A good problem to have!

Dr. Afua Cooper

A good problem to have, yes. And so most people were agreeable to that. So I have over four of these talks and these teachings during the month of March and one in April. So that was good.

Maureen Farmer

So you've been approached by organizations around the world. And I know that some of those organizations are fortune 500 companies, not exclusively, but many of them are fortune 500 companies who are approached to speak for Black History Month. So typically, and I know that you offer, you know, a keynote, a lunchtime Keynote or a dinner time keynote. So maybe you could walk us through what the presentation is about , and what are some of the calls to action, I guess that you would suggest for those organizations as a result of the call or the talk rather.

Dr. Afua Cooper

Okay, thank you. So some organizations were struggling with, how do we integrate, especially diversity...the diversity angle? How do we integrate that? And when we do diverse hires they say, how do we make people belong? Because it's one thing to bring people in their organization. It's another thing to make people feel that they belong to that organization, that their perspectives are valued, that what they bring, what they offer, is something that the organization values, you know, if they are a bit, quote, unquote, different from everyone on the floor, or everyone in that unit, how do you incorporate that difference? And that's where I see that a lot of people and organizations struggling. The diversity aspect is happening, the part that they struggled with was inclusion. I think that was where people look to me for guidance and leadership.

Maureen Farmer

According to the OECD—Work on diversity and inclusion: "The aim of OECD work on diversity and employment is to identify practices that build an inclusive workplace culture. Inclusive workplaces mean that people feel connected and engaged to the organization. Transitioning from a diverse workforce to an inclusive workforce requires significant effort from those who lead these organizations, establish human resources management policies and practices, manage teams, recruit employees and contribute positively to organizational culture. This implies the need for a different kind of management, a diversity management." Would you agree with that?

Dr. Afua Cooper

I agree 100%. If you look at this through the lens of you know, gender, family status, religion and thinking about a parent...could be a mom or a dad who has to pick up that child at the daycare at six o'clock. We have to be flexible in you know, the daycare might be a 20 minute drive away. We really can't have that person chained to the desk until 5:30, unless a daycare is next door. Value the input of women, young women who are mothers, women who are parents, then we have to look at our society, what kind of childcare provisions are there if their children are under the age of 15? For example, if we take people who who are practicing Muslims, or who have to do, you know, five prayers a day, at work, they may do three of that five or two of that five at work. Are we making provisions for them to pray, or the month of Ramadan is coming up in April. Are we cognizant of that, that some of our workers are going to be fasting, they're going to be fasting from sunup to sundown, they may just require a little bit more support in the workspace. So, many things that we have to look at now we are going in the past two years, a lot of us have been online, if we can continue to work online, then maybe we should continue with that practice for some of our workers, you know, if they live two hours away from work, and they have a really arduous commute, stuff like that, it's the inclusion part is really where we have to become imaginative and creative and work with the team, work with employees, the leader has to be really on point. The world has changed and we have to change with it in a positive way.

Maureen Farmer

Yes, that is definitely the reality. And I'm seeing a lot of this change take place, talking to people this morning, in the various calls that I've been on. And a lot of organizations are moving to a hybrid model for their employees, while still trying to maintain that inclusive culture. It's not easy. But when we think about new employees coming on board and onboarding, and the reality that many of the new employees that are going to come to our organizations are not white, Caucasian, American, Canadian, they're from all around the world. And having that awareness of these accommodations or inclusion, I think is absolutely critical, especially if you look at it not simply from the lens of a humanity point of view, but also from the lens of supply chain and bottom line business drivers, you know, with the globalization  of the labor market, and with what we call the big resignation (I think it's called). In this province alone, in Nova Scotia, or where this call is being recorded, we recently have gotten word from the government that there have been more than 300 resignations of health care workers over the past, I forget how many months, it's massive. And now the province is doing an international recruiting effort to all countries all around the world to try to bring in health care workers into the province in order to meet our needs. So there's no more appropriate time than now to upgrade and refresh our human resources practices to accommodate diverse populations.

Dr. Afua Cooper

Absolutely. And you know, at the end of the day, Maureen, we have to lead with compassion, because there are many commonalities that we all share. And when we have new workers, whether they're local or international, they will require mentorship. So, that's the first thing. They require mentorship, they require training. I was involved in a situation where we had a young woman who came into work at the bank, she was international, she was local. But she was just kind of thrown at the desk on her first day. She didn't know what to do. It was at the beginning of COVID. And everything was going haywire. And they just threw her at the desk and say here, do this, do this, do that. And then, you know, after a few days, she said, who is training me? Who is my mentor? You know, so how are we mentoring people? What are the mechanisms we're using to bring them in? This is a time where we have to lead with sense and lead with compassion.

