like the visual that you painted for us in this conversation if I'm six feet tall, I may not need that box to stand and look over the fence, but little old me, I'm 5’3, I'm going to need at least 2 boxes and a set of heels, there you go.
Nadia Nagamootoo 25:32
And we shouldn't have this conversation without mentioning the Groundbreakers Academy, because that's how we know each other through Sladen Consulting. And it's your baby, essentially, you came up with this idea, you recognised the need, you’ve built with colleagues, obviously at Wellington, an amazing programme, which is now in its third successful year. So, tell us a little bit more about Groundbreakers Academy. Why was that important? And what does it do?
Shawna Ferguson 25:58
Thank you. Actually, I love talking about Groundbreakers. I do love talking about it. So, I'm going to try not to go on because this is not an hour-long conversation. But what I will tell you is, first I would say, while I'm the person that might have spearheaded it, what it took was really listening. The same way that I got into this field by listening to those students at different universities talks about what they wanted to be. In our first year of 2017, we did a global talent engagement survey, and Groundbreakers was really born out of my listening to what was not being met. So, the same thing I'm asking of leaders, I'm asking myself, ‘Shawna, what are we missing that you're seeing in this feedback from employees?’ And it was the chance to develop a certain set of skills that would help them improve their current performance for future opportunities. And it showed up in different words in the survey. And so, a group of us, including the head of HR, Fatima Penrose, sat down and we thought about, what are we missing from this equation. And then we went a step further, and we did some focus groups with an outside consulting firm, and we had a consultant come in and meet with the two groups where we saw the biggest area of improvement, which was our black and brown talents, our African heritage, not just African American, but black British, black Canadian, black American, and our Latino talent and Hispanic talent in those three regions of the world, UK, US and Canada.
And we listened to their stories of what skills they felt that they needed, what skills they felt they weren't getting, how they were experiencing the world outside the walls of Wellington, and how they were experiencing the world inside of Wellington. And that's where I got the idea of, in order for us to ‘level the playing field’, we needed a programmatic approach. And so, Groundbreakers is one of those programmes that focuses on developing professional development skills for underserved talent in their early to mid-career. It's spanned because I felt that in listening to their stories, we were doing a lot as a firm at that early career level. And I think a lot of other firms out there do that. They go out, they recruit on campus, they put together a robust recent college grad programme, but then after four or five years, what we were hearing from our employees is, ‘now what? Now, what do I do?’ Because there's a big gap between where I am now and becoming a manager of a team, how will I have the skills to be successful or even qualified to lead other people if you don't start investing in me today, Wellington? And we listened. And my colleague, Rebecca Walker answered the call to help, she's got unbelievable instructional design skills. And so, I said, ‘Rebecca, I can't do this on my own’. And we partnered with members of our employee resource groups, which we call Shades, and we said, ‘Okay, we need your voice in designing this’, we went out and found more consultants like yourself, Slayton and many others, and said we need to put our collective minds together to say, ‘how can we build a global programme?’
So, there are several challenges, it's global, how can we build a knowledge base, so it needs to be content driven? That's one of the differentiators in this programme. I've gone to a lot of these programmes for underserved communities, under-met communities, and they are feel-good programmes, they lift my motivation, they get me all jazzed up, but then I get really back and ready to put my hands on the keyboard and I'm like, ‘Okay, what should come out of these fingers?’ I don't know what to do. So, we wanted it to be content-rich with workshops that were virtual. We also wanted it to be highly collaborative because a lot of the employees talked about what they learned from their peers. So instead of just thinking, ‘I have to learn from someone older, hierarchical, as a partner or senior leader of the firm’, ‘what can I learn from my peers that have strengths that I haven't shared or don't know about?’ We also wanted to make it practical and realistic for our business. So, I know that firms like ours, and many others send their employees to build their skills at these other programmes. Those are great, but they don't customise to your business. So, we wanted some business simulation, so that it could be very relevant to the work of Wellington. We needed coaching so that people could help too, again, make that mindset shift, that thoughts and feelings of being the only one, and how does that impact how you approach your work? Does it make you lean in or lean back?
