Why diversity needs white able-bodied heterosexual middle-class men

Twenty six years ago I learnt that white able-bodied heterosexual men are important to increasing diversity in the media.

Back in 1993 I was a junior researcher at the consumer magazine programme Watchdog.

Apart from me, a black secretary and one extremely talented Asian producer there were no people of colour in a very large team. So the series instituted a trainee researcher scheme targeting BAME diversity. Three trainees were appointed; two Asian women and a black woman.

As far as I could tell the three trainees were all good at their jobs and well liked.

Then one morning a photocopied article from a newspaper (I think it was the Daily Mail) met everyone on their desks. It was over twenty five years ago so I do not remember the exact wording but the article was about the three trainees, how it was an example of BBC’s “political correctness gone mad” and how the editor in charge had personally pocketed an extra bonus for employing these three BAME women.

The effects of the article, photocopying it and placing it on everyone’s desk were devastating.

The three trainees went from being viewed as hotshots on a highly selective targeted scheme to being mere tick boxes that helped pay for the editor’s new kitchen refurbishment.

It rocked the trainees’ confidence and was terrible for the morale of the whole team. And most importantly after the article the trainee scheme was quietly ditched.

The article had been placed on everyone’s desk by a white able-bodied middle-class male heterosexual male reporter. The very type of person who thought they had nothing to gain by these types of diversity trainee schemes and nothing to lose by sabotaging them.

That one experience 27 years ago has shaped my views on how broadcasters should approach diversity.

It is easy to say that when it comes to diversity senior management should just ignore the concerns of white men. The argument is white men have benefited from the current system for so long that if they don’t like a few attempts to redress the balance they can “just lump it”.

As much as I have sympathy with this line of reasoning, as a person with management experience the idea of possibly losing the support of the majority of your workforce, (white men often make up over 50% of any production), as you try to make systematic changes is just not feasible.

Recent research from the US showed that while three quarters (75%) of Americans think companies should encourage diversity in the workplace, less than a quarter (24%) think companies should take concrete actions to hire or promote people of colour to increase that diversity!

That means that even if enlightened senior management want to increase diversity they are going to struggle. We all know that most company cultures are such that if 75% of your workforce is against a policy there is little chance of it succeeding. Employees may not place photocopied articles of the Daily Mail on everyone’s desk but there’s more than one way to sink a good idea. 

  

So what should senior management do, to not only counter possible resistance to such diversity schemes but even get the majority of their workforce enthusiastic about such policies?

The simple answer is to find a way for everyone to feel they have a vested interest in the diversity initiatives succeeding. I know, easier said than done. But it is possible.

For example, if I were to redesign the Watchdog trainee scheme today I would expand the number of trainees from three to six and reserve three of the trainee positions for people of colour. The end result would be the same (three BAME people getting training opportunities) but importantly if the white reporter tried to sabotage the scheme he would also be destroying the career opportunities of other white people - something he would be far less likely to do.

I see this failure to treat diversity initiatives as part of a larger holistic approach, and therefore vulnerable to attack, all the time. Attempts to increase diversity cannot be “add-ons” to existing working practices but must be baked into working practices and the success of a company as a whole, so no one would want them to fail.  

Let’s take another example, the call for ring-fenced funds for BAME productions by Sir Lenny Henry and others. This is the idea that broadcasters should set money aside for programmes made by productions meeting certain diversity criteria, in the same way money is set aside for productions who meet certain “out of London” criteria.

The problem is that ring-fencing BAME productions is often discussed in isolation and therefore vulnerable to charges of “reverse racism” and the very types of attacks that derailed the Watchdog trainee scheme. However if you take a holistic approach it can actually be viewed as part of regional diversity.

Let me explain how.

Right now broadcasters ring-fence money for the Nations and Regions - the amount the BBC ring-fences for the English regions is intrinsically tied into how much it ring-fences for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is viewed holistically and means Scottish productions support the idea of ring-fenced funds for Wales and vice versa.

For diversity ring-fencing, broadcasters could also think holistically and instead of just ring-fencing money for the Nations and Regions could ring-fence money for the "Nations, Regions and Communities" (a term used in the BBC Charter) with "communities" encompassing disability, BAME, and maybe even women.

