If it’s not intersectional, it’s not working: ovecoming barriers and driving difference

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Rebecca Hourston:  Hi, I’m Rebecca Hourston and I’m the host of today’s podcast episode. I’m also a Managing Director at Talking Talent, heading up our Women’s Leadership programs and service line offering, and for the past 18 years or so, I’ve been an executive coach specializing in women’s leadership. So, this is a huge passion of mine, and today I’m very excited to be joined by KK Harris and Shamela Kylassum who are both super experienced coaches, leading DEI experts, and I’m very pleased and proud to call them my colleagues here at Talking Talent.

We’re going to be talking about driving difference today: how we can ensure that women in all their diversity can achieve their potential. We’re going to be talking about and exploring some of the barriers faced by different women and taking an intersectional approach, talking about even what does that mean, this word intersectionality. Truly what that means within our businesses and within our teams all by looking at how we can together take steps to close the intersectional gender equity gap.

So here we are three different women ourselves. KK let’s start with you. Tell us a little bit about you.

KK Harris: Yeah. So, as you said I’m one of the Executive Coach Directors here at Talking Talent. I have a real strong, passion around diversity, equity, and inclusion, and often do talks or podcasts or have been asked to do podcasts and things like that, just primarily because I’m also very interested. So, I take one of those views of speaking about what I’ve learned, and I’m also on the way to completing a business coach psychology Masters which my thesis dissertation, whatever you want to call it, is really looking at the lived experience of a Black coach and what that’s like in the room, and what we’re of bringing into the room, and how we can better understand each other, as coaches that show up to support our clients.

Rebecca: Yeah. Great. Thank you and I think it’s that lived experience, it’ll be great to hear some of your insights on today, both your own lived experience and your lived experience coaching many hundreds of women across the years. Shamela let me come to you.

Shamela Kylassum: So, I’m, Shamela Kylassum and I came to coaching through a journey of working in the corporate world as a management consultant for many, many, many years. My journey started with coaching just because I had a passion for getting people to drive forward and to reach their potential. And it soon became a passion around particular types of people: they were the people that were underrepresented. And I realized that I was diving into, through my coaching practice, into the world of diversity, equity, and inclusion. And my passion just grew and grew and grew, and then I became a mother which was quite a recent thing. I’m a mother to children with a mixed heritage. So their father is white English, and my heritage is quite long and convoluted, and they are both girls, and one of them has also got a disability. So, she’s also deaf. So, that then really solidified this passion for me. You know, how can I be part of the solution to create a world where they can both live up to whatever potentials they have and get the same opportunities as anyone else – particularly my daughter with disabilities. So yeah, so that’s why I’m here and I’m really excited to be here.

Rebecca: Yeah, and I love how you say about being part of the solution because I think that’s the thing, isn’t it? We will air some of the problems and challenges today, but it’s also really about how can we move forward to some solutions around this even if they’re not so easy.

KK: Yes. So important, isn’t it?

Rebecca: It is. So, I thought we’d start with this word, intersectionality. Well, what the heck is that? What’s that all about?

KK: Right, right.

Rebecca: KK, what’s your experience here?

KK: You know it’s an interesting one because I think in this space, this DEI space, this inclusive coaching that we all practice, that we’re part of, the programs we’re part of its coming up that word intersectionality. It is kind of like well, what is this? What are we intersecting? Where are we intersecting? So, that would be, if we’re saying a Black woman’s experience of intersectionality, maybe say for me, I’ll speak for myself. I’m a Black woman. So, here we go, well, what else intersects with my gender as a Black woman? So, we’ve got the gender, then it’s the Black woman. Well, what intersects? Oh, I’m also neurodiverse. So, ADHD, and then what else intersects with that? I’m also a part of the LGBTQ+ community. So, there’s so much going on, but if we say she’s a woman, what else is intersecting with that? She’s a Black woman. Gender again. What else is intersecting with that? So, it does confuse people, but I also think it’s something that helps us realize that we are all kind of coming together almost like we really got to recognize there’s a lot that we are the same. So, very important conversation right now.

Rebecca: Yeah, and I love that and here we are, we all three of us happen to share a sameness of all being female. And yet I think this point about intersectionality is at the very heart of it is just because we have a common experience of being female, that our other intersections actually may cause us to experience the workplace in a really, really different way which we’ll come to talk about. Shamela, what about for you this intersectionality?

