32. Belonging with Sue Unerman

“I think this is a question for the world of work overall, which is challenge versus consensus. I think it is something you have to acknowledge as a leader which is that you might have three points of view in the room. If you go for consensus, you might be getting half good of all three of them. How do you get the very best? because if you’ve got those three opinions, everybody’s worked quite hard to build their case, what you need is for everyone to understand that the competition is outside the company, not within the company and that you want to get the best answer.”

In Episode 32, I am joined by Sue Unerman, Chief Transformation Officer and Global head of Relevance at EssenceMediacomX
(EMX), to discuss the consequences of diversity fatigue, the significance of cultivating belonging, and the value of cognitive and demographic diversity.

Sue’s interest in DEI is evident in her career journey, which has spanned over three decades in digital, media, marketing, strategy, belonging and inclusion, client service, and diversifying revenue streams. She is an expert in solving business challenges, driving growth, value, and continuous improvement through times of change and digital transformation. She is a long-standing ExCo board member, a fellow of the IPA, and has a regular blog for Campaign magazine. Her sincere dedication to DEI has led to successes as the winner of the Cannes Lions 2022 competition, listed in HERoes as Champions of Women in Business 2022 and Female Lead’s 20 in data and tech, and the co-author of 3 best-selling books: Belonging, The Glass Wall and Tell the Truth. She has used her platform to challenge stereotypes as an advocate for gender diversity at work, create real change in DEI, and to promote authenticity in marketing.

In our conversation, Sue shares her motivations behind writing ‘Belonging’, particularly, her desire to offer a point of view that emphasised with everyone, and pragmatic ways to overcome the barriers to an equitable and fair workplace. Her mission was to write a book that would help everybody become a champion of belonging. She explores diversity fatigue and its impact on those in the minority and those in the majority:

1)     It affects the people who it is meant to help, who are tired of being invited as a poster person and are frustrated by the lack of real change in DEI.

 2)    It affects the majority who are in power, who are tired of constantly being accused and are afraid of making a mistake.

She speaks on the importance of cultivating belonging at work, and that this must be communicated through the vision, behaviour, and culture set by the leaders. As she explains, diversity in thinking and support from leaders is needed for everyone to embrace this. She explores the significance of organisations embracing adult-to-adult interactions, where we can all lead from our seats and
make a difference, it is not about being bystanders but action-takers. The key here is that leaders need to make sure everybody is recognised, heard, and their opinion is valued, it is not necessarily that everybody gets to win, but that we are all trying to win as an organisation.

Sue explains that there is real power in diversity, and this can be activated by adopting a growth mindset. It is not about a zero-sum game but an additional game - it is about adding value, not just numbers, to your organisation. Lastly, she speaks on the conflict between challenge and consensus that leaders face when making a decision, and that to bypass this, it is important to establish that competition is outside the company and collaboration is within the company.

Links:

Sue can be found on:

-       LinkedIn

-       Twitter

-       Website

For more from Essence Media, you can visit their website at: https://www.essencemediacom.com/

Additional links to her books are on her website above.