Why Care? #38: Jenny Garrett - Equality vs Equity
“The reframing that I do around that is that meritocracy is a myth, the fact that everyone wants to get a job on their merit. Sadly, we know that lots of people get jobs because of who they know not necessarily what they know. They get opportunities and extra opportunities because of who they are. So, the research tells us that men are often recruited on potential and women on track record. So, I’ve to prove myself over and over again to get the same opportunity that you got just because you have potential. And so, when we fall into that argument, I need to get my role on merit, we're discarding the fact that so many people have got their role not on merit. They've gone into the role and either proved themselves or they've not, and they've had to leave the organisation. And so, we're setting the bar higher for ourselves than other people are setting for themselves. And actually, again, the research says that those of us from the global majority are usually overqualified, we stay in roles too long, we're getting more and more qualifications, experience, knowledge and we've got more than enough to step into the opportunities that come our way.”
Jenny’s interest in DEI is evident through her experiences as a career coach, leadership developer, TEDx Speaker and author. She has nearly two decades of experience in running a global business, she founded the first Diverse Executive Coach Directory in the UK and is a Co-Founder of the social enterprise, Rocking Ur Teens. She is passionate about helping people to make the transformation that they are seeking to happen and in doing so, she has received an OBE award in 2021 for her services to Entrepreneurship and Women in Business.
Jenny talks about her internal conflict prior to writing Equity vs Equality. She didn’t want to be put in a box, but what motivated her was her desire to empower people and helping the world have conversations and take action on race and ethnicity. She speaks about the clear distinction between equity and equality. As she explains, equity is more about changing the systems, for instance, there is an unwritten rule that oftentimes makes it difficult for those with certain accents to progress at work. So, with this, it is more about ensuring that the senior leaders are aware of systemic inequities and are actively creating change. She explains that, at times, people struggle with racial inequity because they have no direct contact with those from an ethnic background, so it becomes difficult for them to really understand their lived experiences and it becomes easy to ‘other’ them as a result. As she identifies, there is a huge stigma around being called ‘racist’ and that breeds a fear and reluctance around the topic. Some people have grown up being told not to mention anything about ethnicity, so it is challenging for them to have to unlearn that.
Later on, she speaks about colourism - how the closer people are to whiteness, the more advantages they have. She identifies that as someone with ‘medium brown skin and green eyes’, she has benefitted from this, as it has made her more appealing and accessible to others. Despite this, she recounts her experience of racial discrimination at an evening gala, and, what felt most painful was the lack of allyship. She explains that they could have been passive because they don’t want to ostracise themselves and possibly also because they don’t know how to approach the situation. As she mentions, anything would have been helpful in that situation because their silence shows that they are okay with what was being said.
Jenny then explains the key concepts in her book:
- Shape shifting – With the speed of change in the world, bias and discrimination can be heightened because of the way AI is being built and developed. So, it is about this shift from ‘people are not recognising me’ to ‘AI is not recognising me’. It is about being aware of how micro-aggressions can present differently in the future of work. It might be subtle but has significance to a lot of people.
- Interest Conversion – Jenny identifies that people need a reason to care about racial inequity. She cites the business case for diversity as an example - businesses invest in DEI because of the financial returns they will get. For those with an ethnic background, it could be because they want more opportunities and, for her, it is about creating a society where incidents like George Floyd’s killing doesn’t happen.
- Mindset shift – Jenny explains that people need to understand the power they have in different situations and to use that power with humility and not see it as a burden. She references that, as a straight woman, she has a privilege because she isn’t being discriminated against because of her sexual orientation. So, she can support the people from the LGBTQ+ community and be there for them.
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Transcript
Jenny Garrett 00:00
In terms of interest conversion, what I mean is everybody is in it for themselves, sadly, we are in quite an individualistic society. And there has to be a reason why I would go out of my way to care about your experience, for me to care enough about the hardship you're experiencing, the bias you're experiencing, there has to be a conversion of interests. Now, it's really clear why I don't want bias to exist and racism to exist because I want to have a happy life. But why would someone who has racial privilege, why would they care because their life's fine? And so that's what we mean by interest conversion. You know, if we think about the business case, according to the research, organisations with diversity at the top of their organisation, do 35% better. So, therefore, there's an interest conversion, I need diversity at the top because I'll get better financial returns. This person from an ethnically diverse background, from the global majority, wants more opportunities. There's a conversion of interest but sometimes there isn't and sometimes we have to help find that.
