Episode #40: How Diverse Is Your Toy Company?
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This episode will highlight the change and movement already happening to support diversity and inclusion within the toy industry. In the past few months, toy organizations started creating safe spaces for black people in toys, webinars focused on diversity were planned, and major mass retailers made a push for more inclusive packaging.
The fact that organizations and companies have created zoom events, initiatives, and committees around this issue is already a big step for social change and it is with much hope and excitement for the future of diversity in toys that The Toy Coach poses a new question, how diverse is your toy company? Inside this episode, you’ll be asked a few thought-provoking questions that will help clarify the importance of living a life full of diverse experiences. If you’re ready for some personal growth, I’d like to invite you to dive into this episode.
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Azhelle
You're listening to Making It in The Toy Industry, Episode Number 40.
Intro/Outro + Jingle
Welcome to Making It in The Toy Industry, a podcast for inventors and entrepreneurs like you. And now your host Azhelle Wade.
Azhelle
Hey, they're telling people Azhelle Wade here and welcome back to another episode of Making It in The Toy Industry. This is the weekly podcast brought to you by thetoycoach.com. If you're starting out to develop your toy idea, I want to invite you to download my product development checklist. You can grab that checklist at thetoycoach.com/checklist or just head over to the toy coach comm and tap the link at the top that says toy checklist. Now let's dive into today's conversation. Since I released Episode Number 20, the Ripple Effect of Racial Bias. I have seen a lot of change and movement around diversity and inclusion within the toy industry. And I just wanted to have a moment to applaud the changes that I'm seeing. Within the past few months organization started carving out safe spaces for black people in toys. They started holding webinars focused on diversity and major mass retailers made a push for more inclusive packaging and manufacturing partners, conversations and panels I've been invited to all began acknowledging all races, all ethnicities, differently abled children and even LGBTQ communities, it's been great. The fact that toy companies and organizations have created zoom events, initiatives and committees around this issue just infuses me with so much hope and excitement for the future of diversity in toys. But with any major social shift, there are bound to be both good and bad experiences. Now, for me, fortunately, the good has outweighed the bad. But even still, I've seen trolls pop up in my diversity related toy posts. And I've been in a few uncomfortable conversations that I didn't quite know how to navigate. And I can already see myself falling back into that old habit of keeping quiet, accepting the status quo and letting implicit bias slide. And I don't want that we as black people, I'm telling you, we don't want that. We want to keep the momentum going for diversity and inclusion until it becomes the norm. So for today's episode, I thought it would be helpful to have a conversation filled with some practical advice. How can you know if your toy company is diverse? And if you're a freelancer or a consultant, how can you know if your social circle is diverse? I'm going to go over a few questions that you can ask yourself to find out just that. And if you realize that your toy company or your social circle isn't diverse, I want to give you some anonymous examples of what extraordinary leaders in the toy industry are doing to remedy just that problem. So hopefully, you can find inspiration and motivation to do the same. This conversation is really going to be about implicit bias. Because implicit bias is really the actions that you take or the thoughts that you have that are harmful and stereotypical, but unconscious. These things could be little things that you might say or do while working at your toy job or with a toy client or consultant that you might not even realize something that's been derived from your thinking that was put in place by explicit bias that you may have once experienced, or learned from media or even your own family. So I'm going to go through four simple questions that you can ask yourself today to clarify how diverse your toy company is. Okay, so let's get started. Question number one. Is your company culturally bilingual? What does that mean? A shell? Well, the term culturally bilingual is actually something I've said to friends of mine. Most black people we say speak at least two languages. And I'm not talking like English or French or Spanish but cultural languages. You see, you learn from a young age, that there's a certain way that you can speak when you're around other black people. And there's a certain way that you speak when you're around white people. And we've grown up learning these differences and sensitivities, we've learned the terms and the statements that are appropriate or inappropriate to say in certain circumstances because they might come off as offensive. And now, a lot of people in this world are uncomfortable because they don't know what to say. But you know what, it's just everybody else's turn. It's your turn to learn how to speak to us. And a truly diverse toy company will have people from all walks of life that can naturally use what they've learned throughout their lives to understand and communicate with people of other races, and ethnicities. Now, through these past few months, people in the toy industry have been reaching out to me and other black women asking for guidance for diversity, consulting and offering us opportunities to be featured on their platforms. And to me, the most exciting thing is