Intersectionality and Inclusive Strategies

In this episode of the Inclusive Growth Show, I was joined by Grace Mosuro, Inclusion Strategist. Grace talked to me about how creating safe and brave spaces for employees within organisations can help address inequity.

I asked grace to get us started by telling us more about her work as an Inclusion Strategist.

‘I run a consultancy called Aquaintz Consulting. My passion is supporting organisations to build an inclusion strategy that fits the needs of their business, employees and customers. The reason that I’m so passionate about starting at strategy is because when the world gets noisy about equality, diversity and inclusion, organisations begin to reprioritise and look at other things until it gets quiet again.

When you have a strategy that anchors you to your purpose, it allows for you to stay focused. That’s where we are seeing gaps at the moment, particularly over the last few months where there’s been a lot of noise and anti-DEI rhetoric. Lots of organisations don’t have a strategy that drives why they do what they do which makes it easy to move on and leave DEI behind. If you know that as a business, inclusion is a key part of your business strategy, this is why we’re doing it, this is what it’s going to help us to achieve, and this is why we can’t divert from it, then you stay the course. I use the work that we do on inclusion strategy to support organisations in identifying the initiatives that will help them to achieve their strategy. What training do we need to achieve this? What coaching do our employees and teams need to achieve that? We do that piece of work together.’

I thought what Grace said was brilliant. I love how she talks about strategy because thinking about the ‘Why?’ is the approach that I take with my clients. As Simon Sinek says in his book, Start with Why, “People don’t buy into what you do. They buy into why you do it.” It’s important to get senior leaders to connect with that.

My next question for Grace was, ‘What brought you into the world of EDI?’

Grace responded, ‘I’m a Black woman and there have been a number of challenges whilst growing up and throughout my career that I didn’t understand at the time. I started to notice some differences in my experience to that of my White colleagues. I started to do some work to understand why that might be happening.

When George Floyd passed away, it was the first time in my career that I felt there was a safe space for people that looked like me to actually talk about their experiences and to raise some of the issues that we were having. Being seen, heard, promoted. Throughout my career, I’ve always had to leave organisations in order to take the next step in my career. Once I was in a business and doing my job well, they saw that as my final job. I’d go for opportunities or not be promoted, but I’d see people who don’t look like me being promoted.

After George Floyd’s murder, it created a space where we were able to have some honest conversations. I remember my CEO at the time apologising and saying, “I get it now.” Since I had previously tried to raise some issues and been shut down and almost gas-lit to a certain extent.  Unfortunately, George Floyd’s death was what caused an important shift in my career where people began to listen. I think that was the experience for a lot of Black people across the world.

A few years later, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was in an appointment with my consultant, and she asked me, “What do you do for a living?” I said, “This situation, what I’m going through now, is the kick up the bum that I need to walk into my purpose.” She told me to be careful because now that I’ve had cancer, it would be difficult to get a job. That’s the last thing you want to hear whilst you are in treatment. She was the last push that I needed to take that leap. I sat there thinking about being a Black woman, which I can’t hide, but people can’t see that I’ve had cancer. Am I going to declare that and allow for it to be another defining factor?

There’s an intersectional experience, that people shouldn’t have to feel like they need to hide. I should be able to bring every single bit of me to work. I wanted to support people that are going through similar things to be able to do the same, to feel safe and bring every part of themselves to the workplace.

I appreciate that organisations don’t understand what they don’t know. So, I felt there was a massive need for me to come into this space to support organisations in understanding the lived experience of people with intersecting identities effectively. You don’t need to know everything, it’s about the appetite to learn. We learn every single day, if we want to. That’s what led me in my journey to becoming an Inclusion Strategist and doing this work.’

As Grace was describing her experience with cancer and her exchange with that nurse, it reminded me of when a Black colleague of mine was telling me about some research that was done around the inequalities in healthcare. In maternity, Black women are given less painkillers because there’s this assumption that Black women can take the pain. I wanted to know if Grace felt there was an inequality in terms of the cancer treatment that she received through healthcare.

