Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I'm your host for the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I've interviewed a number of amazing people have simply had a conversation around the subject of inclusion, belonging and generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive. If you'd like to join me in the future, then please do drop me a line to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk, that's S-E-E Change Happen dot co dot uk. You can catch up with all of the previous shows on itunes, Spotify and the usual places. So plug in your headphones, grab a decaf and let's get going. Today is Episode 90 with the title "Conversations Beyond Borders", and I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Kaumudi, Kaumudi Goda, or KG, to her friends and associates. KG is a Leadership Consultant, Executive Coach and DEIB Strategist.

When I asked KG to describe her superpower, she said it's her cross siloed perspective, passion for fact based big picture thinking and a commitment to ethical, compassionate business. Hello, Kg, welcome to the show.

Hi, Joanne. Thank you for having me.

Absolute pleasure. So you're in Amsterdam at the moment and it's a bit cold, damp and wet over there.

Is it? Yeah, the temperatures plunged this past week, so we're headed for a rather frosty winter, looks like, here.

Yeah, I guess it is the 1 December, so, yeah, I guess we've got colder weather to come, but, yeah, as long as we're wrapped up nice and warm in our own homes, that's all that matters right now.

Absolutely.

KG conversations beyond borders. Tell me more about that.

I loved when you picked that title for our conversation. Conversation is very important to me. I call my business the Human Conversation because I think if we can all rise above our little differences and have conversations at a human level, we'd definitely be able to build a better future for all of us together. And so Conversations Beyond Borders seems perfect for our conversation this morning.

Yeah, I think that's a good starting point, isn't it? Because often, and we look at the world around us at the moment where there are conflicts and tragedies happening, wars, conflicts, wherever you want to describe them, and most of them are where conversations break down. And it's really, really important that we recognise how we don't always have to be right. Not being right is really important and understanding perspectives. So for me, that's the basis of conversation. So what do you talk about in those sort of terms?

My own sensitivity and my lens is informed by the fact that I've always felt like I don't really fit in. I remember I felt like I didn't fit in as a young girl growing up in a rather patriarchal culture in South India. I didn't feel like I fit in as a young professional, pretty new in New York City, Manhattan. I spent a decade there and I think as I went through life, my realisation was. All of us are seeking that sense of community, that sense of validation, wanting to feel seen, heard, understood, accepted. That's a universal human emotion. But all of us are mired in our own little worries, feeling alone and wanting to connect and yet failing to realise everyone else is likely feeling the same. We all feel like we are islands, maroon.

And if we could embrace our own positions in those borders, recognise that maybe standing, feeling like we're standing outside, looking in, everyone else is in the same spot, it might make it easier to really appreciate somebody else's perspective, somebody else's viewpoint, and accept that my journey might be different from yours. But you're equally valid and entitled to having your opinions, having your life experiences, informing your worldviews, just as I am entitled to mine. That space of patience, compassion, curiosity that comes, I think, both with willingness to accept it, but also maybe time and patience with that. I certainly still feel I'm on that journey, but I'm willing to embrace it and I invite everyone else to do so as well.

Yeah, that's really important. And I think what you're saying there is we have to avoid the temptation to want to be right, to speak through our own lens, to speak through our own perspective. As the only thought, I think is the trouble with opinions is they are often based on our own facts, our own view of the world, and not necessarily reflective of other facts. Which is why we know diversity is important, diversity of voice is important in organisations and society to get more than one truth. Because there's obviously my perspective, your perspective and the shared perspective of a greater view of something. But we get too hung up, though, don't we, on having to be right. Confirmation bias, I think, for want of a better way of describing it, as a human species, why would I want to be wrong all the time? It's a human trait to be right, isn't it?

And I think we need all kinds of perspectives, all kinds of energies and visions. If I could pick an example of a team that's working together. We need visionary folks who have distinct ideas and assertively state them with clarity. We need that voice, but we also need folks who are quite strong in their own thoughts and voices, but are feeling ready to hold a space for more than one truth at the same time. And we need both those voices. In a company, you need that assertive, charismatic, extroverted promoter of the business idea, but you also need folks who are collaborative, open to other ideas, willing to explore this might be true, but what else might be true? What are we not considering? What are we failing to consider when we say assertively, this is the direction we want to go? You need all those energies together in a team. It takes discipline and it takes commitment, but it also takes a great deal of self confidence to be holding that space of saying I am very sure about what I believe in, but I can also respect somebody else's beliefs and be willing to listen to it. It's not easy.

I acknowledge that. It takes, I think, a lot of self confidence and patience and certainly experience.

Yeah. I think often we find that leaders, managers, project leaders in organisations often lack what I would call cultural competency or cultural intelligence to be able to be competent in environments where they have a range of different views, different experiences, range of personality types, if you like. And often when we're trying to lead these teams, we don't truly understand each person's motivation, each person's communication style, each person's sort of the way they want to interact. And sometimes we treat people the same and miss the nuances of people's personalities.