Nadia Nagamootoo 30:50
You know what, just as you say that, this made me think, as I work with the Groundbreakers, that concept of being the only one is actually so helpful just to have a label on it, and for them to recognise that, oh, my goodness, yeah, it is, that every time I turn up to a meeting, and I'm the only woman or the only person of ethnic background, I'd never been cognizant of it, but it didn't feel great. But this is now a label, and it's a really helpful label for me to know that other people are also experiencing onlyness and otherness. Those sorts of social constructs, how in our mind, sometimes some of the labels that we're placing on things in the DEI space can be so helpful for people for example in the Groundbreakers Academy, or people in nondominant minority groups.
Shawna Ferguson 31:37
But you know what, Nadia, you brought up a point earlier that I’d like to leave in here and respond to because there's a blessing and a challenge in being the only, or setting up programmes that are customised to meet that equity need. Sometimes I've heard, whether it's been the Groundbreakers programme or any other programme, I’m also a graduate of a programme in the US called the partnership Inc programme. And I've had individuals say to me, ‘well, is that fair? Why do you as a woman of colour has to go to a partnership? Or should we really offer a programme that seems like it's separatism, to put all of our employees of difference in a programme?’
Nadia Nagamootoo 32:17
Yeah, isn't that the opposite of inclusion?
Shawna Ferguson 32:19
Isn't that the opposite of inclusion? I said, ‘Actually, it is equity at its best’. And so, there is a delicate balance between doing a size fit, just like the example I gave you, being a parent, and being a non-parent. You can offer me as an employee family benefits, but if I don't need them, or can't use them, what are you really offering? So, are you meeting my need? And there are going to be some needs that are common to all, and that's where you should amplify the I in inclusion. And then there are going to be some needs, if I need to, I'm often coaching a few employees, and some of our employees are working on their business writing skills, while other employees, that is their superpower. And I try to informally connect them, it would be silly for me to take the ones that have business writing superpowers, ‘I think you need to go to this business writing course, because of the standard of what we want all of our employees to have’, that would be a silly waste of resources capital, human capital, or any of our efforts. But to say to you and me, ‘we want to invest in you, as individuals serving Wellington, and our parents, we're going to make sure that you get all the resources you need so that you do not have to worry about your childcare so that you don't have to worry about the health benefits for your family, you individuals are equally important, so you tell us how you want to use your health benefits.’
I've recently put in a request to look at holistic medicine, because when I think of the state of healthcare, and I think of my Caribbean roots, there's a little bit of what I left behind when I came into corporate America that I want to bring back. So, I'm challenging companies, again, going back to the role of these leaders, I’m challenging us to think about equality and equity, what should all your employees have access to in their employment environment? An equal chance to succeed and an awareness of career opportunities. Don't hide your job postings, give them an equal chance to develop, but how that development happens should be to the individual, which is why we do individual development plans. And if someone says, ‘I develop better in an all-inclusive programme’, we've got options for those employees too, we don't leave our white men, our straight white men out of the equation.
Nadia Nagamootoo 34:47
And I think that's the backlash often, isn't it? It’s like, ‘well, there's nothing for me. There is no programme for straight white men. So, does that mean I don't deserve development?’
Shawna Ferguson 34:57
And to me, what I say about that, and it’s funny I have to quote an external leader in this space, who is a straight white man that recently spoke at Wellington partner and managing director breakfast at the end of last year, and his name is Tim Ryan. Tim Ryan started the movement at PwC around CEO action. And we asked him to speak to the mindset of straight white males feeling left behind. Because I said to Tim when he came and spoke at a client D&I symposium that we hosted a few years ago, I said, ‘Tim, I don't want to leave my brothers behind, we need them. Absolutely need them.’ Speaking from the daughter of a Marine, leave no person behind, we can’t make this movement happen if even one part of the population feels like they don't have a role to play. But what is hidden in that statement is there's no white men development programme. If there was an actual need for a white male-only development programme, I'd hear it. But what I usually challenge in that statement is, ‘so are you saying that you want to develop with your own white brothers? Or are you saying you want development?’ Because again, through understanding what is the unmet need, when I'm saying I want development, to me, it doesn't matter, Shawna, this is what I usually hear, it doesn't matter if they're women, or people of colour, I want to make sure that I'm not left out.
