Making a Change
You don’t have to be big to make a difference.
I was on a call today with the Board of a client firm. It was a usual Tuesday call, when we go over the cash flow, and how we can survive through these turbulent times. This weekly session is an innovation since lockdown, when we recognised that unless we had a tight grip on the finances and a clear head about how to navigate the way through, we might not live to see the end of the year.
As it happens, we’ve come up with all manner of creative thinking and we’re still here - not relaxed about it, but here. Some of the stuff we’ve done is bring forward our plans for local manufacture of our products. For quite some time we’ve been toying with letting go of our cheaper Chinese manufacturers in favour of supporting UK businesses and cutting our environmental impact. It seemed to make sense to start now, in the midst of all the turmoil. If it was going to be tough, let’s take it on the chin and find some good in it.
Today had a new topic on the agenda. Black Lives Matter. There’s no escaping that the world has to change and, for it to change, we have to change personally and as businesses. As a woman who started work in engineering in the late 1960s, I know something of the challenges of discrimination; but only something. I am used to being judged by my sex, but not the colour of my skin. I can only imagine what life must be like to be a female person of colour.
Imagining isn’t enough anymore. The problem experienced by POC belongs to the majority white population, its leaders and business people. And if the problem is ours, so is the solution.
For such a tiny business, the struggle in our conversation was what could we do? We’re not hiring, so we can’t change the composition of our staff. There was an uncomfortable pause when the conclusion was proffered that we could only wait and do what we could when we got bigger, more secure.
I know we can do better now. Why? Because I’ve watched a lived example.
When positive discrimination and affirmative action was suggested for women several decades before, I baulked at it. I wanted to be judged on my merits, not my sex. I railed against the idea of Board quotas. Perhaps I was channelling that awful thought-stream of ‘I struggled through worse, what’s wrong with you? Toughen up.’ I suspect I was for a while, shamefully.
I was wrong.
When women were pro-actively promoted to Boards, and seen to be promoted, holding down those roles and excelling, younger women got braver, more optimistic.
The all-male Boards started to look at themselves and started to be looked at. We’re still so, so far behind. It’s still embarrassing, frankly, to see all male committees opining on issues that affect women. Last year, for example, in the USA, 25 Republicans – all white men – voted to ban abortion in Alabama. Put aside, if you can, the issue itself, and just consider the imbalance of power behind that decision..
But what can a little business of five people do?
We can do what we all must do. Every single time we need to make a decision - any decision - or make a statement about our business, or have a discussion, we need to ask ourselves ‘Is this fair to everyone? Can we do better to level the playing field, create opportunity where none exists, depict in our advertising and social media the society we want to be, not the one we have?’ The question of fairness, equality and inclusion needs to be the standing item on every single decision, until its inconceivable that it wouldn’t be.
Can we build in the necessity for fairness and equality as part of our thinking, until we actually achieve it?
I think we can. We have to.