Nadia Nagamootoo 01:11
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 through 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 episode 38 of Why Care? My name is Nadia Nagamootoo, and I am your host. In this episode, I'm delighted to welcome Jenny Garrett OBE. Jenny is an award-winning career coach, leadership trainer and author of Equality Versus Equity, Tackling Issues Of Race In The Workplace. Together with her team, she delivers impactful development to support women and those from ethnically diverse backgrounds to progress at work, as well as supporting majority group leaders to make inclusion happen. She's also a co-founder of a social enterprise Rocking Your Teens, which connects corporates with a pipeline of future talent. In this episode, we unpack the concept of equity, and in particular, shine a light on racial inequity. We discuss colourism and other subtle intersectional characteristics that create barriers to progress. Jenny shares a shocking story of racism she's experienced and we also delve into more intangible ways racial inequity plays out. Jenny busts the myth of meritocracy and explains how everyone can gain from equity and inclusion. Enjoy. Jenny, thank you so much for joining me on Why Care? I'm so excited to speak to you.
Jenny Garrett 03:51
Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm really happy to be here today.
Nadia Nagamootoo 03:54
We have several mutual colleagues and friends that we’ve discovered, but it was the amazing Devi Virdi that connected us. I'm very excited, having read your book, now to speak to you because I have to say that I thought it was an absolutely brilliant read. It was engaging, and the storytelling was amazing. To be honest, this topic of equality versus equity that comes up so regularly in the conversations that I have with leaders and the confusion around it and what it actually means and it's hard to articulate in a few words, hence why you've written a book because I thought, it needs the book, it is a complex topic and concept. So just by way of introduction, maybe you can share a little bit more about your background, your work in DEI and how you came to write Equality Versus Equity.
Jenny Garrett 04:45
In terms of my heritage, I’m from the Caribbean, my mum's from St. Lucia and my dad's from Jamaica. So, two Caribbean islands, but they both came to the UK in their teens, and I've lived in the UK all my life. As we know, people from ethnically diverse backgrounds or the global majority, as I like to call us, are a minority in the UK. And of course, that can lead to many different thoughts and feelings from feeling excluded to feeling exoticized, etc. I found myself all my life, I think in spaces where I've been one of very few, from the Catholic school in which I was educated, to being a coach, which is not a particularly diverse field or not visibly anyway. I think maybe I was always destined to do this work but in truth, I think I resisted it. When I started my business, many years ago now, I think when people said to me, do you want to work with Black women, for example, I would have said, No, I support everyone, I work with everyone. I didn't want to be put in a box but as I've gone through my career, I've seen that more underrepresented groups, people who are from the global majority, it's really important to make sure that they get what they need to be successful.
And so, this has become part of my passion and purpose. It's always been about empowering people, whoever they are, but absolutely helping the world to have conversations about race and ethnicity, which means that then they make changes around race and ethnicity. It's not just about the conversations, it's so much about the action. In terms of how I came about to write the book, I delivered a talk for an organisation and amazingly, in the audience, there was an editor from my publishing house, Emerald. They said, I love this idea of equity that you've been talking about, I think it's a book. And I was a little bit of, again, resistance. I said I don't know if I've got enough to say about it. And they said, to have a think about it, put together a little proposal and let's see. And when I started writing, I realised that everything came back to equity, they were right. And then they commissioned me to write the book and I had seven months to do it. So, it was done pretty quickly.
Nadia Nagamootoo 06:59
How brilliant to discover that you have more to say on the topic than you thought. When you said that it resonated with me, having written my book now. When I had started sort of contemplating writing a book, I thought, surely, I don't have enough to say, what will be so interesting that people might want to read a whole book on this? And I think there is something really both rewarding and empowering in the writing process where you just discover not just that you have a voice and some real clear thoughts and opinions about the topic, but also that you can convey that in a way that's engaging, through storytelling and through examples of your own lived experience, of your own life. And that's what I really loved about your book.
Jenny Garrett 07:44
Thank you so much. It wasn't just joyful, it was also quite painful at times. You know what I was thinking? Am I going to be able to finish this? With this pressure? Can I fit it in? All of those things.