Agree, John? And also, I think that in the corporate sector we tend to defy a certain personality type. The cult of personality, which is fairly prevalent in United States in the corporate world, there certainly has seemed to have spread in other parts of the world as well. I see that charismatic CEO type of a personality that's the one that's most recognised as leadership looks like that. I had a conversation with a quiet friend once and he told me kg, do you recognise what a disadvantage it is to be a soft spoken, introverted, shy person in the corporate world? You're simply not seen as leadership material. And what a blow that is to all of us that we cannot recognise leadership in all its forms.

Being outspoken, outgoing for an introvert or even an ambivert, or someone who is not competent in speaking out can be very exhausting, can't it's? Almost inauthentic as well, because you're having to be the person you're not, you're covering, you're masking, you're pretending just to be heard. That's exhausting.

Yes, it is. We shouldn't have to mask, we shouldn't have to code switch. These are all terms that perhaps you and I are familiar with, but for those who are not familiar with it, masking is if I were to feel uncomfortable with being myself and I have to put up a front, behave in a certain way, change myself to fit into a workplace culture, that would be masking. And code switching is similarly, I speak differently. I communicate and hold myself out in a certain way because I feel speaking as myself, communicating what is naturally my style would not be acceptable. That's code switching as well. And we all do that. And we should be cognizant of the importance of creating spaces where none of us have to mask or code switch.

Yeah, I mean, people are probably more familiar these days with the term or phrase bring your whole self to work and also psychological safety, which are kind of ways of creating environments where people don't have to mask, code switch or cover or hide who they are. So we're already trying to bring those senses of self into the workplace and allow people to be themselves more and more 100%.

Psychological safety is absolutely the number one thing all of us need. Until I feel I am in a safe space, I'm not even able to be curious, to be a learner, to even bring my best to work, forget about feeling like I can trust my colleagues. That won't even be the second or third step. The first step is to feel safe. Then I can relax, then I can learn, then I can do my best, and then perhaps I'll consider connecting with other people. None of those will happen without psychological safety. You're absolutely right.

You mentioned that you are based in North America for a while. You've lived in Singapore for a while, maybe you grew up in India. Now you're in Amsterdam and Netherlands. Tell us a bit about your career and how that's evolved over those years.

That's a beautiful analogy right there. I think that's perhaps paralleled by my career as well. I've moved around a lot and that informs my lens. Similarly, in my career, I started out as a lawyer. I practised law in New York City for about seven years. And therefore that legal perspective, that risk assessment, that compliance with regulatory, the logic that all of us abide by certain laws is very central to how I look at solving problems in the workplace as well. And about seven years in Joanne, I realised I was that classic Indian kid. I was blinkers on.

Grades were important, as is with a lot of children growing up in the Global South. Grades were important because your education is your passport to a better life, more secure food security, shelter, financial security. All of that comes with working hard and having access to better education. And that's what I focused on. And law seemed like a solid career. I love it. I absolutely enjoyed my legal career. But seven years in, I was beginning to question what else is out there? Because I had never explored anything else.

My dad's a lawyer as well, and our conversations around the dinner table were all around that career. And so MBA then seemed like a good pairing, because an MBA really is like a finishing course. It's a miniature introduction to a lot of different topics marketing, accounting, finance. And I realised I was gravitating a lot towards leadership development and human strategy, human capital strategy. And I think it's because what gave me the greatest joy with law was understanding that we all operate within a certain regulatory framework. And the challenge is to find solutions for your clients within that. And in a corporate world, when as a consultant, as a person working in human capital strategy, it's the same. You're working within the corporate regulatory framework and you're trying to solve for your clients, for your stakeholders, for your products.

And so it spoke to me and about, again, seven years in of that I'm curious learner. I thought, I'm a lawyer and consultant. A lot of people confide in me, how can I hold space for better conversations? How can I better support people who are speaking with me, confiding me in me, all sorts of things. I thought maybe coaching is a good skill to acquire. And it was catalytic and transformative. Joanne I just ended up thinking, why didn't I do it 20 years back? I would have been a better human being for it. This is so phenomenal because it was indeed training on skills, but also deeper reflection. The kind that I'd never learned in law school, never learned in business school, is really exploring who I am, why I show up in certain ways, in certain situations and what do I want to be going forward.

And that sort of deep exploration to my own psyche was meant to be a foundation for how I can hold that space for other people. It's part of coach training. But it was so transformative for me. It just became a big part of who I am today. So, like, with how I moved around a lot, physically, geographically, I also moved around a lot in my career. And all of that boundary spanning, standing at the edges, looking in, is also what feels like my career. These are all support services, law consulting, these are all folks who are standing and supporting central business activity. And I guess that's the red thread is throughout all of that, I was seeking, what's the right thing to do? How can we be the truest, how can I be the truest, most maybe value based person? I can be doing the most right thing I could do? And that's also what I realised, is what I am trying to create with my work today is creating those workplaces that are ethical, inclusive, inspirational.

