Diversity and Inclusion - in conversation with Chico Chakravorty

Today's episode of the Agency Accelerator Podcast is an important one. During the whole Black Lives Matter movement and all of that terrible stuff that was going on in the US I was trying to contemplate whether I should make any comments, but I didn't want to look like I was jumping on the bandwagon or following tokenism. So thought that a good way to do it would be to have an episode that we dedicate to diversity inclusion and and I'm excited to have Chico Chakravorty from Doing Diversity Differently on today's episode. And we talk about everything to do with what we should be doing in our own organizations, how we need to be really careful that we just don't stay in our tribe all the time, but perhaps more importantly, how we should be advising our clients and how we can use DNI to support that and to make our agencies look different as well. So I know you're going to find some really useful content in today's episode. But before we jump into the detail of today's episode, I just want to remind you that I've recently launched my new book, which is part autobiography, part step by step guide called the Self Running Agency. So if you aspire to grow your agency but perhaps are struggling to make that happen, frustrated that your clients are over demanding and that your staff don't step up, then you should make sure you grab a copy of this book. Normally the book sells for 5.99, but right now you can grab a free copy for a limited time free by going to my homepage www.dacostacoaching.co.uk okay, let's get on with today's show.

Accelerate your agency's profitable growth with tools, tips and value added interviews with your host agency owner and coach, Rob DaCosta.

In today's episode of the Agency Accelerator Podcast, I am excited to have with me Chico Chakravorti who is a D and I consultant and founder of Doing Diversity Differently. So welcome to the podcast, Chico. Do you want to just give us a little bit of background on what you do and how you got to the point of running Doing Diversity differently?

Absolutely, yes. So thank you very much for having me on. I have had a fairly varied career. I've worked in the performing arts, I've worked in health insurance and financial services. I've worked for the third sector in a number of different ways, but always with a strategic and commercial lens to the functions of roles that I did. And whilst I was doing that, I started getting really interested in why there wasn't many people that looked like me or thought like me within the higher echelons of the businesses that I was working in. And it was something that made me think, especially whilst I was doing my MBA at Durham, in terms of what is the impact of leadership that we have with not just diversity and inclusion, but our cultures of belonging in the workplace. And I think that's something that's often underlooked and not quite considered in the same way, but I think is something that's really critical. And whilst I was doing my mba, I was managing director for executive search firm which helped organisations reach more diverse talent pools. And whilst I was there, I sat there and was noticing what a lot of organisations were doing was actually disengaging a big portion of their workforce who wouldn't necessarily be the identified beneficiaries of diversity and inclusion initiatives. And that's where I thought actually what we need to do is find ways to make sure that everyone feels like they belong and everyone's truly behind this. So that's why I set up doing diversity Differently. And the role of the agency is to help organizations be by being a critical friend that enables them to clumsily learn on their journey of diversity and inclusion, but actually truly understand a why they want to be more diverse and more inclusive from whether that be a moral standpoint or from the business case perspective, but also find ways with those organisations that simple enough in the concept, but they might be slightly more difficult to execute. So standing by them side by side to make sure that they know what they're doing.

Okay, excellent. Thank you. And who is your typical customer?

The good thing about diversity and inclusion is that there is no typical customer. So I have worked with higher education sectors, I have worked with financial services clients, I've worked with music tech organisations, worked with charities. I think it's something that over the past few years has been becoming more and more, I guess, critical for businesses to embed as part of their core strategy in order for them to be successful.

And when they are hiring you, what's their primary ask when they want to bring you on board?

It really varies. Some of the times it is to help with the diversity, the beginning of their diversity journey within their organization. Sometimes it can be something a little bit more in depth in terms of trying to design a strategy to reach new audiences. So for example, working with an opera company in the north of England, I've kind of worked with them not just to diversify their workforce internally, but also to how they can reach more diverse demographics. Because as I'M sure many of you that are listening will know that opera isn't necessarily known as the youngest, most hip type of audience goer. So at some point that that audience is no longer going to be there and we've got to find ways to be able to connect and reach to other audiences in order to keep that art form thriving.

