{"id":18338,"date":"2023-06-01T15:02:55","date_gmt":"2023-06-01T15:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=article&p=18338"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:11:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:11:14","slug":"diversity-and-inclusion-in-english-rugby-there-is-fear-of-saying-the-wrong-thing","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/diversity-and-inclusion-in-english-rugby-there-is-fear-of-saying-the-wrong-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Diversity and Inclusion in English Rugby: \u2018There Is Fear of Saying the Wrong Thing\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n 1 Jun 2023 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

Diversity and Inclusion in English Rugby: \u2018There Is Fear of Saying the Wrong Thing\u2019<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Category<\/div>\n Leadership & Culture<\/a> <\/div>\n
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https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/diversity-and-inclusion-in-english-rugby-there-is-fear-of-saying-the-wrong-thing\/<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n\n\n\n
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Jatin Patel of the Rugby Football Union discusses his work addressing issues of equality, diversity and inclusion within his organisation.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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By John Portch<\/h6>\n
In April, the Rugby Football Union (RFU), Premiership Rugby, Premier 15s and Rugby Players\u2019 Association published an Inclusion and Diversity Action Plan for the elite game.<\/h6>\n

Jatin Patel, the Inclusion and Diversity Director at the RFU, English rugby union’s governing body, since 2021, was one of a series of individuals who played an instrumental role in devising the Inclusion and Diversity Plan<\/a>, which is a result of elite game research into racism and classism in the English game.<\/p>\n

The project was given added impetus last year when the Newcastle Falcons\u2019 centre Luther Burrell spoke publicly about his experiences of racism and class prejudice.<\/p>\n

Patel published a LinkedIn post<\/a> announcing the plan\u2019s launch. \u201cApril went by in a flash. But what a month it was,\u201d he wrote, going on to explain the notable achievements of his \u201csmall but mighty team (with a lot of help from our friends!)\u201d managed during the month. In addition to the I&D Plan, they delivered \u2018active bystander\u2019 training to RFU Council members, contributed to panel discussions on pride, hate speech and racial equality, and hosted non-governmental bodies and equality, diversity & inclusion leads at Twickenham Stadium during an England women\u2019s international match.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is always more to do. But at the heart of everything above is #collaboration. With other colleagues, with passionate leads within the game and with leaders beyond our own sport\u201d.<\/p>\n

Patel demonstrated his passion when he came downstairs to speak at the 2022 Leaders Sport Performance Summit<\/a> at the RFU headquarters in Twickenham Stadium.<\/p>\n

He also found time to speak to the Leaders Performance Institute backstage.<\/p>\n

What does your role look like on a day-to-day basis?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JP:<\/strong> My role as Inclusion and Diversity Director at the RFU involves looking at all elements of the game. Our strategy has four fundamental pillars and there is no hierarchy. The first I\u2019ll speak about is employees and the board; so what is our organisation? How is it made up? How can we improve, attract, retain and progress diverse talent? The second pillar is around gameplay; community to professional rugby. How do we make the game more inclusive? How do we increase the diversity of players, coaches, officials and people working within the club environment? The third pillar is around our fans, followers and partners. Who are they? What is the content they\u2019re consuming? How are we engaging them in rugby across England? And how are we working better with our partners to understand the efforts they\u2019re making to diversify their own environments but also working with them to scale the impact we want to have and reach more communities? The final piece of that strategy is around our governance. Our volunteer leaders who are elected into positions such as our Council as constituency body reps. Who are they? How do we help them to be more inclusive leaders? And ultimately how do we diversify the talent pool coming into those positions for the future as well?<\/p>\n

How does that look on a good day at the office?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JP:<\/strong> On a good day, that means people openly talking about issues around inclusion and diversity. And it might sound simplistic, but sometimes people avoiding talking about diversity because it\u2019s too difficult or the fear of the unknown, certainly the fear of saying the wrong thing, which I can understand to some extent. But on a good day, what you\u2019ll see is people having this conversation in a really open way, showing a bit of vulnerability, being open to the fact that they may not know something and ultimately asking for the guidance, advice and opinions and insights of people who may come from more diverse groups to help them to be better leaders, to make better decisions, to be more inclusive in the way they operate, to make sure that we\u2019re sticking to our ambitions of being more inclusive and diverse.<\/p>\n

