Voices Worth Listening To

This episode of VOICES WORTH LISTENING TO is the second of a two-part series that answers the following question: How can organizations do a better job of recognizing talented women of color and promoting them into decision making and leadership roles? It is important to realize that talent doesn’t get promoted or retained just because it gets recognized. Part 2 focuses on this reality. We explore stories about the challenges faced by 4 high-performing Women of Color. These stories help us explore what needs to be in place at your organization to ensure more equitable and merit-based systems for advancement. Two concurrent systems must exist to successfully promote, cultivate, and retain Women of Color in senior positions in any organization. First, a support system that includes (1) mentorship to understand the hidden rules of the game; (2) support to navigate sticky situations that impede performance, and (3) advocacy from colleagues willing to go to bat in the face of unreasonable behaviours, comments, and accusations. Second, an accountability system around promotions, where managers at all levels must formally justify to those they report to why they chose not to promote diverse candidates when given the opportunity. Without this level of accountability, egregious behaviour where women are simply passed over or replaced and then silenced with generous severance packages will continue to be part of your organization’s legacy.

This episode of VOICES WORTH LISTENING TO is the first of a two-part series that answers the following question: How can organizations do a better job of recognizing talented women of colour and promoting them into decision making and leadership roles? Women of colour represent an intersectional population that is often subject to overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage. This poses significant challenges for professional women of colour when being recruited, seen as talented, and then supported to progress within an organization. No matter who you are in an organization, progression requires the right interplay of leaders and systems. Two systems matter: recognizing talent and promoting talent. Through multiple stories, this two-part series explores the challenges faced by women of colour when it comes to being recognized as talented (this episode) and then being promoted (next episode). The podcast suggests how organizational leaders can change systems and mindsets to treat women of colour more equitably and change the glaring underrepresentation of women of colour in leadership and decision-making roles.

Is representation important? Whenever you have this discussion with organizational leaders, the answer is always the same, “It’s very important.” But in my experience, the time leaders take to understand representation, its nuances, and its inherent challenges is quite limited. In this episode of VOICES WORTH LISTENING TO, I attempt to answer three key questions organizational leaders must consider when attempting to increase the level of representation in their organizations: (1) Can your organization achieve representation if you treat it like a math equation? (2) What brand of representation does your organization espouse: Normalization, Sterilization, or Pluralism? And (3) What five things can you do as a leader to ensure your organization is pursuing a more pluralistic form of representation?

Why do organizations struggle with creating inclusive organizational cultures that would allow them to retain strong and diverse talent? The Answer: Organizations struggle with creating an inclusive context because with less than 5% of leaders in organizations being women, black, indigenous, people of colour or members of the LGBTQ+ communities, inclusion is simply not a challenge they have personally faced. The majority of leaders of Canadian and US organizations today have not had to struggle with asserting their identity - they have encountered few if any roadblocks stopping them from being who they are or leveraging that identity to foster excellence. So, for them, inclusion is usually a blind spot - not in the words they use - but in how they structure systems - they struggle to make inclusion a priority - even if it is a fundamental driver of firm performance. This episode of VOICES WORTH LISTENING TO explores how inclusion is the secret sauce of firm performance and suggests eight strategies to get inclusion right.

Phobias are a form of anxiety disorder. When you have a fear of heights or a fear of clowns, you can’t be rational, you can’t be deliberate, and you do everything in your power to put distance between you and your fear. Fear of Muslims or fear of Islam doesn’t work that way because it’s not a phobia. It is hate, it is discrimination, it is biased, it is unfair, and it is irrational, but it is not a phobia. When someone has a phobia, the appropriate reaction is empathy. When someone hates, the appropriate reaction is not empathy, its action. This episode of “Voices Worth Listening To” speaks to how a conscious and often unconscious apprehension, fear, and even deep-seated hate for Muslims shapes how Muslims experience the professional world. We will explore real stories from Muslim professionals who demonstrate how they have hidden being Muslim, how they have sacrificed key parts of their identity to fit in, how they have learned to be silent about their faith, and how fear has limited their ability to grow in their careers. Organizational leaders must realize that understanding how Muslims experience the workplace is not simply a diversity issue; it’s actually a success issue that prevents the organization from maximizing its performance.