The Terrible, No Good Very Bad Year of 2020 - Part 1.
How Starting a Diversity Initiative Nearly Killed My Joy. An IIC Tell All.
If you were someone I worked with, spoke with or met between August 2020 and December 2022, I feel as though I owe you an apology. Within that time period, I was probably the most bitter version of myself that I have ever known- especially in 2021.
If someone had told me that I would be running two businesses, in the midst of a global pandemic a year earlier I likely would have laughed to the point of tears. I’ve stated in the past that I never wanted to be an entrepreneur, so the idea of becoming one while the world was in disarray seemed profoundly absurd. And yet, that’s exactly what happened.
At the end of 2019 I started my own insights consultancy (Touch of Whit Creative) and was happier and freer than I could have ever imagined. For about 9 weeks I had nothing to do and I learned that a life without a daily work activity was not as scary as I thought it would be. I sank deeper into my couch and rode out the wave of uncertainty with the rest of the world in solitude. In spite of my own financial situation and feelings about the world possibly ending I was, for the most part, at peace.
And then came the summer and a series of events that would propel me into the spotlight and test the limits of every boundary I had ever set for myself- including the ones I did not know I needed. I’ve hesitated telling this story. I’ve been terrified of sounding too negative or cynical. But the truth of my experience is not a fun, feel good story which directly contrasts against the often unrealistic, suffocating expectations of fierce positivity and unrelenting optimism in corporate culture; the very same culture that I’ve spent much of my adulthood detesting.
So buckle up buttercup. This is a story told by the non-corporate version of me. No flowers or feel good tummy rubs. Just truth.
This is the story of about the rocky journey of Insights in Color.
It’s June 2020. The world has been shut own for 4 months. Deaths from the Coronavirus have quadrupled in number and frequency. The entire world is bracing for a tumultuous presidential election cycle while enduring a new pattern of media consumption that feels like a never ending ferris wheel of unexpected twists and turns. Just as summer was beginning, while still grappling with the sudden departure of Kobe Bryant, Americans have learned about the vicious killing of Ahmaud Aubrey, which is soon followed by the homicide of George Floyd. The featuring of these stories effectively burst the already fractured bubble of shutdown compliance and soon people take to the streets to protest the unjust and inhumane treatment of Black Americans across the world.
The death of George Floyd had seemingly broken open a new, guilt-ridden American consciousness which lead to me, and every other Black person I knew, being inundated with emails, phone calls and text messages from colleagues and allies sending messages of support. Soon we found ourselves soothing their emotions while attempting to reconcile our own.
After repeatedly being contacted by former colleagues wanting to know if I knew any Black or brown market researchers (having spent over 10 years in a predominantly white industry, my response was almost always no) I decided to build a new solution. I went to LinkedIn, and typed up a new post which stated, “I think I’m going to restart Insights In Color”’. Insights in Color at that time was the name of a diversity initiative I began in a previous role. I figured this was a great time to start it up again, but this time under it’s own name and outside of the company where I initially housed it. When I posed the idea it was, admittedly, more of a question than a statement. I was not sure if anyone cared enough for me to do something like this and was uncertain of the need- but the response to that idea was so quick and fast that it became obvious that there was an appetite and desire for a diversity initiative for our industry.
I built & conceptualized IIC’s website, its mission and goals on Juneteenth weekend. It went live by the next business day. The initial goal was to build a Facebook-like network of multicultural market research & insight professionals. This served two purposes: First, I wanted the industry to know that Black and brown market researchers did in fact exist and to provide them with a way to find and connect with them (so that they could stop calling me). Second, I wanted to show people outside of our industry what market researchers looked like and sought to demonstrate how normal and accessible we are to younger generations as a way to plant the seed for those beginning their careers.
The Market Researcher gallery wall was, and still, is one of my favorite aspects of the site. If I’m honest, I should have simply stopped there. That was the main goal and it was the only thing I really wanted to achieve initially, but I did not anticipate the amount of need from other people that would come from creating an initiative like IIC.