Grace said, ‘It’s difficult with cancer because I have no comparison. There is no one in my life that has had breast cancer so I couldn’t ask about their experience. I was treated at The Royal Marsden, and I have to say that they were absolutely amazing. Everything that needed to get done was done. The only challenge that I had was at the start of my diagnosis because the consultant that I was given didn’t seem to care. I was asking loads of questions, but he was quite flippant. It felt like he didn’t take me seriously and he wasn’t that bothered. I felt like another number.

One day, I had to say to him, “You might not care about me, but there are people in my life that need me. I need you to take me seriously.” That shocked him and woke him right up. After that, he was amazing. That was the only instance where I felt like I needed to speak up for myself. I’ve got a daughter, at the time she was eight, I’m a single mother. I have younger siblings and my mum, who’s not well. It was bigger than just me. Me surviving was also about everyone else.

It’s funny that you mention maternity though. When I was in labour, I was adamant I did not want an epidural. I ended up being in labour for 28 hours and by hour 20, I felt like I was dying. It was an out-of-body experience. My water hadn’t broken by itself, so they broke it. They told me they didn’t know when my baby was going to come, it could be an hour, or it could be six.

At that point, I remember saying, “I want an epidural.” It took over an hour for the person that puts the epidural in to arrive. When he got there, I was in so much pain that all I could focus on was surviving. I’d gone into a meditation mode at that point. They put the cannula in, and I didn’t flinch.

He asked, “Are you sure you need the epidural?” I didn’t say a word because I was focusing on surviving, but he kept on asking me. I looked at my sister and she looked at him and said, “She needs it.” He replied, “The only reason I ask is because I put that cannula in, and she didn’t flinch.” I looked at him and I affirmed, “I need it.”

My upbringing as a Black woman is to be strong. You don’t make too much noise because you’re powerful. We are taught to almost silence ourselves, even when we’re in pain. To him, it looked like I was fine, but inside I was physically dying. I wasn’t exhibiting pain in the same way that maybe other people do, but I’ve said that I need something, and I needed him to have listened to me.

My sister told me that they had gone in with the epidural needle, which is quite big, two or three times because they couldn’t get it in the bone. I didn’t feel any of that because I was in so much pain. I was concentrating on surviving. I couldn’t feel any of what was going on there.

I don’t know if Black women do have a higher threshold of pain. I just know that the pain that I was feeling was so great that nothing else could compare. It’s important when we talk about healthcare equality, that we emphasise the fact that we just need to be listened to. Traditionally, Black women are taught to be silent and not to ask for things. So, if a Black woman is asking for something, she needs it.’

I thought Grace’s story was fascinating. I’ve had similar experiences in healthcare as well because I was born with a disability. There have been many occasions where doctors or nurses aren’t listening and they make assumptions, for example, that I don’t do anything with my life. They don’t realise I run my own business and I’m in a relationship. The assumptions that people make can be quite damaging.

I know that in the work I do with clients, there’s a lot of fear about talking about EDI. I talk to senior leaders who are afraid about discussing a number of different topics because they don’t want to get it wrong. They don’t want to use the wrong language, or cause upset and anguish. They don’t want to make themselves look daft. I think a lot of senior leaders suffer from imposter syndrome where they feel like they should have all the answers, or they should be seen to know what they’re talking about because of their position in the organisation.

This led me to my next question for Grace, I asked, ‘What topics do you think businesses are still avoiding talking about within the workplace?’

Grace replied, ‘The biggest topic that I still notice being avoided is race equity. When we look at how issues get tackled and in what order, race is always right at the bottom. I think it’s because it’s such a huge topic. When we talk about race, you have to accept responsibility for the fact that the playing field isn’t level. A big part of the work that I do is helping people appreciate that they can’t be blamed for the legacy of racial inequity because they weren’t here at the beginning. They didn’t do anything.

However, you can be held responsible for the role you play in it today. I think that is what’s so powerful about organisations and leaders that choose to lead from the front when it comes to racial equity. You are owning that, and you are taking responsibility.

When we talk a lot about White privilege, some people’s backs get up. “I don’t have any privilege. I was raised in a council estate. My parents didn’t have any money.” It’s just having some awareness that you wake up every day not necessarily having to think about the fact that you might be looked at or treated differently because of the colour of your skin. Having that awareness is so powerful.