Okay, let me show you how that gets done at Wellington because you're not. Or in real talk with you, Nadia, if I hear statements that say, ‘oh, well now we have women of colour, people of colour, people of different sexual orientation, sexual identity being promoted, that means we're not promoting white men’. What I would tell my fellow chief DEI officers is, ‘pull out the data, let the data speak for it’. And I've done that, I've said, well, let me share with you how many were just made the following officership promotions. Let me share with you how many people have been hired that we have learned of their identity, and how many are leaving the firm. And usually, when you pull out the data, that statement has no truth to it, it has no bearing on it. And so, then I deal with the fear. So, what is it that you're really concerned with? And it all comes down to fairness. So, my advice to my fellow DEI champions, is, don't ignore the backlash, get intellectually curious as to the root cause by asking the five whys. You let the data lead you, and if your data shows that you've swung too far to the left, and you don't have a justifiable reason for keeping the white men out, then you need to question your approaches. But our data at Wellington does not show us leaving white men out, it shows us actually bringing our white men to the table as champions, two of our managing partners, Terry Burgess and Steve Klar are two of the biggest champions in the firm.
Nadia Nagamootoo 38:03
Yeah. And that's so important, isn't it? To have everyone leaning into this and understanding and being able to answer that question as well as you have, in terms of justifying, in terms of explaining, because that question will come up time and time again. And it can't just come from the global DEI person. There's one person Shawna Ferguson, who's just trying to explain to everyone, it has to come from everyone.
Shawna Ferguson 38:28
At some point, I'm going to earn my way to retirement on a nice tropical beach. And my statement to claim is that I made this place better than the way I found it. And that there are other DEI champions along the way that can keep the movement going, and it's not just one personal movement, because it will get there.
Nadia Nagamootoo 38:45
I love that. So finally, before we wrap up, I'm wanting your insight, on what is next on the DEBI horizon. What is it for 2022 for organisations, not just Wellington, but happy to hear the Wellington context. But what should organisations really be focusing on in order to move this dial even further?
Shawna Ferguson 39:05
So, I would say, if we think about the movement in our industries, in our communities, and we think about it again, it's the day where I’m in so much reflection today when I think of the late great Reverend Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. I think we have to remember what we've been trying to do for so many decades, so many centuries. We've been trying to bring humanity together. And so, as we think about 2022, I want us to use this year, this time right here and now Nadia, as a time to really focus on three things. I told you I love threes. I want us to really be clear around shifting mindsets, so that we see each person as an equal, not as a marketing spiel, not as a charity case, but as an equal human being, that if you win, I win. I mean that within communities and across communities. So, women helping women, folks of colour helping folks of colour, folks of difference helping folks of difference, majority groups helping less dominant groups. So, I think we’ve got to bring our hearts, and hands to this work by starting with shifting our mindset. The next thing I will say at Wellington we’re leaning in is, so what? Now what? So how do we hold ourselves accountable? So that accountability piece. We've got programmes, we've got processes, we've got external partners, I think many other organisations out there have the same thing. But now it's time to get real folks and start digging into, what are the outcomes and outputs from all those programmes, all those partnerships. For us, looking at where are our Groundbreakers 2 and 3 years out? Are they using the skills that they learned in that programme? Are they going on to bigger and better things? Whether they are in promotions or lateral moves or leading a group or a committee or a special task force, is it making a difference? Are our philanthropy dollars actually changing the status quo or just scratching the surface? An accountability piece is going to be dogmatic. And then lastly, I think, instead of justifying how we make the rich richer, now I'm going to go after people's money, so they may not like this comment.