Shamela: Yeah, it’s a really interesting word and it’s a really interesting concept. So, for me, it comes to me particularly when we talk about choice. So, if I’m choosing my identity and who I want to show up as at work, do I choose to show up as a British-born woman? Do I choose to show up as a British-born brown woman of South Indian/Mauritian heritage? Does that come into my identity because that’s also another intersection? Do I identify with that heritage? Do I identify with being a mother? So, a parent as well as being a woman and a working woman. Do I identify being with somebody that used to run their own business? So, an entrepreneur as well as a woman and somebody who is not white, who is brown. Do I identify with being a parent of a disabled child?

It’s a really important question to ask everybody because we all have different things that intersect our identities. And if we’re able to become aware of those, we will find different commonalities as KK was saying with different groups of people. I’m very aware that I have a lot in common with other parents of disabled children who may not be female, who may not be brown, who might be white, who might not be British-born, who might be from a different culture altogether. That brings me together with them, and they are then able to explore the different parts of me that perhaps they don’t have in common with me, and I’m able to explore the different parts of them that I don’t have in common with them. So, it’s a really lovely tool to use to become more connected with other people.

Rebecca: I love this thought intersectionality is commonality and as connection points. Of course, by definition, not all the points are points of connection and sameness. I mean, we’re talking here today about driving difference. Yeah. So, it’s about I guess welcoming where the differences are but thinking about intersectionality also as almost gateways to where we do overlap with each other. I mean, it’s interesting because as you are both talking, you are talking about your experiences, your background. I’m sitting here, really honestly, I’m sitting here as a straight white able-bodied neurotypical female, myself, Oxbridge educated to boot. I’ve got privilege coming out of my ears, and I’m wondering about this, because we talk about different women’s experiences. I wonder what can someone like me do to better understand, and maybe to better act on, the barriers that may be being faced by other women, by both women who have different backgrounds and different experiences?

KK: I’ll jump in there Rebecca. I think what it is, is be willing to ask the questions of others. It’s like, okay, so Shamela’s just said she’s a mother. So, you both have that in common. I’m a mom too but you too, so you do have some commonality right there. So, she has a disabled child. You don’t, but you have the commonality. Be willing to learn and understand the other. That’s so important.

You know, as coaches, we’re trained to ask questions and to ask the next question and the next question and then pose questions. So, we’re already taught that, and I think there’s something quite powerful about that. And I think it is a challenging time for all of us in society as this society becomes more equal.

So, we mustn’t forget that what is deemed as the dominant group or you, a white person from the dominant group or whatever, also may be struggling. May be struggling to be understood, may be struggling to understand and you know, I think there’s something to be said about being open, just being open. You be open, do the best you can because if your group is this homogenized group, you step out of that group and get to know me, get to know Shamela. I know you are but just as someone listening in the audience. Be curious because most of us in this professional world, we do work with diverse people. So, get to know, be curious. Be curious.

Rebecca: Yeah, I love that. Shamela, I wonder what advice would you have to managers or perhaps DE&I practitioners and professionals who might be listening to this? How can we be curious in a way that doesn’t offend?

Shamela: I think if you’re authentic about your curiosity, it comes across. If you’re genuinely interested in the answers, you’re not just doing it as a tick-book exercise, which we’re all familiar with. For the last few years essentially, many, many organizations have started to tick box…

Rebecca: Yeah.

Shamela: …and actually we’re on a precipice now where I think people are beginning to get that that doesn’t work. The tick boxing doesn’t work. And what really works is to look at each other as human beings and to really connect. As KK was saying, this thing that we all have in common, this curiosity can be a real tool and an authentic curiosity is lovely. There’s nothing like somebody being interested in you and wanting to know more about who you are and what you want for your life, and what you want for your family’s lives. Having somebody taking the time to understand that is really quite lovely.

Rebecca: Yeah.

Shamela: So if you are a manager, being curious in a way that is absolutely genuine. If you really want to know how to help the people that work for you, how for them what does their potential look like for them? What does reaching their highest vision look like for them? And then asking them about the barriers – and that’s the question that I think is the most important one. Where have the barriers been in the past? What barriers do you see now and how can I help you as your manager to get over those barriers? What can I do? That’s the importance, but first of all, get to know the person. Asking barrier questions when you don’t really know who they are or what they want in their lives is a little bit intrusive. The first part is that connection. It’s got to be the connection.

KK: Yeah. I would say on that barrier question, I would argue the point that as that manager say how have I been a barrier?

Shamela: That’s a lovely question.

KK: Right, right. How have I been a barrier?

Rebecca: Without self-shaming, without critiquing myself?