Nadia Nagamootoo 07:59
Oh, yeah. Let’s not sugarcoat it. It's hard work for sure but really rewarding. The title of your book is Equality Versus Equity. So, it seems like the most obvious place to start is if you could just give us some clarity about what that means. What is equality versus equity?
Jenny Garrett 08:17
Yeah, so for me, equity is about understanding and giving those from underrepresented groups what they need to achieve equal outcomes. Is not focused on the inputs, it's focused on the outputs. How do you do it? Through considering systems that are disadvantaged and finding ways to overcome them. So for me, just explaining that, when we think about equity, it's about getting to know people, taking an individual approach and saying you need three training programmes, maybe you don't need any. With those three training programmes that you get, you might then be at a position to be able to really match your other colleagues in order to go for that next role. So, it's starting to understand that everyone doesn't need the same, it's a much more individualised approach, to understand what people need to be successful. But it's also this thing about systems. It's about understanding what gets in the way, some systems are written down and are really clear, and some are not. Accent bias is a big one. I definitely think in some organisations at the top of organisations, there is definitely an accent bias. So, there's an unwritten rule. If your accent isn't a certain accent, then actually it's very unlikely you'd ever get to that position. And so, it's starting to surface these things, so that once we're aware of them, we can change them and do something about them.
Nadia Nagamootoo 09:46
Yeah, and that's the value of really understanding the distinction. Is the call then for leaders and people in general, to be looking for the systemic inequities around them?
Jenny Garrett 10:01
Absolutely, but I think it starts at a very individual level. What I've noticed in organisations because we run programmes that are for people from the global majority to help them break through the glass ceiling. Also, the programmes, support their line manager and support senior sponsors, we're working at three different levels at the same time in an organisation, and ultimately, the senior sponsors have the most power to change things. And so, it's about illuminating to the most senior people, what could possibly lead to change. A lot of the time, they're the ones who put this in place in the first place, or what it is, is systems and processes that work for them. And so, it’s about helping them to see oh, gosh, this works for me but this really doesn't work for others. What can we do about that? Do you need that qualification? Or is it just because we've traditionally had someone with that qualification? Or do we need the skill or the ability to learn?
Nadia Nagamootoo 11:00
Yeah, it is hugely uncomfortable, obviously, to get your head around those realities. If someone is offering you some insight into a systemic inequity, it is too easy just to go, I don't know, I don't think that that applies here. It is intangible often to measure the inequity. And in your book, you specifically talk about racial inequity. Although you say that, obviously, inequity plays out across all diversity characteristics, you're shining a particular light on racial inequity. What is it about racial equity and inequity that people particularly struggle with?
Jenny Garrett 11:35
Yeah, I think there are many reasons. One of them is that you are likely to have a woman in your family, you may have someone who has a disability in your family but a lot of people don't necessarily come into contact with people from different races and ethnicities. So immediately, the ability to step into someone else's shoes is more challenging. And also, just that sense of otherness, it’s easy to other people from different backgrounds to yourself when you never come into contact with them.
So, I think that's one of the starting points about why it's so challenging. But I also think there's a huge stigma around being called racist. We can say sexist very much easier now, but actually saying racist, and racism, no one wants to have those words banded in their direction. And I think there's such a huge amount of fear around that, around people saying that. And there's one last point that people often say to me, which is when I was growing up, I was told never to mention someone having a different skin colour or coming from a different background or any of that sort of thing. So now people are having to unlearn years of being told to do one thing and now to do another. And for some people, that is really challenging.
Nadia Nagamootoo 12:52
Yeah, it's really challenging. I do touch on that a little bit in my book, where people are just so clear that the right thing to do is not see difference, not see colour, not see gender, and they really strongly believe it's a fundamental value of theirs, that if they do see colour, then they must be racist. It's rude, it's disrespectful, treating everyone the same is just seeing everyone the same. It's a really tough one for some people to get through if that's something they've been taught and they hold very deeply as part of their belief system. In one of the earlier parts of your book, you talk about colourism and I was intrigued. I was curious really about it, you say that you personally have benefited from colourism and you say it's because of your medium brown skin and green eyes. Can you expand a little bit about what you mean by that?
