Diversity, and why it matters...Probably now more than ever.

We all know that Diversity matters.

In March, McCann New York teamed up with State Street Global Advisors, the world’s third largest asset manager, to install overnight a bronze statue of a defiant girl in front of Wall Street’s iconic 28 year old charging bull as part of its new campaign to pressure companies to add more women to their boards.

In answer to a question in a recent Adweek article asking why the idea has come about, McCann NYC copywriter, Tali Gumbiner, explained;

State Street brought us a pretty once-in-a-blue-moon brief. They have this ETF [exchange-traded fund] called SHE, which only invests in companies with women in leadership. They conducted studies that found companies with gender-diverse leadership, and women in leadership, are actually more lucrative. So, we had this wonderful opportunity where we weren’t just advocating for women in leadership because it’s a nice thing to do, but because we actually need to change the perception of what a successful company is made of. That is such a challenge, but such a cool one.

There's no disputing the facts.

In its 2015 report Diversity Matters, McKinsey’ examination of 366 public companies found, in short, that there is a direct relationship between increased ethnic diversity in senior-executive positions and financial performance of those businesses. Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. Conversely, companies in the bottom quartile both for gender and for ethnicity and race are statistically less likely to achieve above-average financial returns….

Diversity in the advertising industry is as critical as in any other. We know that while 80% of consumer spending is influenced by women, only 11% of Creative Directors are women. How can the industry expect its output to be effective when the people creating it don’t fairly represent the people it is being created for? As Allan Blair (Head of Strategy at Tribal) wrote so succinctly in the Guardian recently “If we get together a group of people of the same age, on the same wage and with the same ethnicity and sexual orientation, it’s more than likely we will get a single, homogenised view. We’d never brainstorm that way, so isn’t it odd that we seem okay with this as a working practice?”

The industry is packed with thinking on the subject. Each holding company has women’s networks and initiatives aimed at developing female leaders. They have diversity policies. In the UK, the IPA has set some ambitious targets for the industry (40% of senior agency positions to be filled by women, and 15% by people from non-white backgrounds, by 2020). We know that increasingly brands are calling for their agencies to be better represented, particularly by women and ethnic minorities and as a result Oyster Catchers has now started to include diversity information in its agency profiles so that marketers are armed with all the facts.

But how to effect significant change?

Given the link between diversity at this senior level and business performance, we feel a deep responsibility to our clients to ensure that they are presented with the broadest range of interesting candidates. Our job is to encourage our clients to make hiring decisions which challenge the pre-existing ‘cookie-cutter’ idea of what, for example, a CEO or an ECD looks like. We have to understand the business, its challenges and its opportunities in order to advise our clients on how they can benefit from taking a broader perspective to their leadership needs.

For every single search brief, our role is to look beyond the brief and the expectations of our client.

Would an agency needing to shift gear benefit from having a younger person at its helm? Or might it benefit for an older person stepping in, in an advisory capacity to help steer the ship? How can we support an agency with an entirely male ExCo find a brilliant woman to join the team, particularly when there just aren’t that many women of a senior level in the industry? Might this involve thinking more broadly about what industry she might come from?

Having worked on searches all around the world we have learned that we have to contextualise the diversity issue at a company and at a country and cultural level. The issue must be addressed differently in London, South Africa, China or Japan for example. It is within these contexts that we search for the best candidate and in the belief that in the end greater diversity benefits business and creativity.

McKinsey talks about experience (such as a global mind-set and cultural fluency) being another key area of diversity. Grace Blue was set up ten years ago to be a global organization. Our commitment has always been to operate without borders so when we approach a search we do so globally. We firmly believe that moving candidates from one geographical market into another, or from one industry into another naturally promotes diversity via cultural transference. Our guidance as advisers to our industry would be to view diversity as one of the biggest opportunities that we have currently to make everything we do better. As Tracey de Groose wrote recently for The Drum “it is diversity that will safeguard future innovation, and companies not aggressively addressing this now are in for a hard time.”

This means developing a brave, long-term strategy that addresses diversity in all of its forms, and makes all of an agency’s leaders responsible now.

As explained by Grace Blue Worldwide Co-CEO Americas, Claire Telling, in a recent Campaign article, the matter is urgent, but rushing to diversify will only backfire. To make meaningful progress that’s not only smart for our businesses but also culturally significant, we have to start treating our efforts like a marathon. That means making both short and long-term decisions to put us in the best place we can be 10 years from now.

Grace Blue Worldwide was founded this month 10 years ago, by outstanding female leaders. Today, Grace Blue Worldwide is 78% female. With this in mind and as a business full of strong women, and a handful of equally strong, supportive, feminist men, Grace Blue wants to make sure we mark International Women's day in a pertinent way. The current gender pay gap in the UK is 18%, therefore we are all working a working day 18% shorter than usual to represent this deficit.

This year, our Global CEO, Juliet Timms recently spoke in Hong Kong on the subject of Retaining Top Female Talent at Campaign360, and our Asia Partner, Helen Duffy, spoke on unconscious bias in a recent Campaign event in Singapore.

As for me, I'm proud to be working alongside these incredible people, and driving the change in Asia.

#BeBoldForChange #Campaign360

For more about my executive coaching, I’m currently offering a free 45-minute consultation, which can be booked here