It's been quite a few years since I've been called a monkey. It was at work. I was a senior executive in a bank at the time.
The incident came back into my mind after reading about the appalling online abuse that Ian Wright, the Arsenal legend, experienced this week. A day or so later I was being interviewed for a podcast and I was asked whether I could share any positive examples of leadership in diversity.
Well, it turns out my monkey incident triggered what has probably been the best example of leadership in this arena that I have experienced.
About twenty years ago I was involved in launching a pioneering internet bank. It was an amazing experience and we were an incredibly motivated team of about 200 working flat out to deliver on time, to budget and make sure it worked. I was in a leadership role, driving forward the technology programme. I was focused and rather intense and would patrol the floors sticking my nose into any problems I could find.
One evening, working late, I wandered into an empty conference room. There was a flipchart. Someone had sketched a big cartoon picture of a monkey and, in a different pen, someone had written "Tom Ilube" underneath. I doubt that whoever did it expected me to be the next person to wander into the meeting room!
I remember being hit with a wave of feelings. There was anger of course, but also disappointment I think and, strangely, some embarrasement. I had an image of some of my colleagues, people that I would see every day, sitting in the meeting room, laughing at the image and my name and sauntering out of the room, not even bothering to tear it off and throw it away. I felt quite sad really and I wasn't sure exactly what to do. I took the piece of flipchart paper with me and mentioned it over a drink that evening to a colleague and close friend. I explained that I still wasn't sure what to do as I had no idea who it was, but I would sleep on it.
The next morning, word had got around before I even got into work. The CEO and Founder of the internet bank called me into his office. He had been briefed and he explained calmly what he wanted to do.
He said that what he wanted to do was to stop the entire project and call in a corporate security firm. They would set up an office and they would interview all 200 staff one by one. By the end of this exercise, they would know who had done this and then he would fire them. He stated this in a clear, matter of fact way. Was I happy for him to proceed with this course of action?
Wow! What should I do? How would I feel after subjecting the 199 people who didn't do this to such an experience? How would they feel about me? What would you have done? I thought hard about it, but I told him that I just couldn't say yes to that. Okay, he said, leave it with me.
What he did next was, for me, the important step in this. He wrote an email. To all staff. I wish I had kept a copy of it (I was searching for it last night but couldn't lay hands on it) but essentially it said something like the following (and I am paraphrasing, but not by much as I remember it well):
"To All Staff
Yesterday Tom Ilube walked into an office and found a picture of a monkey with his name underneath on a flip chart. I told him that I wanted to ask a corporate security firm to interview all of you to find which one of you did it so that I could fire you. Tom declined as he did not want to put you all through this.
However, let me speak direct to the person or people that did this. Your values are not our values. I want you to leave this company. I will never know who you are or whether you do leave but be in no doubt, I do not want you and your values in this company. Please leave."
The impact of this was quite profound. There was zero ambiguity about the message and the values. There was absolutely clarity from the top. No vagueness. No playing it down. No "running it by HR to see what they think". No "thinking through the possible negative PR". There wasn't any shouting, just cold, hard unambiguous clarity that was heard absolutely clearly across the organisation. That CEO took that one nasty incident and used it to teach the organisation a crystal clear lesson.
This may be controversial but I think that, sometimes, these incidents can be a strange gift to leaders of organisations. They create the opportunity for the leader to show who they really are. The reaction can be far more powerful than the original incident. I have told this story many times in the hopes that it will reach the ears of leaders and inspire them to send their own crystal clear messages about where they stand, so that good comes out of these incidents.
The incident came back into my mind after reading about the appalling online abuse that Ian Wright, the Arsenal legend, experienced this week. A day or so later I was being interviewed for a podcast and I was asked whether I could share any positive examples of leadership in diversity.
Well, it turns out my monkey incident triggered what has probably been the best example of leadership in this arena that I have experienced.
About twenty years ago I was involved in launching a pioneering internet bank. It was an amazing experience and we were an incredibly motivated team of about 200 working flat out to deliver on time, to budget and make sure it worked. I was in a leadership role, driving forward the technology programme. I was focused and rather intense and would patrol the floors sticking my nose into any problems I could find.
One evening, working late, I wandered into an empty conference room. There was a flipchart. Someone had sketched a big cartoon picture of a monkey and, in a different pen, someone had written "Tom Ilube" underneath. I doubt that whoever did it expected me to be the next person to wander into the meeting room!
I remember being hit with a wave of feelings. There was anger of course, but also disappointment I think and, strangely, some embarrasement. I had an image of some of my colleagues, people that I would see every day, sitting in the meeting room, laughing at the image and my name and sauntering out of the room, not even bothering to tear it off and throw it away. I felt quite sad really and I wasn't sure exactly what to do. I took the piece of flipchart paper with me and mentioned it over a drink that evening to a colleague and close friend. I explained that I still wasn't sure what to do as I had no idea who it was, but I would sleep on it.
The next morning, word had got around before I even got into work. The CEO and Founder of the internet bank called me into his office. He had been briefed and he explained calmly what he wanted to do.
He said that what he wanted to do was to stop the entire project and call in a corporate security firm. They would set up an office and they would interview all 200 staff one by one. By the end of this exercise, they would know who had done this and then he would fire them. He stated this in a clear, matter of fact way. Was I happy for him to proceed with this course of action?
Wow! What should I do? How would I feel after subjecting the 199 people who didn't do this to such an experience? How would they feel about me? What would you have done? I thought hard about it, but I told him that I just couldn't say yes to that. Okay, he said, leave it with me.
What he did next was, for me, the important step in this. He wrote an email. To all staff. I wish I had kept a copy of it (I was searching for it last night but couldn't lay hands on it) but essentially it said something like the following (and I am paraphrasing, but not by much as I remember it well):
"To All Staff
Yesterday Tom Ilube walked into an office and found a picture of a monkey with his name underneath on a flip chart. I told him that I wanted to ask a corporate security firm to interview all of you to find which one of you did it so that I could fire you. Tom declined as he did not want to put you all through this.
However, let me speak direct to the person or people that did this. Your values are not our values. I want you to leave this company. I will never know who you are or whether you do leave but be in no doubt, I do not want you and your values in this company. Please leave."
The impact of this was quite profound. There was zero ambiguity about the message and the values. There was absolutely clarity from the top. No vagueness. No playing it down. No "running it by HR to see what they think". No "thinking through the possible negative PR". There wasn't any shouting, just cold, hard unambiguous clarity that was heard absolutely clearly across the organisation. That CEO took that one nasty incident and used it to teach the organisation a crystal clear lesson.
This may be controversial but I think that, sometimes, these incidents can be a strange gift to leaders of organisations. They create the opportunity for the leader to show who they really are. The reaction can be far more powerful than the original incident. I have told this story many times in the hopes that it will reach the ears of leaders and inspire them to send their own crystal clear messages about where they stand, so that good comes out of these incidents.
