Full Colour Friday: How to analyse power and privilege in your organisation

Jul 26, 2024 | D&I

My partner is a journalist. Recently, he interviewed one of my DEI heroes John Amaechi for a profile piece. Not going to lie. I was earwigging for all I was worth. 30 minutes of pure professional bliss.

 

Why am I telling you about my cringeworthy eavesdropping?

 

What is privilege?

 

I first came across John Amaechi through his brilliant BBC Bite Size video explaining white privilege. In a simple, non-judgy way, Amaechi defined privilege as the absence of an impediment that others with certain characteristics face. Because it is an “absence” you don’t notice it or recognise it as a privilege unless you make a conscious effort to do so.

 

Amaechi explained that having privilege doesn’t mean your life isn’t or can’t be hard. It just means your skin colour, gender, neurodivergence etc is not the cause of your difficulties

 

Once you understand the concept, how do you work out how privilege is playing out in your organisation so you can address inequity?

 

The wheel of power and privilege

 

My thanks to fellow DEI expert Letesia Gibson who first introduced me to Sylvia Duckworth’s work on the wheel of power and privilege. I’ve regularly used it ever since.

While not as simple as a mathematical equation, the more your characteristics sit at the centre of the wheel, the more power and privilege you have.

 

What I love about this model is it shows the complexity of privilege. E.g. you could be a white man with a hard regional accent who owns their own home and is neurodivergent. How each of these characteristics interact is as important as how many you have.

 

Context is important too. The implications of various characteristics might be very different in professional and non-professional settings, or in different professional settings.

 

Using the wheel of power and privilege

 

I use the wheel in three ways with clients as a starting point for unearthing power and privilege.

 

The key term here is “starting point”. The wheel gives you a lens to look at yourself and those around you in ways you may not have considered before. This should result in identifying questions to help you find out more, NOT to make assumptions.

 

Assumptions are fatal

 

No two people will have the same lived experience even if they have the same characteristics.

 

Method 1: Know thyself

 

This is a method I often use with leadership teams to help the most senior people unpick who they are, and understand what characteristics have benefitted or challenged them.

 

One leader I worked with, a man in his fifties from a working-class background, who had not been to university and had grown up with a disabled father, said using the wheel and other techniques I introduced, meant that for the first time he understood his own journey. His life experiences now made sense. Powerful stuff.

 

Looking at the wheel, some questions to ask yourself might be:

  • Where do you sit within the different spokes of the wheel?

  • How do these characteristics interact with each other?

  • What has that meant in terms of your own life experiences and journey?

  • Have those experiences led to you making assumptions about others with the same visible characteristics?

  • Have those experiences led to you making assumptions about others with different characteristics from you?

  • How might those characteristics lead others to make assumptions about you?

 

Method 2: Know thy team

 

A great exercise for a manager or leader is to look at their team through the lens of the wheel. You can either do this yourself to map out visible characteristics and use this to form questions to explore with your team. OR you can take the wheel to the team and work collaboratively to understand each other at a deeper level.

 

Modify the questions above for team discussions and add your own.

 

Method 3: Know thy organisation

 

If you were to map the demographics and visible characteristics of people in your organisation against the wheel, what would that reveal? Possible questions to explore include:

  • Is there a preponderance of certain characteristics in certain roles or levels of hierarchy?

  • If so, what are the implications for how you innovate, problem solve, make decisions etc?

  • What does that say about who holds power in your organisation?

  • Do people with certain characteristics get heard more than others? If so, why?

  • What do the visible characteristics of your organisation say about you to external audiences?

 

One more thing…it’s a biggie

 

Well actually, two more things. firstly, not all characteristics are visible. Please take that into account when using the wheel.

 

Secondly, the key with is not to stop with assessing yourself and those around you against the wheel. It is to use this assessment as a jumping off point to identify actions you and your teams can take to dismantle the barriers people with “outer wheel” characteristics face.

 

Just having a nice chat, or even understanding people better is not enough

 

Taking action is the only way to reduce barriers faced by those with characteristics at the outer edge of the wheel.

 

Can we help?

 

Want help with any aspect of your leadership and inclusion journey? Reach out and to set up an informal, no obligation chat. Contact [email protected]