Maureen Farmer

Yeah, I agree. 100%. So when you look back over February of 2022, when you're launching your first campaign, tell me a little bit about some of the highlights, I guess, and then we can move into our case study that we're going to talk about in a little bit.

Dr. Afua Cooper

I think the highlights for me was just the enthusiasm that people exhibited. We hope that continues. One was interested in doing something for Black History month rolling out their DEI program, and they wanted a speaker and I did a talk for a government agency. And there were over 500 people. They were enthusiastic. They said, "we know we have all these diverse populations, but it is the first time we're doing a Black History Month event." They actually had a committee of people that organized it, they were committed and prior to the talk, a few months before the talk, they had done their own anti racist proposal to the government, it was a provincial government. So you know, you see people's enthusiasm, whether it's the fortune 500 company or a university or a government institution, that enthusiasm was really, really nice to see.

Maureen Farmer

Did that encourager you?

Dr. Afua Cooper

It encouraged me a lot, and then the feedback...everybody provided feedback, each organization provided feedback, and people thought that the learnings were profound, they were moved by it, and also Maureen, some of these groups want to bring me back, they feel that this wasn't enough, we want to bring you back. And the nice thing is that, you know, I always leave whether it's a bibliography or, you know, another kind of resource for the organization. So, that was amazing. And I think because I've been doing black history month for a long time now, and I would say this was the year that we saw the most enthusiasm, people were so enthusiastic. And I'm wondering if it's because of the pandemic, so we had more time to reflect on a global protest against racial and social injustice all all over the world. And these protests have happened. So, I think it was, as the saying goes, it was a perfect storm. We had the global protest, people became more reflective. And, you know, for many businesses, they really don't want to lose out. They don't want to lose money.

Maureen Farmer

They don't want to lose employees. They just talk about the resignation. And they don't want to lose their customers either, because that's the lifeline of an organization.

Dr. Afua Cooper

So it was a perfect storm. And I thought, yeah, everyone seems to be on board. The most positive thing for me was enthusiasm.

Maureen Farmer

That's wonderful to hear. As I was getting ready for the call, I did some research. There's an organization that was founded by PwC called the CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion. I'm not sure if you're aware of it. I'll send you the information later. But I'll read you a little clip. CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion was collectively formed and is led by a steering committee of CEOs and leaders from Accenture, BCG, Deloitte US, the Executive Leadership Council, KPMG, New York Life, Procter and Gamble, and PwC do their own top companies, all top companies and it says here, "workforce diversity can be a strong contributor to innovation, organizational performance and trust in public institutions when this diversity is managed in a way that builds inclusion. But diversity can be a double edged sword. If not managed, diversity can result in lower levels of social integration, worse communications and conflict which can deteriorate performance. So, I know that you've had a wonderful experience with the majority of the organizations that have sought you out. I would love for you to talk a little bit about what surprised you most during Black History Month.

Dr. Afua Cooper

Thank you, Maureen. What surprised me most was the reluctance of some organizations to pay my honorarium. I'll tell you, one particular group sent me the date and the time. And they even wanted to do a pre-talk and I had to come in and make sure that the zoom thing is on point and so on. So a lot of time, and then I say, "Oh, this is fantastic. Great, thank you, my assistant will send you XY and Z, my fee and so on", which she did. And then they wrote back and they said, "Oh, um, we thought you could do this for free." So ,that was really, really surprising, because we're not talking about a tiny organization. 

Maureen Farmer

No. And in fact, Dr. Cooper, you're being very discreet here. But I do know the name of this organization. And I won't disclose who it is. But I will say that it's a fortune 500 company with revenues far more than $10 billion a year, a global cosmetic fortune 500 company, we're not going to pay your fee, did not want to pay your fee!!

Dr. Afua Cooper

Absolutely. Didn't want to pay my fee. And thought I should do it for free. Because somehow I don't know, maybe they thought I was independently wealthy. But that's beside the point. I mean, even if I'm independently wealthy, that's neither here nor there, right?

Maureen Farmer

Oh, absolutely. A $10 billion plus company, I would think would have a budget for this, would you not think?

Dr. Afua Cooper

I would, I thought that too, because they were so positive about what we're doing this Black History Month, and we have all these employees across North America and I was astounded. It was astonishing. But they weren't the only one Maureen. Three other organizations, very wealthy organizations that sort of barked, when they heard my fee. And one of them thought they could send me one of their products, because it is a sports organization...the woman I was talking, she said, "Oh, you know, what is your size"?

