Breaking The Glass Ceiling Is All About Belief.

A channel controller.

The head of BBC drama.

The Director General of the BBC.

These are all great, aspirational jobs for anyone at the BBC.  But the sad reality is that for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people working in television such lofty ambitions are completely unrealistic. For the vast majority of us, even reaching management positions is a pipedream. The glass-ceiling faced by people of diverse backgrounds has been described as a “concrete-ceiling”, and the problem is openly acknowledged by all the major broadcasters.  

In an effort to address this issue the BBC has launched a “Senior Leadership Programme” with the specific aim to identify and promote BAME people. A few weeks ago, after rigorous testing and interviews, the BBC finally identified which lucky six colleagues they will support, develop and mentor to break through the “glass-ceiling”.

But how does an organisation identify the right people to break through the glass ceiling? How do you pick the leaders of the future?  

Well, I am quite sure the BBC has picked the right people.

But research suggests they could have picked almost anybody and they would probably have been the “right people”. Let me explain:

In 1963, the Harvard psychologist Robert Rosenthal led a seminal study on how to identify future genius. He went to an elementary school in San Francisco and tested children from five to eleven on a cognitive ability test. He then shared the test results with the teachers showing how 20% of the students “had shown the potential for intellectual blooming, or spurting” – even if they might not demonstrate that ability now.

A year later, all the students took the cognitive ability test again and the “bloomers” improved more than the rest of the student body. In fact, on average, the “bloomers” increased their IQ by a staggering third more than their counterparts.

The results were conclusive and irrefutable. Prof. Rosenthal had identified future genius. Only… he hadn’t.

The 20% of future geniuses Rosenthal had identified had been picked completely at random, and the other 80% were a control group. The only difference between the two groups was the teachers believed one group was full of future geniuses and the other group was not. The teachers’ beliefs created self-fulfilling prophecies. Once a group had been identified as “bloomers” the teachers treated them differently and they did indeed “blossom”.

But children are impressionable and a teacher’s actions can have massive consequences on them.  So is the Rosenthal study relevant to adults in the workplace?

The answer is “yes”.

Variations of the seminal study have been conducted in different workplaces around the world with management – instead of teachers – being told whom their “potential bloomers” were. Management researcher Brian McNatt conducted a comprehensive analysis of these studies involving almost 3,000 employees. When managers were assigned random employees as “bloomers” they invariably “bloomed”.

So how does this relate to fulfilling ambitions at the BBC?

Well, through the new Senior Leadership Programme the BBC has now identified six potential BAME “bloomers”. As I said earlier, to be identified the lucky six had to undergo rigorous testing and interviews and I have no doubt they are extremely talented. The thing is, based on the above, I suspect whichever of my BAME colleagues were picked would “bloom”.

Nevertheless, that does not negate the huge impact this “picking of six” can have. The reality is that management in the BBC, and throughout the TV industry, identify “bloomers” and future leaders every day - formally and informally. But outside of a few special schemes, the employees who are usually identified are nearly always white, and far too often male. And the rest becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That’s why I am so pleased to see my six colleagues get into the scheme, and I wish them all the best in it.  Research suggests they have a very exciting future ahead.

But there is a bigger lesson for those in the BBC and other broadcasters in management positions, which goes beyond the special six.  We must always make sure we don’t just look for potential in the usual places. We should believe in all our employees. Almost everyone can have potential if they are nurtured and treated right.

Indeed, if we really believe in the potential of diverse talent, management in the BBC must not take its eyes off the ball now that six people are being nurtured. However much we try and identify potential leaders all the research shows "bloomers" are invariably made not born. Our job is to make sure we make a few more leaders from diverse backgrounds and not just wait for diversity schemes. And then hopefully more black and Asian people will be joining the lucky six as channel controllers, genre heads and even Director Generals. 

In fact according to the academic studies all management needs to do is believe the diverse talent is good enough to break the glass-ceiling and the rest will follow.