International voices: Diversity stories from around the world | with Torin Ellis

Sam.

Welcome, welcome. Welcome to. I think this is show number 43. I gotta check with Niall. He'll tell me hopefully in the chat in a second. Well, welcome back to the shortlist. I'm your host, Johnny Campbell, CEO and co founder of Social Talent. We are an enterprise platform that helps scale hiring cultures in large organizations around the world and as part of that we're deeply committed to the topic of equity and diversity. And today we're going to be discussing international voices and diversity stories from around the world. Want to shed some light on other narratives in that equitable and inclusive world that we all work and live in. Want to try and hopefully work with our guest today to shine some more lights on those different topics and have a discussion around that. But I want to remind those of you who are new to the show, hi, welcome. I hope you enjoy the show. We're our weekly broadcast that goes out live on YouTube and LinkedIn but is also recorded as a podcast on Apple Spotify. Wherever you find your good podcasts and you can find out more about our show and check out our back catalog at SocialTalent.com forward/the shortlist as it's a live show, we take audience questions, comments. We love your live comments. So you happen to be listening to this live on LinkedIn or YouTube. Please join in the conversation, ask questions of our guest or myself, or just give us your comments and we'd love to read them out and get you involved in the conversation as well. If you listen to the podcast then you can't ask us live, but any links we refer to during the show we will put into the show notes of your podcast app. So check us out there. And yes, this is show number 43. Speaking of 43, this is the third time today's guest has joined us on the show. Love having them on and I think it's right for the topic. I remember the first time we had this guest on was last summer and literally it was within the week of the murder of George Floyd, which was an incident that sparked an enormous amount of conversation, movement, uprising, change hopefully. And that was last summer. It seems like a long time ago, but it's probably now more important than ever that we must find an intentional way to bring about a difference in this narrative and to really make sure that this vibration of diversity and equity, inclusion and conversation that really kind of had a reinsurgent of life last year continues to grow. And no better person to bring on the show this week with over 20 odd years experience working with this within this sphere is torrin Ellis Torrin is joining us today, I think from Baltimore, and he's at the, really at the forefront of this whole topic. Somebody who's speaking daily, not just weekly daily, whether you're listening to his SiriusXM FM show or you're basically listening to one of his talks or working with him as a client, his knowledge and wisdom around DIB is one that I greatly appreciate and have done so for the last five or so years. Torren, welcome back to the show. You might just remind some of our newer guests a little bit about yourself, your background, why you have such a passion around this topic, and then we'll get stuck into the news and chat a little bit about international diversity. I know an area you've been looking into a lot recently.

Yeah, absolutely. So first and foremost I want to say thank you. And when you say guest, I almost cringe a bit because I feel like I'm family. Like the only thing that I'm not rocking today is my green, but I feel like I'm family. The amount of time that I've been working with social talent, you know, you, Vince, Holly, Shannon, you know, everyone. I mean, just the entire crew. So thank you again for allowing my voice to, to be heard around the world, you know, through the platform that you are building and that you lead. A diversity strategist, risk mitigator, no longer on Sirius xm, but I do have an incredible podcast called Crazy and the King with my dear POD partner, Julie Sowash. And we talk about, you know, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. Like, for me, this is not a cartoon. It's not something that I like, play with. I absolutely live and breathe and unapologetic around my focus for providing access and opportunity and equity and equality and belonging and inclusion and representation. It's what I believe. It absolutely is how I live. So I just thank you again for allowing me to be on the show with you.

Tor. There's lots of, lots of stuff we could have dived into because unfortunately this is an issue that continues to burn around the world because it isn't solved. It's nowhere near solved in many aspects. So I want to dive straight into the news. I'm going to tease out a few articles to get your thoughts on and have a discussion about things I think our audience will hope you find super interesting. I was really, really intrigued to find out these different international stories, stories you might not have heard before. If you're a listener to the show, if you've listened to this topic and listen to it all over the world, you still might not have come across these topics and new issues. And that's what I really want us to try and get into here. So let's go with the first of this week's news stories over to Nigel. In the news. This is an article that appeared on the world economic reforms website reform.org in the last couple of weeks, and it's on diversity. Equity and inclusion have failed, according to the author. How about belonging, dignity and justice instead? And this article was authored by a woman called ada Marion Davis, founder and CEO of a company called Decolonized Design. And if I'm reading this correctly, as I found this fascinating. Torrent. Right. This is the one that really made me think the most. It made me stop and think, hang on a second. Has de and I failed. I thought there were actually some really interesting points in this. I maybe just give a quick summary of my take on this and then hand over to you. Torren. One of the things that really hit me was the author's accusation that a lot of effort put in by corporates into DEI and efforts is really just about avoiding litigation. And that's really the big thing, is you gotta be seen to be doing stuff because otherwise you face litigation. And I don't think there's a as many people who think like that, but there could be that corporate mindset that made me really be a bit more skeptical and think twice about some of the efforts I've seen. And really, do organizations really believe this, or is it something that they're just doing because it's good to put money into it? I mean, the top level, the budget goes towards that. I don't believe that the people involved in executing it are doing it cynically. I think it made me think. But the second piece was her argument that we need to look at belonging, dignity and justice. And I got a sense of what she was talking about, but I still felt like I just didn't really know what the difference between BDJ was from DEI and why it was so fundamentally different. And again, the cynical attitude I probably took from the author's opening few paragraphs made me think, hang on a second. Is this just somebody swapping out an acronym for their own purpose? But I believe you have a lot more color to this story you can give to us. Torrent.