Managing Overwhelming Need
In the early months of IIC, I found myself contacted by what felt like everyone in our industry- people who wanted to have a talk. They wanted to know what Insights in Color was doing. They wanted to know how they could help. They wanted to know where they could put their job roles even though we didn’t have a job board. They wanted to know if we’d be offering mentorships. They wanted to know if I could speak to their internal teams. They wanted to know if I could help them recruit more diverse researchers. They wanted me to refer them to other Black and brown researchers. They wanted me to run all of their multicultural insights work. They wanted me to moderate for their multicultural projects, even though I am not a moderator. They wanted me be a procurement certifier so that they could more easily and more readily work with freelance researchers of color. They wanted me to tell them what they could do to solve their diversity needs without knowing what their diversity needs actually were. They wanted to share their feelings with me. They wanted me to speak on podcasts. They wanted me to be a keynote speaker. They wanted me to solve all of their diversity issues and internal systemic dysfunctions and - I can’t stress this enough- they wanted a large majority of it done for free.
By August of 2020, my previously peaceful days had exploded into daily phone calls with people who took up a large percentage of my time. Most of the requests were not things I was even remotely passionate about. The job board for example, felt like a lazy, shallow, feel good way of trying to solve what was inherently an insidious problem in our industry. I wanted to tackle systemic and structural issues, but instead, all people could think about was how to fix their immediate diversity and inclusion needs on the surface. Instead of taking the time to find deeper, problems that, if solved, could shift the way the industry worked, they wanted Band-Aids and kisses on the cheek so that they could say that they did something and sleep more comfortably at night.
Ironically, it was the lack of imagination & bravery on tackling this topic that drove me to dig deeper and make Insights in Color bigger than I had initially planned for it to be. I felt wholly responsible for coming up with bigger ideas and better solutions and suddenly found myself beholden to the needs of others. This is a key red-flag moment for me. In my life, it has been proven that when I choose to champion or go after things that fulfill me, the success rates of those endeavors are almost always a 100%. In this case, I started with a goal and reached that goal, but felt pressure to expand my objectives due to the pressing needs of an industry that seemed to lack the ability to help itself. This dynamic would eventually lead to the downfall and burnout of my altruistic IIC ambitions, but at that time it was clear that I was well-positioned to begin taking a stab at correcting decades of diversity & inclusion problems, from the inside out.
Bringing in Help.
I began experiencing feelings of dread quite early on- mostly due to the fact that it was clear that I’d have to address or make room for diversity needs and issues that I had little to no desire to pursue. I eventually became aware that I would not be able to do all of these things on my own and decided to enlist the help of others.
For those who do not know me, it is key to point that I am, by nature, a bit of a loner. I’ve been this way since birth, and have spent more than 30 years getting things done, and doing things all on my own. While I am often envious of those who are able to have supportive teams and help from others, the truth is, I know me, and I can depend on me to always deliver and do the things I say I’m going to do, with accuracy, precision and most importantly, on time. Needless to say, the realization that I could not do IIC alone terrified me and filled me with an anxiety that sat in my belly for more than two years. Relying on others to bring a vision to life was such a foreign concept to me, but I eventually talked myself into giving it a go and put out a call for board members.
The initial premise was simple: “I’m building something. I don’t know exactly what it will be, but I need smart people who are passionate about building solutions around diversity and inclusion for the market research industry”. There were no set parameters. I was open to seeing what kind of response I’d get. The first iteration of the board consisted of 12 people. 12 volunteers who understood the vision and the purpose for which they were being brought together. The only structure we had were 5 themes or task forces. They signified areas that members of the industry told me they needed help with: Community, Education, Data is Beautiful, Careers & Partnerships were the first four. To edify my need to do bigger, splashier initiatives, I created a 5th task force responsible for creative disruption, or anything that worked to shift the way the industry had been moving.
