Experience of exclusion/difference as a main career motivation

As a study from Twumasi, Emeto, Lindsey, Tsey and Malau-Aduli (2018) reveals, when people move from a culture of their origin to another culture, their career choices might be influenced.

This pattern was seen in many of the interviews and will be demonstrated in the examples of four interviewees; Jessica, Florence, Nora, and Claire. The provided extracts in this first theme are more extensive, as to show the whole background behind the motivation-driven choice.

“I was born in the UK, my father originally came from Barbados and my mother is English. So, I'm the product of a mixed heritage. [...] When I first went to my grandmother's in Barbados, the women there wouldn't talk to me, and […] they couldn't understand how I could have an English accent coming out of black skin. [...]

And so the other thing which people often don't get in diversity, is, you may have a broad colour skin, but you can hold white coloured attitudes. And that has been

59 reinforced to me, particularly in the last five years when I started to work in Africa.

[...] And so, that's when I really started to get interested in unconscious biases, and then put together a training program called Diversity beyond the obvious, because I think that we all have opportunities to more actively seek out beyond the colour of the skin or beyond the visible definition of gender. I was aware that I was being discriminated against through my big organisational career.” (Jessica)

Also, Florence shared her story of growing up in an environment, where she did not look like the rest of the society, and how she sees that in her career.

“I was born in Jamaica 1960. […] I've grown up in England. […] Way of identifying myself is quite tied up with my history of experiencing racism in in England as a child. [...] When I began to feel that people who I was coaching were manifesting in their psychology, in their behaviour, in their distress aspects of the oppressiveness of the systems and helping them to see the connection between how they were thinking or feeling and how the systems were, and helping them to decide to make choices about what they wanted to do about their relationship with the systems that were causing them this stress. And that, I suppose I started to ask myself, well, is coaching a place to do that work?”

Claire shared in the interview that while she was living in London when she was younger, she was seen as

“the cheap labour force coming the East. […] It was really uncomfortable for me to be in this position. Actually, I have never before been perceived as minority and now I was. And that really triggered me, and I told myself that I really need to do something about it when I came back.”

The last shared extract comes from Nora.

“Diversity and inclusion was always a big interest for me, because when I was in America, I was the only white runner on a black team. And my friend was the only black runner on a white team. So, we both experienced variations of racism. But that was a good experience. Then when I lived in the Middle East, I was the only female on the leadership team. And I was the only Westerner on the Musli-Arab male leadership team.”

As is visible, for these four interviewees, the experience of oppression and discrimination served both as their motivation to choose the career path of coaching, as well as deeming it useful within their work, as they find it easier to emphasise with their coachees.

60 Interestingly, in some other interviews, the interviewees who perceive themselves as not coming from a diverse background, felt that they could not coach others on D&I, as they are the ones coming from the privileged group. This could be seen on the example of Peter, who said

“I personally believe that I'm the wrong person to represent D&I just because I don't represent D&I myself. So regardless of how much I support that, I'm male, and I’m pale, so it doesn't perform in a way. It also represents what people usually are looking from the D&I point of view, and representation is also very, very important.”

Joy also made a similar point during the interview

“...But how can I do that? I'm white, I don't know what the hell it's like, actually, I can imagine, but I'll never know. And also, what white person is ever going to come to me and want to be coached out of their bias. Like, is that really gonna happen?”

However, she also stated that she is going to

“carry on coaching, whoever comes to me whatever colour and whatever diverse aspect they have about them. [...] And see if I can connect with inclusive behaviours and become more self-aware of attitudes and biases that they may or may not have.”

In another part of the interview, similar topic came up.

“I figured it wasn't fair to just offer one white woman to them as a coach, like, I thought, actually, this might be the one opportunity, they have to speak to a person of colour. And maybe even the fact of having a coach who's a person of colour will be educational for them and make them realise things just by that very fact.”

This clearly shows that some, especially those belonging to a privileged group, that are making this conclusion based on their belongingness to certain gender or colour of skin category, feel unsuitable for this job, however, coaches that come from minorities do not see it this way. In fact, quite the opposite. Trisha believes that coaches should not be limited by their perceived primary diversity (Hubbard, 2004).

“I also feel like there is a thought that people of colour will want a coach that has a diversity and inclusion background, which is ridiculous, because if I was going to get executive coaching, I would want to get executive coaching. […] I don't need for that coach to be a person of colour to understand my experience, because nobody could understand my experience, because I've got all these other diversities around it.”

61 She then continued to elaborate on this idea further:

“[This platform] it has me down as a coach with a background in diversity and inclusion. So, when their cohorts come that are minorities, I get put forward for this cohort. And I think that that thinking is wrong. […] if you honestly realise that we are all diverse for different reasons and held back by different privileges and powered by different privileges, you realise that anyone can do diversity inclusion coaching.”

This may suggest a specific pattern, as also Florence drew attention to the fact that it might not be only individuals who perceive themselves as not being diverse enough to do the work, but also companies feel this need to hire people that demonstrate clear diversity for coaching focused on D&I.

“… So they approached me specifically because they wanted a more diverse coaching pool.”

Jessica also adds that the client should have the possibility to choose the coach and highlights the importance of having a diverse talent pool by:

“Until you have that diverse range, I'm not sure you can run an inclusive practice.

Because your practice will be homogenous, and will be reinforcing probably that unknown unconscious bias that's going on for you.”

However, she also, similarly to Florence, describes that it would be a mistake to give a coach to someone based on the primary difference that they see on the outside.

“So they don't just give me the black person because I'm black, because actually, underneath this, I'm very white, because I've lived in a white society all my life.”

This quote only confirms that it is important not to look only at primary or visible diversity, but also underlying, invisible diversity, as that one can have a major influence on shaping the person.

For instance, Solomon (2019) in her research focuses both on visible and invisible sources of diversity, and claims that we can “exclude others if we’re not aware of the probability of hidden differences.”⁷ That together with the points of the interviewees shows that many D&I coaches may simply not be considered just because of being perceived as not diverse enough. This leads

7 Internet resource, therefore, page number of direct quotation is not included

62 to the fact that everyone defines diversity in a different way and therefore, their perception of diversity differs, which will be one of the topics addressed in the next chapter.