by Charlie Mathews (@CharlesLeeZA) The intention of Transformation is for it to be wide and far-reaching. Ownership is just one aspect transforming the industry, and the MAC sector still underperforms on other key aspects such management representation, skills development, enterprise and supplier development, as well as socio-economic development, according to the DTI’s 2020 National Status and Trends on Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (3.3MB pdf).
Not enough political will
Musa Kalenga, The Brave Group chief future officer, says the real problem is that there’s not enough political will to change, and the value in transformation isn’t explicit.
“Transformers Transform 2020” is a special series produced by MarkLives and HumanInsight and sponsored by the Association for Communication and Advertising (ACA), running Jun–Sep 2020. Together with Lebogang Tshetlo, we’ll be profiling remarkable local #Transformers every other Friday until September, featuring Tshetlo’s photography. The objective of this an independently managed, journalism-driven research project is to explore and map new paths for brands and marketers to transform, adapt and build resilience while the world adapts to covid-19 and its resultant social, political and economic toll.
“I think a lot of people have just tried to find hacks and, because of this, there have been a lot of dubious practices in setting up trusts and fictitious structures that effectively masquerade as BEE [black economic empowerment]. These have never been really critically investigated or taken to task,” he says, adding, “I think the bad behaviour has proliferated over a long time and I think people still don’t necessarily see the value of transformation.”
This is a great pity because, as this transformer, says, “Having a more diverse team allows you to be able to do more in a much more fair and equitable way.”
Hampers innovation, economic progress
Kalenga explains that, as business complexity increases, companies will face more unique and diverse challenges from a leadership perspective, and that a lack of inclusion hampers innovation and real economic progress, both inside and outside the workplace: “Google, by way of example, has always tried to be at the forefront by building diverse teams. Google swears by the fact it drives productivity and complex problem-solving by simply getting more-diverse teams to work on projects together.”
Google started out with extreme good intent in terms of diversity, and “was one of the earliest companies in tech to appear sensitive to issues of race and inclusion, first releasing its annual company diversity report in 2014,” Forbes reports. But, recently, the US multinational giant has been found wanting.
In May 2020, NBC reported that Google “significantly rolled back its diversity and inclusion initiatives in an apparent effort to avoid being perceived as anti-conservative, according to eight current and former employees”. The report states “since 2018, internal diversity and inclusion training programs have been scaled back or cut entirely.”
Moving target
Like the DTI report, the news on Google indicates that transformation is a moving target that inches forward and that may have radical setbacks in sectors and individual companies. As businesses and markets change, good work may be undone.
“If you’ve got exactly the same group of people making decisions about people that they don’t understand and have never bothered to understand, what kind of results are you going to get?” Kalenga asks, stating that diverse leadership and management and teams bring the kind of thinking that delivers better outcomes.
But there’s a strong economic case to be made for transformation — one that speaks to efficiency, he says. And he should know. The former Facebook Africa client partner for and Nedbank group head: digital marketing has been both client-side and an entrepreneur. He bootstrapped his first businesses.
“Carrot-and-stick approach”
“In the ‘all boys’ club’, one sees a concentration of salary that is high right at the top, and this remains the cost base that the company has to bear over a long period of time,” he says. “When you bring other people into the mix, you start to diversify your cost base and it becomes a more-efficient way to also start gaining value.
“We need to use the carrot-and-stick approach in tandem to bring about change and close the gap. If we have punitive action without the carrot, you create a different dynamic and can risk bringing animosity into the working context.
“If you’ve started a business and put blood sweat and tears into it, and all of a sudden everything you’ve worked for is pried out of your hands, there’s a question around whether this is ethically sound, and there’s a question about what we’re encouraging, given South Africa’s chequered past. But I do think that there should be some punitive measures in place,” Kalenga asserts, adding that the transformation process needs to be better managed.
Reason for optimism
There is reason for optimism, however. He reveals that the global internet entertainment giant, Netflix, is making good headway: “In the past few months, Netflix has made some very interesting moves related to transformation. Netflix recently appointed Bozoma Saint John as global chief marketing officer.”
Saint John is a heavyweight appointment who got started in marketing at Spike Lee’s advertising agency, Spike DDB. She then went on to PepsiCo before becoming the head of global consumer marketing at Apple Music and iTunes. A former Uber chief brand officer, too, Saint John has also taken on the CMO role for Endeavor. She was recently included on Forbes’ World’s Most Influential CMOs list and was featured on the cover of Adweek as “one of the most exciting personalities in advertising”.
“There have been three or four similar key appointments at Netflix who are looking at the consumption of the content on the platform. I’m pretty sure the data is telling them exactly what they need to be doing, and where the emerging hotspots around content consumption are coming from and who the people that need to be making the decisions should look like,” Kalenga says.
Propelled by leadership
Change, he believes, is propelled by leadership. “Driving bottom-up change with impact is very difficult. If you don’t have people in leadership positions who are accountable for driving change, then transformation is going to continue to be difficult.”
The answer then is to open positions of leadership just like Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian did after the community was blasted for allowing racism to thrive in its forums. Ohanian — who’s married to Serena Williams and has a young daughter with her — resigned, calling for a black candidate to replace him.
“I am doing this for me, for my family and for my country,” a moist-eyed Ohanian said and wrote in an Instagram video he recorded. “I am saying this as a father who needs to answer his black daughter when she asks, ‘What did you do?’”
View this post on InstagramI co-founded @reddit 15 years ago to help people find community and a sense of belonging. It is long overdue to do the right thing. I’m doing this for me, for my family, and for my country. I’m saying this as a father who needs to be able to answer his black daughter when she asks: What did you do? I have resigned as a member of the reddit board, I have urged them to fill my seat with a black candidate, and I will use future gains on my Reddit stock to serve the black community, chiefly to curb racial hate, and I’m starting with a pledge of $1M to @kaepernick7’s @yourrightscamp I believe resignation can actually be an act of leadership from people in power right now. To everyone fighting to fix our broken nation: do not stop.
Reddit honoured the request and, in June 2020, appointed Y Combinator’s Michael Seibel to its board of directors as Ohanian’s replacement.
See also
- #Transformers Transform 2020 • Sponsored by the ACA
- McKinsey: Diversity wins: How inclusion matters
- Forbes: Netflix Appoints Bozoma Saint John As Chief Marketing Officer
- Forbes: Google Cuts Diversity Programs Over Fears Of Seeming Anti-Conservative, According To Report
- BusinessTech: Call for faster BEE transformation in South Africa
- Huffington Post: True Digital Transformation — And Its Benefits — Will Only Be Attained When Everyone Panics by Musa Kalenga
As an entrepreneur, Charlie Mathews (@CharlesLeeZA) has worked in growth teams with Naspers, Microsoft, and Tutuka.com (the global prepaid card company). Mathews has also successfully founded and exited two marketing companies. Published in Rolling Stone magazine, Guardian UK, and SA’s Greatest Entrepreneurs, edited by Moky Makura, Mathews wrote for Daily Maverick during the title’s legendary startup era. Today, Mathews is the founder and CEO of HumanInsight, a research, insights and learning company that helps brands better understand, and serve — humans.
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