You're Different LIKE me! Authentic Conversations with Aggie Mutuma

Hello my friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. This show is produced by the American Negotiation Institute and with over 5 million downloads and listeners in over 180 countries, listeners just like you have made this the number one negotiation podcast in the world. Hi, my name is Kwame Christian and I am the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute. Here at AI, we believe that the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations and we are passionate about providing you with the best content that will help you to make your difficult conversations easier, both at work and at home. Lastly, I want to remind you that we offer consulting and conduct trainings both virtually and in person all around the world. Our focus is in three main areas. First, negotiation and conflict resolution. Second, leadership and lastly, diversity, equity and inclusion. Check the link in the description below to learn more about how we could work with you and your team. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview.

Foreign.

Thanks for joining us today.

Thank you for having me, Kwame.

It's my pleasure. So how would you get us started? By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Sure, no problem. So I'll start with myself outside of my profession. I am a British born woman of Zimbabwean parentage and I say that because that all connects to who I am today and I guess probably a lot of my mindset as well. I am a mother of two beautiful girls, 17 and 13. They keep me very busy as I'm sure you can imagine at that age. And they also teach me a lot about the world and how they see the world so differently to how I see the world and again, how I probably saw the world quite differently to my parents as well. And then professionally I spent two and a half decades in the people space, so leading people teams for organizations. Some you'll recognize over the pond as we call it, some McDonald's restaurants, others you may not recognize, such as Tesco Stores Ltd. Which is almost like the Walmart of the UK I will suggest, and then other retailers. And my last role was as a group people director for an international organization. And my roles have always been about people. How do we engage people? How do we get the best out of them? How do we attract them to our organization? How do we engage them, retain them, grow them? How do we get them to perform and thrive in our organization? And then also how do we say goodbye? How do we say goodbye to them as well? And for me, always in the most respect, respectful, respectful way, in a way that a person feels seen and if I was going through that process, whatever that process happens to be, how would I want to walk out of that experience feeling most latterly, I've had the pleasure, the joy, the blessing, of leading Mahogany Inclusion Partners, which is my baby. I founded the organization, which is a boutique consultancy which supports organizations on their diversity and inclusion and their racial equity journeys as well. And Mahogany was born out of, firstly, my experience growing up in the UK as a black child and then growing through my career as a black woman and all the stuff that comes with that. Also, I'm an executive coach. So in the fact that I'm an executive coach, a lot of the people I coach are white men because they're the executives of most organizations. And when it came to conversations about diversity, inclusion, difference, leadership, I found that a lot of the leaders were reticent to engage because they didn't want to say the wrong thing. They didn't want to be seen as sexist or homophobic or racist. And also, some of the ways in which we have conversations about inclusion can lead certain groups to feel like it's not about them. Inclusion is not about them. It's about everybody who's not them. And also, as we know, any organizational change, you need your leaders behind it. Right. You need your leaders bought in, comfortable, credible and leading. So that's what Mahogany Inclusion Partners came from, really. One, my recognition of the reticence of leaders to engage, but knowing that we need them engaged and we need to have this conversation in a safe, challenging, but compassionately challenging way. My lived experience as well. And then also what I recognized as some of my beautiful HR colleagues. Inability sounds like a really unkind word, but I really can't think of another one at the moment, so I'm going to go with that because I can't think of another one. I guess inability to sometimes make that connection between the business and what the business outcomes are and the people activities and people strategies, and therefore diversity and inclusion strategies. So my aim is to support that process, to really make that golden thread known and obvious between how we win as an organization, how we engage our people in that, and why inclusion and belonging is so important to that.

I love that. Yeah. And it's important work, and it ties back to your entire experience working with people. Like you said, your goal was to engage, retain and help them perform at a high level. And we're recognizing that inclusion and belonging issues can have a negative impact on all of those potential goals that we have. And before we start, I think it would be good to just Align on a definition. So when you think about inclusion and belonging, what do those terms mean to you?