Yeah. So first and foremost, I'm gonna go back to the piece around box checking and litigation. And, you know, the numbers, they kind of fluctuate each and every year. But, you know, for the better part of the last decade, the number is around $8 billion that is spent on, you know, corporate diversity bias type training. And I would actually push back a bit and argue with you that, Johnny, a number of people actually believe that, like there are. Because keep in mind, when we say it's the corporation, well, people make up corporations. And so there are a number of individuals inside of organizations that simply say, let's just do a training. Like, I get the calls all the time, I get the messages all the time. But, Torn, we want someone to just come through and do unconscious bias training. That that's what we want. And when I give them a proposal or give them a suggestion as to what it should look like for them to really dismantle and do a forensic discovery of what their organization looks like from a diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging standpoint, that's not an investment that they want to make. They really do want to just simply check a box and try to avoid litigation. Hence the reason why we are still in 2021 here. And so I had a conversation actually with Ida, and her name is Ida Miriam Davis. Ida, as you stated, formed the company Decolonized Design, and she really wants to focus on belonging, equity, and justice. She joined me on Clubhouse about two weeks ago, and I sent up a digital smoke signal because I said, you know, I want to better understand this because my initial feeling was around, is this an individual who is trying to shake things up, rattle the system a bit and come through with a stronger, different acronym, one that could gain a bit of traction, and, you know, her meteor could rise off of that. Not to say she's not a genuine individual, but it doesn't take anything these days for a hashtag to catch on, catch fire. And it become a part of our nomenclature. It becomes a part of what it is on who it is that we are. And so after speaking with her on Clubhouse, you know, for a good hour, an incredible individual, beautiful sister that is dedicated to doing positive work. And in her mind, she genuinely feels like, you know, DEI efforts in most organizations have fallen by the wayside. You know, on one side, you have individuals that feel like every time the conversation comes up, they are being attacked. We would sometimes refer to that as being fragility. On the other side, Johnny, you have people that are like, look, I don't want to sit through another unconscious bias training or, or anything related to bias, aggressions, harassment, because it's not me that's doing it. They're the ones doing it. So make them go to the class. I'm tired of going. So that fatigue sets in and so you have this confluence around fragility and fatigue and in many organizations it's not working. So she's focused on belonging, equity, justice, dignity. And I believe, Johnny, last thing that I'll say, I believe that those tenants, while they are noble, strong, necessary, I think that they are certainly landing better in community spaces. B Corp, maybe organizations, nonprofit entities, smaller companies, and certainly those that focus around social justice, restorative justice. Those are the places where I think right now she is certainly having a heyday and hopefully it will spill over into corporate corridors around the country.