And so I was thinking about what angle we could take on this podcast because I suspect a lot of, rightly or wrongly, I suspect a lot of the listeners who are running small agencies with maybe sort of two to five staff, probably di isn't very high up on their agenda, although arguably should be. But the angle that I thought would be interesting is what happens when we are asked by our clients to provide advice on this or when they ask us to do something such as, you know, make sure that there's a BAME person in the image because they want to look like they're, you know, they're inclusive. What's your sort of view point on that? And how do you feel like we as agency owners should be advising our clients around this kind of thorny topic? And it's raised its head, particularly at the moment, because of the whole Black Lives Matters movement.

I think it's a really, really good question, Rob. I don't think there's an easy answer for this, because if there was an easy answer, organizations all over the world would have already been doing this. But I think the first thing any agency that's, that's working with clients that have this type of ask need to think about is firstly looking at what do we want to achieve, what do we want our outcome to be? Because we know that we can put people of different ethnicities or people that have visible disabilities, or people that might look like they might come from the LGBT community, etc. Into a photo shoot or into an advert campaign. But that doesn't necessarily mean that actually the organisation that's conducting that campaign are diverse or inclusive. And it doesn't take much digging from somebody and there will be plenty of people out there to actually shine a spotlight on the fact the company itself isn't very diverse. So why are they trying to use these people inauthentically? So I think the first thing is trying to understand what the objective that the organization wants to do is. Secondly, and this might be something that within your own agency, you don't have the skill set and you don't have the knowledge or the lived experience to be able to talk to your clients through, but it would be recommending that they got in touch with someone that can help them specifically. So there are other agencies out there. A great one at the moment is an agency called the Unmistakables, who have been doing some great work in terms of challenging the existing status quo within advertising, PR and marketing to become more diverse, but to do it in a really authentic way. But if they do specifically want to go with yourselves because of an established relationship or it's a new business, etc. And they've specifically, specifically chosen you, think about how you can then bring someone in to help you with some of that insight. Because if that isn't skill or knowledge that exists within your organization already, you're going to need to get that from somewhere. And some of that research you can probably do yourself. There are some great videos out there on YouTube or some great articles that kind of talk about things such as systemic racism or the concepts of, of privilege and how that plays a part, etc. So thinking about how can we make sure that what we're doing doesn't then get perceived from the external marketplace as being disingenuous is going to be really critical in how you start your campaign with your client.

And how much responsibility do you think that an agency. So if they've been brought in by a client to create a campaign and the client can see, for example, that the agency is predominantly middle class white males, and they're saying that we want diverse imagery in this thing because we want to show up in the external world as that, how much responsibility do you think it is of that agency to actually address that mismatch with the client? Or do you think it's better that they just shut up and do the job?

It's always going to be a really difficult thing. And I think half of the problems that we have with any kind of business relationships is one around communication. And I think it depends on how we try and address this, I think is a really big piece here. So going in and kind of telling an organization, your client organisation, that actually their approach is fundamentally wrong, it's disingenuous, etc. Isn't going to win you many brownie points. And it's probably not going to then be the foundation for a good successful career, but trying to find a way to coach them and help them sort of see, is there a way that we can do this by either a separate statement on the website acknowledging that we're not very diverse as an organisation, but this is something that we're truly looking to change. This is something that we are now going to be supporting by having different partners and suppliers, etc. Where they do come from minority backgrounds or they're SMEs that are led by people from BAME backgrounds or people of color or people with disabilities, etc. So it's not just showing up to be something that's a fashionable response to a hashtag or we're just paying lip service. One of the examples that I always come back to is when Marks and Spencer's back in 2019 did decided to launch a sandwich called the LGBT as opposed to just the BLT by adding guacamole to it. And all the packaging was brilliant because it said that a percentage of the proceeds will go to LGBT charities. What I then found really interesting was a few months later in their annual report, when they talked about it, it was clear that they'd only given £11,000 to LGBT charities, which, for a national store of that size and scale, that was going to be selling a considerable number of units. That number felt really quite low to me. But I think had that then replicated itself later in the year when it came to Christmas. And obviously a number of retailers will support organizations that help people that are homeless. That number was much larger because it was actually a cost per unit so sold that was being donated. So for me, the difference wasn't the fact that Marks and Spencers didn't want to help different demographics, but they didn't help them equally. And that's a really important thing because there will then be a percentage of people that resonate with that, that sit there and think, well, why are you helping one market more than another, when actually your route to market in terms of your. Your ask of your customers is very similar. So making sure that that is as streamlined as possible is really critical.

