Break Out of Your Silo

The initial mentorship

We started our discussions going over events, setting short-term goals and working out what the next steps would be ― all traditional mentorship activities. After six months, we had some successes leading support staff who managed to have their employment rights recognised by management for the first time in 20 years.

However, her uncompromising, unconventional, feisty language had divided opinion, upset many people, and caused many of my colleagues to question what I was doing. She was right in what she said, but the way she said it was unconventional and contravened the rights of others. She was a leader who recognised (and experienced) injustice. Perhaps I was the only one to listen and realise that it would take a long time to achieve her goals and make changes.

The conflict with colleagues and other workers, along with the pressure of work, took a toll on her mental health and she took sick leave. This would have been an easy way to give up our mentorship. I could say, with an easy conscience, that I had done my bit. Unsupported, she could drop out of work, retreat into her community, and nurse her victimhood. My employing institution could continue listening only to the predominately white senior researchers, comfortable that POC had been given a chance, ticking the boxes for equality, diversity and inclusion, but not changing the standards used to define success.

I was not satisfied with that. I needed to step out of my silo and explore the world she lived in.

Could I understand where she was coming from, and enable her to become a more effective communicator? What metric should I use to define the success of our mentorship? She was right in her views, but could she use that to become a leader in her field? I knew she would need to change. Although I did not know it at the time, my confidence in the rightness of my power and privilege, as well as my views, would change.

Listening and learning

The mentorship started the weekly Zoom between the two of us, to understand our different upbringings. We included other people from a range of backgrounds, to build trust and to develop short-term goals. We heard from other second-generation immigrants on their experience of activism, opportunities for activism and about one becoming a Member of Parliament in the UK. We reached out to other POC leaders about how they built networks for support of those who had no voice. My experience with the Gender Action Learning (GAL) project, exploring similar themes in Africa, helped me to listen and reflect on what I heard, and how to tackle discrimination in the UK and elsewhere. Part of the learning was opening my eyes as a privileged, white male academic from a Northern ’silo’ who had never seen and experienced the evidence of discrimination.

In other one-to-one meetings with Amina, I listened to her accounts of how she felt when she travelled on the Tube under the gaze of strange men. I understood how difficult it was for her mother to go to hospital about her mental health when she had no English to describe her experiences. I felt the distrust and powerlessness her siblings and cousins experienced from the persecution they experienced at university. I sympathised with her father who wanted to ensure his family conformed to the traditional expectations of their background and religion, despite living in a country that was hostile to his culture.

Influencing people and changing behaviour is something I knew how to do, by controlling emotions and building the right responses. There were dangers in this, as it required honesty and trust by both of us. I realised to enable change in my mentee, I would need to explain my background, my actions and the way I had conducted my life. Some of my actions have been commendable and some despicable, but they show that white, privileged people have the same range of actions as others and have no monopoly on solutions. I told her about things I said to people and regrettable actions I had taken, which had caused harm or even serious harm to others. I told her about how I expected and accepted better treatment from all strata of society in the UK, in other high-income countries and in the African countries where I had worked.

Would this honesty repel? Would it destroy the trust we had built up? By putting my mistakes and dishonesty on the table, would that help Amina change her behaviour? Would it help me to change my future behaviours? Or would this honesty change nothing? Would it reinforce our own intransigence? Could we learn how to listen to each other and accept these negative views of our lives as things we each must overcome? Or did we think we are perfect in our own silo, which enables us to put all the blame on those in other silos?

End points

After two and half years, she and I had learned how to accept our different personal experiences, backgrounds and points of view, and to understand how this influenced our behaviour.

Amina learned about acceptance of alternative sexuality and other intersectionalities. Amina also learned how to think through alternative viewpoints, to accept some and resist others incompatible with her Islamic values. She had learned how to listen, how to speak to crowds, and how to deal with critics without lashing out. She learned how to build networks and relationships to support her positions, which enabled her to lead discussions and actions. She met with leaders and was able to explain clearly the needs of her community. She was nominated to a national committee to understand the needs of POC in the workplace and supported colleagues to speak out about their experience.

For my part, as a mentor, I learned about institutional racism, misogyny and religious intolerance. I too had learned how to listen, become less tolerant of privileged behaviour and more angry at the injustices that are a consequence of systemic support for the privileged elite. I became determined to change these in my life, but also to highlight the way society condones and encourages institutional injustices. This requires me to become passionate, fearless and committed, and to develop ‘difficult’ characteristics that may make people uncomfortable.

For the first time in my life, I had learned how to see the world from someone else’s point of view. I am not asking privileged and powerful groups to give up their nice houses and good jobs, but I am asking you to get out of your silos and find out about others with different lived experiences.