Sure, I'm going to start with belonging, because that's the one that I think a lot of people sort of struggle with. And what I'm going to say about belonging is that everybody in an organization doesn't necessarily want to belong in the organisation, which can sound a bit odd, especially from someone who does work in the inclusion and belonging space. Everybody doesn't want to belong. There are people who want to go into work, deliver their job, get paid and go home and that's it. And that's enough. And that's all they want. They don't want to grow, they don't want to be affirmed, they want any of those things at work. But for, for some, there is that element of belonging, feeling that they have a space there, they have a voice, they're able to see themselves growing, there's a future for them, they can see their image or somebody who resembles them in leadership positions. So that's what we mean by belonging to inclusion. However, I'm going to suggest that most people in workplaces want that. They want to feel as though when they do come into the workplace, if they have an opinion, if they have a view, it's going to be heard. Not necessarily lived by or necessarily implemented, but at least heard. They want to feel respected. They want to feel that like they can show up as themselves. They don't have to pretend to be someone else or hide their heritage or whatever it is that is part of their lives. So that's my take on it. And I'd also say then every single person wants to be respected. So I've kind of gone down the triangle. I suppose respect is a minimum, I would suggest, for every employee, every human being. I would suggest inclusion for most people in the workplace and then belonging for a few less than those who want to be included.

I love this. Those are great definitions. And you know, Aggie, it's funny, I never one time considered the fact that some people don't really want, want to belong. And it makes so much sense because. Tell me if I'm off on this, this idea here, because it's because you can have somebody who says, all I want to do is my job. I don't know what, I don't want to know about your kids, I don't want you to know about mine. I just want to come in and do work. And actually it could be a little bit offensive or uncomfortable for me for you to keep on trying to pull Me into this. This deeper relationship that I truly don't want to have.

Stuff. Absolutely. Absolutely. And we should be in a place. I believe in it. We make space for all of that, for all of us, so people can engage how they want to, because. Exactly. Some people want to come to work, get a paycheck, go home, and that's okay. That is absolutely okay. Please don't make me come to your lunches. Please don't make me, you know, log on to some event talking about something that I'm not really that interested in, because my priority is my family or maybe my side business or something else is my priority. And all I need is that basic. Like I said, respect is a minimum. That's enough for me.

Yeah, it's great. It's so interesting. I think that is an absolutely brilliant point. And one of the things that I like about your approach when it comes to difficult conversations on sensitive topics is that you start off with the human connection. And I think it can be easy for people to lose that in the midst of these conversations. So how do we actually retain that humanity in these conversations?

Yeah, that's definitely something. In my organization, we speak to our clients about all the time. You know, difficult conversations or crucial conversations or whatever it is we want to call them, brave conversations. A lot of them come with discomfort, but we sometimes lose the fact that it's actually uncomfortable for the other party in that conversation as well. A lot of the feelings we're feeling. I don't want to say the wrong thing. Are they going to listen to me? Am I going to come out of this the way I want to come out of this? Am I going to insult them? You know, all these things that we're maybe asking ourselves. The fact is, the person you're having the conversation with is probably feeling a lot of those same things. And I have these slides in my mind which we work with clients about, which is actually about talking about race. And there's a slide that sort of spells all of that out and says, this is what your people of col are probably feeling. And there's another slide that spells pretty much the same things again. And this is probably what your white colleagues are feeling as they're thinking about this conversation. And it's always such a epiphany moment for both sides of the conversation where we have white people saying, oh, my gosh, I didn't realize that people of color will be thinking this as well or feeling these things. And. And then people of color saying, I didn't even think that white people were thinking this as well. So we're all human. We all have very, you know, foundational feelings and wants and desires and fears and all of these things which connect us, which we don't talk about enough. I don't think in my, in my, in my opinion. And I think if we're feeling something, thinking something, even if it's a. In a relationship, as in a love relationship, or your family or your children as an example, a lot of what you're feeling, the other person's probably feeling it too.

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Yeah, it's so powerful, and you're so right, because it's almost like a situation where we have these fears and we build up the other person or the other side into this kind of big, scary, intimidating monster, while at the same time, the other person is doing the same thing about you. And we have two scared people caught up in their emotions. And that's exactly what leads to the breakdown of the conversation. And it seems like I want to get your perspective on this. It seems like if more people were willing to be vulnerable in that moment and just admit how they're feeling, it would give the other person the license to do the same. And then we could really start off with a strong connection.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And in supporting leaders, I'm going back to my HR days now. In supporting leaders or coaching leaders around their tough conversations, getting them to a place where I'm saying it's actually a beautiful thing to say, this is a really tough conversation, or I'm feeling concerned about this or whatever it may be that you're feeling. It's such a beautiful thing because one, it shows that you care. Because often people say they just think we're a number and they don't care. And all these things which actually aren't true, actually are not true, but they're only they only remain in the people's minds if they don't hear. Actually, I care about you, I care about you, I care about this conversation we're having. And I know this might be difficult, there's some difficult messages and let's do this together. You know, they're so, those words and those statements are so disarming, aren't they? Yes.

