Now is the time for pragmatism over puritanism
Opinion
If you want to drive change, learning that people are actively working against you can be hard, but they may have a point. By listening to them and making adjustments, you can still make progress.
I often quote my former colleague from the Stonewall board, Tim Toulmin, who gave me very good advice when we were trustees together.
As you can imagine, Stonewall is an organisation that has always been subjected to a huge amount of criticism and there were days when it was hard to take. His wise counsel was: “Jan, always listen to your critics, because they may have a point.”
I have never forgotten those words and I quote them often because they offer another lens on my other mantra, which is to “always give people the benefit of the doubt” when you hear they have done something out of line.
I’ve been reflecting on this notion of getting something meaningful from voices I don’t respect over the past few months. As a I watch the huge backlash against the work being done to make workplaces more inclusive and workforces more diverse, I have been trying to use the extensive criticism to acknowledge the practices that may have been misplaced.
The groundswell of opinion that “things have gone too far” comes from people being asked to do things that felt performative rather than meaningful. I was particularly struck by a quote in The Times from Dame Helena Morrissey, who said: “I do think that some of the initiatives that have been done in the name of DEI have been counterproductive — for instance, when you add your pronouns to an email.”
Understanding the change
Anyone who gets an email from me will notice that I include my pronouns. For me, it is a very small gesture of solidarity with the trans community, who have become the lightning rod for nasty discourse in our so-called culture wars.
But, in this instance, I do understand her point. Including pronouns in an email signature template was something that seemed easy to ask for and do. But it has done absolutely nothing to improve understanding of the perspective of trans people.
Some years ago, I cautioned people in the advertising world against a proposed campaign insisting that people adopt such an email sign-off. I know from experience that it inflames people in a way that is counterproductive if it is not done voluntarily.
Those who adopt such a practice should do so from a position of being deeply educated on why it is meaningful. If you don’t understand and buy into why it’s important, and it’s clear that Morrissey doesn’t, it is a completely pointless gesture.
In the great scheme of things, it is utterly trivial to trans people in comparison to other changes they would ask for to encourage greater acceptance at work. For example, any trans person I have spoken to would much prefer that you do them the courtesy of using their correct pronouns than declare your own.
Targets vs quotas
There has been much coverage of the 15th anniversary of the 30% Club, which Morrissey herself famously helped to found. So named because its mission was to get the proportion of boardroom roles held by women to 30% — the figure research had shown actually made a difference to the quality of decision-making.
At the time, the proportion of women holding such positions was 12.5%. It has now reached 44% — a significant achievement, particularly because when they set out on this journey there was considerable debate about whether there should be mandatory quotas imposed by regulators.
Those who argued for quotas felt justified because, in spite of the plentiful supply of qualified women available to employ, progress was not being made. Those who argued for targets, combined with published measurement of progress, said they were willing to accept change at a slower pace in favour of taking the time to persuade people to adjust workplace practices in a sustainable way.
The 30% Club made headway by getting chairmen to agree to hit the target on boards but without making it compulsory. As we now watch companies dropping DEI targets, we should be alert to the fact that they are doing so because they know targets are an effective tool. Why would someone argue to banish something that was never compulsory but simply a declaration of intent? In my mind, it can only be because they don’t want to see the change they achieved.
Beyond knowing your bias
Perhaps the most notoriously counterproductive intervention in the world of DEI is unconscious bias training.
However well-intended the idea of confronting people with evidence of their innate bias, it has been widely discredited as having the opposite of the desired effect.
To quote the Harvard Business Review in 2020: “Sending the message that biases are involuntary and widespread — beyond our control, in other words — can make people feel they are unavoidable and lead to more discrimination.” Its critics had a point.
The fact is that increasing awareness of our natural bias was not in itself the silver bullet to stopping it and a huge amount of money has arguably been wasted putting people through unconscious bias training.
Those being discriminated against may have said “I told you so!”, but it didn’t in itself make any real difference. Far more useful is the standardisation of hiring processes that are designed to be inclusive. And the training of hiring managers so they are aware of some of the entirely conscious assumptions they have been making about different kinds of people that are incorrect.
After all, most discrimination is conscious. We can easily recognise that we tend to be drawn to people like us, who we get on with effortlessly, but that our work is likely to be better if we get a quite different perspective in the mix.
An opportunity to reset
For those of us who want to drive change, learning that people are actively working against us and coping with their relentless criticism can be hard.
When you have a clear vision as to how to make something work better and you are trying to make the argument, coming up against resistance can be so frustrating. But as in all things, when people refuse to accept your argument for change, sometimes they may have a point.
It could be that, by listening to them and making some adjustments, you can still make progress. Perhaps not as much as you wanted, but at least enough to move things forward so you can return another time to try again.
In fact, it is that willingness to be pragmatic that leads us to find the middle ground. It means that we have to be willing to listen hard, engage and understand the point people are making when they are being critical of what you are doing.
Although the current backlash against DEI is disheartening, it is also a moment to reset, rethink and return all the more persuasive and effective for having listened to the criticism.
We should be focusing on fighting for what we know works rather than rigid adherence to a dogmatic set of beliefs. This is a time for flexible pragmatism rather than strict puritanism.
Jan Gooding is one of the UK’s best-known brand marketers, having worked with Aviva, BT, British Gas, Diageo and Unilever. She is now an executive coach and is also chair of Pamco and Utopia. She writes for The Media Leader each month.