Jenny Garrett 13:45
Yeah, it may be hard to explain in some ways, but definitely the lighter the colour of your skin in society, generally, the more you're seen as beautiful. The closer you are to whiteness and that can be the shade of your skin, it can also be about your features, the shape of your nose, the shape of your lips or the shape of your eyes. And there's a huge amount of research about the fact that the closer you are to whiteness, the more you have advantages in society. White people are more comfortable with you because of the shade of your skin, your features, the way you talk, and your hair, and the further away you are from that the more it feels like you are different. And absolutely, I think that I could not say that I have not benefited because I must have done.
I can't specifically say someone said because of the shade of your skin, I'm going to invite you into this meeting but I absolutely know it will have helped me in some ways, it would have made me more accessible, more appealing to people who feel that the darker skin is not appealing, and less threatening. All of those things mean that I'm more able to step in their door. To name it and talk about that really upsets me because my whole family are people who have a darker shade of skin than me and that means I know that they are experiencing more barriers than I am in society. Even if they are more intelligent or more capable or more experienced, or whatever it is, that will be a barrier to their success. I think that helping people to become more aware of those things if we intersect that with the shade of skin, and then a size of body, we know that will be simulated against for example. And then something else, you just realise that there are so many hurdles to overcome for some people
Nadia Nagamootoo 15:38
And so subtle as well, because you know, we were talking about the shade of skin, when we're talking about features of a face when we're talking about the size of the body, when we're talking about accent, which you've already mentioned, how do we measure that inequity? You say you're pretty confident that other members of your family who have darker skin tones will face certain barriers, and biases that you haven't faced, and obviously, I understand why that's upsetting, but we can't measure it.
Jenny Garrett 16:06
Maybe you can see the sort of people who are successful in your organisation. So, the people who do breakthrough in terms of ethnicity, shade of colour, or maybe have they got a higher education, educated in an Oxbridge environment which opened a different door for them. If you start to analyse and look around at who breaks through, you can sometimes see that, I'm not saying that people with darker skin can't be successful, I'm just saying that they might have to have gone through additional barriers to do so. And I think just noticing that who are people drawn to versus who might have to work harder to get into the room and then prove themselves credible as well?
Nadia Nagamootoo 16:49
Yeah. And now the story in your book, which was one that stays with me, is one where you have faced racial discrimination. You articulate it as the worst experience of feeling excluded. And it was when you attended an evening gala. For those who haven't read your book yet, just expand a little bit on that story, because I'd love to learn a little bit more about your views on what happened there.
Jenny Garrett 17:12
Yeah, it was an awful experience actually. What it was is I'd been at an event and there was a gala dinner in the evening, I was dressed up, and I had a gown on. So in my mind, there's no mistaking why I was at the dinner. I sat at a table, I sat with a group of people whom I did not know, they were all white, and they started making conversation as you do, which was fine. But the person opposite me, you know, the first thing they said was where do you go on holiday. And I am a person who loves to holiday. So, I thought, Oh, this is a great conversation, and I said, I like to go everywhere. You know, I've been here, I've been there but there are so many places I want to be in the world. And I think I was completely off guard as well.
I think in some situations, you are a little bit guarded and you're prepared. But I think I was open and vulnerable. And this person just said, but don't you go back to your own country. So, I thought that was a strange thing to say. And I said, Oh, my family are from the Caribbean. I absolutely have been back to the Caribbean but it's not the only place I’ll go to because there's a whole world out there. Then he proceeded to tell me that I should go back to my own country, and he didn't know why there were so many people of my background here and would we more be more comfortable elsewhere. Now that was quite offensive. Actually, I missed out on the first thing that he said to me, which was, are you catering staff? Oh, gosh, when I'm sitting opposite him in a gown.
Nadia Nagamootoo 18:38
He wanted to offend you. You're making a point through that. It wasn't a serious question.
Jenny Garrett 18:44
Yes. Well, yeah, we never know what's going on in someone's mind but yeah, it felt like that. So, I had those comments and I was feeling very uncomfortable because I thought you were being outwardly racist to me. But the saddest thing was that there were people on the table, who were squirming but didn't speak up, I didn't experience allyship. I know they knew it was wrong and they felt very uncomfortable but they didn't do a thing. And I remember leaving the event early, I may be stuck out for a while and I just got up. I saw one of my colleagues who had been sitting at another table and they said are you okay? I just said I was fine. The next day I told them what happened and they said, well, we need to report them but it was the fact that I felt vulnerable. It was very offensive directly but also that no one helped, and I can tell you there were at least four people who overheard and none of them did anything, that was awful.
