Shereen Daniels - The Anti-Racist Organization

Is this a bit too much for a business book? Well, it depends. We are all human and flawed individuals at that. I am no different.

To process the words written on the preceding pages is to do so with more understanding about how I've had to do the introspection that I'm also asking you to do. We all have work to do; it's just different. And it's so necessary to do this, if we are ever to stand a chance of freeing ourselves from the hundreds of years of insidious conditioning by systemic racism. Make no mistake – it harms white people too, but the impact is acutely felt by Black and other global majority people.

Anti‐racism and advancing racial equity are not about revenge. Neither is it about domination, exploitation or being anti‐white.

It's not about anti‐whiteness, anti‐white supremacy, anti‐exclusion.

It's about pro fairness, pro equity. It's about redistributing power rather than hoarding it.

What is so divisive about that?

I have almost two decades of HR experience, working for a range of national and international companies, covering everything from risk management to books, fashion to food, telecoms to coffee. But it wasn't my HR experience on its own that got me here, and it certainly didn't happen overnight.

I began recording a video a day for one hundred consecutive days, talking about my experiences but also offering words of advice, encouragement and challenge to decision makers. I did not expect my soft‐focus pixelated videos to gather momentum, but they did. Soon after, I was featured in Forbes , became one of LinkedIn's Top Voices for 2020 and won HR Most Influential Thinker 2021, awarded by a top UK HR publication. Considering that I speak about racism pretty much every day, these are a few of the ‘trophies’ I'm happy to display with pride. Along with that came the comments. The emails. The voice notes. Phone calls, tweets, DMs.

From CEOs, founders, investors, diversity and inclusion leads, chief people officers and colleagues who realised their organizations had a problem, or in some cases problems, plural. CEOs realised their companies were ‘too white’ and ‘too homogeneous’. The ‘About Us’ page on their websites suddenly became a focal point of conversation.

Diversity and inclusion leads quietly admitted that even under the banner of equity, their initiatives failed to specifically tackle race – not in depth and certainly not in a way that gave them any confidence their workplace cultures were genuinely welcoming of all colleagues.

Chief people officers didn't know how to lead the change and were either pressured to do something, fast(!), or encouraged to do nothing and ‘wait for the storm to pass’.

Investors responded to consumer pressure and public opinion and turned their focus to all white boards, citing governance risks due to a lack of diversity and social risks due to a failure to address social justice issues that have a material impact on people and communities.

Colleagues became vocal activists, collectively coming together across different ethnicities not only to demand change, but to hold leadership teams accountable for ‘walking the talk’ and addressing racial discrimination and harassment that was the unchallenged elephant in the room.

A moment in time on 25 May 2020 had changed everything.

This book is an opportunity. No matter how much I may make you wince with my uncompromising honesty in what needs to change and how, it is an opportunity for you to stay with me. But it is also a chance for you to be a role model of moral courage, because in order to go back to your company and ask your colleagues to scrutinise their relationship with racism, you have to be willing to do the same. And I would not ask you to do this, unless I too was doing the work.

Whilst at this stage you might feel tempted to close the book and pick it up again another day when you're more ‘in the mood’, all I require of you is to stay curious – curious enough to want to know more, to think creatively, to question workplace behaviours, systems and practices that until this point probably seemed normal, perhaps even natural.

Back to the point about writing a book that gives you all the answers: This isn't one of those.

Instead, I offer you a framework, based on thousands of conversations, of the transformative work I have spearheaded as part of leading my advisory firm, HR rewired. The information in this book utilises the experience I have in the challenges and immense opportunities open to us all when we embrace a growth mindset and remain open to new information, new experiences and new perspectives. Where appropriate, I'll share resources with you, places you can go for further insight, yet mostly I'm asking you to do the majority of the work.

Whilst there is only so much one book can cover, you can visit Shereen-daniels.comfor further resources and guidance that align with the key themes we are about to explore.

I am a firm believer in co‐creation. Rather than tell you what to do, I will provide a foundation for you to explore and ask better questions, because only you can decide what being an anti‐racist organization looks and feels like.

Thus the way you apply the principles and perspectives outlined in this book will be based on several concepts:

How you define what your version of great looks like

How honest you are willing to be with yourself and your teams about the journey ahead

How committed you are to move beyond the temptation to focus on ‘low‐hanging fruit’ and instead prioritise and invest in programmes that make a difference for those most impacted

How willing you are to confront systemic racism and discrimination within your organization and your wider ecosystem

How comfortable you are to prioritise colleagues, suppliers, partners and other stakeholders who don't look like you.

Throughout each of the chapters you will also come across quotes, from an array of directors, leaders, DEI and HR leads who also struggled at times with their ignorance, discomfort and, in some cases, resentment about why this issue was now on their agenda. Perhaps their positioning is similar to yours, or to that of your colleagues or peers, and if so, that is something to reflect on.

A safe answer would be to say ‘everyone’. Everyone who cares, who wants to make a difference and be part of the solution. But as you'll come to realise, I'm direct and I like specifics. Because it means there is no room for misunderstanding, and we don't waste time and energy on things that make very little substantive difference to the issue at hand.

You have organizations to run. People to lead. Customers to engage and delight. Shareholders to keep happy. Communities to serve. And amongst all of that, a life to lead with people you hold dear. Time is precious. We don't have a lot of it and what we do have has to be used effectively.

The Anti‐Racist Organization: Dismantling Systemic Racism in the Workplace is a book for leaders. Particularly white leaders, who occupy the majority of executive positions in corporations on both sides of the Atlantic. Those of you who:

Suddenly found yourselves having to speak with confidence and clarity about an issue that you may have avoided talking about, both personally and professionally

Want to exercise your power, privilege and influence to exact change for groups of colleagues, who to varying degrees have been consistently silenced, marginalised and excluded from opportunities because of their ethnicity

Care about social justice and want to ensure that actions and interventions make a difference in a way that goes beyond ticking boxes

Want to align anti‐racism to your core values and business objectives in a way that is meaningful and not performative or tokenistic