This way everything would be tied together and white men in Northern Ireland would champion diversity funds just as much as they champion Welsh ring-fencing. 

Whether we like it or not white able-bodied heterosexual men are important for the success of any attempts to increase diversity in the media.

Weaving diversity schemes and initiatives into the very systems which everyone has a vested interest in seeing succeed, regardless of race, gender, disability, sexual orientation or class, is the only way to ensure everyone will try their best to make them succeed.

We shouldn’t just aim to stop white men, who might think diversity has nothing to do with them, from sabotaging diversity schemes. Done correctly those very same white men may even become diversity’s biggest supporters.

The career ladder for black and Asian people in TV is broken - let's fix it

I am the last of a generation of black and Asian TV execs.

Before me was a generation of black and Asian senior television execs which includes the likes of Pat Younge (MD of Sugar Films), Tommy Nagra (senior exec at the BBC), Maxine Watson (Director of Programmes at Twenty Twenty) and Angela Ferriera (MD of Douglas Road Productions).

After me has come a generation of young extremely talented TV professionals who I think have had it a lot harder than my generation, and have struggled to make it to the same heights.

I was having coffee the other day with a senior HR figure at the BBC and she said ruefully “Twenty years we got it right. Now it feels as if we are almost going backwards”

She told me how she had recently been to a party where there had been a large number of senior Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) TV figures in their forties and fifties.

Working in HR she has an encyclopedic knowledge of the careers of BAME people throughout the media industry. And her assessment was that despite some extremely talented individuals there was not a new cohort coming up to replace these older execs.

And her analysis of why not struck a chord.

This older generation had all effectively been the beneficiaries of "ring-fenced diversity money".

(Ring-fenced money is the idea of broadcasters putting money aside specifically for a certain type of programme or production - for example there is ring-fenced funds for news and current affairs programmes, children's programmes and programmes made outside of London)

The older generation of BAME execs who benefited from “ring-fenced diversity money” didn't call it that back then, but that is what it was - let me explain.

Every one of the black and Asian senior execs I mentioned at the start of the piece, and others who had been present at the same party as the HR friend, had all worked on series or in departments with specific funds to employ and develop BAME talent.

Pat Younge and Maxine Watson for example both worked on the BBC current affairs series “Black Britain” gaining valuable series producer, and later executive producer, experience which they were able to build on throughout their careers. Tommy Nagra and Angela Ferriera were heads of the Asian Programme Unit and African/Caribbean Programme Unit respectively, which gave them invaluable managerial experience. Angela is now managing director of Douglas Road productions which just produced the award winning series “Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle. Tommy is one of the most senior BAME people in an editorial role at the BBC.

In fact it is almost impossible to find any black or Asian person working in TV over the age of 45 who did not in some capacity, directly or indirectly, benefit from these ring-fenced series and departments.

I used to naively look at my own career and think these ring-fenced funds hadn’t helped me. The truth is I just didn’t examine my own career hard enough.

I briefly passed through “Black Britain” directing one documentary with the reporter Clive Myrie. That one current affairs programme was an essential element to me securing the series producer job at “Whistleblower”, a BBC1 undercover investigations series. And “Whistleblower was key to when I successfully applied for the BBC Scotland head of current affairs programmes position.

I also cut my directing teeth at the BBC’s Community Programme Unit which produced ground-breaking series such as Video Diaries in the 80s and 90s. The unit’s remit was to represent under-represented voices on-screen. Under the enlightened thinking of two execs, Debbie Christie and Bob Long, they realised that the best way to fulfill that on-screen remit they should employ under-represented people behind the camera. They actively sought out people like me and made award winning series in the process.

(Side note: the Community Programme Unit used to share office space with the Disability Programme Unit which similarly nurtured disabled talent).

Now these series and departments, which effectively ring-fenced funds for diverse programme makers, were not perfect.

Many people felt ghettoised only able to work on certain types of programmes and I think a lot of that criticism is valid. And it was due to much of this kind of criticism that most of these series and departments were disbanded in the late 90s and early 00s.

But the problem is nothing was set up to replace them. The dedicated funds for Asian, black and disabled programmes and programme makers just vanished. And with them so did a clear career path to nurture and promote under-represented talent.