Nadia Nagamootoo 19:37
And why do you think in those circumstances because you see this isn't a one-off example, there'll be many examples similar to the one you've just shared? Why are people so passive in those moments?
Jenny Garrett 19:48
It's a hard one. I think sometimes I've been told by people that they don't want to be ostracised themselves. So, if they stand up for me, is that person going to attack them? So, there's a bit of self-preservation happening. I also think people don't have the words; they don't know what to say. And you know, one of the biggest things I'm always asked in my talks is, I want to know exactly what to say and how to say it. What are the forms of words that I need to use, I've never had to do this before, I don't know what they are. I think it's partly that. I also think that one of the things that I hope more people are learning is that when you hurt someone, you've hurt everyone, the fact that he was rude to me has an effect on everyone. They were passive bystanders in that situation and perhaps they went home and felt a little bit bad about themselves, even though they didn't do anything. So, it’s always a cascading thing by hurting me, my pain is everyone's pain.
Nadia Nagamootoo 20:48
And I love the way that you frame that, that from an outward appearance, it looks like the target was you but actually, it isn't just about you, this is much broader. And as you say it, that attack, I call it an attack, affects so many more people. And in that moment, if you were to have had someone say something, what would they have said or done that could have helped in that moment?
Jenny Garrett 21:16
I think anything would have been okay. I think if they just said, can we move the conversation on? It could even be a distraction, as opposed to I think you're being very offensive, this is inappropriate, you wouldn't ask me if I go home for holidays, you don't know where I'm from. So, they could have done all of that. But just to distract and change the conversation would have been a good intervention, to be honest with you, or even to say, are you okay? I might have said, Yeah, I'm fine, I can handle this or I might have said, No, I'm not. But just something like that. The silence in a way says this is okay. Saying something, however small, says I acknowledge what you're going through and I'm here for you. At that point, I was younger than them as well.
Nadia Nagamootoo 22:04
In chapter one, I'm going to read a little excerpt from your book. Now you say the issue is that racism is ever-present, shape-shifting and constant, and therefore takes vigilance and interest convergence for change to take place. What do you mean by racism is shape-shifting?
Jenny Garrett 22:23
We've all heard the term that there were no dogs, no Irish, and no Blacks on the doors when people were seeking accommodation many years and decades ago. Now, we don't have that obvious kind of racism generally, even in that experience I had at that gala dinner, people are not usually so obvious. Now, it's much more subtle, those micro-aggressions, subtle bias, who gets the opportunities, who's considered, who's given a second chance. I've got an example for you, I was in Romania last weekend and I didn't see one other person who was black, where I was in Romania. As I came into the airport, I was asked so many questions, but the person who was accompanying me, who was not Black wasn't asked those questions. I was asked why I was there, what the name of the venue I was visiting was, and when I was leaving, I had to provide evidence that I had a ticket to leave the country.
So, there was definitely something there, you know, that was in a country with very little diversity or in the area of the country I went to. Actually, if anyone's Romanian, I had the best time, I had so much love from everyone, this is just a tiny snippet of what happened in the airport. I think that's important. It's subtle, it's small. It's those tiny cuts that you receive on a daily basis that eventually get you to the point of bleeding out, these little things that happen that tell you, you don't belong, that's what I mean by shape-shifting. And that's what it looks like now, but maybe in the future, it's going to look like the AI, you know, that we're not building bias into AI. And it's going to be, well, no one physically has been racist to me but actually, the AI is not letting me get what I need to get or it's not recognising me.
So, I think it's continually shape shifting and that's where we have to be on the lookout and vigilant. Oh, it looks like that now, it used to look like that, it's less obvious but it's still significant. So that's what I mean by that. In terms of interest conversion, what I mean is, that everybody is in it for themselves, sadly, we are in quite an individualistic society. There has to be a reason why I would go out of my way to care about your experience, for me to care enough about the hardship you're experiencing, the bias you're experiencing, there has to be a conversion of interests. Now, it's really clear why I don't want bias to exist and racism to exist because I want to have a happy life. But why would someone who has racial privilege, why would they care because their life's fine?
