Introduction
I was recently alerted to a promo for training for ERGs and this set me to wondering what I now think of the idea. After all my operation as an ERG lead was transformed after one keynote conference speech and participation in a day long workshop on Networkology.
So much depends on the nature of the training and the skill/experience level of those participating. In an ideal world there would be a perfect match of training content and format with need. In the real world that match is mostly down to good fortune and destiny. I didn’t go to the 2018 AND Annual National Conference intending to get a transformational education. I may have been the only ERG lead at this event at the right stage of my development to extract maximum benefit from the experience.
For the past 14 months I have been providing periodic mentoring support to a handful of ERGs leads. This experience has been an opportunity for me to rethink, and sometimes re-imagine, how ERGs might be supported. I currently have a bias toward longer term mentoring over short-term training. But I can see that either option may serve particular needs.
Below I want to reflect on a few ideas about training and mentoring for ERGs.
Is training always a good idea?
It isn’t. It’s often a waste of time. This is for 2 key reasons:
- It often provides an intense burst of information which overloads our cognitive capacity and doesn’t build long term capability.
- There is rarely any follow up.
I am not a fan of training as a concept. I prefer education. Training has its place in many contexts, but not in all. You can be trained in a particular skill, but you must be educated to acquire a skill set. Training tends to be seen as a time-limited exercise in learning a skill or a discrete set of information delivered in isolation. Education implies skill development plus the acquisition of knowledge developed over time and in some cultural context.
True, there are training courses that extend beyond one session and may have multiple sessions over weeks or months. Here I am not trying to create a clear or definite distinction between training and education. Rather stimulate awareness of the spectrum of ways we can learn.
There’s a huge difference between acquiring knowledge and skills and applying them. When it comes to running an ERG well so much depends on what skills, experience and knowledge you bring to the role – and hence what your need developmental needs are.
In short, if your developmental needs match the content of a training course, take the course. But how do you know whether you have assessed your developmental needs accurately?
What is involved in running an ERG well?
When I first encountered Kate Nash’s idea of Networkology I had an idea of what management and leadership were as defined skill sets – based on years of reading and research. That was in 2018. Since then, I have come to better appreciate that these skills are built on academic disciplines and a scientific approach (psychology and neuroscience).
Not all ERG leads come with a solid background/education in management and leadership. Neither do they come with experience in navigating organisational politics or have reputational standing with the organisation’s executive leadership.
Some organisations grant their ERGs high status. Others do little more than sanction an ERG’s establishment and grant modest support. ERG leads can be selected by competitive recruitment or election by ERG members.
Some ERGs are seen as an accountable business unit and others are led by volunteers with an ill-defined function.
A minimal requirement for a successful ERG is skilled leadership operating a body recognised as being integrated into the organisation’s inclusion policies and accountable to members (meeting needs and delivering outcomes) and the organisation’s executive leadership (value for money and contribution to inclusion objectives).
But who might know this? Who might agree that this, or an alternative, formula is what should be applied?
Whole organisation training/education
If there is only a focus on developing the skills of ERG leaders there is a risk that, unless the ERG leads are very carefully selected, the skill deficit might be significant and beyond the realistic capacity of any training program.
The critical foundational requirement for any ERG is that there is a clear understanding of, and commitment to, the ERG coming from the organisation’s executive leadership, and ERG sponsors and champions. These people, plus the ERG leads, should participate in a shared experience of mutual discovery, trust building and expectation clarification.
The challenge of running an ERG well isn’t just down to ERG leaders. The welfare of staff is an organisational responsibility, and an ERG is just one manifestation of that responsibility playing out. But an organisation is a community, not an assembly of unrelated parts. The ERG and the organisation’s leadership are interdependent.
We must think in terms of shared responsibility and collaboration, and not in terms of heroic struggle against uncaring or oppressive forces. Yes, elements of an organisation can most certainly be uncaring and oppressive, but countering them is a shared responsibility.
I have argued elsewhere that inclusive organisations reflect our cultural evolution toward embracing diversity (despite the periodic hiccups). This means that for most organisations their DEI policies and practices are exploratory and experimental. Nobody is expert in making inclusion happen. It is novel and all practitioners are ‘building their airplane while flying it’.
Hence to imagine that ERGs alone need training and developing misses the scope of the challenge and unreasonably places the burden of responsibility upon an ERG. Let’s take a moment to tease out who needs to evolve their thinking and practice:
- An organisation’s senior executive leadership – so it can provide guidance to the organisation on what permissions to give, what resources to allocate, and what expectations to sanction.
- Executive sponsors and champions – who can support ERG leads through coaching and mentoring and develop relationships with ERG leads so they feel confident about putting their reputations on the line to promote the ERG’s cause.
- ERG leaders – their role is complex. In some organisations it is a ‘wildcard’ role that sits outside normal ideas of hierarchy and acknowledged lines of authority. This is especially so if the ERG lead does not have a leadership background or status. The risk of electing ERG leaders is that they may have potential but not experience and so require well thought-through support.
This is the critical triad. When it works well the potential of an ERG is unleashed. This was my experience as an ERG lead. But that was not by design, rather fortune smiling. In my consultancy I have had to ask how to convert good fortune into effective intentional action.