Now my answer is not to bring back these series and departments but to ring-fence the funds that were behind them for diverse progamme makers and productions. BUT - and this is key - the on-screen subject matter does not necessarily have to be “diverse”, that way the programme makers do not feel ghettoised.

As I had coffee with my friend in BBC HR we both agreed that without ring-fenced funds we are simply not getting the next generation of senior BAME execs coming through.

However it was another conversation I had a few days later with a retired TV exec that really gave me food for thought. I talked through the need for ring-fenced funds and he replied:

“Of course, of course it’s obvious! But you know what else is obvious Marcus? You’ll never get broadcasters to agree to it calling it ‘ring-fenced funds’ - after all we didn’t call it that in the 80s - your job is to sell it better.”

How Doing "Nothing" Can Increase Diversity - The Secret of Trinidadian Liming

I would like to introduce everyone to one of the greatest gifts that island of Trinidad has given the world and it might just play a vital role in increasing diversity in the workplace.

It is called “liming.”

Now every Trinidadian who is reading this will instantly know what I am talking about, as will most people of Caribbean heritage.

But for the uninitiated let me explain...

“Liming” in many ways is the opposite to what most people know Trinidad for - Carnival.

While carnival is all about lively music, dancing, “jumping up” and general raucous behaviour, liming is all about relaxing. One online dictionary defines liming as “hanging around, usually in a public place with friends, enjoying the scene”. I found another academic paper that describes it as “the art of doing nothing.”

So how on earth could “doing nothing” increase diversity?

The secret is revealed in another academic paper titled “Caribbean liming: A metaphor for building social capital” Professor Emeritus at Nova Southeastern University Ruth Clarke and Reccia N Charles of St George's University, West Indies.

According to the paper the more people hang out “liming”, doing “nothing”, the more they “build networks, trust, information and communication exchange, social cohesion, political empowerment and collective action”.

These are all the elements that are needed to improve career success:

The more you build your networks the more successful you are in finding work.

The higher the level of trust between individuals, the more likely they will employ you and recommend you to potential employers.

Increases in information and communication better the chances you will know about new job opportunities.

Each of these points go to make up what sociologists call “social capital” and it is commonly recognised that the higher your social capital the more successful you are in your career. Therefore increasing the social capital of women, BAME (Black Asian and Minority Ethnic), disabled people and other underrepresented groups is key to increasing diversity in the workplace.

Now I know what some of you are thinking - isn’t this just the same as networking events?

No! In fact it is the exact opposite of networking events.

Overt networking events are transactional. People go there with the explicit motive of either finding a job or looking for someone to fill a position. Networking events are like a marketplace of people trying to sell themselves to a potential employer.

They build about as much trust and honest communication as a second-hand car salesroom. Networking events are one of the worst ways of building social capital.

"Liming” on the other-hand is about building trust over time.

Without the pressure of buying and selling you slowly get to know people - dare I say it you build “friendships”.

I’ve seen this happen a few times in my career.

In the 90s the weekly black newspaper The Voice used to go to print on a Thursday. It meant that all the journalists had filed all their pieces by Thursday evening and so to unwind they would go to the Z bar in Brixton for a drink. They were doing nothing - they were “liming” - but Thursday nights at the Z bar soon became the weekly place to hangout for all black journalists, whether they worked for The Voice or not, and the best place to build connections.

I saw it again just a few weeks ago when I recently gave a speech on diversity. The place was full of people interested in diversity in the media industry; from senior TV execs to junior researchers. Before and after the speech I saw people just “liming” hanging out, doing “nothing”, but they were building friendships and trust and most importantly “social capital”.

And I regularly see the benefits of liming in Beijing (as far away from Trinidad as you can get). On a weekend my wife and I are often liming with other parents of kids who go to the same school as our son. We have both received several job offers as a result. And we've also been able to recommend friends for potential jobs as well.

So if liming is so important to increasing social capital how can broadcasters use this fact to increase diversity?

My advice is that they need to put on more events and/or sponsor events where people can just “lime”. Sponsor more talks such as the one I was at in April, put on more screenings or even give more money to media organisations representing diverse groups to simply put on parties.