And so that's what we need the interest conversion, if we think about the business case, according to the research, organisations with diversity at the top of the organisation, do 35% better. So, therefore, there's an interest conversion, I need diversity at the top because I'll get better financial returns. This person from an ethnically diverse background, from the global majority wants more opportunities, there's a conversion of interest but sometimes there isn't and sometimes we have to help find that. I think the killing of George Floyd was a moment where people were at home and they just realised, oh, my gosh, I don't want to live in a society where someone can be killed on the street in front of everyone, that is of interest to me. And of course, it's of interest to Black people for that not to happen. So, it's finding the conversion of our interests.
Nadia Nagamootoo 25:59
And I love that concept because I have a number of conversations around this zero-sum game where you win, I lose and how we create that conversation or that mindset shift, which is what you call it. That's what's necessary, a mindset shift, so that people don't feel like they're losing out, but that indeed, it is within their interest to create a world where things like being killed on the street for doing absolutely nothing, it doesn't happen. Can you talk a little bit more about that mindset shift because you say that equity is more than action and it is related to this mindset shift, not just from those who currently have power but also a mindset shift for those from underrepresented racial groups as well. So you say the underrepresented racial group need to understand what to do with their new opportunities, with the distributed power if they haven't had it before. And those who currently have power need to have that mindset shift to let go of the advantage that they previously had without feeling resentful. So how do we create this mindset shift?
Jenny Garrett 27:16
Yes, I use the analogy of a seesaw. And the sort of imbalance of power, that some people are very powerful, they have the weight, other people have less power, and they're sort of high and dry. And when we start putting the sandbags on to even things up a bit, that's when we can experience some fear and some resistance. If I've always had opportunities, if people have always opened the door to me and now I see them opening it for someone else, I can think, well, I've lost out on something, I'm losing out. I've even had conversations with people who say to me, I'm a White man, there's a target on my back, people have felt very much attacked by this. And so, I think for me, it's really about being really clear on what this is, it's not saying we want to be better. In fact, no one is better than anyone else, people are different to each other. It is about saying we want some people to get an opportunity, that opportunity may have always come to you, and it might not always come to you now, it might also go to someone else.
And how I really think about this is to understand privilege. I know a lot of people are very uncomfortable with that word, you can have racial privilege, just like I was talking about the privilege of the shade of my skin. But also understanding that you have power in different situations, instead of thinking about it as a burden, as a cross to bear, as something difficult to understand, you can use that power with humility. So, I'm a straight woman but in spaces where I am with people from the LGBTQ plus community, in those spaces, I can really show up and use my privilege because I'm not being discriminated against because of my sexual orientation. And in those spaces, I can be there for them because I won't lose anything, I don't have to talk about my sexual orientation. It's about those people who have fear, who are resistant to say, gosh, you know what, I'm in a really great position, how can I share that with humility to help other people? And that is the big mindset. It's saying, I've got nothing to lose, I've got an abundance that I can share with someone else and it's going to really help them.
When you help someone from a different background, you're often changing the course of their life and their family's life. It's an amazing legacy that you can leave. And so, number one, is that you will not lose, actually, no one has to lose, everyone can gain. I think about it sometimes like families, I've only given birth to one child but I know lots of people who have more than one child. And it's not that there's a finite amount of love, the love grows exponentially for the next child. It's not oh, there was this much love, there was an ounce of love, now I've got to share an ounce between two, so they get out half an ounce each, no, they both get an ounce of love. Instead of thinking with this scarcity mindset, we can think there's actually an abundance that we can give, it doesn't mean anyone loses, it means we all start to win. So that's the mindset shift that is needed in those who typically have had power opportunities. I think the other side is those who now have got an opportunity but don’t know what to do with it, this is unusual. I think what is needed is to manage the lack of trust and fear around it. I think if you haven't had those opportunities in the past, you can think, Oh, my goodness, they're going to take it away at any moment.
Nadia Nagamootoo 30:45
There is some cynicism and distrust there with the system.
Jenny Garrett 30:49
Exactly, exactly. So, I think that's a big bit, the trust but it's also like what happens if I make a mistake? I'm going to fall right down where I was before, the consequences of my mistakes are going to be so much bigger than someone else's because everyone's watching me, everyone's given me this opportunity, but they're also watching to see what I do with it. So, there can be a lot of pressure, a need to feel that you have to be perfect, none of us are perfect, and that's not really possible. So those unrealistic expectations can be a real challenge when we think about learning to take the opportunity and make the most of it. The terrible thing about it is that people often think that they are the token. If you start to believe that, that does really undermine you because you question yourself in terms of your ability. Anyone who thinks like that, I always say just go for it, I think that we can step into spaces and prove people wrong about us. Whatever their motivation for giving us the opportunity doesn't matter to me, grab the opportunity and show that you deserve to be there.