I think it's possible for all of us. I think I often find that's a big component that's missing in lots of education is helping people find that inner core. Because if you are in touch with that, no matter how crazy the context is, through COVID, through any of the complex VUCA ness of the world, because you know who you are at the core, you're informed by that. And that in turn will be your North Star.

I think I mentioned this to you in the green room before we went live, that my background was in It and computing and I probably spent the formative parts of my life and career in a logical black and white binary. It works, it doesn't work. Very absolute world. And I'm going to make the assumption that being a lawyer is quite absolute at times. You win, you lose. You're right, you're wrong. There's a definitive answer to everything. And what I found moving into the people space was that there are no absolutes people are people people are different.

People have different perspectives. And I realised that I was forcing my brain into a logical place that it was okay with. But actually it wanted to find the human connection, it actually wanted to find the human factor. I wanted to explore compassion, I wanted to explore different feelings and emotions and be vulnerable, whereas in the past it was all around right, wrong, black, white, fix, not working, illness and things. So I found the last seven years of my life very fulfilling. And is that a similar sort of journey that you've discovered with yourself?

I love that. You're absolutely right. But as someone working in the technical field, I imagine precision, finality, clarity, absolutes are your world. And many ways law is precisely that as well. That's been my own journey too. In fact, one of my most favourite stories is when I joined my coach training programme. One of the master trainers was a man called Mark Hempstead, who's sadly passed on. And in my conversation with him, I said, you know, I'm a lawyer, I'm trained to be neutral.

And he had a big laugh about lawyers being neutral, because lawyers tend to be very opinionated and whole. You're absolutely know, it's either this or that. And I often think of that twinkle in his eye when I think about how far I've come in that ability to hold space for myself and for others, that more than one thing could be true at all times. The world is full of such complex and wicked problems, isn't it, joanne, you and I could both be working on the same problem. You're addressing a certain aspect of it. I'm addressing a certain aspect of it. My solution might harm yours and vice versa. Yet both of us could be absolutely well intentioned and focused on solving the exact same problem.

And therefore, what do we do then? It's about embracing the fact that both things can be true at the same time, and that's the complexity all around us. And we need to find ways in which we can collaborate and work across silos and solve those wicked problems and understand. Sometimes it's about priorities and sometimes it's about maybe coming together and addressing something else that both of us can agree on.

I don't know if you found this when you were practising law that people wanted. They wanted an answer, they wanted some sort of reassurance that they were right or they were wrong, or would this work and same in my It career. People came to me and they wanted me to be the expert, they wanted me to have the answer. And there's an immense amount of pressure to have to be the answer to everyone's problems, to be able to resolve things. And I often say to people, the reason it's a problem is because it's a problem. If it wasn't a problem, I'd have solved it instantly, I'd have fixed it, I'd have come up with the answer, but the fact of the problem is I had to investigate it, I have to think about it. That's not necessarily a now thing, it could be a week thing, could be a month thing. And I appreciate you want answers quickly, but problems are problems, they've been resolved.

And I learned in my electronics career background, you can fault find, you can half split, you can narrow down the root of the problem to left half or right half, then left half or right half, then left half, so you're narrowing the scope down. But with people you can't always do that. You have to go into them with vulnerability and compassion. You have to go in with not knowing the answer and almost going in, not needing to find out the answer, just help people down a path. I think that's true in the Dei space as well, that there's no absolute solutions, just a best journey that everyone can get behind and buy into.

Yes, and as an advisor, I find that the answer of it depends is the least popular answer. Nobody wants to hear it. Can you just get to it? Don't Hemmen horn, don't be stuck in analysis paralysis. But I think that due diligence of looking at everything painstakingly, considering all potential pitfalls, all perspectives, is absolutely vital. That's precisely the space I occupy. That's my personality as well. I am very marks data driven, but what I find, and this has been my journey, Joe, is you might do all of your entire process, but you need to also be informed by a very clear understanding of who you want to be, what you want your legacy to be. There are many situations in life and work where there are no clear answers and then you need to be informed by what can I live with? I need to make a tough choice now as a leader, as a manager, as a person responsible for something, and there are no clear answers, I need to make a call.

But the call needs to be made on what are your values? At the end of the day, looking back, are you going to be satisfied that you did the best you could? It might fail, but if you proceeded based on a certain set of values you've thought through, then likely you're going to regret less in life. And that's very important. I find that missing often. Perhaps one of the most important things all of us can invest in is surfacing and unearthing and holding close to us those values and also acknowledge that maybe those values evolve as they should. What your value system? What my value system was when I was in my teens is certainly not what it is now as a person with some life experience and some travels and some education, and I think we should all continue to evolve.

I travelled quite a lot my younger life. I worked for a global bank and I was privileged to be able to travel to their offices around the world from west coast of America, california, north and South California east Coast, New York, Miami, Cross, Europe, Far East, Hong Kong, Singapore. So I travel quite extensively. Also in my social life, I was a member of a club and we regularly used to have mainly European meetings and further afield where I would stay in people's homes for a long weekend, maybe four or five days, meet their children, eat around their table, sit around their fire in the back garden, in their hot tub in Iceland or somewhere. So you get to experience all these different cultures and that is so enriching to be invited to someone else's home as a member of their family for several days and it's a privilege to enjoy their hospitality and culture and learn so much from them.

