Episode 25: Creating an Ever-Evolving Approach to DE&I

Transcript

00;00;00;00 – 00;00;32;20

Chris Thornton

The Change@Work is a podcast about the ever-evolving world of work and the human behaviors that drive it. I’m Chris Thornton, Senior Principal here at Daggerwing Group, together with partners, clients and leading experts from a variety of industries, we’ll share what’s happening in the world of work, how leaders can prepare for the future, and how to engage employees along the way.

00;00;32;22 – 00;00;58;21

Chris Thornton

Joining me today is Emily Graham, Chief Equity and Impact Officer here at Omnicom Group. Emily is a celebrated diversity equity and inclusion champion, helping organizations deliver on their DE&I commitments. She was recently profiled in LinkedIn’s hashtag How I Got Here series has been featured in Forbes, Essence, PR Week, and the Holmes Report. Amazing. That’s amazing. Emily, thank you so much for joining us.

00;00;58;24 – 00;01;22;02

Emily Graham

Thanks for having me, Chris. I really appreciate being here.

Chris Thorton

It’s so good to talk to you. We are recording in the middle of summer. Summer’s not yet over, but I got to tell you, today when we are talking, it is so warm now that the warm weather is here, how would you spend the perfect, summer, hot day in New York?

00;01;22;04 – 00;01;45;13

Emily Graham

You know, I’m in D.C. right now, but still hot. And the perfect day. I’m a glutton for punishment, I guess. But you’ve got to get outside in the summer on the East Coast because we know what is coming upon us with winter. And summer is my favorite season, and July is my favorite month, actually.

00;01;45;15 – 00;02;17;17

Emily Graham

So, I love to see fireflies and I love just the warm hotness of July. So, the best early or the best day would be an early morning because you’ve got to get out before it’s hot. Do a hike, a walk, a bike, or maybe even a run probably before 9 a.m. or 8:30 a.m. not too long, but enough to just see stuff and not competing for the marathon, but just have the leisure.

00;02;17;17 – 00;02;40;13

After that, it would be nice to go by the water and have brunch and just relax and have something cold and just really be able to relax and luxuriate. Brunch is such a treat and I’m not a breakfast person Monday through Friday, so I brunch is a treat. Breakfast is a treat because sitting down to have breakfast and and really enjoy a nice spread would be good.

00;02;40;20 – 00;03;03;29

And then after that I’d probably walk home or bike home or if it’s too hot Uber home and I just would like to chill. I have a rooftop to go to and just enjoy nice weather. Now, if it were a holiday like a 4th of July, I love to host and then retain and have people over.

00;03;04;03 – 00;03;23;15

My challenge with that though, is I hate cleanup duty and I hate logistic coordinating. If somebody would do all that for me, then I can just host.

Chris Thorton

I bet there are a lot of people that love doing that and they would love to be invited and help you out with that. Now let’s go back to brunch. Now, anybody you listen to the podcast, couple of times we’ll know I’m obsessed with food.

00;03;23;21 – 00;03;50;00

So what are we eating at brunch? This is very important to me.

Emily Graham

Have you ever been to IHOP? And they have this split decision breakfast time and what this is, is people who want savory and sweet. That’s me. I want buttermilk biscuits, homemade with butter and all that stuff. But I want pancakes and French toast to be able to experience both sweet and savory.

00;03;50;03 – 00;04;12;14

That’s my ideal. But being from Texas and growing up there, I love Sheila Collins. I love yes. Tex-Mex type of salsa. That shuts it down for me.

Chris Thorton

Oh, this sounds like a really good brunch. I’m so glad I asked.

Emily Graham

We’re going to roll out of there. You’ve got to walk home.

00;04;12;15 – 00;04;34;10

Chris Thorton

Absolutely. What does your ideal summer vacation look like?