Nadia Nagamootoo 31:57
It’s a tough one, I think, there's a number of things you've named there, but that last one, I’ve heard so many women in particular, just saying that the last thing I want is to be given a job as a token gesture, I want to be given an opportunity because I deserved it and for it to be because of my talent and my capability. And the issue here is obviously what we're talking about is so invisible. Often these decisions are made without real clarity of what the underlying bias is or was. So I hear you that if opportunities come your way, grab them and demonstrate that you can, but it's not easy because that's another inequity that you've just named there, which is that, for example, if we're talking about a black woman, she will have that concern that she now needs to prove that she can do it and the pressure that she put upon herself as a result of that. Whereas a white woman or a white man just won't necessarily have that narrative. That's the black woman's lived experience, which is why she's playing that narrative over and over in her head, and will be a detriment to her self-worth, her self-belief, her confidence and potentially her ability to actually perform really well and fulfil her potential in that role. What do we do with that?
Jenny Garrett 33:11
Yeah, I agree. The reframing that I do around that is that meritocracy is a myth, the fact that everyone wants to get a job on their merit. Sadly, we know that lots of people get jobs because of who they know, not necessarily what they know, they get opportunities because of who they are. So the research tells us that men are often recruited on potential and women on track record. So, I've got to prove myself over and over again to get the same opportunity that you got just because you have potential. And so, when we fall into that argument, I need to get my role on merit, we’re disregarding the fact that so many people have got their role not on merit, they've gone into the role and either proved themselves or they've not and they've had to leave the organisation. And so, we're setting the bar higher for ourselves than other people are setting for themselves. Again, the research says that those of us in the global majority are usually overqualified, we stay in roles too long, we're getting more and more qualifications, experience, and knowledge and we've got more than enough to step into the opportunities that come our way.
Nadia Nagamootoo 34:18
Yeah. You tell a really powerful story of a boy, and he obviously grows up into a man called Albert in your book. You explain his experiences in childhood through school into employment and the cumulative impact of those experiences on his self-belief, his motivation and his outlook on life. Could you just offer a very high-level kind of why you decided to offer this picture of Albert's life?
Jenny Garrett 34:49
Yes, I think I was just thinking, what's the way to try and explain this because my book is really for managers and leaders and I wanted to help them understand that there's more than what meets the eye. You have someone who's not succeeding in the workplace, you're not retaining staff from diverse backgrounds and you might think that they're the problem but you're not taking the time to think actually what else might they have experienced throughout their life that just makes this hard and your cultural awareness might not be there. I just wanted to give an example of what the awareness could be like if you had that bit more knowledge, what might you consider differently? Storytelling is powerful, I could have sprouted lots of theories but for me, that wasn't going to connect people with the reality of what it might feel like to be someone who is a minority in the workplace when it comes to race and ethnicity and what might be their experience. As I said earlier, they might not know anyone to tell them the story or they might be relying on people in their organisations to tell them the story and people might not want to, they might not want to open up like that, they might not want the burden of that as well.
Nadia Nagamootoo 36:04
Because I love the story, it really sheds light on some of how the experiences shape Albert in this case, how he views the world and actually his deteriorating kind of self-belief as a result of all those microaggressions. How people have perceived him in his life and the barriers that have been put in place, dissolve any kind of ambition and drive that he has, and so, what you get isn't his best self at the end of it. What do line managers do if they’re seeing the outcome of all of those lived experiences and that cumulative impact, but they don't understand what's behind it? What ideally would happen in that situation?
Jenny Garrett 36:48
Yeah, I think you need to move beyond what’s on the surface and get to know the person, that ideally is what it's all about. It's a human-to-human experience, everyone's experience will be different, but to get to know someone, open yourself with your own vulnerabilities, so that the person can see that you are human too. Just start to have conversations, just start to get to know the person, really understand what's beneath, what they do. You know, I give the example in the story of Albert, having an unwell parent and wanting to look after them, to understand culturally, that's a really natural thing to do, rather than, some cultures, they won't put their parents in a home, they think it's their responsibility to look after their family members. Once you understand that, then you look at it differently. And I think it's about understanding the person, understanding culturally where they're coming from, what their experience has been and then thinking about what I need to do to create equitable outcomes for this person.
