00:03Hannah AwonugaWe are back with Inclusion Re-engineered. My name is Hannah Awonuga, and I'm the Founder and CEO of Illume Executive Consulting, an organisation focused on three core disciplines: inclusive practice, cultural governance and leadership development. I'm so excited for this Live. We're in October, and for many of you, October means a number of things: Mental Health Week and Black History Month, among others. For years, Black History Month was always an opportunity to showcase our talent, to be visible and to use our voice. But over the years, something has shifted in me, and that's what I wanted to talk about today.
00:49Hannah AwonugaOften when I talk to Black professionals in October, there's an excitement, but also an exhaustion. I don't think everyone recognises that exhaustion. It comes from the fact that this isn't just about celebration. It should be about acknowledgement, recognition and progress, and that doesn't always happen. So today, my very good friend and Illume Faculty member and I are asking: who gets ahead, who gets stuck, who gets recognised, who gets reprimanded, and what do we actually want to see when we look at progression? This can't only be about celebration or visibility. So I'm delighted to be having this conversation with Dr Tola Oloyede. Hi, Tola, how are you?
02:02Dr Tola OloyedeHello! We're so excited to be here.
02:08Hannah AwonugaWhat a topic we're getting into. Black History Month, International Women's Day, Pride, social mobility days: all of these are really important, and I never want to take away from that. But for years we've focused on them from a visibility and celebration perspective. Then for eleven months we go around the sun and we're not seeing people get promoted. We're seeing people made redundant, and stagnation in people's careers. Senior leadership still doesn't reflect the communities it serves. So the important question, a governance question, which is what we specialise in, is: why is that happening, and what should be done about it? Tola, let's start there. How do you find Black History Month?
03:13Dr Tola OloyedeHonestly, I'll be frank, and one of the reasons I really like these conversations is that we're allowed to be frank. For a long time, Black History Month felt quite distant to me, because the organisations I worked with or for didn't really have it at the forefront. I'd be invited to other organisations' events and seminars, and sometimes as a speaker, but in my own organisation we weren't really doing much. Gradually I became more exposed to it. One of the last organisations I worked for was quite big on it, but it was mostly seminars and celebration, bringing in external speakers to raise awareness.
04:25Hannah AwonugaThat is important. But there are also some really important reflections to make. On International Women's Day, as you celebrate, you should also be looking at how many women you have on your board, what the representation of women is, and what the progression pathway for women looks like in your business. I'd say the same for Black History Month: it's no longer enough just to do the events. To be honest, I've been speaking at Black History Month events for maybe ten years, and I've seen organisations backtrack and go quiet. This year I was approached to speak at many events that had no budget, and I politely declined. There's something important about recognising the voices you want to hear. But today, we're talking about progression and development. So my first question: Black colleagues become very visible in October. It's not the only month people know we're Black. What should organisations be doing for the other eleven months?
05:47Dr Tola OloyedeThere are two parts to that: what they should be doing, and what they're currently doing. In the organisations I've worked for, which is where most of my experience lies, there's a formal period during the year for talent reviews and succession decisions. Even though that's just one window, a lot of the evidence behind those decisions has been accumulated across the year. When the window opens, they look at the actions from the previous talent review and the plans for the following year. My own take: Black History Month is just one month. If you run talent reviews really well, that covers the rest of the year. But is that happening? When you compare the plan with what's actually happening, they can be miles apart.
07:15Hannah AwonugaYou've been an HR director in the energy industry for several years now, and award-winning, so it's fantastic to hear your insight from an HR perspective. You're right: talent mapping, succession planning and promotion cycles all happen at different points in the year. So Black History Month should be a moment of reflection on who gets onto the succession plans, where our Black colleagues are across the talent mapping cycle, and who is in line for progression or promotion. Then, when you get to October, you're celebrating the progress you've made. I'm not saying those decisions need to be made in October; as you say, they happen across the year. But I'd love to hear, as an HR director: what happens in those rooms? Once they've done their mapping, do they look at how many women or how many ethnically diverse people they have? Is that a lens they use?
08:40Dr Tola OloyedeIt depends. One thing I want to say first: in my experience, the actual review always comes across as fair when you're in the room having these conversations. But that doesn't correct the unfairness that happened before it. It's always worth calling that out when we talk about how robust the review is. I've worked in an organisation where progression was systematic. As part of the talent review, engineers had to progress from graduate to principal level within three years, no more. I was part of that process, so I know. They pushed you through regardless of race or gender. Also, as part of the operating model, 30% of the workforce at every level had to have an international assignment opportunity, and I was a beneficiary of that. Those systems were really robust, but very rigid, and that was the trade-off.