And did that backfire on mns? It did.

And there was a lot of negative press across social media with people being very critical of that because, you know, again, it's fine to be visible, for example, in a pride parade in London or another big city in the uk. It's great to have an internal network group for people that are lgbt. But think about what purpose do you want those or do you want your clients network groups to have? And how much of a mandate can they have to driving some of that commercial growth within your organization, but doing it in a way that really supports and champions them is going to be much more successful in the long term.

Yeah. So that's an example of where it feels like the. They perhaps just doing that to align themselves with the pride movement and get some good publicity out of it, when in fact £11,000 is a drop in the ocean for Marks and Spencer's, isn't it, really?

Absolutely. And don't get me wrong, Marks and Spencer's hasn't had the easiest road in terms of their commercial growth recently and they have seen a big percentage of their customer loyalty drop off, etc. But at the same time, the one core business area that has always done very well for Ms. Is food. So it feels very incongruent that you don't have that. That part.

Well, especially when you've got to compare it to, say, the shelter stuff that they do in December, which obviously is a lot more. If M and S is one that hasn't got it right, is there any examples you can think of that has got it really right?

The one that stands out more recently that worked very well was Tesco's, where they realized, and I don't think they're necessarily the first brand that launched this product, but I think they were the first in the UK that certainly shouted about it and they shouted about it authentically. So a really simple product like a plaster. And for years and years and years, plasters came in one colour, which was skin tone, but there was only one skin tone. So if you were someone who came from a different ethnic background, you would always have plaster that was different to your own skin colour. That made you, again, very subtly, but feel different to everyone else. A concept that's called Othered. But it was Tesco's that actually released a range of plasters that came in different shades. They were very well received by people across different BAME communities, organisations that work in diversity and inclusion, etc. Because what they had done was obviously consulted with not just external customer groups, but also their own staff that came from different backgrounds and made sure that what they were going out to market with was something that was genuine and something that really addressed a problem.

Yeah, I mean, when you say out loud, it's such an obvious thing, and it's kind of surprising that it's taken that long for someone to say, hey, hang on a second, these plasters are only geared for one type of skin colour. And I guess makeup has probably got a bit of a head start in that they've been at least recently starting to focus on that more, haven't they, for different skin colors.

And I think it goes to a really important point when one of the key terms that's being talked about an awful lot is one that's called white privilege. And it's Something that sits quite uncomfortably with a lot of people. The way I try and explain white privilege is that it's not accusing you of being a bad person just because of the skin colour that you are, but it just shows you that your life is not going to be any harder purely based on the colour of your skin. And that's a really simple example that no one had ever had to in those leadership positions or those product development roles. Think about what happens if I'm not the colour of the plaster. Because everyone looked the same, probably thought the same as well, so it never needed to be challenged. But it's only, as we're now starting to see our workforces diversify, we're starting to see our consumers have a lot more power in terms of where they're choosing to spend, which is really critical. And when you look at some of the stats, certainly from research that's happened in the States, organisations that visibly support, for example, LGBT people or causes will see an increase of 25% on their revenue compared to those that don't.

Wow. And I. I think I'd be remiss in this episode to not touch upon the Black Lives Matters movement. And I probably, like a lot of people, when this was all happening, someone who works for me asked me whether I wanted to make a statement or do something. And I have no idea whether I'm right or wrong about this, by the way. So I'm not saying this is the right thing, but I said no, because it felt extremely inauthentic for me to do that and it felt tokenism and it felt like I was jumping on the bandwagon. And as a human being, I like to think that I am open and not racist and all the rest of it. So I said no. But what's your view on businesses generally? Do you feel like they should be making statements about that, or do you think they should just be focusing on more dni? What do you think they should be doing?