And Aggie, I'm so glad you said that because there's a lot of mind reading that happens where we say, oh, they think this, they think that. I went on a little rant with my wife Whitney last night, we were watching something and one of the people of color on the show said, oh, they don't want us to, blah, blah, blah. I said, who are these they that people keep on talking about? They want to hold us down. I was like, listen, I have spent a lot of time with white people, I grew up with white people. They, they don't, they have other things to do.

They're not thinking about you. They're not thinking about you. Yeah, right.

And I think it's such a disempowering thing because what ends up happening is that a lot of people carry that in them, in that belief. And so you go into this conversation and imagine if you're going into a conversation and you're like, this person doesn't want me to succeed, this person hates me and everybody that looks like me, how well can I perform in this conversation? It creates a self fulfilling prophecy where we hold ourselves back. We're not the bubbly, charismatic person we want to be. We can't showcase our skills in the right way and then it leads us to perform worse in the conversation and then we don't get the outcomes that we want and then we say they held us back. And a lot of times it's ourselves that can hold us back. And it goes on the other side too.

Yeah. And you know what? And with that conversation, I tend to say to people with any, again, as going back to the human piece with any question, any conversation, any characteristic, any, you've got people on one end of the spectrum, you've got people on the other end of the spectrum. Most people are somewhere in the middle, just trying to figure, figure things out and trying to figure out where they are. There may be some days, there may be some days who want to hold you back. There may be, actually, we know that there will be some who don't like people because of the color of their skin. We know that.

Right.

There are plenty who actually are trying to help Support, be allies and plenty in the middle aren't even thinking about it. So are you going to let those few who probably are thinking that we know they're thinking that. Really? Then color how you show up and who you are. And it's really interesting because I'm having conversations at the moment as part of Black Inclusion Week. We'll come back to that later. The first session is about being unapologetic. You. Unapologetically. Unapologetically. You. And one of the things around that is really understanding that in a lot of cases, one, we've got that shared human experience. A lot of us have the same fears and challenges and questions about situations, but also it's about not worrying so much about other people. Just stay in your lane, slay in your lane. You know, do what you want in your lane, but don't worry so much about what everybody else is thinking or not, because you don't actually know what they are or not thinking. And it doesn't need to. You don't need to allow it to impact who you are and how you show up.

Bingo. So well said. Yeah. And again, like, just trying to, trying to mind read can really hold us back. And I don't want to just like pick on people who look like us in this conversation, too, because I have a lot of friends who are white who are afraid of having these conversations because they say, listen, people are going to think I'm racist. I don't want to have this conversation because I don't want that risk. They're not going to take me seriously. I haven't lived this life, so I don't even feel like I should show up to this meeting because I don't want people to look at me funny, that type of thing. Right. And again, just like you said, appreciating the shared humanity and not trying to make assumptions, but then also sharing how you feel, whether it's positive or negative, is helpful too. Because if you come into the conversation and say, my goal in this conversation is this, Aggie, I care about you, I respect you, and I want to learn from you in this, in this conversation. And I'm going to be honest, I'm a little bit uncomfortable because this is a sensitive topic and I don't feel really well versed in this. Right. And just leading with that honesty can go such a long way.

And then when. And I'm going to say, because sometimes people say, do you mean if? I'm like, no, I mean when. When you make a mistake in that conversation because it happens we're humans. We're going. We're going to make mistakes. That person knows what your intention is. That person knows that you care about them. You've already said you feel uncomfortable. So there's already that open door in terms of, let's. Let's have this. Let's do this together. It's a. It's a beautiful thing.

Yeah. Let's go deeper into this because I think we have to give people the license to fail in these conversations because it will happen. So how can we address that mindset?

So I think in terms. You mean in terms of us giving others the ability.

Others and ourselves.