Emily Graham

I just got back from Italy, and I loved the southern coast of Italy, the Amalfi Coast. It was an active vacation, if you’ve ever been. You know what I’m saying? The stairs, the walking. Earning your pasta. That is one vacation. And I’ve been to Africa. I’ve been to almost 40 countries.

00;04;34;13 – 00;05;00;13

So, I’ve had a lot of vacations and a lot of places to go. When I’ve felt the most happy is when I have the blend of cultural and historical knowledge. So like old places or places that had some of that to it, plus beautiful surroundings and that can be mountains or it could be a city, but it’s usually not beaches.

00;05;00;13 – 00;05;24;19

And then lastly, I don’t like to stay one place to do one. I probably have like a four day max out on one city. So I like to go places that allow me to pop around different countries or different parts the same country.

Chris Thorton

All right. Let’s get into the DE&I journey that you’ve been on, that our company, Omnicom, our parent company, has been on.

00;05;24;24 – 00;05;50;07

Let’s talk. So you are the Chief Equity and Impact Officer for all of Omnicom. That feels huge to me.

Emily Graham

It is. I even made that title for myself.

Chris Thorton

Tell me why.

Emily Graham

Because I believed that diversity, equity and inclusion had begun to be eroded in the market and that people were not paying enough attention to the words. So I wanted to make it different.

00;05;50;09 – 00;06;17;14

Omnicom, prior to me joining, had an ambition to achieve equity for all employees. Why not put it in the title so we are reminded every day what my job is to do. And then impact is just about action. I like the idea that diversity is implied, inclusion is implied. We know these things if we achieve equity, right? But you got to have diversity and inclusion to achieve some equity. You have to address diversity, have to address inclusion.

00;06;17;14 – 00;06;38;29

If you believe equity is something you can achieve. It’s very hard to do. Impact to me was just the outputs and making sure that we’re effective and maximizing our efforts.

Chris Thorton

I like it. I like it. When you think at a high level because I know you could go deep, I know you could go deep, but at a high level.

00;06;39;01 – 00;07;08;14

Could you talk us through what Omnicom’s DE&I journey looks like?

Emily Graham

Yes. So about 13 years ago, Omnicom appointed the first chief Diversity Inclusion Officer and really the advertising industry that was reporting at a C-Suite level to the CEO. And with that appointment, they put a stake in the ground and said this is important to us. This means meaning diversification of our workforce and how that shows up.

00;07;08;14 – 00;07;34;00

And that to me is really one point I of a lot of organizations having evolved diversity and inclusion from really what was affirmative action and more of a human resources role, to a dedicated role that looked across an organization ecosystem. So fast forward, we began to implement a strategy called OPEN (Omnicom Pupil Engagement Network). The idea was to get people active and involved, invested

00;07;34;00 – 00;07;56;29

in our DE&I journey. There were not more DEI leaders across Omnicom. There was the one. But as time progressed, we began to find a few people across our major agencies to take on the role and report into our Chief DE&I Officer. We introduced a few employee resource groups Omni Women, Open Pride. They’ve been around for six or seven years.

00;07;57;01 – 00;08;22;24

We began to put more emphasis on employee engagement, made some inroads in supplier diversity, began to engage with clients where they needed us to help them navigate a matter or an issue related to DE&I, and by and large, began to have more of an intentional focus, which was admirable. In summer 2020, Omnicom, like other companies, had a decision to make.

00;08;22;26 – 00;08;49;26

We were faced with the question of is what we’ve done enough and if it is, and are we prepared to do more? And so that was two years ago about, and the decision was made that we needed to revamp and re-energize our DE&I strategy, so it became OPEN 2.0 with an emphasis on action items and emphasis on areas of focus that would drive adoption enterprise why.

00;08;49;26 – 00;09;12;27

And a culture of accountability, most importantly. So it was introduced about two years ago, July 2020, to all of Omnicom, and I came into the picture because the person who was appointed to the Chief Diversity Inclusion Officer role prior to me, departed Omnicom. So it created a new opportunity for a new leader, a new agenda and a new focus.