What are the signs and clues you look for that show that diversity and inclusion is becoming embedded in the fabric of the organisation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JP:<\/strong> The signs you look for are when leaders at the top of your organisation are building diversity and inclusion into their objectives and their agendas, which is very much the case at the RFU. I think you see it when you start to have clubs within the professional game talking about this on a more regular basis and that\u2019s absolutely happening in rugby right now. Some of those discussions are difficult, but at the same time, talking about them openly and the challenges you are facing. Ultimately, the key indicator everyone\u2019s looking for is: what is the diversity of people participating in the game of rugby? It\u2019s hard to measure that because we haven\u2019t always got the data we want but, ultimately, the day we can do that effectively and we can start to see progress, I guess that\u2019s a really good sign that not only is the game changing to become more diverse, but people are staying in the game. Hopefully that leads to becoming more inclusive as well.<\/p>\n

How do you deal with inevitable bumps in the road?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JP:<\/strong> Bumps are always going to occur in this space. It\u2019s a steep learning curve for some. Others are a bit more advanced. There\u2019s probably a big chunk of people in the middle that are still quite new to the inclusion and diversity space but get why it\u2019s important. Bumps; you\u2019ve got to kind of ride them. The more you build inclusion and diversity into your strategic objectives, your strategic thinking, into the commercial plans, the marketing plans you have, the communications plans you have, the performance strategies that you have, the more it becomes normalised and so the bumps become like any other bumps rather than a specific inclusion and diversity bump, one you become more used to riding rather than, at the moment because the fear of the unknown is more heightened. I tend to use bumps also as an opportunity to continue engaging on this topic with many of my colleagues as I possibly can. I think it\u2019s sad to hear stories of discrimination in the game, but if you don\u2019t learn something from them and how to be better as a result of them, it\u2019s not only a missed opportunity, you\u2019re failing the person that experienced that and you might be failing people in the future.<\/p>\n

How do you balance long-term and short-term planning in your role?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JP:<\/strong> Balancing the long-term and short-term is probably the biggest challenge in the diversity and inclusion space. I think, depending on public pressure, people, particularly in different positions of influence and leadership, want to see their results overnight. For me, it\u2019s about making sure that all the initiatives we do around the I&D agenda are regular, are digestible, that it can be tangible, not just about raising awareness but what can people do about it. All those short-term activities are designed to increase long-term change and hopefully improve not only the representation of diverse groups in rugby but also the number of inclusive leaders that exist within it as well. Ensuring you make that distinction is really important. Inclusivity, getting it right, and getting inclusive cultures, behaviour and decision-making in place will help diverse groups that are either in the sport today or you\u2019re trying to get into the sport for the future, not only for the sense of belonging but also to flourish and be the best they can in an environment that is being considerate of them. Short-term versus long-term, one automatically leads to the other and it\u2019s just making sure people have the patience and the confidence that they\u2019re going on a journey that will ultimately introduce change.<\/p>\n

How important is data in your role?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JP:<\/strong> Data is critical to my role. It\u2019s not always the easiest thing to obtain around the diversity space, primarily because of regulatory issues and also explaining to people why asking for their diversity data is important to their own experience, but also helping the RFU understand the diversity of the game more effectively. It underpins all of the baselines that we have; we have a lot of KPIs and metrics we want to hit over time. Most of them are quite challenging but that\u2019s a good thing. It helps us focus on the issue and we can regularly report on movements in programmes that we\u2019ve got in place or just generally in terms of participation. In that sense, data underpins every good inclusion and diversity strategy and certainly underpins ours here at England Rugby.<\/p>\n

Does data help you to identify gaps?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JP:<\/strong> I think it\u2019s more about making sure I use data to demonstrate the impact that we\u2019re having but also to give a picture of the lay of the land, particularly from a diversity perspective. I think it can be used effectively to persuade others as well of the importance of it. For example, participation in rugby is a really key challenge at all levels of the game and making sure that we present data were gaps exist that not only demonstrate the opportunity but also demonstrate the need to act on that. If we\u2019re struggling to get more people engaging and participating in the game and the data says so, we then need to be using that to increase the number particularly from diverse groups going forward and seeing it as an opportunity rather than as an additional project.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n

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