Yeah, I did make me think, right. And I think you, you, you raise a valid point. Right? There are maybe, maybe no, I should be more cynical about some of the reasons why folks want to roll out training. And somebody said to me this recently around, never underestimate the laziness of middle managers. You know, as a guy said 80% of managers in his experience, 30 year career said are lazy. And you think they're buying, you know, let's say a solution for D and I, they're buying a solution to make life easy. They're kind of going, can we just do the training? Because that's fine and you know, that'll fix that, that, that's my back covered and I've done my job. You know, the problem they're solving is different. They're solving a problem of make my life easier. You think they're solving a problem of fix the injustice in our business? It's like, no, no, no. They just want their life to be easier. When you start going, you should do it differently. They're going, don't, don't throw this hassle back at me. I just want to just tick my box and move on. My boss will be happy, the business is happy. We do it again next year, you get paid, what's the problem? And if you're actually up for change, that is a problem. Right? I've been thinking more about some of these topics. You know, I've never, never ever liked rolling in any training that's just about informing somebody. I just don't think that works. You know, we have a motto in terms of how we build curriculum and social talent. That's why. How, why every three minute video needs to go why, how? And then why to the user, like why you need to learn this, how do you do it and why. And therefore telling someone they have an unconscious bias doesn't fit as an example in that we don't have that training anywhere in our platform because it doesn't fit the why. How why? You know, I'm saying, you know, why is inclusivity more important? Great. How do I become more inclusive in my leadership? Or the way I run a meeting or the way I conduct an interview? That's interesting to me. That's like, how do you actually change your behavior? And the author mentioned psychological safety, which is an area I started reading about more recently, and that just really intrigued me. Torn, I don't know how much you've gone down that road, but I kind of started thinking, well, if we just focused on building psychologically safe teams and environments, doesn't that fix a lot of the problems? Not all the problems, but a lot of them. Isn't that, like. Because that's hard, right? It's behaviors of teams and leaders and everything else, but it promotes. It's not attacking the diversity and equity and inclusion agenda directly, but it's saying, let's actually change the behavior of the business to be more psychologically safe and drive those cultural things, transparency, et cetera. And they, in turn, will solve many of the problems for us because they create inclusive environments. They create atmospheres of belonging because you feel safe. What is your thought on those things?

No, I absolutely agree. I mean, I think about my days in corporate America, and it was back in the 90s, but. But we were inside of a building, 500, 600 people inside of the building, and we were all broken into teams of about 18 to 22, maybe 23 people. So that gives you an idea of how many different teams were inside of our building. I was one of the only managers that could walk through the entire building, greet people in the morning by name and be greeted by name. Because it was important for me to move through the building and create relationship, inspire people. You know, just tap them on the back and say, have a fantastic morning if you need some help. I know I'm not your team leader, but run and get me. I'll do everything that I can to run down there real quickly and give you 30 seconds of power and help you close that sale. But we just built relationship. And now you can imagine if I'm doing that in a building with five or six hundred people, My team was like a family. What did I say to you when I opened up? Family. I don't want to be a guest. I'm like, I treated my team like family, and they, in turn did the same with me. We had the most efficient team in the building. We had the most tenured team in the building. Most tenured team across the entire. My average person was with me for two years. Well, conversely, teams were losing people every six months, every nine months, every 12 months. I still have friends today that were on my team 20 years ago. So psychological safety is something that is extremely important when you can build relationship with people in organization, your business unit or your department, they feel comfortable sharing with you. The statistics are out right now, Johnny. I'm going to be talking about this on our podcast later this afternoon when we record how women are feeling as if they are under threat on Zoom. How is it that you. Somebody is doing something wrong if women can't get on Zoom calls in certain organizations and not feel safe? That's poor leadership. And if I was the leader of those leaders, I'd absolutely correct that problem immediately. And I have no problem reprimanded individuals, holding them accountable, putting them on a personal development plan. And if you can't meet those metrics, I find you another destination, period. So it's just not, it's not that hard, Johnny. To me, it's not that hard to show humanity and build relationship with the people on your, on your team and anybody who, who is out there viewing. If you find what I'm saying and what Johnny is suggesting to be an issue at me, you know, get on one of the social media platforms and send me an app so we can talk about that. I need to understand why is it that you have a hard time creating relationship and connectedness to the people that are in your business unit and your department. That makes no sense to me.

Speaking of humanity, I want to jump into our second news article here, Torn, which is kind of shocking, right? This is from the Guardian in the UK and they reveal six and a half thousand migrant workers have died in Qatar since the World cup was awarded. I wanted. This goes to our theme of let's expand at a more international level. You know, this is a good article to read. It's hard article to read, but it's well worth it. I think it's a, it's an issue that, you know, it's not just in Qatar, right? It's this idea in some cultures and countries that the life of somebody from a different country, our ethnicity or background is worth. Worth less. And I think this is what the article is trying to get at. And it particularly talks about workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka who have died on building sites and everything else in Qatar in really weird undocumented circumstances that, you know, the undercurrent is that there isn't really safety in place, that there's not as much concern because they're foreign workers in Qatar. It wasn't, wasn't locals that were killed here. Don't worry. It's these migrants, migrant workers from these countries. This is, this is not a big, not a big problem. Don't worry about it. And I've seen this in the Middle East. It's a real issue. Right. But other parts of the world where there is this idea of a life from a different culture background is worth less. And this is an issue you see all over the world. How do you deal with this? What are good ways to kind of fix this? What is the problem? Like, how do you address this issue? Because it can be so cultural in a country.