00;09;12;27 – 00;09;46;05

So I came to Omnicom from another agency in Omnicom. Fleishman Hillard, In January 2021 and frankly, have been running fast ever since. I decided to create a SWOT analysis on what we were doing well and what we really had to fix when it came down to D&I. And I decided if I’m looking at strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, I really want to focus on our weaknesses and our opportunities because I think those are the two areas that we can really start to make some movement on everything that was strong

00;09;46;05 – 00;10;09;13

Unknown

let’s keep doing. Everything that’s a threat, we have to figure out what the opportunities and the weaknesses are to help us evolve. We developed an end-to-end strategy, one that created more people. So a team of five or six back when we had our first CDIO who elevated to 12 when she left, and now I’m here with 43 team members.

00;10;09;15 – 00;10;39;05

Well, what does that do? It creates more systemic accountability and vertical nature across our entire businesses of 70,000+ employees, right? We have stated goals publicly and KPI is different than we’ve ever done before. And we have employee resource groups that are embedded in our business strategy and we have a board of directors and CEOs and stakeholders who are having an active role in the way we show up and what we do.

00;10;39;05 – 00;11;17;08

So we’re still new in 2.0 about a year and a half, but we’ve made a lot of progress.

Chris Thorton

Yeah. Yes, you have. When I think about my clients and in comparing them and their journey to what you just shared and it feels very similar, what many of them have gone through. One of the things that is different though, is getting leaders to own it and not say, well, we have a D&I function and a D&I leader

00;11;17;11 – 00;11;37;19

Unknown

And saying we’re good, right? We must be good. And you’re not in a position where you can tell leaders this is what you have to go do you need them to own it and be part of that journey, yes?

Emily Graham

I need them to own it, be part of the journey, and maybe even have ideas for the journey.

00;11;37;22 – 00;12;15;02

And maybe even have vested outputs and opinions. I love nothing more in my job than to get impassioned feedback or critique from leaders who said, this is what I need, this is what I’m seeing, this is what is the problem?” In order for it to matter, there has to be personal accountability and adoption, and that only happens as quickly as individuals evolve and it moves forward, which is why our equity for all Diversity Equity Inclusion report, the first one that we’ve ever done in the 30 plus year history of Omnicom, was such a big deal.

00;12;15;05 – 00;12;38;24

Chris Thorton

Well, tell me about the report. What did you find? What what did we learn from the report?

Emily Graham

Oh, man. We learned that we can’t assume that people aren’t vested in this work because they are if you ask them. People want to be a part of progress. They also want to solve for problems. They want to see opportunities.

00;12;38;26 – 00;13;10;14

We in order to achieve this report, had to go deep across the organization and discover stories of equity and inclusion everywhere globally, across the business, across disciplines. We also learned that we had done more than we thought. We had never really wrote that anywhere or told that story or knitted it together. But there were so many great things and milestones, great achievement, frankly, hadn’t talked about, which is unfortunate.

00;13;10;17 – 00;13;38;03

We also realized that the bar that we set for ourselves could be higher. Yeah, we’re hitting some of the goals that we set out with 2020 in mind, but what about 2025? And what about the future and legacy of what Omnicom will be for a whole new generation? So, it makes you hungry when you do a report like this, because all you can think about is what more can we do to matter?

00;13;38;06 – 00;14;01;28

Chris Thorton

You just shared so much that is is weighing on me in a good way of just feeling what you just shared. I want to go back to what you first said or early in the report is that we cannot assume that people don’t want to be part of the journey, they will if asked. Are we at a point where people still have to be invited in?

00;14;02;01 – 00;14;35;26

Emily Graham

We are at a point where people must be invited in because they will also feel that they are not needed, or worse, not wanted. And that they’re not wanted because they are harmful or that they are unaccepted or that they make matters quote unquote worse. I find it to be the most vulnerable state, a person not feeling wanted.

