Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Learning how to get it right | Asif Sadiq | TEDxCroydon

thank you diversity Equity inclusion a topic that we've heard so much about in the last couple of years an area that we see so much investment in every organization trying to drive change trying to create a workplace that's more inclusive a society that's more inclusive in the U.S alone last year eight billion dollars were spent on diversity training and many more billions globally to try to create that Equity that everyone wants to see feel in the workplace however one of the things that's come to light is that it's not driving the change that we want

to see we're not achieving the success that people want to feel in the workplace why is that well I argue that very training is biased it's built with stereotypes it has assumptions it's not always diverse or inclusive and many times it does the very opposite of inclusion but in order to truly understand why diversity training is failing and what we can do to really Drive change we must look at education as a whole how do we learn how do we truly embed change I remember being in University I did a degree in business management and

at the time we did numerous case studies read numerous books about successful leaders what makes success who are the top leaders in our country who are the top leaders globally and I remember looking at them and reading these books and thinking none of them look like me not one of them and how can I become something I can't see was the big thing for me when I graduated I I really struggled with seeing myself in that position fortunately life gave me experiences experiences that made me believe that I could be anything I wanted but that

education failed me because it didn't give me that image when we think about history history that we learned in school whether Primary School Secondary School what history did we learn if we learned about the British Empire did you learn about the colonizer or the colonized which version did you get was it bias free did it really give you all the different perspectives these are the challenges we see in so many forms of Education they give you a perspective not the whole perspective not different views not different takes when we think of Education many times it's

delivered in a certain way to what is defined as a group we deliver it in the same way because the assumption is everyone learns the same way everyone absorbs information the same way that's so far from the truth we know people learn in different ways we know people are neurodiverse people have different ways of taking in information I've got a young son a seven-year-old who's got ADHD and I got called in to his school a couple of weeks back and the teacher said to me that he's not doing well he's not able to do tasks

he's given we give him maths questions and he doesn't do them he fails his education standards are much lower than they should be my son who's seven builds Legos for 14 plus year olds he has this brain that's fascinating he can do things I couldn't even imagine to do at his age and I said to his teacher that if you want him to learn you have to adapt your style not him adapt himself to fit in why not giving those 10 math sums and break them down give him two at a time let him complete

two tell him he's done a great job and give him the next two because that's how he learns that's how he can be successful when learning so we must readdress how we teach how we get people to understand different things if we're truly going to embed change and then when we think of diversity training or diversity education it's built with so many different elements that are not having the success that we want to see let me give you some examples when we learn about diversity what do we see usually we have a poster up with

a person that's someone who's a person of color that's someone who's a member of the lgbtq plus community really does one person in One image describe a whole community it's not possible I remember being told once what is the view of Muslims on something being someone of faith and I was like wow you want me to give you a view of almost 2 billion people me how can I do that everyone's an individual everyone has a unique identity but if we're going to stereotype and say this is this group or this is that group we're

not going to achieve success furthermore a lot of our training within the diversity space looks at some of the challenges faced by communities and rightly so there are challenges when we think about racial Equity when we think about you know uh gender equity and so on there's huge challenges however it's not all misery there's so many successes in diverse communities and diverse groups and underrepresented groups why do we not hear about them I remember speaking at an event a couple of months back and someone came up to me at the end and said it's amazing

to see everything you've achieved Despite All Odds and I was like wow thank you but what do you mean by All Odds and she said to me it must have been really difficult for you growing up it must have been so difficult not having access to opportunities and I was like I'm really sorry but I had a really good upbringing not the one that you think I had and she apologized and she didn't have any negative intent her intent was not negative but the problem was someone had taught her through some training somewhere that people

who look like me this is their experiences or this is their Journey so it hadn't built in the unique identities within that training the other Big Challenge when we think about diversity training is what perspectives do we give what do I mean by that we give dominant culture perspectives many trainings around the space are either a British version or a US version with the assumption that that same diversity elements that we focus on will work in every single country globally diversity is different what areas of diversity are important what diversity looks like is different in

each and every country forget countries in each and every town and not even towns in each and every region within that town each and every estate each and every block within that town is different but if we give one version and expect everyone to understand that how will that actually reach out and speak to the people how will it train individuals to engage with each other many trainings in the diversity space are done through through the corporate space you're given one version right so what a company believes in these are our top five top ten