Yeah, I think I'm going to start with ourselves. And it's a piece around forgiveness, I suppose, which sounds a bit deep, doesn't it? I'm not sure it's supposed to sound that deep, but that's the word that came to me, forgiveness. And it links to love and my love for the word love. So in loving ourselves and loving others, because we are connected as humans, you know, we are all connected. There is a piece around forgiving ourselves. We know that we make mistakes. Right. Whether it's something. The things that we think, you know, some of the things happen in my head, I'm so glad no one can hear them because they're not always, not. Not always great. But I'm sure that's the same for everyone. In some of the ways that we think, in some of the things that we say, in some of the ways that we act, we all. We all make mistakes. We all have things that we think. Maybe I shouldn't have done that. Or, gosh, now that I know a bit more about what that person was thinking or going through, or now I understand the context more, maybe my reaction was a bit much, but I think there's definitely some beauty in us forgiving ourselves and taking the learnings and applying them going forward. I think we need to afford that same grace to others as well. People are going to make mistakes. One, because they don't know yet. And I'll put a yet on there. They don't know yet. But also because we're all different. We're all different, you know, and even in ourselves, depending on the day, we might be in a different place. There are some days where I'm like, oh, bring on the jokes, you know, let's have a. Let's have a laugh. Let's do whatever and feel free to pick on me. I'm in a really good mood. That's great. There are days where I'm like, like, don't even think about it because I'm not. You are going to get it if you try today. And I think that's the same for most people, isn't it? So if we know that people are different and we know that even we can be different depending how we're feeling on that day, people are going to make mistakes, right? So I think it's just remembering that.

I love that it's so, it's so empowering because the, the goal of perfect, the myth of perfect can really hold us back. We might say, I don't want to have this conversation unless I know I'm not going to make a mist. That's just fear holding you back because you know you're going to make a mistake. There's no such thing as a perfect conversation, right? And so we're going to make a mistake. And so we say, well, guess I can't talk about anything ever because exactly.

Like never ever, you know, even like, good morning. Somebody could say, well, that's not good for me. What's so good about it?

Exactly.

We're always going to make mistakes, and it's just about learning and taking the learning from it and then moving forward.

That's the thing, right? And again, if we, if we approach this with humility and willingness to give other people grace, it makes it more likely that other people are going to reciprocate with grace in return. And when we make those mistakes, just own it. Just say, hey, I'm sorry that what I said had that impact on you. I apologize. And my goal is to treat you with respect and I can learn to do better. So I appreciate you letting me know that I made a mistake. And it goes so far because it's tough for people to actually to say, hey, that hurt my feelings. Hey, that you. Right. And a lot of times people just float through their day just carrying on a lot of offenses and not doing anything. But if somebody lets you know a way that you failed or the way that you might have, your words might have been taken in a way that was more offensive. Something like that. They're giving you an opportunity to be a better friend and be a better colleague. Because if you never knew those points of failures, then you would never know to adjust discussed.

Absolutely. Absolutely. It's quite courageous, isn't it, to say someone actually, that really hurt my feelings. And like you said, it opens the door for also you to be able to do that as well. But then also, like you said that. Thank you. Thank you for telling me. Thank you for letting me know, even if you don't get it in the moment, because sometimes you don't. You just think that hurt. Okay. But thank you for letting me know. Let me. Let me take some time to think about it, or thank you for letting me know and just go off and think about it and come back to them later once you've had a chance to think about it, because.

Yeah, yeah, no, this is great. And one of the things that you talk about, too, is difference is beautiful, and it connects us. And I think that's such an interesting perspective on difference because a lot of times we say you're different from me for whatever reason, and that means we are. We. It leads to a separation, a rift between people, but you're seeing it in the opposite way. So can you go a little bit deeper into the that?

Definitely, Definitely. So my personality, my preference is that I love difference anyway. I love learning. I love taking knowledge. I love looking at if someone does something differently to the way I do. I think, oh, that's really interesting. How do you do it? And what are you thinking when you're doing this? Here's what I'm thinking, what I'm doing, what I'm doing. And I just learned so, so much from that. And then also on top of that, I listened to a TED Talk by a gentleman called Octavius Black. He's the CEO of Mind Gym, or was at the time. I don't know whether he now. And he actually talks about exactly this. That difference is something that we have traditionally known as something that separates us. Right. And back in cave people days, if we wanted to reference cave people days, yes. Something different probably was a bit dangerous. And you know, that animal with big teeth and big hair is probably going to kill you if you go try to talk to it or have a chat with it. So that was, you know, our prehistoric. What we need to do to. We needed to do to keep safe. But now where we are, that difference is just a beautiful thing because we're all different. I've got a sister, and I. And I always talk about this when I'm. When I'm. When I'm speaking to my clients. I have a sister who is 16 months younger than me. It's very, very important that 16 months and not 18, because that makes me a bit older. If we say 18, she says 18. I'm like, no, 16. Let's be clear. We have the same parents. So she's also a black woman. She works in the people space as well. So she's an HR leader. So we work in the same kind of industry. We both have daughters, and she lives 10 doors away from me, so I can look over my fence and ask her what's for dinner. And, you know, so we live really close in so many ways. We're so. We're very similar. We'll tick the same boxes. However, in terms of how we show up and who we are, we're very different. I'm a real extrovert. You can probably see that. I don't think I need to tell you that she's not so much as more. She actually is more of an introvert when it comes to detail and data. She loves detail and data. I'm annoyingly very good at it, but I don't love it at all. For me, it's about strategy and where are we going, what's vision and things like that, where she loves the detail and data. When we go on holiday, we kind of joke because I say it's better that we meet on the plane because she would get there about three days before. That's what I'm exaggerating. That's what it feels like to me. Get to the airport three days beforehand, and I'm happy to literally just roll on as they're doing the. The safety check. I'm happy to get on the plane then. So in so many ways, we're different.