00;14;35;28 – 00;15;01;25

And where we are as diversity, equity, inclusion perceptively, at least I’ll speak to the United States is that we have rotated really heavily on race and ethnicity because those are the issues that have brought us to our knees as a country. And those are the issues that we have seen laid bare across so many systems, whether it’s our health systems with COVID 19 is where we began to see it.

00;15;01;27 – 00;15;34;02

Unknown

With our legal systems, our justice systems, that’s the way we have seen it. And we know because of our country’s legacy, that it dates back to slavery, to years of bondage, to a weird dynamic that still exists underlying of a lot of different things. Outside of America, the constructs also have to do with history and legacy, but we’re dealing with patriarchal societies we’re dealing with societies where being LGBTQ can still have you be put in jail because of the religious undertones.

00;15;34;05 – 00;15;58;01

So we’re dealing with lots of different layers and people don’t feel like they have the right always to step in when they may not have been racially impacted, when their sexuality may not have been under attack, when their gender is the one of influence and control. And what I would say to everyone who’s wondering, what do I do?

00;15;58;04 – 00;16;25;29

Your present is a present, your lived experience and your learned experience even, and how you’ve walked and identified is so important to the tapestry and the richness of what we’re attempting to accomplish. It is not just to serve those who have been an equitably treated. It is to find out what those who have been in positions of influence and power can do and can trade to provide more equity for all.

00;16;26;01 – 00;16;55;05

And that is really essential. And frankly, that doesn’t devalue your position. It empowers your position because being an ally and an advocate and a partner in this work requires more than just my team of 40. We’re not going to get it done. We need and rely upon leaders, global client leaders, CEOs, senior partners and managing directors and all the way to account coordinators across the business.

00;16;55;05 – 00;17;28;02

Which is why I love the idea of what we do, because it is the least hierarchical part of the work where each person can use their sphere of influence to actually get things done.

Chris Throton

Emily, when you think about where we need to get better and where we’ve been successful, there are a couple of things that stand out in those in those strengths, in those opportunities, in the weaknesses, does anything come to mind that we can share?

00;17;28;04 – 00;17;53;08

Emily Graham

Oh, sure. Well, the one thing that we have to do was talk more. Communicate. We have not done enough work around the simple message share of news, both good and different and whatever. We should just be more intentional about sharing with our employees, sharing with our clients. They just want to know that you’re doing something. They want to know where your work is moving.

00;17;53;08 – 00;18;22;03

They want to know what your vision is. So communication is key and I don’t think we can do enough of it. And as a communicator myself, that’s something I want to keep doing. We have to get more globally integrated, because of the reasons I just mentioned to you. There are so many client relationships in Omnicom that are serviced in the US but originate outside of the US, and those clients are wondering where does D&I show up in their agenda and they need to help.

00;18;22;03 – 00;18;56;12

Unknown

They need our help to create an application of what that experience looks like. And I hope we can talk more about the clients experience, but not just your clients. What about your employees? How do we ensure that in Asia and Africa and Europe, diversity equity inclusion doesn’t lose its impact and affect and that we can customize the things that we’re doing in those countries so they feel very personal and applicable. Even linguistically.

00;18;56;14 – 00;19;42;23

I think ability is a part of that. They seen a lot more disability and ability discussions, neurological and physical. So we’re not including that and age and different elements of DE&I enough in the conversation. And I hope that we do see or hear nodding or thinking about that concept.

Chris Thorton

Because what you’re saying is it is a challenge to me as a leader that can create and destroy opportunity for others.

00;19;42;25 – 00;20;20;00

And I think what I’m taking in is because I have to start with me. I don’t know how else to react to things, and maybe that’s a lack of maturity, but when I think about what you’re saying and going through and saying, how can I do more? How can I be better,? Have I done enough? And I have entire teams rolling through my head when you’re talking because it’s triggering different things.