Spot on. One of my current favourite metaphors is I'm new in Europe, so this is my third continent I'm living and working in. And so one of the things I learned early on, it's probably apocryphal, but apparently the Canadian Inuit have over 50 words to describe various forms of snow and that's because they have a lot of snow that they encounter in their daily lives and that's the vocabulary they need. And the Dutch, by popular pop culture, have more words for bad weather than all the words in innovate culture. And so it may or may not be true, but it tickles me because I think that is so important. To understand a person, to truly understand and know a person, I think we need to understand what are their challenges, what are their priorities, what is it that they are currently focused on? And so, as much as all of us are working these days, perhaps in global organisations with global vision, that local sensitivity in understanding what shoes a person's walking in, what is their vocabulary, what do they need the most nuance in their life for? And knowing that it varies what I have the most vocabulary for, probably your vocabulary is very focused on something entirely different. And to truly know you and understand you, I need to get that.

Yeah. As you say, this is now your third continent. You must have picked up a whole breadth and depth of cultural information. Food, you say, the weather, the way people interact with each other, how they greet each other, personal space. There's a whole lot of different dynamics, more than just plain language, isn't there, around communication and being together?

I don't know about breadth and depth, but certainly greater humility around the fact that there's so much we do not know, so much that it's so very easy to not realise, not sense, not be sensitive to, and how important it is to keep your eyes wide open. That sense of learning and humility is certainly what I'm more and more growing towards. From a relatively fresh perspective, I do notice that for me, one obvious change as a practitioner is in the US. It's pretty forefront of conversations and consciousness, the language and vocabulary and sensitivity around inclusion, because there has been a lot of public discourse. Now people may fall at any end of the spectrum. There's a whole range of reactions and thoughts and opinions about it, even within United States. But certainly at the forefront of that conversation, there public discourse. In Asia, for instance, there is a greater sense of we are a little different.

We know, we understand in a certain sense, but also because in the Global South there is a great motivation for getting with the rest of the world aspirational interest in ensuring we correct what needs to be corrected, anxiety and obviously worry about holding our identity secure. But certainly let's get a move on. And because of that motivation, the conversation has trickled absolutely into public discourse there as well, joe and that's my observation. These conversations are happening, in fact, perhaps even a little bit more advanced and more open mindedness in my observation, in Asia, having lived there for nearly a decade as well. I'm brand new in Europe, and I have to say I've had the fortune of meeting many, many wonderful advocates, practitioners, allies and amplifiers for dei. But my very new eyes tell me here, there, I think, perhaps is a more widespread block between knowing and doing. The identity seems to be we are the good guys. We have not had historic tradition of slavery, we have not had a historic tradition of being oppressors, and therefore we good guys.

We have it more sorted. This is not our problem. And with that identity, I think, also comes a stubbornness sort of a blind spot around curiosity for other perspectives. What else can I do? If I hold that I am a very good person, a very woke person, a very sorted and inclusive person, then perhaps I'm shutting off conversation that's possible around what can I do differently? What can I improve more? And that is my speaking as a very new person here. I would say perhaps that's something we can embrace more, is curiosity around what can.

That's a very interesting perspective. So as a person who's lived in the UK most of my life, I'm white, grown up in a fairly average family, I don't see myself as a colonialist, I don't see myself as an invader. I don't see myself as somebody who has gone out into the world and destroyed cultures. That's something that happened in the history books. That's something that happened by somebody else. Whereas I think what I'm picking up on what you're saying is when you're in the Global South, you're living with the impact of colonialism and that echo is still there, even three, 4500 years later. So when you come to the Global North, you're seeing a kind of a detachment from that reality. But when you're in the Global South, you're living with that day to day.

That's beautifully put, and thank you for saying that. The thing the disconnect from the acknowledgement of power and privilege, it's so subtle, it's practically invisible. And I think it becomes very easy to have a big blind spot around it. And perhaps the most Dutch example I can give is the Dutch are great cyclers. They cycle everywhere. And when we were new here in the summer, we all stepped out and said, let's go cycling together. It's a beautiful family activity. And on the way out, Joanne, we were cycling.

It was gorgeous. Dutch countryside is stunning in its beauty. Flowers everywhere, meadows, sheeps, horses. Such a country focused on sustainability. It was beautiful and joyous. And about halfway through our journey, we said, let's turn back. And all of a sudden I was huffing and puffing and I couldn't focus on any of the countryside. And all I was thinking about was like, my God, I suck at cycling.

This is so hard. I don't think I can cycle all the way back home. And I think the difference simply was that when we were on our outward journey, the breeze was aiding our journey forward, and that was invisible. The winds were invisible to me. They were pleasant. It was a beautiful summer breeze. But the whole system was aiding me in moving forward. And I was able to focus on the beauty of the world and my family and my lovely little boys and just how good this all feels.