I think making a statement for the sake of making a statement is futile and it is something that will appear incredibly transparent to the outside world and people will see that really quickly and really clearly. But if you're doing it in a way that then sits behind some of the things that support that, then it's a really different thing. I was speaking to someone who worked in the compliance function of one of the large investment banks and they said as part of their response to the Black Lives Matter movement, they realised that they wanted to expedite a program that they had been working on in the background, which was a fund of, I think, around $10 million to support charities that work with organisations that help tackle racial inequality. So for that investment bank to put out a statement that says, we're really saddened by these things that are happening in the world today to people of color, in conjunction with that demonstrable action of this is how we are supporting, that, I think is very credible. Every organisation is going to be able to do things in different ways at different scales. And it's finding something that if you were truly believing in the power of diversity, but also the fact that we shouldn't be living in a world where there is this level of social injustice, both in our society and within our professional environments, then I think that's a really constructive thing for you to do. Now, a lot of that may cost some money, but that's all within your control. It may well be that actually what you want to do is commission some research to actually understand what your black consumers are thinking. If you work in a specific industry area, or how do you help to broaden some of those insights that are going into your marketing campaigns to make sure that they are hitting the mark and resonating with all communities much more effectively?

Yeah, it's interesting. I think in the space I'm in, there's been a few gurus and podcasters who are very, very well known in the US who appear to have jumped on the bandwagon because they felt like they should make a statement, but then it's really backfired on them because their audience has really called them out. And to say, look, the guests you have on your podcast are white, all your staff are white, and suddenly you're saying that this is really important. And I guess in a way that's why I. Not that I'm a guru like those people, but that's why I veered away from it, because I saw. Suppose I feel like actions speak louder than words. So it's like you say, if you make a statement, but it's backed up by actions that you're doing, then that's a good thing. But otherwise, it can be a bit of a risky thing to jump into, I think.

I think also the one thing to recognize here is that actually taking any level of action at any point is better than us doing nothing. So whether those gurus had only had white guests on their podcasts before, and then that started to diversify, you can sit there and look at it, you know, cynically and think, actually, are they only doing this for a particular reason, or actually can you think about it in terms of, well, we are getting more of a voice for people of colour or people with disabilities or whichever demographic that those individuals come from. So is that shift good enough? And I think it's great as a starting point, because what it will start to do is widen people's thinking when they're listening to this as an audience member, to think, what is it that we could be doing? Or what is it that we have been missing from not connecting with these people in our discussions, in our campaigns, etc. That means could we actually have a much better return on our investment with the initiatives that we're trying to carry out?

I guess what it's done for a lot of people is it made them look in a mirror and they've not liked what they've seen. So, like you say, doing something is better than doing nothing, as long as we can sustain it and make true change in our organisations, in our attitudes, rather than that token change. It's interesting because I always say to my clients, if they're recruiting people, I would always encourage people to get a diverse management team. But I would have previously talked about diversity in terms of the skill sets and that don't hire on your own, like. And I guess now we need to extend that to not just talk about skill set, but just talk about backgrounds and ethnicity and disability and everything else, because everybody's got something to bring and we just need to have that broader sort of viewpoint on the world than perhaps we white privileged people have had.

And I think it's really important here to think that diversity comes in a number of different ways. And maybe we should have talked about this right at the beginning of the podcast. But for me, diversity has two very clear elements to it, the first of which is what I call demographic diversity. So it would be the boxes that you would tick on a survey or an employee equal opportunities monitoring form when you joined a company. So what is your gender, your age, your marital status, your ethnicity, your sexual orientation, whether you have a disability or not? So that's one element of it. The second is what we call cognitive diversity, which is how do we think, what are the experiences that we've had contributing to how we operate and how we behave and what our attitude is? So, for example, I, from a demographic diversity perspective, would tick the fact that I'm from a different ethnic background. I also am a gay male, so I have that element to it. But actually, from a cognitive point, if I sit on a leadership team, which I have done a number of times in My career, I went to an all boys school that was selective. It wasn't private, but it was a well performing grammar school. I play the violin and do it in orchestras, which is a fairly white world. So my ability to assimilate into those environments means it's actually something very different. But what would it be if you brought someone in who went to a comprehensive or didn't go to Oxbridge, or has not got the same family set up as, you know, the majority of your workforce? What do those experiences that they have lived through bring and enrich your culture to be in a way that you'd never thought of previously?