00;20;20;01 – 00;20;55;04

I think the complexity of what you’re talking about is, is we need to address it structurally, but it can also be turned into an individual behavior. Does that make sense? Like I take action on those things.

Emily Graham

You may, and all of these questions require you as a leader reviewing what you do and why you do it, and how you can make changes for the betterment of the people you work with and the priorities you make, frankly, and what you require from your team.

00;20;55;07 – 00;21;19;13

Part of us really being able to make D&I a cultural competency at Omnicom is for us to want to have team members who are inclusive in their thinking and their ways of working and their language and the way they interact with folks and that requires you as a leader, knowing what good looks like. And we don’t talk about what good looks like enough or what we’re striving to do visually.

00;21;19;20 – 00;21;46;25

And I think that’s really important.

Chris Thorton

We do emphasize client experience. Omnicom right? That is paramount. But we often talk about D&I as this internal thing, you know, something that is lived and expressed internally and never sees the outside world, which of course is not true. It’s experienced in everything that we do and say with our clients and how we show up.

00;21;46;28 – 00;22;17;22

What are some of the things Omnicom is doing to ensure the client experience is holistic of DE&I?

Emily Graham

Way before we began engaging with clients on a day-to-day basis, someone has to construct a team. Someone has to put the people together who are going to work on the business. And we know from the model that we have the business that usually that’s based on expertise is availability, a knowledge set and a lot of other different variables to best serve the client.

00;22;17;24 – 00;22;53;23

We have to add more criteria though. We have to ensure that we have thought through composition by means of the different layers of diversity that we’re considering. And, the client’s business too. So geographical, gender, age, language, race, ethnicity, ability, sexual orientation, at least because we understand that those types of teams that are thought of in a way that really reveals and pressures more diversity are going to help the client be better.

00;22;53;28 – 00;23;18;21

But you don’t always have the option. So when you don’t have the option to create the most beautiful mosaic team, you have to build a competency within those people to be the starts and stops and the lovers and the pools for inclusion within the team. What does that mean? That we can look at this brief and think of any cultural issues that we need to flag?

00;23;18;23 – 00;23;47;03

Did we think of the topic? This happens in health care a lot and we’re thinking of the patient and the people who that this drug is trying to reach. And are we stereotyping at all? Are we casting this community and their needs in a positive frame or negatively based on our own biases? What biases might we have as a team or as individuals that might color the way we’re choosing to approach the work?

00;23;47;05 – 00;24;10;26

Are there market insights that we need to think about as we roll this out in saying, as we roll this out in Asia, who sometimes have issues with colourism and classism. There is to me, checks and balances that each individual and a team needs to be trained and develop on so they can be constantly thinking about those things when they’re working with the client.

00;24;10;26 – 00;24;37;27

And then the client knows I’m getting a team. Regardless of if I’m able to have the diversity, I can see that I can feel, and I think that’s super important. The other thing I would say is advertisements, plans and strategy plans and communication strategies, media buys, they’re all very different, but there are all ways to infuse more inclusion into them.

00;24;38;00 – 00;25;07;23

And what we’re hoping to do with Omnicom is find those distinctions, create best practices, and allow client teams to templatatize them to do their work, and then have conversations with clients about their ambitions, their needs and their desires around these issues. And if they don’t have any, help them create some.

Chris Thorton

Okay. Okay. Emily, that feels attainable.

00;25;07;23 – 00;25;44;20

It feels like that is something we can do and it’s not a far-off dream of “wouldn’t that be nice? But we’ll never get there”. Am I? Am I seeing this wrong?

Emily Graham

It is attainable, but you know what the hardest part about things that are attainable, like losing weight or eating better or brushing your teeth twice a day, getting your kids to go to bed on time? The things that are attainable are hard because they require behavioral shift that most people don’t do because the other thing is easier, convenient, or frankly, they’re just used to it.

00;25;44;25 – 00;26;18;23

Chris Thorton

Yeah, for sure.