KK: Right. Literally question and curiosity. How have I been a barrier? KK has been on this team for quite a while. I’ve noticed so and so, and so and so and so. They’ve moved up. How have I been a barrier? When is their performance review? What have I said? What’s going on with me? Let me look inside here. Because most companies are on a mission to drive that diverse change, to be more inclusive, to create equity. So, if you’re in that position, it is what have I done? And now what can I do? Because you came back on that, Shamela. It’s like wait a minute, it might be intrusive and sometimes it might be putting the blame on that person. So, what can we do? No. What have you done?

Rebecca: Yes.

Shamela: Absolutely.

KK: What have you not done?

Rebecca: We can so easily go to they can’t we, well, what do they need to do?

KK: Yeah. Yeah.

Shamela: It’s a rather special position to be able to sit back and go, oh, so I’ve noticed now that I don’t invite KK to the meetings on a regular basis, but I do invite Jo. And the reason I invite Jo is just Jo and I get each other so well, and we just don’t even need to talk about it, we just go dive in and we get the work done.

So, it’s just examining what’s really going on on a daily working day practice. What can you start to try that’s different? Have you tried having a conversation with somebody that you’ve never spoken to other than work? Have you tried asking why they can’t make meetings after a certain time? What is it about them that might make you feel a bit uncomfortable? Look inside first before you go and ask them. Does something that they say or do make you feel a bit uncomfortable? Okay. What is that about me that I am uncomfortable when that person talks about a particular subject? So, there’s a lot of looking inside first.

Rebecca: There’s a real maturity of leadership here actually, isn’t there to have the guts to look inside and to say, well, what am I doing here and what’s my piece in this jigsaw? I love what you’re saying there. We started talking about barriers and, I mean, so much data out there on the barriers still facing women and nuances of that for some of the intersectionalities we’ve just been talking about of course. So, the barriers facing women are not just the barriers facing women full stop. There are the intersectional considerations of if you are female plus whatever other layer in your identity might be combining to make there be an even greater barrier. I mean, I know the World Economic Forum has recently found that we’re still over a century away, 108 years away from closing the economic gender gap. I mean that’s…

KK: They’re wrong.

Rebecca: Well, okay. So why are they wrong KK? Let’s hope, KK!

KK: So, it was 108 years to closing the gender gap did you say?

Rebecca: Yeah, the gender gap globally, the economic gender gap, the pay gap, if you like.

KK: So, they’re saying globally. Okay. I can believe that, but I don’t want it to be true. But I’m also speaking from that western lens, because we’ve come so far. If we were just looking at the west, I’d say no way. We’ve come so far. Do we have a way to go? Yes. But now I’m not trying to toot our own horn but what we do at Talking Talent, we have Women in Leadership, which you are that the lead on. Women in Leadership programs that create that equity and we have these wonderful dialogues in there with managers and sponsors, and participants. So, I like to say that we are helping definitely to close that timeline.

Rebecca: Chop into the 108 years, hey!

KK: Yeah.

Shamela: Well, it does sound daunting. But I mean, KK and I both facilitated these dialogues, and those dialogues are a space where people who are not in the intersections, who are not women. So, men who are maybe of a certain age, and who are white, and who have had it really good for a long time, are able to explore that and ask these difficult questions and listen to the answers and hear the experience. And I don’t know about KK, but I know that I’ve seen them, the aha moments that come to them. I remember watching a colleague of ours host one and one of the male participants put his hand on his heart and got quite emotional, and had that questioning that KK mentioned, the, ‘oh, what have I done? Where have I been the barrier?’ And he suddenly realized he’d been the barrier for many women’s careers, and it really got him. He then committed to keeping that feeling, that knowledge, and then working on, okay, what else can I do? How else can I show up? What else can happen? That power of that questioning and the power of what we do is phenomenal, and I think like KK is saying it is really chipping away at that 108 years. Who else for us is going to really make a difference here? We all have a part of this really. We all have a place in this, and we all have a part to play in this.

Rebecca: Yeah. I get that…

KK: That video ‘Inclusion Starts with I’.

Shamela: Indeed. Absolutely.

KK: What were you saying, Beks? Sorry.

Rebecca:  Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean actually, just to endorse what you just said there. I just think that sums it up so beautifully, doesn’t it? Inclusion starts with I, and you’ve just shared that anecdote there, Shamela, about that particular manager, and it strikes me and it goes to organizationally. So what can – we’ve been talking about barriers, right. What else can organizations do and the individuals that makeup organizations? What can we do to dismantle some of these barriers that are still out there?