Yeah, I think it's very interesting because I think I initially started this podcast thinking, well, most of my clients are small businesses with a small team of staff, ambitions to grow. But actually, even at that stage, if they can get this cognitive sort of viewpoint of the world, this broader view, and be mindful of the decisions that they make and the people they recruit, then they're going to be creating a culture where DI is just part of what they are and what they do. And it's not some initiative that they need to implement. And that's obviously the sort of utopian world. You know, guys, one of the things I always say on this podcast that, you know, I'm a big fan of is that agencies need to find their niche. And you know, we talk about niche in several ways. By the sector, by the service, by the problem that you solve, by the geography that you work in. But actually another way of making your agency stand out is by having this D and I specialism. And I guess that is going to be a topic that is going to be addressed more and more fortunately in the world that we live in. And so having that skill set in house or having partners that you can work with to bring that in so that you can actually promote your services by saying we can help our clients manage the D and I maze or minefield or whatever the right term is, I think is something that's going to separate agencies from other agencies. So it's something to really think about. And if you're listening to this podcast thinking this doesn't apply to me, then probably you should be changing your mindset because I think it applies to all of us.

Right? Absolutely. And you know, we all come from different backgrounds and experiences and we have to kind of think about how do we connect authentically with as many of those as possible for us to be relevant. Because when we don't have that connecting with our audience, with our clients, with whoever it is, that's when we see organisations starting to fail. So the more we can spread those hooks into a much wider demographic in an authentic way, the more successful we will be as organizations.

Brilliant. Well, that sounds like a good piece of advice to sort of end on. Now I ask all of my guests the same question. I'm always interested to hear what you've got to say, which is, if you could get in a time machine and go back in time and advise that younger chico who's just starting out his career, what advice would you give him?

I think the first thing I would say is don't be too regimented in your thinking or your approach. I had a very solid career path that I was following and I had a certain job title that I wanted by the time I was 30 and I got there at 26 and absolutely hated it.

Be careful what you wish for.

Exactly. Very much so. But that was something that then enabled me to completely change who I was and what I found my passion for, again, which was really, really critical. And I think doing that in a way that. So if I combine that not being too regimented with the concept of being inquisitive or being curious and trying to learn as much about the world as possible or about processes and in. In the office as possible was something that took me a while to get to. And I think if I'd had that mindset first off, it would have been really useful. But it was something where I then later questioned, you know, when I was working for a health insurance company, why is it that we do it this way? And I was able to, to do things such as reduce our time frame, to enter into new geographic markets by 70% or exceed our business case expectations by 250%.

Yeah, good advice. I feel like, especially in the agency world, there is comfort in conformity sometimes. Like, people do things the same way and they feel safe because they're doing it, but actually being curious and actually asking that question, is there a better way or why are we doing it this way? Is kind of good advice. Right. So last point, really, if people wanted to get hold of you, how would they best reach you?

Best way, I guess, is via our website. So doingdiversitydifferently.com or by email@chicoingdiversitydifferently.com as well.

Great stuff. Well, thank you very much for joining me today on the Agency Accelerator podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

So I hope you found that episode useful and you learned some things. I certainly learned a lot in this episode one why has it taken so long for companies to produce plasters that work for all skin tones? And you can really understand this term of othered, which is a word that I learned and also around cognitive diversity. So I hope you found that useful. Please do share the episode with your colleagues and make sure you've hit the subscribe button. And if you enjoyed the episode, I would love you to leave a review. As you know that helps me be found by more people. And other than that, I hope you have an amazing week weekend and I will see you next Thursday for the next episode of the Agency Accelerator Podcast.