Have you ever asked a disengaged person what \’INCLUSION\’ means to them?

\”If you\’re not intentionally including people, then you might be unintentionally excluding them.\”

Thais Compoint – author of \”Succeed as an Inclusive Leader\”.

Growing up I always found it confusing why my parents did not trust people from Pakistan, especially as the country was practically on the doorstep of Bangladesh, where my father grew up, and our cultures are very similar. I only discovered the reason for my father\’s bias much later. I overhead him talking to my husband about how the Pakistani soldiers tortured Bengalis during the partition war. My husband was a child during the war and witnessed soldiers looting their village. He couldn\’t forget the terrifying experience he had as well as the stories of kidnap and torture he heard about whilst only a child. As a direct result of their past experiences, my family members held strong views and twenty years ago I found it really hard to convince them otherwise. They did, however, mellow with time and we have over the years developed very strong friendships with neighbours in the UK who happen to be Pakistani.

Growing up as a British Bangladeshi I struggled to get my voice heard in mainstream spaces not because I wasn\’t welcome (at least not always), but because I didn\’t feel my views would be understood by people who are not affected by the things that affect me because of my ethnicity or religious differences. In my 20s, particularly after an internship in the southern state of South Carolina in USA, I developed a huge sense of pride in London, the multi-cultural city that I live in. If you had experienced a place where human lives held no value and decisions about life and death were made based on public opinion and not on individual merits, you would also appreciate a city like London so much more. We could be proud of living side by side with people from so many different ethnic backgrounds. However, more often than not, we keep our opinions to ourselves due to fear of being misunderstood or upsetting others with our curiosity. Perhaps if I had spoken up back then, I would have been heard? But I lacked the confidence, because I didn\’t know then what I know now.

Last week I got pulled into a controversial conversation about equity, diversity and inclusion. The discussion related to cultural awareness and although I might be a great person to explain things on behalf of my Asian community, it suddenly dawned on me how hard it was to explain unconscious bias to those who were completely oblivious. As a person trying to explain things from my own cultural perspective, it suddenly dawned on me how easy it would be for the recipient of my explanation to assume I am being personal, when I wasn\’t. When you are a senior leader trying to lead a diverse group of people in a very diverse community, the challenges are never straight forward. It hit home when I realised I couldn\’t even explain what unconscious bias was let alone expect people not to feel defensive or take things personally.

I wonder how many charity or non-profit leaders find themselves in the same predicament? I have heard of big charities who have been in the media for the very same reason, sadly going from one bad decision to another. The Charity Commission sidestepped this issue and employed the same types of people for a senior leader role a few times and they still don\’t understand how to overcome the deeper level challenge. The problem will not go away until it is dealt with head on.

Over the weekend I got speaking to a woman who works in a senior role in education and she told me how she was struggling to engage parents from ethnic minority communities. She has asked me to help their leadership team to find a way to engage the only communities that will not engage with them. I am fortunate that an all white senior leadership team have trusted me to help them without judging them. It was, however, only possible because they already knew me and a couple of those in the most influential position within their organisation realised their own unconscious bias. Understanding it is hard enough, but it doesn\’t affect change until those who hold unconscious bias accept it without fear of judgment.

Equity, diversity and inclusion needs to be understood and tackled by every senior leader, particularly those from black and ethnic backgrounds, before it finds a way of dividing the psychological safety of your organisation. Even if we have a fair idea of why something is the way it is, we do need to take others on the journey of learning and developing if we are to overcome some of the greatest challenges faced by senior leaders working globally with multi-cultural and multi-faith communities. If you haven\’t started unpicking this yet, now is the time to do it. Are you facing the challenge or shying away?