Shamela: Well, I think the first thing is to become aware of them. So, there’s nothing like data to be able to shed light on what’s really going on in the organization. So first look at the data, look at the stats, look at who’s where in the organization. Look at who’s got potential and where they’re at. So, get a baseline of where you’re at with the data and then start looking at the practices. How do you recruit? I know many organizations have worked a lot on recruitment and they have tried lots of different things. But really reflect on what’s working and what’s not working. So, spend some time looking at that first stage, and then once you get people in that are more diverse and that have got this plethora of talent. I mean, the thing is we haven’t mentioned it yet, but the diversity brings extra, a more interesting talent, different talent, and different talent will spark different talent from the people that are already in the organization, because creativity always begets creativity, and talent always begets talent.

So, be aware that these people are coming in at the beginning of their journey in your organization, and then how do you foster and create a pathway for them to continue to develop? So, if we go back to the example that KK mentioned. So, KK is in the organization for an amount of time. How far has she progressed in that time? Because she came in as a bright young thing with all of this potential. So it can’t be that she’s changed because she hasn’t changed that much in that time. So, what has been in her way and look at those case studies and have a look at what barriers, because the barriers might be different depending on the organization. They might be process.

Rebecca: Yeah. Well, and it’s interesting to loop back to our earlier discussion around intersectionalities and I wonder what both of your experience both personally and in your coaching experience of others. What barriers have you noticed still particularly exist for women of color, for women in the LGBT community, for women with disabilities, and so on and so on?

KK: I’m going to keep it real. People block people. People’s bad behaviors block people from moving up. We need to identify those people within the business, and you identify those people within the business by, when you’re putting your strategy together, you’re assessing what is going on in that business. If you really want to create change, because we all have heard it, we can all on a low level when they’re first coming in, you’re getting diverse talent, you’re getting Black men and women coming into the business, maybe LGBTQ, maybe some disabled, maybe et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So, as we’re moving up, we’re starting to see that pipeline thin out, our diverse talent is leaving. This is factual. It’s leaving. You need to ask why.

Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah, indeed. To just bring in a stat there. The McKinsey latest Women in the Workplace Report, the 2021 version, excellent report. What they’re showing is then their latest data is that whilst 17% of entry-level positions go to women of color – by the way, 30% of entry-level positions go to white women – by the time you get to the C-Suite, the latest data is only 4% women of color. So, that reduction from, I mean already a small amount at 17% to entry-level but crashing down still.

KK: You just lost 13% of your Black talent. You just lost 13% of people who could be doing a fantastic job, who could be helping you earn more money in your organization. These are people blocking people. People want to say let’s not do unconscious bias training anymore. We know unconscious bias training, but what happens is then a lot of companies, they don’t take it from there. Now, we have to look at now that we are aware of this, where can we turn the dial here? Can we create mentorship programs? Now understand this, if 17% Black women coming into the business, 30%, you’re already outnumbered. Now let’s take us back to our youth, our younger years, right. Remember how uncomfortable we were going out into the world. You’re less likely to speak up. Maybe you’re the first in your family in the professional space. We just talk about professional space right now. Maybe you’ve never heard about mentorship, maybe you’ve never heard of advocacy and sponsorship, whereas your white counterpart graduated maybe like you Beks, you’re Oxbridge educated. You know what I mean? Maybe your mother or father or somebody in the family is professional, you’ve got a leg up.

Rebecca: Oh yeah.

KK: You’ve got a leg up. She does not have a leg up. So, it is up to that manager whose responsibility or even as you’re coming into their graduate schemes, or you just joined, you need to be running through, understanding about an internship, about advocacy. That needs to be part of your induction.

Rebecca: So, mentorship, advocacy, such important things that you are speaking to. Shamela, I wonder what else can organizations be doing differently? KK, I loved your point people block people, and if that is true, then we surely have to look at the hopeful opposite of that which is that people enable people.

Shamela: Yes. I think that’s a really important point and I think those points can be backed up with data. So, if you look at your organization, you can see the parts of the organization where people flourish, particularly people of different diverse backgrounds are flourishing and doing really well. It’s not just that they’re brilliant and sure that brilliance will have a part of it, but you can then find those managers that are helping them, that are giving them those tips, that are helping them find the mentors.

Back to the work that we do, I was on a dialogue where one of the senior women was saying to me that she suddenly realized that all of her mentees were men. She thought that was fine, and then she remembered that when she was a younger woman in the same organization, she didn’t feel that she could go and ask someone senior to be a mentor. She didn’t feel like she could do it, that she was good enough to go and do it. So, she wrote down as one of the things that she was going to take away from the session was to go find somebody who hadn’t asked, who was of high potential, to mentor.