Race equity is the topic that I see people still kind of cringing at when we say, “Okay, so how are you tackling this?”  They brace themselves.

Cancer is another topic that organisations are still getting their heads around. Firstly, do they know that once someone has been diagnosed with cancer, they are classed as legally disabled for the rest of their lives? Do they appreciate that? I know that as soon as I was declared cancer-free, everyone enthused, “Yay, you’re back to normal.” Anyone that has survived cancer will never be who they were before again. The treatment physically and mentally changes us. That change takes place not just because of the treatment, but also because of what we’ve lost.

There is a loss and grieving process that happens after cancer. I think that organisations still don’t understand how to talk about it. I know that after I had my treatment, my organisation started to discuss cancer a lot more. They did a poll asking employees how many people had had cancer in their lifetime. It was at least 30% of our business who have had cancer in their lifetime. That is a huge number, especially when we’re talking about the fact that now one in two of us will be impacted or will have cancer in our lifetimes. That was significant and alerted the business to the fact that actually this is huge. We need to do something about this, we need to talk about this.

I think the biggest challenges organisations have around addressing cancer in the workplace and making reasonable adjustments stems from the fact that every type of cancer is different. There isn’t one type of cancer, so it impacts people differently. There are concerns about recurrence as they say within the first five years, the chance of recurrence is significantly high. Organisations worry about if you’re going to be off sick a lot because you’re still recovering from the treatment. Potentially, you might get it again. How will that impact the organisation financially if they’re paying for sick leave? Is it going to impact their insurance premiums?

That’s why employees that have had cancer question whether or not they’re going to disclose this to their organisation. They might see it as too much of a headache and therefore they might not give you the job.

Those are the things that I think organisations still struggle to look at because they don’t know. My biggest shoutout and call to action is, we don’t expect you to know everything, but if you have the appetite to learn, there are people out there doing work that can support you to address this in a way that enables your employees to bring their full selves to work, but to also feel safe in your workplace.’

Curiously, I asked Grace, ‘Are you aware of any, or have you worked with any organisations where you think they are being bold by actively addressing racial inequality in the workplace or doing a really good job at supporting employees who are living with cancer?’

‘One organisation that stands out for me as being up there in terms of their commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion, and creating a space where everyone is represented throughout the hierarchy of the business, is the City of London. If you go on the City of London’s website, every single page of that website, from my perspective, screams inclusion. All of their strategies, all of their commitments, they build inclusion through every single part of it. They stand out as an organisation that gets it and is truly committed. Inclusion is about employee engagement and increased performance, so it should be a key and core part of every single element of the business, from attraction to retention, engagement and progression.

It shouldn’t just be a nice-to-have at the bottom of the page in order to tick a box. For me, the City of London is an organisation that really stands out as doing amazing things when it comes to evidencing and driving inclusion in a way that is real.’

I asked Grace to give us some examples of recent work that she’s been doing.

Grace said, ‘Recently, a lot of my work has been around creating safe spaces for people to talk about belonging and inclusion. One of the benefits of being a woman is having the lived experience of some of the challenges that we’re trying to coach organisations through. I can create a safe space where people feel comfortable asking the questions that they think are silly. I don’t believe in silly questions. I think it’s better to ask than to not. I’m always blown away by the fact that a lot of the questions that we think are silly, loads of other people have been thinking of the exact same questions, but just haven’t felt safe asking them. I facilitate those conversations and that’s important for me.

The workshops that I’ve had recently have been quite impactful. In one of my workshops, a White male who came into the session, almost begrudgingly, sat there and said, “I think it’s easy to get a job here irrespective of who you are. When I applied, they didn’t ask me for my race, they didn’t ask me for any kind of protected characteristics. Everyone has equal access of getting a job here.”