Maureen Farmer

And for the listener here, this particular case study was another fortune 500 company with revenues north of $25 billion, globally. Now, you would think that an organization that size would have a DEI budget, would you not?

Dr. Afua Cooper

Absolutely. And I really sort of spoke firmly to the person who contacted me, I said, "You want to do Black History Month? And here you are shortchanging a black scholar? Yes, you claim to be promoter of the DEI initiatives...well, here you are shortchanging someone...It was just astounded.

Maureen Farmer

And Dr. Cooper, you know, much of the work that we do here at Westgate is branding, personal branding, and we talk about the fact that your brand speaks for you, when you're not in the room. When you consider the size of these organizations and their global presence, many of these organizations have been around for more than a century. What does that say about their brand?

Dr. Afua Cooper

What it says to me personally, is that they're dishonest. That they're not committed to the DEI issues, it's about, you know, checking that box, we've had our diverse speaker, we've done it, we're good to go. Maybe in Asian heritage month, they'll get the Asian person and we'll check that box too. So for me, it signifies a lack of commitment.

Maureen Farmer

That's disappointing. Did you end up doing the talk for them?

Dr. Afua Cooper

No, I didn't. 

Maureen Farmer

Good for you. So, we have a couple more on our naughty list here. And these ones are, I would have to say even a little bit more surprising than the other two to a certain degree. And I know one of them is a leading Canadian financial institution. And that particular one was a bit of a shocker to me. So, why don't you talk a little bit about that particular situation?

Dr. Afua Cooper

Right. I was contacted by this institution. They said they're preparing a panel on anti-black racism, and you know, they lauded my accomplishments. They said "...this is why we want you to be on this panel, because you know, you're a leading person in this field." I'm like, great, this is fantastic. And when my assistant sent my fee and, you know, wanted to just make sure everything is right, they said, "Oh, no, we are not paying, we're bringing the leading lights." And they had two other people. Two other names that they mentioned for this panel. And, and so this one really got me upset. I wrote back to the guy who was a black guy who was working for them. So they're using him or he's allowing himself to be used to contact people in the black community to say, come and work for us for free. I said, "Do you see the irony of this leading Canadian financial institution wanting to do some non anti black racism, asking a black scholar and expert in the field to come and speak for an hour and a half? And you're not even paying for my taxi ride there."

So this time, I really did not hold back. I didn't do that one either. 

Maureen Farmer

Yeah, that's a shocker. For sure. For absolute sure. So what was this gentleman's reaction?

Dr. Afua Cooper

He actually apologized. He said, he meant no offense. It's just that at this time, they don't have a budget. And I'm thinking, well, why are you doing a racism panel if you don't have a budget? You know, I have to get up in the morning and eat my breakfast. How do you think I get to buy my breakfast? I have to take the bus or I have to take a taxi or I have to drive my car. How do you think I buy gas? So when he apologized, I didn't even write back. I just said, forget it.

Maureen Farmer

Well, again, the brand speaks for you when you're not in the room. So to round out our little bit of a case study here, we also had what I would consider one of the Ivy League's, if you will, of Canadian universities. And that was an interesting experience you had with this particular organization.

Dr. Afua Cooper

Yes. Well, this particular organization didn't bat an eye when my assistant sent the invoice. "No problem." I did a talk and you know, I also sent out a contract, you know, within 10 days, XY and Z, I need to be paid. After a month, I didn't get that deposit. So I emailed them. And I said, what's going on? And she emailed back to me, "Oh, the person who did her accounting is on leave." I'm like, this must be a nightmare. This is some kind of dream. It cannot be real. And I had to write them again again. And again, you're talking about anti racism. And here I am, a black scholar...

Maureen Farmer

And you have to go chasing for payment!

Dr. Afua Cooper

And she apologized. And I did get the money the following day. But she forgot. Again, they check the box, we have done our black history talk, we're good to go. And then they forgot...it was the most astonishing thing. So I mean, what's the takeaway from this? Well, there are certain things we can do in terms of the contracts and you know, getting part of the money before you actually do the talk, that sort of thing...

Maureen Farmer

But really, Dr. Cooper, these are just mechanics, you know, of the process, when you look overall from a holistic point of view, and from a systemic point of view, and you are received with such hypocrisy, I suppose...and systemic racism...

Dr. Afua Cooper

...it is systemic racism. And you know, some of the dots are not connecting, because, you know, people are in a hurry to do their anti racism bit. Let's do this. Let's do this. The world is watching. But the commitment, isn't there. Not with everyone, obviously, but the commitment isn't there in some of these organizations.

Maureen Farmer

But these are the organizations that claim that they are!