Each board member was assigned to a task force of their choosing and signed an NDA, which listed IIC as a DBA of Touch of Whit Creative LLC. This is important. Having done the paperwork and taxes for Touch of Whit Creative, I knew that setting up a new business for something that had no vision or plan would be a waste of time and money. So instead, I trademarked IIC and listed it under Touch of Whit Creative. This set up was ideal since TOW would serve as the financer of any initiatives dreamed up for IIC until it proved itself to be an actual revenue-generating business. Essentially, I’d be paying for anything done by IIC out of pocket.
The board was excited to meet each other and excited to begin thinking of new ideas and solutions for the industry. Every member was interviewed and shared with me their interests in ensuring a more diverse market research landscape. From this conversation, individuals were assigned different task forces (including me) that aligned with their passions. This was done to ensure that everyone was able to work on something they actually loved vs. something they felt no connection to. In the first couple of weeks, the assignment for each task force was to create a vision and mission for their team to ensure they could feel uniquely connected to their roles. The definitions of each taskforce were eventually solidified and we moved into planning initiatives for each group.
During their interviews, they were aware that the expectation was for us to meet as a board once a month and for each task force to meet throughout that month (1-2hrs a week as needed) to work on their assignments. Assignments were always self-generated meaning, each task force ideated something they wanted to work on and, once prioritized, that would become their assignment. They’d then share their ideas with me and the board and my role was to ensure that their ideas got from ideation to implementation as quickly as possible, while also managing the needs of the task forces I was on. So, every month we’d have a download of new thoughts and then leave each meeting with marching orders. All meetings were recorded and, along with any notes that were taken, distributed to the group.
Managing Well-Meaning Intentions
The board was never short of ideating new solutions however, it eventually became clear that while they were eager to contribute to a growing list of ideas, the ability to bring concepts to life was going to be a bigger problem. I tend to move very quickly- when I have an idea, I push it out as soon as I can and wipe my hands of it so that I can move on to the next thing. The board however, was not as quick nor as agile. When we’d reconvene I’d often learn that between the last monthly board meeting and the new one, either no one actually met, or some would inevitably disappear due to work obligations. This created a huge lag in momentum as ideas would stall and drag on for weeks without moving forward. At the same time, at each board meeting, we’d end up with an onslaught of new ideas that that we were unable to begin doing anything about due to unfinished assignments from the last round of meetings.
To help with this backlog, I decided that I needed to be invited to every task forces’ internal meeting throughout the month. So, in addition to running the monthly board meetings, and running the meetings of my own task forces, I was now joining the meetings of the other groups which were responsible for championing topics I felt less passionate about pursuing. This decision generated progress. By joining each meeting, I was able to make final decisions for each group so that conversations could move to the next step.
While this approach worked, it was very, very time consuming. At this point, business for Touch of Whit Creative had increased which meant I was increasingly splitting my days and nights between time intensive brand strategy projects and anything IIC related. During the day I alternated between calls with Touch of Whit clients and prospects, to speaking with individuals and companies interested in learning more about IIC. After hours I conducted research while building decks, proposals and presentations for Touch of Whit related projects while updating the website, marketing assets, social media pages, blog posts and more for IIC. While IIC was increasingly taking up more of my day, it was not producing outputs out at a frequency I had hoped. My board members, while well intentioned, had too many other obligations and not enough time to dedicate putting their own ideas into play. So I did the only thing I could think of- I brought in more help.
Bringing in More Help.
There were a number of people who had turned down the opportunity to be a board member due to the 1 hour a week requirement. They were eager to join IIC, but in less committed ways. I went back to that group, and decided to make them advisory council members. Essentially, we’d lean on them to pressure test the initiatives that came out of each task force so that we could make sure our ideas were sound. The advisory board had no serious meeting obligations but were set to meet once a quarter if needed. I then put out another call for board members. The goal was to bring more people on to alleviate the time constraints of current board members so that hopefully, we could produce outputs much more quickly.
We ended up with 12 advisory council members and 15 board members in total.
Little did I know that this new set of joiners would cause the next set of problems that IIC would face.
Part II- Coming soon.