We need to face the uncomfortable truths, says Spark boss Simon Moutter

Wednesday, 20 September 2017

Speaking at yesterday's Global Women's One Day for Change Summit, Spark managing director Simon Moutter told business leaders they must confront 'uncomfortable truths' and intervene on values and behaviours if their organisations are to become truly inclusive. A condensed version of his speech is below.

OPINION: Over the past couple of years at Spark, we've thrown everything but the kitchen sink at diversity. We've changed our systems and processes, we've set targets, invested in leadership development for a more diverse group of rising stars, celebrated our differences through local and international events, and hired people with a diverse set of skills.

Improving gender diversity in our leadership ranks has been a big focus. We signed up to the Champions for Change initiative, celebrated International Women's Day by inviting inspirational New Zealand women to speak at our workplaces, and encouraged visibility of women in leadership through initiatives like EmpoweRED - a platform to unleash the potential of talented up-and-coming women at Spark.

Our approach has been very logical, very 'best practice'. We've justified it on the grounds that serving a diverse market requires us to have diverse leaders and employees – and when we look at the numbers, these initiatives have made a difference. For example, I'm very proud that we've increased the proportion of women in senior leadership at Spark, and on our Board, and that we've achieved Rainbow Tick accreditation. While we don't see ourselves as a shining light, we are ticking the right boxes and I'm confident the investment we've made will pay off in future years.

But it has become clear to me we have not done enough. Because of course making our workplace truly diverse and inclusive is not just about ticking boxes; it's about real people.

Spark has recently lost several of our senior women leaders - people we had been trying to keep and were investing in to help accelerate their careers. While they all left for different and perfectly valid reasons, there was something nagging away at me about whether there was more to it. So I asked someone independent, who I trusted and who has a good knowledge of diversity issues, to speak candidly to many of my senior female leaders and to those who had recently left Spark. I didn't want any sugar-coating - I wanted to hear the uncomfortable truth.

And I did.

What I heard was that we are not yet as inclusive as I hoped we were. Despite all our investment and good intentions, many feel we are still excluding women and minority groups through the ways we speak, interact and behave – often unconsciously. As the saying goes, diversity is about being invited to the party and inclusion is about being asked to dance. Well, we have clearly not been asking enough people to dance.

The feedback hit me hard, and has made me totally rethink our approach. I've started by restating the 'why' when it comes to diversity and inclusion initiatives.

I firmly believe we should be creating a more inclusive workplace at Spark because it is just the right thing to do. Everyone should be able to bring their real self to work and expect to be welcomed, respected and included – whatever their gender, ethnicity, cultural background or sexuality. The fact that this will help us be more in tune with our customers and more innovative and successful as a company, is just the icing on the cake.

I've also started to focus my attention on how we can change values and behaviours, as opposed to simply looking at systems and processes. As a first step towards this, The Spark leadership team is committing to calling out non-inclusive behaviours from here on, and talking openly, honestly and publicly about our values-based commitment to diversity and inclusion. We will eliminate foul and disrespectful language; cut the macho, competitive themes and analogies; and be fully conscious of how we behave and role model to others.

This is just the beginning, because we know there is no quick fix to this issue. It involves addressing unconscious biases and behaviours, as well as explicit systems and processes.

I believe this may be one of the biggest leadership challenges we'll face as a business, but I am committing to walking towards that challenge and I encourage other New Zealand business leaders to come with me.

Simon Moutter is the managing director of Spark.