Dr. Afua Cooper

Absolutely, and these are big organizations, these are very wealthy organizations. These are very influential organizations. These organizations can make a difference in our community. Their influence...they have a long reach. They're exponential across North America and across the world.

Maureen Farmer

Well, it'll be interesting to have this conversation again next year and compare year over year the difference, you know, in reception and an uptake in terms of initiatives. What would you say to a board director today listening to this podcast or a CEO? Or a Human Resources practitioner listening to this conversation. What would you say needs to happen?

Dr. Afua Cooper

I would say what needs to happen is for the commitment to be 100%.

Maureen Farmer

And how are they going to do that? How do you envision that to happen?

Dr. Afua Cooper

I envision that to happen in the sense that, you know, Maureen, we're not going to get everything right. At the get go, obviously, I mean, the quote that you read from the board of CEOs says that, and I agree with that, quote, actually, when you have a commitment, you made that 100% commitment, that's the first thing you bring around, because you can you have the resources to do so, a group of people who are going to work to ensure that what you want to happen, happens. So, that is one way, and the group of people you're going to bring around you are going to be a diverse group of people, but don't use those diverse people to acquire free speaking services. 

The commitment has to be there. And I go back to it all the time. Because once you have the commitment, things will happen. Things will work, things will roll out in the right way. And even if you make mistakes, it's okay.

Maureen Farmer

Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, that's part of change management...is that you're going to make a mistake or two along the way. But I think it goes back to what are the intentions that are driving this strategy? And if you get one or two things wrong along the way, well, you know, that's growth. That is a normal outcome of change, or a byproduct of change, for sure. As we head into Q2 of 22...it just dawned on me that the year is marching along...what type of initiatives do you have going on for the rest of the year that that are going to be focused on ending racism around the world?

Dr. Afua Cooper

Thank you for that question. What I'm working on right now is curricular development. I'm working on research, black history research. And then using that research, to write curriculum material, and also to test that material in the schools from kindergarten to grade 12. So I've assembled a team of people who will be doing the educational developers curriculum, because oftentimes, we hear teachers, and I think this is, you know, the schooling system is actually ground zero. Because for me, if you spent 12 years in school from from kindergarten to grade 12, and you come out, which is what we see happening with so many of our students and not having a sense of the world, not even right here in Canada, there is so much diversity, but when we look at what's in the curriculum, what students are taught, it's still very, very Eurocentric. So, I am working with a team of people on changing that curriculum for this particular group of people from kindergarten to 12. And I'm continuing with my work with boards of directors, to companies to educational institutions, about the need for diversity, equity and inclusivity. And how we can do so (especially for me as a trained historian) through the lens of history, you know, through the lens of social studies...

Maureen Farmer

And you have an ability to bring the lessons, black history lessons and that historical context into the current social fabric, I guess you would say, in your talks as well. It's very real, very action oriented. And I think the listener here today, if you're interested in learning more about Dr. Cooper's work, she offers speaking and consulting services that address a lot of these major issues. And to round out the call today, Dr. Cooper, what final message do you have for organizations who are looking to move the needle on DEI initiatives?

Dr. Afua Cooper

I would say Maureen, that organizations should gather as many resources they can gather. And that includes human resources, gather the expertise, bring people in, do the workshops, do the training, you know, absorb the learnings and make a commitment to this work, because it is a work of the present. And it certainly will be the work of the future. We are not going to get anywhere...the kind of society that we want to create, a society that works for everyone, we have to bring the DEI initiatives into our lives. This is important and it's not something that we just do in the world of work. It is something that we we want to integrate in all aspects of society. 

Maureen Farmer

Oh, hands down. I agree. In sports, and recreation and all of that. Dr. Cooper, I want to thank you so much for joining us here at the Get Hired Up podcast again. It was a pleasure. You're the first person we've had back a second time, and I hope it's not the last.

Dr. Afua Cooper

Thank you. And I just want to say too Maureen, I'm a poet, and I find sometimes when reading poetry, it is an easy way in to discussing these topics, and easy in a non threatening way. And I love to do that. So with some groups of people, I just go in and I'm a poet, and we have beautiful discussions, because poetry really gets to the emotions and really gets to the heart.

Maureen Farmer

It is storytelling!

Dr. Afua Cooper

Yeah. And people appreciate that. And it just kind of brings down the temperature. So, I I love doing that too.

Maureen Farmer

That's fantastic. Well, thank you again, Dr. Cooper, and we'll talk to you soon.

Dr. Afua Cooper

That's fantastic. Well, thank you again, Dr. Cooper, and we'll talk to you soon.