10:13Dr Tola OloyedeNow, bring it back to the rooms where those conversations happen, and you can imagine. I remember a senior leader talking about an individual who had literally ticked all the boxes. We had to decide whether he'd move from a technical role into leadership, and the leader said, “He doesn't have executive presence.” I asked what exactly that meant. He said it was gravitas: “He dresses well, but it's just something. I don't know what it is.” For a minute I just stared at him, composing my thoughts, because at the organisation I'd worked for before, executive presence meant a middle-aged white man in a suit. So I knew I had to reset and understand what executive presence meant in this organisation, which is fine. So I said, “I need to understand what that missing something is.” And he said, “It's just a gut feel. You can't really define it.” Those are the conversations in the rooms. And when we leave the room, some of these individuals already know they're high potential, and they're ambitious. They want to know what was said. You can't come out and tell them, “Unfortunately, you don't have gravitas,” or “There's something missing.” So what comes out of the room is a search for something else to justify saying they're not ready.
12:52Hannah AwonugaYou make a really critical point on two fronts: transparency, and ambiguity around the process. Don't get me wrong: you've been in engineering, I've been in financial services, and how you show up, how you deliver your work and how you show leadership readiness all matter. But those things are quantifiable; you can clearly define what they look like. Gravitas is such a strange word to me. What does it even mean? And you're right, you can't go back to a candidate and say they don't have gravitas. What you're describing is an unwritten rule, and there are so many unwritten rules about how you get on that need more transparency. So, bringing it back to the topic: why are Black colleagues so visible in Black History Month, in the UK or the US, yet not progressing? Why are they good enough to be on the posters and in the campaigns, but not good enough to progress in their careers? Those are the real questions, and if we have any HR directors or people in positions of power watching, they're the uncomfortable ones.
14:28Hannah AwonugaA few years ago, I was running a Black History Month campaign featuring a colleague we really loved, with an amazing story of how he'd come up. But he was also going through a grievance in the background. His pictures were everywhere while the grievance was happening behind the scenes, and he came to me and said, “Hannah, I can't do this. I'm going through all of this, and yet my pictures are everywhere.” That's the disconnect we sometimes see, and it's why I wanted to talk to you about stagnation. I really wanted this Live to speak to leaders. How are you making sure Black History Month isn't only a show? One of the things I loved when I was in banking was that we talked about progress. So, from an HR director's perspective: when do we talk about stagnation? What does it mean when people can't move up, and why do you think people get stuck? You mentioned gravitas; I wonder if there's anything else.
15:54Dr Tola OloyedeFrom my perspective, it's quite simple. I often link stagnation to progression decisions that rely solely on one manager's discretion. That's the bottom line for me: where you don't have enough evidence or data points to triangulate and say, “Yes, this individual is ready,” people end up imagining reasons why the individual shouldn't progress, or that it's too much of a risk. It's a big problem when you rely on one person's discretion, and I see it all the time. Look at policies that say, “This isn't allowed, but it depends on the manager's discretion.” A lot of policies fall back on manager's discretion, and for me those are red flags, because they give the manager the power. Even as an HR director, when you try to have the conversation, they'll say, “It's my decision.” And where else can you go? The argument is that the manager knows their team, their strengths and their weaknesses. So what other data point do you have to challenge that manager? Nothing.
17:36Hannah AwonugaThat's a big challenge. Your manager has to be your advocate, and if there's a disconnect there, it creates stagnation, because you're looking around wondering where else to go. What about stagnation in your role? Some people aren't ready for promotion. Say you've been in your role three or four years, you don't have the greatest relationship with your manager, and you want to progress but might not be ready. What practical advice would you give?
18:16Dr Tola OloyedeHonestly, if you don't have a good relationship with your manager, you need to get out of that team. That's the first thing. Fortunately or unfortunately, that manager will become a blocker everywhere, because whether you move laterally or up, the organisation will always want feedback from your current manager. It can go two ways: the manager wants you out and recommends you to another team, which might be a win-win, or they keep blocking opportunities. Beyond that, I always tell employees: first, make sure you do a good job, because that speaks loudest. Technical competence says a lot, but it's never enough on its own. Once you've done that, it opens the door to other discussions.
19:26Dr Tola OloyedeA lot of employees think of progression only as promotion, but progression is bigger than that. It's high-profile opportunities, stretch assignments, rewards, shares, whatever it may be. People who aren't aware of that tend to focus only on promotion, and it doesn't always happen that way. Depending on the size of your team and organisation, if those levels don't exist, you may wait much longer than peers elsewhere. So you need to understand the organisational structure. Am I just hitting a wall? Even if I raise it at every check-in, is it actually possible? You don't want to keep having the conversation while nothing happens. Where else should I put my energy? In organisations with fewer levels, progression is limited, so you need to ask what progression looks like there, so that you're ready for the big leap, because in some organisations that's how it happens, not through incremental promotions. It's fine to ask, “What else do I need to do?” I've seen employees take it on themselves: they look for experience outside, volunteer and do other things to build their capability. So, to answer your question: be aware of the structure of the organisation and understand progression in its totality, before you decide whether it's the place for you, how ambitious you are, and whether you want to stay in one position for the next five years.