But I think we need to be investing in those companies and those small businesses that are owned by the untapped talent community. Too long have we said, we're going to invest in majority-owned firms who hire folks of difference. Yeah, that's great. To me, that was table stakes. You should have been doing that all along. Now I want to see you say, ‘Well, how do we make sure firms like Nadia’s have a bigger piece of the pie?’ How are we investing in those women-run organisations, those veteran-run organisations, those members of my LBGTQIA+ brothers and sisters? How do we make sure that they're not just hidden under someone else's business where the profits go mostly to the majority, but that they have a piece of the pizza?’ As the college students tell me, instead of the pie, they have a piece of pizza. I think we need to look at our suppliers and our vendors, and really make sure that they are equally diverse and that we share the economic wealth. Because I can tell you, being a woman of faith, that when you don't share, the Lord has a funny way of making you learn that he's going to take a piece of your pizza and give it to whom it should go. So hopefully, the themes of mindset shifts, the theme of accountability and the theme of wealth distribution are something that people take to heart this year. Because they're going to see some of that with Wellington, especially as we lean into our very first transparency report, we'll be publishing that in only a few weeks out, where we're going to share where we're at in our journey, we know we got a long way to go, but metrics as well as strategies with the hope that we can be part of this industry movement for equality.
Nadia Nagamootoo 43:16
That transparency and that word are so important, there’s that fear that organisations can sometimes live by and it’s like, ‘oh, well, what will people say if they realise that we don't have as many women or as many ethnic minorities or whatever the number is’, and the key is to be able to stand by it and say, ‘but this is what we're doing. We understand, we know we have work to do, and we're going to do it.’
Shawna Ferguson 43:40
Nadia, do you know where that fear comes from? I thought about it. And I thought, why are so many companies scared to lean into the word transparency? It's the same when you're younger, in your journey, your adulthood journey, and you want to put on makeup, you want your girlfriends to know you're flawless, and you never have a bad hair day or a bad dress day. And then something happens to the human mindset as you hit your 40s and 50s, when you say this is just me, this is the good, the bad and the ugly. I think that's where corporations are now around vulnerability, that theme I brought up earlier. I think we're learning there's strength in vulnerability to say, ‘we don't have it all figured out folks, but we are trying our best. And if you’ve got some solutions, don't be on the judging table.’ That's one thing I would tell people, don't be on the judging table, be on the solution table. Come to me with some ideas. If you think we're not good enough and we should be leaning in more, we’re ready, lean in with us, but give me some ideas that we haven't tried, but you don't see in that transparency report.
Nadia Nagamootoo 44:50
I love that. That reminds me of that Brene Brown speech where she talks about the man in the arena. ‘And unless you're in the arena with me, then I don't need your feedback. But if you're willing to step in, then let's work together.’
Shawna Ferguson 45:04
Absolutely. I’ve got enough judges in life. You know what? I know I have a bad hair day or a bad makeup day, I don’t need you to tell me that. What I need you to say is, you know what, Shawna? I've got a great stylist.
Nadia Nagamootoo 45:18
Shawna, it has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your insights, the information about the leadership, the journey that we're on in the coming year and your hopes for that, just everything that you have shared has been remarkable, and I so appreciate your time. So, thank you.
Shawna Ferguson 45:36
You're welcome and thank you for the opportunity to share, this has been fun. I hope that I've helped others as we all push forward to make change happen.
Nadia Nagamootoo 45:44
Without doubt. That concludes Episode 20 of the Why Care podcast. There are so many takeaways from this episode for me, extending the olive branch and being an ally, how to create belonging and shared responsibility of vulnerability, looking at the language we use and what is not being said, the fear of fairness and generating solutions-oriented behaviour. Do let Shawna and I know what you thought of today's show. You can find me on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram with the handle @NadiaNagamootoo and @Avenirconsultingservices. As always, I really appreciate your support of this podcast by leaving a review on whatever platform you're listening to and spreading the word by sharing it with your friends and family. Huge thanks to Mauro Kenji, for editing this podcast, and Jon Rice for supporting with the show notes and getting it out there on social media.