top three areas of diversity we believe in this how can we learn if we don't have more information if we don't have different perspectives within that diversity training so what is the solution well I think it's a few things the first is a source of information we cannot train with one source we must look at open source information why can diversity training not be about all the different views on a topic we don't have to give one perspective our society right now is so divided there is no middle left you're either very far left or

very far right and we don't speak to each other how are we going to truly change and embed that change unless we look at the differences we look at the differences we have diversity has never been about us all agreeing if we all agreed on the same things that wouldn't be diverse diversity is about bringing different perspectives different lived experiences together and respecting our differences and then working towards better gold so we must diversify the very content we teach and the very content we put in for people to learn we must localize it diversity training

shouldn't be training that's designed centrally we need to let teams and individuals speak about what it means storytelling we learn through stories so if we have diversity training that gets a group of colleagues together and they share their experiences that's impactful we learn through each other human interaction the biggest learning we can have the other big thing is we need to move away from just one form of learning or education when it comes to diversity traditional classroom-based learning has a part to play it's good but we must think about experiential learning how do we create

experiences that truly Drive change if I asked any of you speak or to remember a time that you were taught something in the classroom you could probably go back a few years maybe maybe even a few weeks but if I asked you about an experience you could probably go back to your Early Childhood we remember experiences usually uncomfortable experiences stay with us for a lifetime but we do remember experiences experiences are powerful it's how we learn so if we're going to teach people about diversity let them have experiences and we must diversify our experiences not

just in our workplace or in our schools but beyond that if I asked any of you to write down your five closest friends how different are they to you you'll find they're very similar so unless we diversify our experiences outside of our workplace our studying environment we're not going to learn we're creatures of habit I go to the same restaurants I sit in the same chair in the restaurant but that's not going to teach me anything I must try different experiences even if they're uncomfortable because that's how we learn and that's how we truly will

drive change in the diversity space group planning so powerful as groups how can we learn how can we come together and share those different ideas how do we create psychologically safe environments as I mentioned there's so much fear of saying the wrong thing of offending someone not knowing the right terminology to use when it comes to diversity that can't help if we're not talking how would we learn how do we create psychological safety to come together and have those difficult conversations ask someone that look I don't know what the right phrase is or I would

like to know more about this and we share I have never been offended by someone asking me a question but I have been offended by someone making an assumption about what my needs are so ask me ask what what I would like and then self-led learning learning is our own responsibility we must learn whether it's through traditional forms of learning or whether it's through experiential learning we can own that journey of learning it is not the responsibility of anyone to educate anyone we can Champion that learning many times over the last couple of years I've

heard people from underrepresented underrepresented groups saying that people have come up to them and said tell me about this teach me about that not everyone wants to share their experiences and it is not the burden of an underrepresented group to educate someone else yes we should talk and yes we should have conversations but that responsibility lies with us we are the people who own our own journey of learning and it is uncomfortable I don't want to lie to any of you and say diversity of the topics around diversity are not uncomfortable they are but we

need to get comfortable being uncomfortable because we're not going to make progress unless we truly understand what that looks like and finally when we think about learning in the diversity space it's not a two-hour module it's not a half day program it's a lifelong journey within the workplace statistically an evidence shows half day programs the one-hour workshops do not change Behavior people revert back how many times have you seen learning or training being delivered and people are sitting on their phones people have switched off for learning to be impactful it has to be continuous we

learn through continuously practicing something through continuously leading something and and really owning it that's how we learn and learning is not for a select group of people when it comes to diversity diversity education is for everyone it's not an Us and Them game we don't place a particular group through the education and not another group biases exist everywhere microaggressions discrimination stereotypes but we must all own that Journey we must all go on in and it will be a long-term Journey diversity equity and inclusion is here to stay it is not only a nice thing to

do but it's a business imperative when you look at how businesses are successful it is through diversity and inclusion future Generations will not align themselves to an organization that doesn't value diversity and inclusion so getting this education piece right is critical for the success of any institution or any organization but it is something that we must read Because if we continue down the same path and spend the billions without any impact we're just box ticking so true change is going beyond the boxes and really understanding that each and every individual is part of the change

and we should all own that journey of going through the change thank you [Applause]