21:54Hannah AwonugaSuch a great point, and it's why we created the Progression Check. If you want to understand more about progression in your organisation, it's a short, free diagnostic that takes three or four minutes and helps you see where you are. There are two sides to this: the business side, how the organisation is doing on progression, particularly for Black and ethnically diverse colleagues, and how well people understand the process. Not many people know about stretch opportunities, which is why our leadership readiness programme, focused on progression, covers managing upwards and preparing to act as a strategic leader as opposed to a tactical professional. We know sponsorship and stretch assignments are critical. So I'd love to hear what organisational patterns contribute to stagnation. Who is getting sponsored? How do we make sure, at a business level, that everyone gets an opportunity for sponsorship and mentorship? We know sponsorship moves the dial, but who gets that allocation?
23:47Dr Tola OloyedeAgain, I think it comes down to your relationship with your manager, and the influence your manager has in the wider organisation. I don't know if you've experienced this, but God help you if you have a manager no one likes. Even with the best relationship with that manager, you're not going anywhere. If there's nothing systematic, it relies almost entirely on relationships. It also depends on where you get visibility: which rooms your voice is heard in, which opportunities and conversations you're part of. I've worked in an organisation that was almost entirely relationship-based. In that kind of environment, you'd better know how to build relationships. If you sit behind your desk, head down doing your work, you won't progress far. No one will sponsor you, and you probably won't get mentoring opportunities either. But if you look up and recognise that the organisation runs on relationships, you can work out how to build them. If it's more systematic, you can relax a little and trust that doing a really good job will be recognised. Again, it's about awareness.
25:41Hannah AwonugaAbsolutely. And raising your head above the parapet. As African women, we've been taught to keep our heads down, work hard and study, but that doesn't translate in the workplace. That's why, in our leadership readiness programme, we talk about culture versus culture: the culture people bring from their backgrounds and homes, and the culture of the workplace. That alone can be quite confusing. I'm conscious of time, but I want to talk about governance, because that's where we sit: governance from a culture and inclusion perspective. I always say the biggest risk to an organisation is over-indexing on one thing without looking at the data behind it. We've seen tribunals and grievances where organisations were fined for leadership behaviours and decisions deemed biased, discriminatory or systemic.
27:01Hannah AwonugaOne of the things I did as a head of DEI, and as a global director, was look at who is over-represented in underperformance. Look at the population of grievances and disciplinaries, who is getting promoted and who is getting fired, who is on the redundancy list. That is data, and data is critical. When you talk to your board or executive team about the organisation's progress, those are really important data points. If any group is over-represented in underperformance, or in disciplinaries, you need to have a conversation about what's happening systemically. Looked at in isolation, each case looks fair; as you said, Tola, in the room, the individual conversations look fair. With just a couple of minutes left: what happens when you look at other data points, like grievances and performance ratings? Are we asking the right questions?
28:33Dr Tola OloyedeI'll be frank with you. In my world, especially in energy, HR functions were quite lean and very reactive. We didn't have the luxury of going into the data to look for patterns. I've been told I'm quite an empathetic leader, so people would come to me and say, “You need to hear this,” and those were my opportunities to look at the data. But mostly you're reactive, dealing with situations and grievances, and nobody is actually sitting down to look at the pattern. So I hear what you're saying. We have internal and external audits, but they're not auditing these things.
29:38Hannah AwonugaThis is our argument. This is what we're working on.
29:43Dr Tola OloyedeExactly. Why not? And as an HR director, if every time I met my CEO I said, “Guess what, I've found another pattern,” I'd be in trouble all the time. We know it exists. Sometimes it's about not looking under the carpet, because you know it's there.
30:10Hannah AwonugaYou make such a great point. There's an avoidance: “Don't go looking for trouble.” But who suffers when we don't want to look? If you're in financial services, legal or professional services, there are many parts of the business where you can't avoid trouble: audit, risk, finance. You couldn't say, “We don't want to see what's happening with the budget, so we're not going to look.” But for some reason, when it comes to culture, we're able to say, “We'll leave that, because we don't want to open a can of worms.” Tola, I love these sessions because we talk about things I don't think are being spoken about, and I'm so grateful to have you on the Faculty, and for your expertise and knowledge. To everyone who joined today, do check out the Progression Check and look at it from your business perspective. Tola, any final words before we close?
31:25Dr Tola OloyedeFor me, fairness and progression shouldn't depend only on managers' discretion or annual reviews. They should be built into the operating model of the organisation. You should have evidence, and then accountability, and that's what we mean when we talk about governance.
31:49Hannah AwonugaAbsolutely. Thank you so much, Tola, and thank you to everyone who joined. We've been doing this for ten months now, and it's been brilliant to have these conversations. We'll keep agitating and shining a light on these topics. See you next month.