that people aren't just asking directly like, Azhelle, what can I do, which is appreciated, but what's even better is people are coming to me, and telling me what they've already have planned to do. And they're asking, Is this okay? Is this sensitive? You know, they want to know, does this read as sensitive? Is this the right way to express what I mean and how I feel? And I think it's really important for me to publicly say that those questions asking things like that is 1,000%, appropriate, appreciated, and respected by me and many other black women. So if you are hesitating with what you want to say, to the black community, as a toy company, or if you are struggling with whether or not you should put a black girl on your packaging and mixer with the white family, just don't be afraid to ask for and hire some help. I think it's really important that you gain other perspectives. We as black people have been raised our whole lives to learn how to communicate with cultures that didn't really accept us. So now it's reasonable for you to feel just a little bit uncomfortable when trying to communicate with a culture that you really haven't had to sensitively communicate with before. So feel free to reach out and ask questions. I am here and I know so many of my black male and female counterparts are happy to help and advise as well. Now, question number two, do you learn something new every week? I love this question. Because, you know, this question focuses on the fact that more diverse companies are more profitable that they have more innovative ideas and solutions. And that comes about because they have a company full of a variety of viewpoints. Having a diverse team allows you to pull knowledge from all walks of life and cultures, ages, races, genders abilities, every new variable introduces a new and invaluable point of view. Now, you may think your toy company is diverse, because you have every single race with in it, you may have everyone from every walk of life, you might feel like yeah, we've got our bases covered. But here's the thing. If there isn't a seat at the table, for those diverse people and their diverse voices, they're going to go and hurt. And if you don't foster an environment within your toy company that encourages those voices, to share ideas for products for marketing campaigns for sales strategies, that might be a little bit outside of the norm, then you're going to be missing the mark. A truly diverse toy company doesn't just have a roster of people from different racial backgrounds and ethnicities. But they also have a company culture that promotes the sharing of ideas that are outside of people's comfort zones. And when you have that culture, you are going to assure that you are learning something new every week, I'm telling you at the most open and diverse companies that I've worked for, I learned something new about someone's culture or life or ideas they had about holidays and ways they grew up that inspired new ideas within me. So if you truly have a diverse toy company, you will have this kind of open communication and have the people in side of the company that can inspire new ideas, because they come from diverse backgrounds, something as simple as different cultural holiday traditions can easily spark an idea for a new toy line. And it's important that when these out of the norm, ideas pop up, that the leaders have a truly diverse toy company that they aren't shocked and surprised. Instead, they should be intrigued and curious, because they're comfortable learning new things, they enjoy fresh perspectives, and their company culture is naturally one of growth and education. Question number three, to ask yourself, to find out if you are a diverse toy company. Are you confusing a diverse platform as an opportunity? Now, during the time of the Black Lives Matter movement, when it was first starting, many companies felt the need to build a platform for diversity and really make a statement that they stood for Black Lives Matter. And naturally, when doing this, many invited black people to come speak on those platforms. Now the overall agenda has been to amplify black voices, and share stories and experiences to inspire change. And what is great about these platforms is that it creates a space for understanding and compassion. And it shows black people that the industry cares, wants to hear their stories, wants to accept them and wants them to be seen. And I'm telling you, those invitations to speak, increases confidence and hope. And it expands dreams and possibilities and wonderful, they're wonderful offers to the black community. But the number one mistake being made is that many people are presenting these platforms as though they are career opportunities, and sometimes mixing them in with other unrelated events or platforms. And it is so important that we know that we have to keep these conversations separate. The conversation on race is very separate from bringing black people up in our industry, the opportunity to speak on diversity is fantastic. But it is still your job to bring diverse voices back in to your organizations and your companies to speak about toy business and hit on topics like market trends and revenue growth in the industry. If Black people are only given the opportunity to talk when the conversation is about diversity, then you actually aren't helping us grow or close the gap. So I just have to ask that when you're looking to incorporate diversity that you try not to limit the expertise of black people to that of diverse conversation or conversations around inclusion and diversity, we're so much more we're also experts in the industry and innovators and marketers, salespeople that have a lot more to say, than just the struggles that we went through to get to where we are. So as much as we want to talk about diversity, it's important to understand that those conversations