Now I am not suggesting broadcasters get rid of their networking events (there is a place for second-hand car showrooms) but if we want to increase sustainable diversity we should all try to be a little more Trinidadian - relax and lime.

My three-year-old's sports day holds the secret to media diversity

Last week was my son’s first school sports day. The weather was wonderful and he ran various obstacle courses and relays. I cheered along every effort and welled up a little when he told me that one day he wants to be “fast like daddy”.

But near the end of the day I ended up with one of those “difficult parenting moments”.  My three-year-old son had picked up the wrong medal at school sports day (one meant for older kids). The medals for children in his class were a slightly different colour. The problem was that even though he only had the wrong medal for a minute before I noticed the mistake it was now his medal and he was not going to give it up!

Now people who follow my blog will know that I love economics and that I am married to a leading economist in China-Africa affairs.

Economists actually have a theory to explain what my son was going through, it is called “endowment theory”. And it could hold the key to how we should shape policy to increase diversity in the media industry.

The theory says that once you own something, even briefly, you place a far greater value on it than something of equal value. In this case even though the older kids’ medals and younger kids’ medals were virtually the same, and of the same value, once my son “owned” the older kids’ medal he valued it more and did not want to swap it.

This theory was demonstrated brilliantly in a seminal experiment where an economics lecturer randomly divided his students into two groups. He gave one group mugs and then he gave the other group chocolate which cost the same amount. He then asked people who wanted to swap with each other.

Because the groups had been picked at random you would expect half the people with chocolates to want to swap and half the people with mugs to swap. But what they found is that hardly anyone in either group wanted to swap.  

Once you give people something they are very reluctant to give it up even if they are assigned it randomly and are then offered something of equal value. This is called  the “endowment effect”.

We see the “endowment effect” all the time, it is the principle behind money back free trials. Sellers have known for years that once you put something in a consumer’s hands they simply do not want to give it up - even if you return their money.

So could we use this “endowment effect” to increase diversity?

Currently diversity officers in large media companies often try and persuade executive producers to make more enlightened diverse hiring decisions. 

What the “endowment effect” tells us is that people are very reluctant to change whatever they initially own. In this case it is very difficult for diversity officers to get executive producers to change their existing teams. Execs have a sense of ownership over their team.

For this reason I think we have effectively got the whole job of the diversity officer backwards. 

What diversity officers should do is when a new programme is initially staffing up they should simply present executive producers with a team for the new programme on paper. Not a list of possible candidates or a few CV’s of candidates from under-represented groups that the exec can consider but an entire team set out on paper (no more no less).

This list should be presented to the exec before anyone has actually been contracted to work and most importantly the executive producer still has the ultimate power to choose who they want on their team so they can substitute anyone they want on the list.

But “endowment theory” teaches us that the likelihood of them taking people off the list once they are on “their team” is far less likely than if they were not on the list in the first place.

Now I know what you are thinking, holding something in reality, like a mug or chocolate, is completely different from just names on a list. The endowment effect is not going to work with just names on a list... is it?

But this is where another fascinating “endowment theory” experiment comes into play.

In another experiment economists approached people who had just bought lottery tickets and offered to buy the tickets for more than double the amount.

That’s right economists offered to buy random numbers on a piece of paper. Not only was the endowment effect so strong that people were unwilling to sell their tickets for double what they had just spent. People would normally ask for three or four times the price they had originally paid for them.

If people really can get attached to random numbers on a piece of paper I think the same should apply to diverse names on a team list.

Again I stress we are not taking any power away from the executive producers. They still have the freedom to pick and choose who they have on their teams, we are just starting the process from a different place.

Finally, for those of you thinking that this is just an interesting economic theory that could never work in the real world there are in fact real life examples of employers using endowment theory to make better employment decisions. Daryl Morey, the general manager of the NBA basketball team the Houston Rockets, actually uses endowment theory to make better decisions of which players to trade, which to keep and how much he should value players.

Now while endowment theory might be able to shape enlightened diversity policies, unfortunately it provides little insights on how to reason with three-year-olds who does not want to swap “their” sports day medal. That was solved by a lot of big hugs from mummy and daddy.