But the minute the system was working against me, it was equally invisible. But I couldn't focus on anything. All I could focus on was my hardship. And that's very true of folks from the Global South, folks from any sort of non dominant identity trying to operate in workplaces, in cultures where they do not have that invisible systemic support, power and privilege. It's invisible to both of us. But if you have an advantage, you're able to enjoy and navigate the workplace in a way I simply cannot. And I might look like I'm preoccupied with my uniqueness, my difference, and how that makes my life difficult. It might seem like it's a loser attitude and victim attitude, but it's because nothing else is possible for me while the system is making it subtly invisibly harder for me to be part of it and navigate it with the same ease and confidence.

That's that subtle difference between knowing and doing. Because in many workplaces, in many leadership, let's say a table, if we use that frequent dei metaphor, I'm at the table. But I certainly feel like I'm an invited guest. I'm there at your largest. This is not my table. I better watch it. I better watch my language. I better be watchful about what I need to and how I need to navigate it, because it might be rescinded.

That invitation might be rescinded any moment, one false step. How does then being strategic, being. More rising above myself become possible to me at all. I'm focused on survival. It's that 101 inclusion, 101. All of us universally, I think we can say majority of us are working on it consciously. But after that basic level of inclusion, we now have built a table and invited folks in. That next level of inclusion where we focus on these subtleties, these nuances, these ways in which it's easier for me.

It's my stage, my table, my mic, versus maybe it's not yours. And you feel very much like a guest. How can I make that better? We can be more sensitive to it. I think it would be a lovely step forward, a levelling up, if you will, on inclusion.

I love that analogy and obviously your real experience of that subtle breeze on your back gives you that you're unaware of, that subtle aid and boost you're getting. But when it's on your front, you become hyper aware that the same breeze that helps you is the same breeze that oppresses you, the same breeze that stops you succeeding, makes your journey harder. So if two people cycling in different directions for the same breeze have a different experience, and that's a really powerful analogy, and I love the way that you brought that out there. You talked about this table, it's not your table, it's somebody else's table. And that's the challenge, I find, is that whether we're talking about female empowerment, whether we're talking about antiracism anti Semitism, whatever, we're talking about ableism. The challenge is that the table has been built and constructed and hosted by people who hold power and privilege in some way, whether they're white, whether they're men, whether able bodied, whether they're Christian or non religious, whatever it may be. That's who owns the table. And what you're saying is the day will come where people who are marginalised people have taken their power.

They've put the wind behind them, if you like, so they're getting the amplification, then the people who used to hold the power and privilege will be either a guest at the table or they won't come to the table at all because they're not used to having those conversations from a position of marginalisation. So how do we get people who are used to power and privilege to recognise that and to want to have conversations?

It is very hard. I think it takes a tremendous amount of discipline and self reflection to be mindful, even, because it can be so subtle and so seductive to fall into the usual it feels familiar, that usual pace of things. I was advising a global organisation where there was a huge drive to bring in more global diversity at their topmost leadership level. And what I found was that they kept asking, Why are we not succeeding? Why do we have such a high attrition rate? Why do folks fail to apply even when opportunity is given at the top most leadership level? And it was because folks had been there for the longest time. They were used to hyper effective. I understand you completely because we've walked the same path, we've had the same education, we speak the same language, we know the organisation that we have built from scratch, inside out, therefore we have a short hand. It's almost like I can look at you and you understand instantly what I'm thinking, but someone else from a very distinct, different experience, different skill set, different way of communicating, it just feels slower. And it's like they don't get it.

And what they say, I get it, I've known it. I've known it for years. And so when we do that, when we do that dismissive, fine, but this is slower and this is not effective. We are just seeking the comfort of what is familiar to us. But the impact of that dismissal can be tremendous on those who have been newly invited to that space. And that's really, really important to pay attention to. So what can folks who currently do have those dominant positions, whether it was conscious or not? If you observe that there are folks, perhaps who are new to the table who might feel they are invited, they might be suffering from impostor syndrome or any other kinds of nervousness or anxiety around, maybe they don't quite fully belong in that room. What can you do? Be more mindful about the words and actions.

If there is a conversation around a decision, an exploration of an idea, brainstorming of any kind, let the other folks share their opinions before the folks currently holding the familiar positions speak. I have seen many different mechanisms being employed effectively, joanne, for instance, when you're voting on something, let even the unpopular choices be populated by the support of the leaders. For example, if you are leading my team and there is an unpopular choice to be currently considering, if you give it support, whether or not you believe in it, it encourages those who are more quiet to speak up. If they're thinking that our team is better off choosing an unpopular choice because you made it okay to choose that. Another could be say there are some quieter voices that tend not to speak up in team meetings. You could invite them to send their opinion to you one on one via email, or set up some time with you prior to the meeting. If they're quieter voices, what can we do to bring those to the fore? What can we do to make it okay for them to share it? Let's all be watching about how quickly we dismiss something. A lot of times now, reverse mentoring has become instituted in a lot of organisations.