So it does mean you've got to invest time and energy, and you've got to be open to what is being said to you, which you might not like because it might not all be positive. You've got to be open to the fact that you may have made a mistake yourself in the assumptions you've made or things you've said and done and to have this willingness to really see the person for who they are and what they bring but also come at it from a really positive place. Difference is to be appreciated and adds value to everyone's life. So rather than trying to squash the difference, ask people to assimilate it.
Don’t think that it's difficult because there's a difference, think about the richness that it brings. It's about listening, communicating, and being humble but I definitely think that it's also about openness. And I found in my experience with my coaching, particularly, that there are some white senior leaders who have quite diverse backgrounds that you wouldn't expect and they're not willing to be vulnerable to let people in their organisation. It might be that I had a rough upbringing, it might be I had a parent with mental health issues. So, when they're not open, it doesn't role model that openness for their staff.
Nadia Nagamootoo 39:14
Yes, I also touch upon that, organisations beyond discomfort is when all leaders feel able to share their stories and role-model through vulnerability, humility, asking questions and being open but also being open to receive as well. That's a special type of organisation where you've got the majority of leaders leading in that way. Speaking of my book and as we are coming to the end of our conversation, I'm asking this to all my guests in this season. What has been the most uncomfortable thing that you've had to manage in yourself or address as an inclusive leader? How did you navigate the discomfort of recognizing something in yourself in order to be a more inclusive leader?
Jenny Garrett 40:04
Right? So really interesting question. Yeah. So, I think that I'm having to rewire my brain around pronouns. I see someone and I automatically assume their gender and their pronouns. I hear what their pronouns are, they're different to what my brain has told me they should be. Sometimes I make mistakes around that and I'm really working hard on it because I know it's hurtful when I do that. I will apologise, and I will accept my mistake but I think that probably one of the areas where I really need to work on is these ruts and grooves in my brain that could keep fast-tracking me to the wrong place. I don't want to hurt people and sometimes I say it and then someone will have to say they, and I think, oh, gosh, I didn't even realise I did that.
Nadia Nagamootoo 40:59
I hear you, it resonates with me as someone who is heterosexual and cisgender. It is a challenge for me to stop my brain, exactly as you said, from just going on autopilot and just making an assumption. I've experienced it and I felt awful, and I’m one of those people who replays a moment over and over again. So afterwards, it will stay with me where I was like, Oh, my goodness, I can't believe he made that mistake and maybe as a DEI practitioner, I am harsher on myself because I feel like I shouldn't be making that kind of mistake. But of course, I am, and we are only human, we need to be a little bit more compassionate and kinder to ourselves whilst also trying our best to learn and practice. But Jenny it’s been amazing chatting with you. I feel like I only scratched the surface of your book and everything that's in there. I genuinely couldn't recommend your book more highly. If people want to connect with you on social media, where can they find you?
Jenny Garrett 42:01
Yes, LinkedIn is just Jenny Garrett, Twitter is Jennifer Garrett and Insta is @coachJennyGarrett or just go to my website, www.jennygarrett.global.
Nadia Nagamootoo 42:13
Excellent. Well, everything that Jenny and I spoke about today is going to be available in the usual place on our show notes page, avenirconsultingservices.com under podcasts. Thank you so much, Jenny, for your time, for sharing your stories and all your advice and insights, thank you for your book. Thank you for joining me.
Jenny Garrett 42:33
It's been an absolute pleasure and good luck with your book.
Nadia Nagamootoo 42:36
Thank you. That concludes episode 38 of Why Care? This was a particularly powerful conversation as it illustrates some of the deep systemic inequities in today's society. I believe that if organisations show courage to have the much-needed conversation around creating equity, we could move forward at a greater pace. Do let Jenny and I know what you think of today's show. You can find me on Instagram, LinkedIn and X, formerly Twitter with the handle Nadia Nagamootoo. If you're a Why Care? fan, then you probably have picked up by now that I have written a book. It's called Beyond Discomfort, Why Inclusive Leadership Is So Hard And What You Can Do About It and it's out in March 2024. You can pre-order your copy on Amazon. 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 at Kenji Productions for editing this podcast and Glory Olubori for supporting with the show notes and getting it out there on social media.