Emily Graham

If there’s nothing wrong, why do I need to change that per se? And that is the challenge. It’s all doable, but is it all insatiably desirable? And I have an insatiable, relentless hunger for this work because it’s my vocation, not just my job. But I do need some of that same energy to transfer to leaders who want the very best for the client.

00;26;18;23 – 00;26;44;14

We’re in this business because of the way we can impact our clients and the work they do and thereby change the world. So, this to me requires some connection points, storytelling, communications for people to see why them adopting what of what I’m just talking about when it comes to strengthen the client.

Chris Thorton

So where do we start in all of the things that we’ve talked about?

00;26;44;20 – 00;27;05;09

Where do we start?

Emily Graham

The curiosity that you have when you get a brief at work that you don’t really know a lot about but we’re going to jump into this because we know we have the capability and we know we have the skills. We just are going to have to go back to school a little bit with our client and learn more about them.

00;27;05;09 – 00;27;28;06

And this is the thing that gets me excited. Apply that same lense here. Have a curiosity around the ways that we’re working and the ways that diversity, equity, and inclusion are showing up in you as a leader. I think inclusive leadership requires us to be vulnerable about the ways we’re leading that are great and the ways that we’re leading that might require opportunity.

00;27;28;08 – 00;27;49;24

Unknown

Every leader in this position will be scared to go to their Black employee or go to their employee that identifies in an inclusive community, D&I, and say, “could you help me learn about…?” because they don’t want to tokenize anyone. I would say there are a couple of resources. Omnicom, for instance, has these employer resource groups that are open for role.

00;27;49;26 – 00;28;11;16

Truly, I’ve had more employees come up to me that are white that confess to me they come to the Black Together meetings like it’s a secret. And I say you can come to the Black Together meetings. You are welcome. They’re open for all. But the second thing they say to me after they believe they’re confessing to me is I am learning so much.

00;28;11;18 – 00;28;38;16

I am learning so much. You have to be open to learning so much, even at your big senior partner or managing director or CEO position, you got to be open to that. So, use your resources. Use your client briefs as an opportunity to ask the questions that maybe you haven’t thought of yet and interrogate that in your client relationship and to see if this is an opportunity to do that type of work.

00;28;38;23 – 00;29;02;01

Ask your client, have they thought about this? Have they thought about that? Have we thought about the cultural context here? Is that something you’d be interested in? These are some of the pushes that we can do. Use the moments of discomfort and the things that feel really icky as a moment of opportunity to lean in. Why do you feel that way?

00;29;02;03 – 00;29;21;25

What made you feel weird? Why did that evoke that emotion? Take moments of sadness and vulnerability and leverage those emotions to help you figure out, is this an empathy that’s rising in me? Is this a moment for me to connect with someone? I didn’t quite know what to say, but I can hit them up on the side and say, I heard what you said today

00;29;21;25 – 00;29;58;23

and it really spoke to me. Small things, small actions that I think make a big impact. If you have a sphere of influence, you have a PNO, you have hiring power, you have firing power, if you have the ability to develop people, you have more influence than you realize to make transformation teams. Require a more diverse hiring slate. Require that you see different candidates for the positions that are being brought in front of you. Require that your team members do personal training and development on DE&I.

00;29;58;25 – 00;30;27;13

You know, these are things that you can do that would allow you to start making a difference. And then just don’t be a stranger. If you’re listening to this, your Omnicom employee, you have me, you have resources. You have people who are invested in you evolving because that’s how we evolve. So that’s it. It starts with you. And I really think that is the best part about this work is we can all be individually vested in the outcomes and the processes.

00;30;27;16 – 00;30;51;19

Chris Thorton

Emily Graham, Chief Equity and Impact Officer here at Omnicom Group. Thank you so much. I loved this conversation.

Emily Graham

I enjoyed it. Thank you Daggerwing. Such a pleasure to join you. And I’ll be with you all today. Thank you for having me.