At the end of last year, 266,000 people on X liked a post Elon Musk shared, saying, “DEI must DIE”. It feels bleakly predictable at a time when conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion have become a game of political football. Considering the context, you might be cynical about how much progress is actually being made, but after a 40-minute call with Asad Dhunna, the founder of The Unmistakables, the truth feels much more optimistic, and much more complex.

Dhunna has been working in the creative industry for 15 years now, running consultancy The Unmistakables for five of those. The company supports businesses including Shelter, Unilever, and Studio Canal to embed diversity, equity, and inclusion into their organisations by building learning programmes, developing skills, and creating strategy change. Over the course of his career, Dhunna has witnessed huge change. In 2018, when he started the business, Dhunna says CEOs and agency leaders weren’t even sure which department he should be talking to, but by 2020 the conversation had rocketed up to the C-Suite, where it’s stayed.

According to Dhunna, the quest for more diversity is doing fairly well. “My sense is that things are moving forward, things have progressed, and sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of that,” he explains. “There’s a wider narrative around DEI in the mainstream press and business press that is quite exhausting, but there are pockets of progress happening. It’s just how you stay resilient to those.”

There’s a wider narrative around DEI that is quite exhausting, but there are pockets of progress happening

Agencies do care about hiring different kinds of people, he says. They understand how it benefits their ability to stay at the forefront of culture, and for many creative leaders it goes well beyond a box-ticking exercise. Where some of these companies are falling down, however, is in the ‘inclusion’ part of the equation. Dhunna advocates for ‘inside-out inclusion’, which means businesses can’t just bring in diverse hires and leave them to figure it out – they need to understand what’s happening within their business and its leadership, what the culture feels like, and how that’s affecting employees.

“What happened was, around 2021 and 2022 we were seeing more diversity come into business – there were lots of drives for that,” he explains. “But the ‘inclusion’ part wasn’t necessarily there. You can transplant an organ, but is the body ready for it? It takes more time and thinking.

“I heard a saying, that human beings are a bit like ants; if you put black ants and red ants together, they all learn to get on, until you shake the container they’re in and then they separate and divide. That’s what something like the recession and economic growth has done, where people are asking, ‘Oh, hang on a minute, do we all get on? And what does that all mean? Do we really feel included?’

“Where we are today is that lots of leaders and creative businesses are asking, ‘How do I foster inclusion and business performance? How do I make sure I can have lots of people from different backgrounds, and make sure they all feel great, and my business is still performing?’” There’s no easy answer, although Dhunna says there are strategies that agencies can adopt to improve things – and, in news that’s surprising to absolutely no one, unconscious bias training is not one of them.

First, he recommends that companies understand the skills needed to be an inclusive leader. This depends on a certain level of introspection and a workforce that’s open to trying things out, as well as discussing what’s working and what’s not. Employees need to feel they can speak up if something isn’t right and Dhunna admits that this, in particular, can feel uncomfortable for leaders. “You go, well, I thought I had to have the power, and that’s not really what leadership is – it’s giving voice, in my opinion.”

It’s got to be part of the strategy, and bound into who you’re trying to attract as talent, as clients, and the importance of who you’re selling to

Creating a feeling of agency-wide “psychological safety” means a more positive client-agency relationship as well. Both sides need to feel they can make mistakes, which could mean focusing less on speed and output, and more on creating the time to meet, work together, and explore briefs. This might feel challenging in a time when these partnerships feel more stretched than ever.

Lastly, according to Dhunna, companies need to understand how diversity ties into their bigger picture. “I would argue that, for many agencies, this is almost compliance now,” he says. “Brands and businesses are saying, ‘What’s your approach to DEI? Can I see your policies? Are you signed up to any kitemarks? Why should we pick you over another agency?’ So it’s got to be part of the strategy, and bound into who you’re trying to attract as talent, as clients, and the importance of who you’re selling to.”

The good news is that the wider social and cultural context is changing to support all of this. In the past, says Dhunna, people often changed from being more “extrinsically motivated” to more “intrinsically motivated” as they aged. In simplistic terms, that means that in our 20s we care more about ‘the world’, and in our 40s we care more about ‘my world’.

“If you look at that on a business leadership function, if everyone around your board only cares about their world, then every board meeting is going to be about, ‘What can this do for me?’ and ‘How can it help me?’ as opposed to ‘How can we help the world?’ and ‘What are we going to do for society?’” he explains.

If I had a crystal ball, I’d say the next five years will be all about the embedding in business-as-usual of this

“I get the sense that because house prices are going up, it’s hard [for younger people] to anchor their world in the same way as people in their late 40s and 50s. They aren’t able to grasp onto those same hooks, and they do care more about the world and the planet. I’m seeing the impact this is going to have.” It also means that the people being promoted into creative leadership roles, who are making the decisions around who gets hired, how they’re hired, and how they’re treated, might be more invested in the greater good.

“If I had a crystal ball, I’d say the next five years will be all about the embedding in business-as-usual of this,” says Dhunna. “Many businesses might come to us in a panic state, saying, ‘Something’s gone wrong.’ And that’s OK, because it’s a starting point to ask how we repair it and become better. Sometimes you need that to happen in order to build up. And sometimes it comes from an intrinsic need to do better.

“I feel quite heartened with some of the people we work with – they’re good people in an industry trying to make change,” he adds. “There can be change, and I’m seeing it.”

theunmistakables.com; @asadd; Top image: Anton Vierietin / Shutterstock