So, that’s part of it. So, that’s finding those individuals that understand that they need to go off and help people. And then also looking at the opposite, who is blocking people? I’m not saying naming or shaming them, but go in and understand what’s going on for them and help them have a mirror.

So, this point that KK made around unconscious bias training. It’s got a bad name for itself now but actually that at least as a first step, it held a mirror to everybody, for everyone to understand that we’re all part – so, while we all want to be part of the solution, we are all part of the problem too. We’ve all played a part somehow in the problem. So, it’s okay to say, okay, so these are the things that I don’t do, and these are the things that I do do that are part of the problem, and choose then: give people the chance to choose to be part of the solution. Help those people that are also barriers understand what they’re doing, because they might not be conscious of it. And there may be some people who are conscious of it and that’s a different conversation. But the people that are not conscious of it, help them understand what they can do. Like this particular male participant in this dialogue, he realized he was the barrier. He got what he needed to do next. He really got it and he was prepared to go off and commit to it.

Rebecca: I love these practical solutions that you’re bringing in as well in what can be, I guess very easy to talk about all the problems and all the challenges. And most of us working in this space have heard about this, repeatedly, in many different ways for many, many different years. And I love that you’re talking about look for the pockets of brilliance. Catching where in the spots in your organization people are doing it right. How can you cascade that so that other parts of the organization can benefit from that?

Shamela: If there aren’t pockets of brilliance in your organization Beks, there are organizations where there are.

Rebecca: Where there are.

Shamela: So, be prepared and brave enough to go and look elsewhere. And maybe some of those women that are leaving, don’t look where they’re leaving. Where are they going?

Rebecca: Yes.

Shamela: 17 to did you say 3%? 17 down to 3%.

Rebecca: 4%

Shamela: 4%

Rebecca: Yeah.

Shamela: So that’s a big enough percent to investigate.

Rebecca: They’re going somewhere.

Shamela: Yeah. Where are they going?

KK: Let me also add before we move on to the next question, I also wanted to add mentorship is important. But I can’t remember the studies that I’ve read recently. It could have been our very own Donna Herdsman. So, we have that mentorship piece. Now that is really important however the real change happens in the sponsorship.

Rebecca: Sponsorship. Yes.

KK: I think actually it was you. We were talking about sponsorship. So, that’s where the real change… That’s saying, you know what, I know Beks is great at this. It’s pushing her forward into something, giving her the opportunity, the sponsorship, and then of course that advocacy piece too.

Rebecca: Yes. This piece around women, I know that Herminia Ibarra, formally of London Business School, she’s done lots of research around this, of course. And looking at women having a propensity to be over mentored – I don’t know if that’s possible to be over mentored.

KK: Yeah. Yeah.

Rebecca: But be over mentored, but at the detriment of sponsorship, so to be under sponsored. So, I love linking those two thoughts and what Shamela said as well. Find the people who haven’t come forward as well and be really eyes-open for that. We’ve all got the keen beans around us who are putting a hand up for everything. But sometimes, especially coming back to what we talked about today, where there is intersectionality at play and maybe some quite deep-seated stuff that means that person might not be naturally putting themselves forward. It feels like there’s a real opportunity there for people to enable people.

Shamela: I’m going to give a real-life example just the one.

Rebecca: One quick last thing. Yeah.

Shamela: I have a coachee who is a woman of a different heritage, brought up with quite a strict cultural background who was brilliant, came into a company and stagnated. She had a very difficult manager for a number of years, for many, many years, who did not see her as of any talent or high potential. And then one day she got a new manager who sat her down and asked her what her vision for her career was. And she says that it shifted her world. She didn’t think she had a right to have a vision. It shifted her world, and she started, and she’s now on one of our programs on a journey to really understanding where she can go. She’s now thought of as talent, thanks to that manager who was a white male, who wanted to find out about her because she was very quiet in all of the meetings. Her quality of work was brilliant. But she never volunteered for anything, and he was curious enough to sit her down, have a cup of tea with her and ask her those questions. And now she’s just climbing and doing really, really well. So, it doesn’t have to be complicated.

Rebecca: I think that’s such a perfect note for us to end this really rich discussion on. It doesn’t have to be complicated. We can go to, oh, there are all the complicated measures, there is very complex data, there are things that are really hard to do. And as we conclude today’s episode, you’ve both given us some wonderful and really actionable ideas, and challenges as well, I think on how we can all, each one of us drive difference, really enable to this lovely point: people enable people. And what a great way to conclude today’s episode. Thank you so much KK and Shamela.

KK: It was so fun. It’s been so exciting. Great conversation Beks. Thanks so much.

Shamela: Take care, guys. Thank you.