Yeah. And one other additional fact to that story. I think it was like 2018 that they passed some legislation that said that at minimum, at minimum we need to pay these migrant workers $275 per month. That was 2018. So just three short years ago, they brought them up to $275. So what I say to myself when I saw the article, I, I asked myself, what is it that these people were dying for? If now you are paying them $300 per month, what were they dying for? What are they dying for? So again, baffling to me, whether it be in Qatar and the disrespect and lack of concern for life there, or the way that we treat migrant workers here in the U.S. the way that we have policy from the U.S. you know, a bomb being dropped over in Palestine or Israel, that to me is like extremely important. Having babies locked up in cages on our border is extremely important because we are indoctrinating individuals. We are seeding in individuals minds that for somehow some reason those individuals are less than we are. Let's see if we can keep people arguing about immigration. And you know, yet folks ain't. I'm not trying to go work and listen, I've picked corn in the mid Midwest when I was growing up. I don't want to work in a corn field. I don't want to work in picking strawberries. And to me, I don't want to do that. So I don't understand why it is that we, we, we tear people apart politically with these, these straw hats as far as I'm concerned, or straw man arguments as far as I'm concerned. But then we don't care about their life. Like that's the shit. That's like. It's baffling to me, Johnny, and to know that 6,000 people have lost their life and it's just now being talked about. That's a problem. And so how do we address that? I think we do a better job of making sure that. And this is somebody who's sitting tens of thousands of miles away from Qatar, but I think we do a better job of, you know, as a global economy, as a global, you know, community, saying, we got to make sure we get this information back to these respective countries. This is what is happening. You're making that journey up to work, to perhaps take care of your family, but this is what's happening. We got to make sure that that voice, that story, that narrative is being deposited in the respective geographies around the world so that people are not being taken advantage of and that the individuals in Qatar, a very wealthy country, a very wealthy country, will hold themselves to a higher regard. They'll hold themselves to a much more decent and, I guess, standard of humanity than they have in the past. That absolutely is. And. And the other thing that I think we can do, you know, World cup is extremely big for you all over in Europe and certainly for some folks here in the US I'm not a person who watches soccer, so I couldn't tell you one team versus another team. But if I was a person who watched soccer, I wouldn't be watching it. I haven't watched an NFL football game in five years. So I can tell you I'm not a person who just talks about what it is that I believe in. If I knew that stat like I know it now, I would absolutely, boy, boycott the World Cup. There's no way that I'd be supporting them with my eyeballs or with my money.

So what I think is, personally, I don't think it's about boycotting the World Cup. I think it's about, you know, addressing the wider issue, which is that when somebody doesn't understand or have exposure to someone else's culture, they can tend to see them as lesser and different. And what I've seen is that if you've broken bread and sat down for a meal with a family from a different culture, you cannot help but see them as exactly the same as you in every single way. But if there's somebody you've never been exposed to, you never, you know, sat down with a family from Sri Lanka, or you've never sat down with a family from Pakistan, you don't know anybody in that community. All you know is your own people. Much easier for you to look at. You know, read books and look at movies and TV shows and go look.

At that, look at how they live.

It's different. You know, we, Catalina Hernandez from EY on the show last month with her colleague Matt Jeffrey in ey and Catalina talked about how she grew up as a Colombian immigrant into the United States. As you faced, you know, that kind of racism, essentially, you know, where people would make, you know, small comments, slight comments, remarks, you know, and this is in large firms and, and so on, so forth that she worked in. But she, she kind of said, you know, she was obvious that she was different and people had a different attitude. They didn't see her as just another person, another person in their 20s who just started the firm. She was the Colombian girl, you know, and that, that's, you know, you're the, you're the Indian worker, you're the Sri Lankan worker, you're the, you're not the same. It's just pulling that label on somebody. I think it comes from just, it comes from just not having the exposure. I don't think people are bad inherently, but if you haven't had that exposure, it's very difficult, it's very difficult to, to get over that. I think there's, the more we can do to try and increase that exposure is, is important. We've got someone supporting you. Ryan Grogan is posting on LinkedIn thinking he's thought long and hard about boycotting the World Cup. Big football fan travel to Rio de Janeiro of the World cup in 2014. But, you know, again, making people think about, you know, how can he enjoy the World cup while being aware of the thousands who lost their lives?

And to Ryan's point, you know, John, Johnny, it's not an either or proposition for me. I absolutely agree with you. The proximity is extremely important. The sitting down and the breaking of bread and sharing of conversation and story, extremely important. Understanding culture and how you move, don't move things you believe in, absolutely important.

But.