You have a 20 something intern sitting on the board. Are we genuinely encouraging that person to share their perspective, or are we being subtly patronising without even realising it bad? Good job. How is that going to encourage that person to share anything? Or dismissively making a statement of, oh, entitled Gen Z or Alpha gen or you guys probably know all about it's humour, it's easy, it's familiar, it's comforting to resort to that quickly. Therefore it takes discipline, for sure, to be mindful of it. These may be very, very subtle, but that's where we step up from Inclusion 101 to genuinely levelling up and saying our actions, our behaviours, our strategies are now aligned with what we say we want. Because as a consultant, as an advisor going into organisations, this is my observation. If we hold out that we are an inclusive leader, inclusive team, inclusive organisation, invite people in and then we let them down by all of these subtle, subconscious, unconscious behaviours. More overtly if there fail to be consequences of those leaders who are currently in downward positions, they behave badly, they make poor choices, they're not aligned with our stated values.

And as an organisation, as a team, there are no consequences to that. Or worse. We let people in and when they speak up, we punish them. We punish the whistleblowers in any of these three things, whether it's subtle, unconscious or no consequences for behaviour not aligned with our stated values, or we punish the whistleblowers for saying the uncomfortable thing. All three situations. Two things happen. Those voices that are actively trying to make the workplace better, they quit, they walk out. And those voices that were mastering up the nerve to no longer be fence sitters, to no longer be quiet, they will go right back into hiding.

And that's a dead ecosystem.

It's a real challenge, though, if you're in the EDI space, the dib space, as a practitioner, as an in house person, to keep on keeping on. It is exhausting because you find that you're always having conversations almost every day, trying to enlighten people who often don't want to be enlightened, that they go, what's wrong? Everything's good. I don't see race, I don't see colour, I don't see this. I treat everyone the same, missing the sort of nuances of their position, their power, as you say, their majority. And it does become exhausting. And even though I don't work inside corporates that often, just the conversations I have with friends, just listening to the attitudes around a restaurant table, they're ingrained deeply in many people's psyche and lived experience that they don't see the world as having a problem. Again, you talked earlier about this wind in your face, wind behind you. When you've had the wind behind you all the time, you think that's the norm, but it is your norm.

And the fact that other people are struggling the other way, your attitude is, well, they have to work harder, or why should I give them, why should I sacrifice myself for them? So how do we, as practitioners, as dei professionals, or anybody out there who's listening, who is wanting to change the world for the better, how do we keep up and keep on in the face of these challenges all the time.

That's actually a question that I struggle with as well. And so what bubbled up for me, Joanne, when you were saying this that's so close to my heart and resonates with what I struggle with as well is, Joanne, when you have felt exhausted or overwhelmed or asked yourself, this is so thankless, why should I even try? Why not go back to a safe, highly paying profession of being It consultant? When you feel like that, what has given you some relief, some comfort and some motivation? What has helped you recharge your own batteries?

I suppose for me, I just dig deep into why I do what I do. Seven or eight years ago, I was the person with the wind on my back, cycling with the aid. And one event, my gender transition, was my equivalent of coming back the other way. And suddenly, I'm now facing that wind in my face. I don't understand what oppression is, what marginalisation is, what it's like to be talked about in a negative way or accused of things or judged in a way. So what I do is I dig deep. I suppose I look back at that pivot point in my life where I went from being blind to being awake or woke, whatever you want to call that word, to awake to what's going on. And that's why we do what we do.

That's why I do what I do is once you've seen what's going on, once you're aware of what's going on, you can't go back. You can't take the other pill and forget it all again. You've made that choice to expose yourself to what's going on. So no matter how exhausting it is, I know it's more exhausting for other people who are living it in a harder way than I experience it. My life is relatively privileged still. I'm still white. I've still had a good education. I'm still British.

I speak the language of my country. I have a house, I have a family. I have lots of things of privilege, and I have one element of my, if you like, my characteristic, my personality, my being, that is not so privileged. There are people who have refugees. We have people migrating into this country with nothing, not even a pair of shoes, not even the language, not even a penny in their pocket. They have a far tougher time than I will ever experience. And I think by being aware and having that compassion, that empathy, that humility, all those kind of soft, emotional, intelligence type skills, you can't unlearn that. I don't think I can unlearn that.

And so what keeps me going? Knowing that this journey is infinite and there will be bumps on it, but we got to keep on keeping on, because if I don't who.

Beautiful. That's so spot on.

So you must have noticed in your work, over three continents, there's obviously a different priority in terms of dei work. So dei work in India, in the global south, has a different priority than maybe in the Netherlands, maybe in New York or in North America. Racism is big topic. North America is it as big in the Netherlands, racism hopefully has a different set of connotations. It's more about colonialism, maybe about education in India and the south, or gay rights or queer rights or things like that. We all have different views on it. I remember talking to a person who was based in Berlin, and the challenge they have around racism is around the large Turkish population they have. So it's not around black people, white people, it's around racism against the Turkish population of Germany.

