I'm five years old, sitting in a classroom with only two children in it. Me, and my sister.
The teacher is talking. I can see her mouth moving and hear the sounds, but I don't understand a single word. Home had been Nigeria. Now home is here, and neither of us speaks English yet. So for about a year, while everyone else learns together, the two of us learn on our own.
For most of that year I was quiet. Really quiet. If you'd looked through the classroom window, you'd have seen a little girl who didn't say much, and you might have thought she had nothing to say.
You'd have been wrong.
This Black History Month, I've been thinking a lot about that little girl, and about how many of her are sitting quietly in our workplaces today.
In Nigeria, I was just me
There was something I didn't know when I arrived in this country, because nobody had ever needed to tell me. I was Black.
In Nigeria I wasn't Black. I was just me: Grace, the eldest daughter, the big sister. Here, before anyone had learned my name, a label had arrived before I did.
Many of you will know that feeling. You walk into a room, a meeting or a client's office, and before you've said a word you've already been read. Your name, your accent, your skin, your hair, whether you're the only one.
But Black History Month shouldn't start with the labels. It should start with what's underneath them. Long before culture becomes a line in a strategy document, it's a home. It's the way you were taught to greet an elder, the food that filled a Sunday, the community that turned up without being asked. It's a lot of richness, a lot of wisdom, and a lot of rules for how to be a good person.
Every one of us carries those rules through the door at work, every morning, whether anyone sees them or not.
Programmes can be cut. Communities can't.
Over the last couple of years, some big organisations, especially in the US, have scaled back their diversity programmes. Teams have been cut and words quietly taken off websites. People ask me, a little nervously, whether we're still allowed to talk about this.
Here's my answer. Programmes can be cut, but communities can't. You don't stop being who you are because a policy changed. The question was never whether culture comes to work. It always does. The question is whether anyone at work knows how to read it.
Two sets of rules
When I started school here, I had two sets of rules, and they didn't match. At home: respect your elders, don't interrupt, don't blow your own trumpet, wait until you're asked. At school: put your hand up, speak up, show what you know.
At five, that's confusing. If I'm a good daughter, am I a bad pupil?
Then my mum did something simple and generous. She gave me permission to adjust at school, without asking me to abandon who I was at home. She didn't make me choose. She let me translate, and my teachers met me halfway. They didn't decide that a quiet child was an empty child. They waited.
That moment runs through everything I do today. Adjust. Don't abandon. It's what my mum gave me, and I think it's what a good workplace should give all of us.
Because most of us are still running two sets of rules as adults. There's the voice you use on the phone to your mum, and the one you use in a team meeting. There's the name your family calls you, and the one on your email signature because it's "easier". Translating is a skill, even a gift. But translating all day, every day, with nobody meeting you halfway, is exhausting. And nobody puts that on your appraisal.
How work scores what home taught us
I took my home rules into work. Wait to be asked. Let your work speak for itself. Respect the people above you. They were good rules that made me a good person. They didn't always make me look like a good candidate.
What I'd been taught as respect, the room read as a lack of ambition. What I'd been taught as humility, it read as a lack of confidence. What I'd been taught as patience, it read as having nothing to say.
Picture two colleagues in the same team, doing the same quality of work. One mentions an idea in every meeting, in the corridor and in an email. The other has had the same idea, maybe a better one, but she's waiting. Where she comes from, good work gets noticed, and asking for attention is a little rude. Six months later, who's seen as having potential?
It isn't because the manager is a bad person. A manager can only score what they can see.
Silence gets scored. But nobody checks what it meant. "Doesn't really contribute in meetings." "Needs to be more visible." "Solid, reliable, great to have in the team." The manager's story is that there was nothing there. The colleague's story might be: I was waiting to be asked. I was being respectful. I didn't want to talk over someone senior.
And if you do push yourself forward, you can be read another way: too much, too direct, too loud. So the rules aren't just unwritten. Sometimes they change depending on who's playing.
Nobody walks in as one thing
I'm Nigerian-born, UK-raised, Black, a woman, a mum, a Cancer thriver, and neurodivergent. That's what people mean by intersectionality. It isn't a theory. It's just life, in layers.
The person in front of you might be the first in their family to work in this country. They might be a carer, fasting this month, or going through something nobody at work knows about. You can't see the layers, but they're all in the room.
In my work, I see the same pattern. Organisations rarely fall down on intent. They fall down on what people actually experience: in the corridor, in the one-to-one, on the appraisal form.
Make the unwritten rules visible
Nobody is doing this on purpose. No manager sits down at review time planning to mark someone down for being polite. That's exactly the problem. When the rules aren't written down, the system quietly rewards the people who already know them.
And when we do notice, we usually send the quiet person on a course: confidence, presence, personal brand. I've nothing against a good course. I've run a few. But it says the problem is you. We fix the person and leave the rules exactly where they were.
The answer isn't asking people to stop being who they are, and it isn't lowering the bar. It's doing what my mum and my teachers did:
Make the rules visible.
Give people permission to adjust, without asking them to abandon home.
Meet the quiet with patience, and with a question.
Three things to try this month
If you're one of the quieter ones: I see you. I was you. Pick one idea you've been sitting on and share it before anyone asks. If that feels like a lot, find a colleague who seems to know the unwritten rules and ask them what they are. Most people are happy to explain. They just assume you already know.
If you manage people: before your next round of one-to-ones, write down what "brilliant" actually looks like in your team. Not in the corporate framework, but on an ordinary Tuesday. Then share it with everyone, not just the people who already ask. And when someone is quiet, ask before you score: "What do you think?"
If you're a senior leader: in the next 30 days, have one coffee with a colleague from a community you don't usually spend time with. Not to fix anything, just to listen. Ask them where their story starts, what home taught them that work doesn't see, and what would make it easier to be heard.
Back to the classroom
That teacher could have looked at a quiet little girl and decided there was nothing there. After a conversation with my mum, any notion of that left. She changed course. She was patient, she waited, and eventually I found my words. I've been finding them ever since.
There are people in your organisation today who are still waiting to be asked.
Quiet isn't empty. So ask.
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