are actually more to help other people grow. And they are less to help the speaker grow. So you have to make sure that you're offering a platform that shares the accomplishments in the intelligence of black people. And these platforms in this way will show the world that even though we are in the spotlight right now, because diversity is a hot topic, we actually should have been in the spotlight long ago because of all of our other accomplishments. Okay, question number four. The final question, are you intentionally inclusive? Now the only way that we can compete with decades of intentional bias and racism in the world, not just the toy industry, but it is to implement intentional inclusion. And by intentional inclusion? I mean, you have to ask yourself, what efforts is your company truly making to be intentionally inclusive, and that's in hiring practices, that's in packaging, that's in leadership opportunities. That's everywhere. So how do you implement intentional inclusivity. So how that's going to translate in the toy industry is might feel a little bit funny at first, but it's gonna be that you have the intention to show X number of black models on your packaging, let's say. So that might mean that you end up spending 20 or 30, more minutes on Shutterstock, or looking through model pictures to find the right picture of a black child or the right model to show up to your photoshoot. And it might be harder to find, because there are just less of them. But you are intentionally being inclusive. And this intention is going to make sure that and this intention is going to show the platforms that you're using and the model agencies that you're using, that there is a demand for more black models. And that intention is also slowly going to start to change your mind, as you might realize that, you know, implicit biases you may have had that you didn't even know you had, will start to melt away, as you realize, yeah. Why haven't we been doing this all along? And also, why is it so hard to be inclusive? Now another example of being intentionally inclusive might be, let's say you are developing a doll line and you have a black doll within it. And there's just something not right with their curly hair pattern. Well, instead of throwing out the curly hair and saying, Alright, we're gonna go to straight hair, you actually are going to be intentional and say, No, we're going to get this curl pattern, right? Whether I have to review and reject three or 10 pre production samples, this is going to get right because it's important that we as a toy company, are inclusive and representative of who black people really are. So we're going to make a concerted effort to get this right. And that is being intentionally inclusive. Now, it also might show up, if you're a buyer, and you have the opportunity to insist that your manufacturers are creating packaging that is diverse that not everything you're buying from one toy company features a white family, that you make sure that their product mix doesn't just have a variety of price points, but it has a variety of ethnicities as well. So while you might get pushback or while, it might take a little bit longer for them to update the artwork, being intentional and asking for these changes and insisting that they be made, even if they're running changes. These are just all minor things that we can do that might be inconveniences for the first season, or it might be difficult to get over that first hump. But once we get over that first bit of resistance, you'll see a whole new world opening up, you'll see more black models, you'll see that factories know how to handle the curly hair, textures even better. And all that's going to do is show that there is demand for these things there is demand for materials that can be curly hair for models that are of different ethnicities for packaging that features more than one skin tone. And once that demand opens up, people are going to get more creative from factories to toy companies. And that is just going to make our industry richer and better for it. Okay, so to wrap up this little mini episode, let's recap the four questions you can ask to determine how diverse your toy company is. Number one, is your company culturally bilingual? Number two, do you learn something new every week? Number three, are you confusing diverse platforms as an opportunity? And number four, are you intentionally inclusive? Now I hope all of these questions will help you reevaluate the way that you approach diversity in your toy company and maybe realize that you might be approaching it the wrong way. And that is totally fine. You can course correct and change right now and no one will fault you for it. We're all learning here. And we're all just trying to figure this out and move forward in the most sensitive and caring way possible. Now it's also important to keep in mind that even if your toy company is diverse for you, it still may not be diverse for someone else. And it's important that a company is not just diverse to one ethnicity, we don't want the company to just feel diverse for white people. And we don't want the company just to feel diverse for Latinos. We want everyone to feel like they're having a diverse experience that will allow them to constantly grow and evolve and learn. That is the whole purpose and point for this, that we are learning from each other, empathizing with different experiences and becoming better people. And as always, thank you so much for joining me on this podcast. I know you have your pick of podcasts out there. So it means the world to me that you show up and listen to this one. Until next week. I'll see you later toy people.
Intro/Outro + Jingle
Thanks for listening to Making It in The Toy Industry podcast with Azhelle Wade, head over to thetoycoach.com for more information, tips and advice
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