And that's a different perspective. I also believe in the Netherlands, the words that Dutch people use for black and white have different connotations. So white means unwell pasty, unhealthy. So they don't talk about black people and white people. They use different language. So even the language in our dei world is nuanced and the priorities are subtly different and the challenges are different across the globe, aren't they?

Absolutely. I think it is very integral to the culture, the ethos, the philosophy of people towards life. And so, for instance, having lived in Singapore, it was very much a striver culture. Work hard, martyr yourself at work. If you stay till 08:00, Joanne, then I'm going to stay till 930 to prove how sincere I am and how hardworking I am. And it's infectious, that attitude of strive hard and keep up. And so each culture is different. For example, in Indonesia, they have very much the approach that it's a family, the way they eat, it's communal eating, and that culture is everyone's family.

And so that attitude that a leader of a team is almost like a parent figure for the team. It informs the kind of decisions, their attitude towards how they make policy choices. And it's very, very different from culture where it's very individualistic. In Netherlands, for instance, it's very individualistic, it's very around individual freedoms and rights. I do what is right for me. And so every corporate culture is unique to that office in that region. And it's really important to recognise that. I had, for instance, a global organisation that was needing to do some global work on inclusion.

And one of the plaintiff voices from Asia was it's a peak period. Everybody is working overtime, some of the places we live, stepping out as a female or any other vulnerable identity, late night to take a long public transport, commute back home is unsafe. And in this time, if you say we're going to spend a day learning about Martin Luther King and the history of racism in America, this is not relevant to where I live and it is taking me away from a very critical period. I'm not going to get any time off for this. I'm not going to get any leeway around my deliverables. You've made me unsafe, you've stressed me out even more and it's not even relevant to me. Spend a day studying the history of racism in another country, in the other end of the world, and this is a reality. We need to come up with ways in which the work we are doing is relevant to the people we are trying to impact.

In another instance, I was advising an embassy, they were all talking about unconscious bias and the security person was sitting at the same table as a diplomat. And security person said, I'm holding a gun and standing guard outside the embassy of a foreign country in my home country. When someone approaches the compound rapidly, I have a split second to decide. Now, I cannot spend ten minutes, kg, as you're suggesting, letting the fast thought go by and the slow thinking kick in. I need to make a split second decision because my job and the lives of everyone I'm guarding depend on it. And therefore we cannot have blanket training programmes and blanket advice and mechanisms. We need to be sensitive to the context of that particular person, their function, their level, their priorities, their deliverables, their geographic location, their cultural influences. It's so subtle and so varied and.

That'S where someone's ingrained bias becomes amplified because they don't have the luxury or privilege, as you say, to slow think. You are reacting in the moment. And that's where our ingrained biases exist, those in the moment decisions. So someone's skin colour, someone's gender, someone's just persona, their accent, those drive, those instant decisions based on that person's ingrained bias. And that puts a perspective. It's different on how people, their personal safety, their motivation, their drivers to protect themselves will kick in. Whereas we, as dei practitioners, in most organisations, we do talk about slowing thinking down, bringing it to the prefrontal cortex, we talk about taking it away from our reptilian brain, but that is not a luxury that everybody has. That's a very interesting thought.

And as a person who works, and oftentimes my lens is informed by compliance and risk assessment. If you think about whistleblowers, people in the ecosystem speaking up for what's right or flagging something that's going wrong, that's dysfunctional, the weight on that person and the way that person assesses their ability and willingness to speak up depends on what risks they are undertaking and what they feel the system will do to them after. If you are a person who is just feeling lucky to have that job, who needs that job to make ends meet, to pay the rent cheque, to provide food for the family, if you have responsibilities, then chances are you're going to turn a blind eye because you feel that system will not provide any consequences for the person who has been flagged or the act that is being flagged. Rather, the person who's speaking up will be punished. And we have to be sensitive about that. It's very easy to tell that single mom who needs that job very badly, well, why didn't you speak up? Why did you put up with it? Why did you turn a blind eye? Well, she didn't have a choice. Well, she perceived that she do not have a choice if we sensitive to that and find ways in which we can make that okay, level the playing field, so to speak, if we truly want it. And there's so many disadvantages to having dysfunctional workplaces where people in the system do not feel empowered to speak up, to flag what's going wrong.

We've seen again and again, right, Joanne, the submarine that exploded close to Titanic, there were voices along the way throughout the process of creating that vehicle that said, this is something is terribly wrong. It's not going to work. They were silenced. The same thing happened with many space exploration projects as well. Billions of dollars were lost. I'm sure you know this example very well because engineers had spoken up, had said, this is not going to work. The mechanism is faulty, it's vulnerable, and they were told to shut up because billions were at stake and there's a deadline to be met, and please stop quibbling about small details that nobody cares about. And then the end result is tremendous, catastrophic loss to everybody in the whole project.