An ideal training model
I think all elements of the critical triad must participate in developmental experiences which reflect the reality that this is all a novel evolutionary situation, and all parties must acquire new insights. But the novelty must be admitted to, as must be the need to learn how to get maximum benefit from setting up an ERG.
I will suggest a few ideas that should be part of a shared learning action:
- The development of an appreciation of how the demand for equity and inclusion has evolved over the past near 70 years. The demand became a movement in the 1960s. It has taken this long to get where we are now. What does that tell us?
- Understand that this is an evolution, not a struggle of good against evil. Not everybody is quickly capable of expressing their innate sense of goodwill in a universal way. Many have cultural and personal disincentives to be inclusive, and these will not be overcome by rational appeals. Habits of thought and feeling are deeply ingrained at an individual psychological level. Change requires significant cognitive effort – so the reason to change must be compelling and aspirational. Action is more potent than argument.
- Managing the politics of changing behaviours requires understanding how persuasion is best engaged in. None of the members of the critical triad are immune from needing this knowledge. We can persuade people to comply but that does not mean that behaviour has changed to conform with new insights, only to appear to meet requirements. Deep learning and behavioural change come only from the authentic engagement of personal emotions. It is hard work, so there must be a compelling reason to undertake it – other than appearing to comply. We are all good at faking it.
- ERG leaders may not be seen as members of the elite leadership in-group if their status in the organisation does not warrant that assumption or extension of membership. That limits the perception of credibility and right of influence. If ERGs are assumed to have the same status as unions, rather than as partners in helping an organisation achieve its equity and inclusion goal, that can place a gulf between the ERG leader and other leaders. The potential for collaboration recedes into unconscious and unintended competition.
The value of mentoring
As an ongoing commitment, ERG leads should be mentored by Executive Sponsors and Executive Champions. This has two advantages. It creates development opportunities for ERG leads who have less developed skills and it ensures that the organisation has insight into the challenges faced by ERG leads. Mentoring primarily builds strength in mentees, but it also is a lens on problems that do require executive intervention or more extensive action.
Mentoring also minimises the risk of failure. I have noted elsewhere that while organisations do not intentionally set up ERGs to fail, failure is more likely if there is no linkage between ERG leads and executive leadership. Mentoring can be a subtle form of supervision as well as guidance, reflecting an organisation’s concern that the ERG is on track in delivering agreed outcomes.
Mentoring must be predicated upon a sound foundation of understanding of an ERG’s agreed function and purpose – what its value proposition is, and what its standing is within the organisation. Such a foundation is built when the organisation’s Senior Executive Leadership, the ERG’s Executive Sponsor and Executive Champions, the ERG leads, and the DEI team undertake a shared ‘training’ session how to run and support an ERG. Such a session should be revisited periodically to ensure there is ongoing agreement on understandings, insights and commitments.
Building this foundation is the most critical learning/development experience for all players. Other skill acquisition needs can be identified and addressed via mentoring and accessing other L&D sources.
I am arguing that there should not be ERG-specific training for ERG leads beyond understanding how ERGs function. The Incredible Power of Staff Networks by Cherron Inko-Tariah was immensely helpful to me. I can definitely see benefit from training of this kind. The unique nature of ERGs must be understood.
ERGs must fit within an organisation’s DEI policy and practice commitments, so any other training and development must be mainstream.
Conclusion
ERGs will have developmental needs. But which of them cannot be satisfied through a program of mentoring and accessing existing L&D resources? In some cases, where ERG leads are elected, rather than selected, and there is no control over a requirement for prerequisite capabilities, a more intensive training need may be apparent. Here mentoring and coaching might have to be more frequent and more intensive.
My aversion to training, having undertaken a huge amount over my public sector career (spanning over 4 decades) is that its not very sticky. The ideal of Life-Long Learning was finally abandoned a few years back as a forlorn cause. You must be a motivated learner to extract maximum benefit from a brief training experience – and that’s not most of us. I have no memory of ever having a follow up or review of my any of training experiences.
Learning comes from exposure, immersion, commitment and repetition (EICR). This, at least, is true of the things I have become very good at doing. A motivated learner will seek out opportunities for EICR, but unless an organisation is on the same page it is unlikely to provide such opportunities as a matter of course. Coaching and mentoring are still not routine supports offered within organisations to even highly motivated learners.
Its not usual for mangers and executives in general to appreciate the need for EICR, so we can’t assume that any learning experience is going to reinforced with effective follow up.
I think the idea that ERG leads need training in an isolated skill set is flawed – if it is seen as a panacea. Would ERG leads benefit from being supported to enhance their skills? Of course. But that applies to any leader.
What those needs might be will depend upon how the organisation, and the ERG leads understand the ERG’s nature and role. Is it a volunteer staff committee representing the interests of certain staff groups or is it a de facto business unit providing lived experience feedback on how certain policies or procedures are playing out?
It’s not sufficient to assume the spectrum of needs ERG leads may have. We must understand the role of an ERG and then ensure all the players have a shared need for mutual comprehension and trust which is then satisfied. We must keep in mind this is about collaboration in meeting a shared objective.