Different.

But actually, the beautiful thing about us as sisters is that we. I learned from her in terms of her differences, and she learns from me. So back to Octavius Black, the CEO of Mind Gym. He was talking about difference as something that connects us because we're all different in lots of different ways. We may look very similar, but we're so different in so many ways. I could put you next to a black man, another black man, Kwame, and there'll be lots of similarities, but lots of things that are different about the pair of you as well. So rather than us looking at difference and saying, even the language, you're different from me. You know, from me. Let's say different like me. You're different like me. Just feel so different. It feels so beautiful as well. So I took that. I was like, yeah, love that. Absolutely love that. And it just connects us.

Wow. Okay. I. It's one of the. It's funny, sometimes somebody says something and you understand it like you speak English. I speak English. I understood the words that you said. And you can see my face. You can see. Okay. Kwame understood it. But then there was a different layer of understanding that happened.

So.

That saying different from me versus different like me is so profound. Let me try to unpack it. Let me see if.

Can I.

If I'm understanding it correctly, because different from me actually creates some distance, because that actually, that word actually indicates some, like, physical distance. Right. And then different like me means that you're different, I'm different, and everyone is different. So we are similar in the fact that we are different from other people.

Different like other people.

Yeah, I said it. You see that now I need to see. I need. I need to retrain my brain. All of these years of saying it that way, that's incredible. You're different like me. You're different.

Like, isn't that amazing, the words? Isn't it? Yeah, Yeah.

I feel like even saying that in a conversation would cause a record scratch. Like, what do you mean by that?

Yeah, yeah, it does. It does people over. Like, what do you mean? Okay, let's talk. Let's do it. Yeah.

Oh, wow. That's. It's, you know, it's. It's rare that we have a moment on the podcast where, like, my mind is blown to a certain extent where I. I struggle. I'm struggling to come up with something after this. But this is one of those times, I think, just that semantic shift and just saying that in a conversation can be so empowering because it's like, yeah, you're different like me. Well, what does that mean? We are not the same person. We have different interests. We have different backgrounds. And that's really interesting. I want to learn more. It's so disarming.

Yeah, it really is. It becomes this beauty and difference is. I honestly think difference is beautiful. It's beautiful. Yeah.

Wow. I'm going to need to noodle on that one for a while. That's.

That's.

That's really great. But I think, really coming down to it, when we, when we with Interact, direct, and this is just. This is so much bigger than just race or gender or anything like that. This is just any way to communicate with and connect with anybody, just celebrating the difference. What is it that makes you you, Aggie? I'm interested in that. Let me share what makes me me. That. That's great. And so people can lean into the conversation being authentically who they are, and then they connect through the things that make them different.

That's it. And I think when we're able to be authentically us, that is when everybody wins. Right? Because that connection is authentic. And that's what we seek, I think, back to us as human beings and Us being connected as human beings, that's what we seek. That real connection where that fear is not there, where that, oh, this person's different from me. Where there isn't that barrier. That's what we really seek.

Mm. Man, this is so good. Okay, great.

So I know a lot of people.

Are saying to themselves, whoa, I need some Aggie in my life. How can I work with her? So before you go, can you remind them about what you do, your company, and how they can get in touch with you?

Thank you, Kwame. That's. That's really sweet. So I lead a company called Mahogany Inclusion Partners, and as I might have said already, we support organizations on the diversity and inclusion and racial equity journeys as well. And I'm also a coach, so I do a lot of one to one to one work with leaders. So, yeah, that's how you can connect with me. Www.mahoganyinclusionpartners.com Incredible.

Aggie, thank you so much for sharing this. This is. It's been really enjoyable.

Thank you. I've loved it. I can't believe the time's gone already.

Oh, no, this is great. Time flew for me. This is. Aggie. You were so good.

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