Dr Letsema Mbayi-Kwelagobe is a key account manager on the India and Middle East desk for De Beers Global Sightholder Sales. She is part of an Ideas Made Visible think-tank that exchanges ideas with top managers. Here, she talks about telling it from an employee perspective…
The Ideas Made Visible think-tank is a group of about 11 individuals at De Beers Global Sightholder Sales (DBGSS). We are all in different departments across the business, and we've been doing this for about a year.
We meet the DBGSS Executive Committee when they want to hear the voice of the employee on different things. For example, at the first meeting, they wanted us to draw a picture of the current and future state of the business. You get to see the Executive Committee members from a very different perspective. They are open to hearing different ideas from a level much lower in the hierarchy. We brainstorm things in very creative ways.
The Ideas Made Visible think-tank is sort of like a junior Executive Committee, where we complement the team through very focused sessions, where committee members want to test their assumptions and bring new ideas into the room through people on the ground, three or four steps lower than where they sit, and find out what our experience of the business is, what our thoughts are on specific topics, or challenges, or strategic objectives.
What I particularly enjoy about it is that, in Sales, we spend a lot of time travelling, and the think-tank has helped me to build relationships across different departments, with my peers but also with senior leaders, and to see them in a more relaxed environment, challenge their ideas – and have my ideas challenged.
I have enjoyed being able to have my voice being heard at that level, and also being able to interact and question and appreciate different views from the company at various levels.
The first time I was invited to one of these sessions, I thought it would be a really serious space. We even asked what we needed to do to prepare. Is there something we have to read in advance? But all they wanted was just our thoughts, our ideas, for us to be genuine, sincere, and not to be scared to speak up.
For myself, I would say the impact is that I am now aware of the power that my voice has. Through the programme, we are being given a platform to share ideas and thoughts, which is in itself very powerful. I'd like to believe that, every time they've met us in one of these sessions, the Executive Committee members leave with a slightly different perspective on things, and I think that in itself is very powerful.
Within De Beers Group, we do talk a lot about ‘brilliance’ because the product we sell is itself brilliant. But it's not just in the product that we sell; you can find brilliance everywhere within the Group, in the corridors and in people's ideas and thoughts. By creating a platform to be able to unlock that brilliance, it reflects directly on De Beers Group and its view of the business.
I often find myself in a room full of males because, within the Indian community for example, it's the sons that normally run the businesses. These are family businesses that are handed down from one generation to another. I would say that, for 100 per cent of the customers I deal with, it's their fathers and their uncles, and their sons in the business. But this hasn't stopped De Beers Group putting someone like myself in a position where I am essentially a relationship manager for these businesses.
They haven't said that I wouldn't be suitable for that role, I wouldn't be able to understand my customers. I have never felt this has in any way been a hindrance, and I feel that it is a business that really does support women. If I look at the room of key account managers I work with, it's a very fair split between men and women. When I joined them, I think there were only two women in the team and they were very happy to have another woman to laugh with.
Then, within the last four years, there have been a lot of women who have joined the team up to a point where I think it's quite a fair split in terms of men and women. That's been a very positive thing.
We're saying we understand our consumers and we're going to create products specifically for these consumers. And the Ideas Made Visible think-tank is playing its part in achieving this goal.