I could see there were only two other Black people in the room and there weren’t any Asian people. The two Black people in the room curled up and cringed a little bit in response. I could see their physical discomfort. In response, I shared my Yoruba name with everyone which is Oluwagbemisola Mosuro. I said, “Can you imagine an individual hiring receiving a CV that said ‘Oluwagbemisola Mosuro’ and a CV that said ‘John Matthews’. Do you think there’s a chance my CV might be held up or potentially overlooked purely because they can’t pronounce my name? Do you see where there might be a difference?”

When I pronounced my name, I saw him physically jerk a little. He said, “Absolutely. I get it.” Sharing that small piece of information was powerful enough for him to see that there is a real difference.

Whilst diversity data might not be asked as part of an application process, someone’s name, alone in some instances, can be a barrier to entry. Not because the organisation doesn’t want to be inclusive, or because they don’t want Black and Brown people in there, it is purely because the recruiter may not want to offend. Therefore, to avoid offense they will overlook a candidate.

I’ve worked in recruitment myself and I’ve seen it happen. It’s not a deliberate form of discrimination, but it is discrimination that impacts many, many people with culturally-sounding names that dominant cultures can’t pronounce. That causes a barrier to entry and subsequently progression and equity in those spaces.’

I saw examples similar to Grace’s story in my own job at the BBC. Once I was working in the open planned co-working space in a broadcasting house and two managers were sitting on the table next to me. They were sifting through CVs and deciding who to call in for an interview. One manager turned to the other and said, “I just don’t think this person’s going to be a culture fit for the team.” I was shocked. They didn’t even realise what they had just said. They were looking for somebody in their own image.

The BBC values diversity because it aligns with their vision to be the most creative organisation in the world. However, the BBC can only achieve that by having a diversity of lived experiences, perspectives and thoughts around the creative table.

I liked how Grace was able to pick up on the body language within that group setting. It reminded me of Brene Brown who is a researcher over in America. She talks about vulnerability and safe and brave spaces. It’s something that I talk about quite a lot. She says that although it’s important to create the safe space, you have to go deeper than that. You need to have brave spaces where you are challenged by having those difficult or awkward conversations that you want to steer away from. I enjoyed how Grace demonstrated that she created a brave space by picking up on that body language.

Grace agreed, ‘I think that’s important as well. I recently interviewed someone who was talking about the dominance of White women in roles that are leading and driving equality, diversity, and inclusion in organisations and the impact that has on other underrepresented groups. They are looking at things from their lens and from the experience of women. However, there can sometimes be a lack of understanding of the intersectional female experience, whether that be sexuality, race or ability.

We should be thinking about who we have in these roles and who they listen to. Who are they working with to inform and drive the focus, understanding and change needed for that business? It’s important that we have diverse voices involved in this work, so we are able to see things like body language in order to get a sense of how people are thinking and feeling. That’s how we can create true and real safe and brave spaces for everyone to speak up and be heard.’

My last question for Grace was, ‘What does inclusive growth mean to you?’

Grace enthused, ‘Inclusive growth to me means freedom. The freedom to speak, exist, thrive and to do your absolute best unhindered. I was talking to someone a while ago and they introduced me to a great analogy. When individuals say, “You’re in the UK, you’ve got to be like us. You’ve got to do things as we do.” They are essentially saying to people that aren’t White British, that instead of you folding your arms the way you normally do, you need fold your arms the other way.

If you’ve ever tried that, it is really uncomfortable. Asking someone to essentially do that for eight hours a day while they’re in the office trying to excel in their role by being creative and driving the business forward, is a handicap that we are creating for people.

For me, inclusive growth is about understanding that everyone is different. Everyone should be able to show up as themselves freely, without having to fold their arms in a different way. They are then capable of existing without the hindrance of assimilation and feeling like they need to change themselves.’

Grace advises you to connect with her on LinkedIn where she is very active. Directly message her and look out for her updates on when she’ll be releasing her book about the impact culture has on the way that people present at school and in the world of work and how that can subsequently impact their career journey. It’s going to be a guide that provides information for people wanting to understand the lived experience of how culture can impact the people that they work with, the people that they lead, and how they can support them in the workplace.

If you need any support in developing your organisation’s inclusive culture, then feel free to reach out to Toby and his team. The best place to start is either through their website at mildon.co.uk or just drop the team a line on LinkedIn .