Targets in leadership roles are needed for genuine inclusion to succeed.

​​Most racial discrimination acts are often subtle or have roots in a past culture that have normalised them. - LinkedIn.com

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My ex-colleague Alex Williams has written an insightful blog as a person from our ethnic minority community who like many experienced institutional racial discrimination from an early age.

The 30% Club has demonstrated what can be achieved when you set a target. In their case, to have female representation of at least 30% Boards of Directors. They have achieved a lot of success, so if that helps re-balance leadership teams on a gender basis why can't the same be achieved for ethnicity and all other forms of exclusion.

Whilst the majority of white people (me included) don't consider ourselves racist, we have been to the same schools and applied for the same jobs with very different outcomes to those from ethnic minorities. We are not black, brown or any other color so have not experienced the challenges others face regularly and not really considered them.

Our ignorance and resulting silence has maintained the status quo since. It's complicated, but once we accepted that there is a clear and obvious fault in the system, we need to do what the 30% Club did and set a target to re-balance because only when the big employers start creating the new norm the rest will follow. 

Just because it won't be easy doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.

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You can read the original article here - LinkedIn