Yeah, that's so true. And I think one thing the airline industry has learned over the years is this radical candle where you do speak up, you do challenge it's a different culture. Whereas we look at some cultures, as you say, it's a about book. We're hiding oppressing, keeping it down, because how can we be seen to be failing? We have to achieve. We have to hit that goal at any cost. Whereas the airline industry has probably learnt that it can't do that anymore, and it's safer now than it's ever been, because people call it out and they are listened to. And I think that's really important in the HR, in the people space. It's giving people that psychological safety, knowing they will be heard, and it will be actioned not buried.

I'm a great believer in the fact that there is no such thing as a legal entity. I'm a lawyer. I know that there is a legal entity, there is a corporation, but it's comprised of people. And therefore my comfort level with conflict, the way I respond to conflict, the way I respond to a difficult conversation, the way I communicate when situations are awkward or uncomfortable, absolutely informs the culture. It doesn't matter if I'm the boss, if I'm an underling, whatever my position in hierarchy might be. There is much to be acknowledged about the power of a single person and therefore understanding myself, understanding what triggers me. What's my response to conflict? How do I choose to communicate? My difficulty, my discomfort, my stance on things informs the culture. Likewise, the leader has a tremendous responsibility around having space for difficult conversations, to engage in conflict in productive ways.

So you're absolutely right. Radical candour and also maybe an understanding of ourselves and how we hold that space for difficult conversation. 100%.

You said right at the beginning about that you don't feel that you belong here there. So I often talk about the difference between inclusion and belonging. What's your take on the difference between inclusion and belonging and how do you think you can find the magic of belonging?

I think there's loads of research on what creates that belonging. It's certainly that final step of the pyramid of having diversity around the table, having inclusive policies, actions, behaviours mechanisms and systems and all of that together creates that sense of belonging. For me, my experience, personal experience, has been it's fairly straightforward. All of us seek that sense of safety. Am I safe to be myself with you? Am I safe to speak up my truth and disagree with you where it's relevant, or am I code switching and masking? And so once that sense of safety is established and it's a complex, ever evolving thing, isn't it? I have had conversations with best friends I've known all my life where I wasn't able to provide that psychological safety, because in that instant I got triggered and I said something that's not supportive and that's it, it fled. There's no longer psychological safety and suddenly we are all armoured up and watching carefully around, watching our P's and Q's around each other. That can happen in the oldest, most familiar friendships. And so let's acknowledge that psychological safety is ever evolving, it's super complex and every moment it changes shape.

Once that's established, then if I am able to perform to my best, because the systems, the processes, the policies are encouraging me, motivating me, supporting me, inspiring me to do my best work, and then I feel I'm rewarded for it. I'm seeing, I'm acknowledged that I'm sincere, I'm hardworking, I get benefits from it, but most of all, feeling a deeper sense of purpose, that there is meaning to the work I do and it's central to which way the boat is heading. I'm in this boat with everybody else. My work is valued, supported, rewarded, and we're all heading in the same direction. Then all those things come together to create that sense of belonging. I think, then I know this is my team, I'm going to fight for it. Ultimately, we are doing some good in life. That's my personal experience.

I think everyone's formula for belonging might vary as it should, and we should have conversation.

I like that. I like that. That's pretty good. I think that for me, that sums up that essence. It's being a DeMask feel, that sense of relaxedness safety. You say, knowing that you're respected and loved and that people have your back, those kind of things, all part of that. Yeah. Fantastic.

Wow. We've been chatting for over an hour. Time has flown and we could carry on talking all day, I'm sure. So you've written a couple of books, you've got your own organisation called The Human Conversation. Tell us more about that, how people can get hold of you.

I have a website I'm fairly active on, LinkedIn. My organisation is called the Human Conversation. I'm based out of Amsterdam, but I work across the world, as many of us do. Joanne so if you have a need for a leadership consultant, an advisor, a coach, a trainer, I'm available. Hit me up and look forward to having conversations. I have a question for you, if you have the time.

Joanne yeah, go for it.

I was curious about what's one thing that you have found evolved. You've evolved on your thinking about one topic, where you were on one point and then you're like, I'm at a different place on the same topic. Now.

That'S a tricky one to answer, because I've evolved so much in my thinking in the last seven or eight years. It's hard, I think, to put a finger on it. And I think the reason I asked you about belonging, I think one of the things that I did some self reflection and self analysis on was around the sense of belonging and what makes the difference between the difference between included and belonging. And it started to click into place for me, areas of my life where I was included, but I didn't feel belonging. And it empowered me to make choices, to move on from things that didn't make me happy. So, in the green room before, I mentioned the Icky guy and the four areas, what I'm good at, what the world needs, what I can make money at, and the important one for me is what I love. And I think what I discovered was belongingness in whatever I was doing was part of that. What I love doing.

If I didn't love it, if it wasn't ingrained in me, that quadrant became unbalanced. I wasn't feeling, no matter how much I was getting paid, no matter how much I was good at it, if I didn't love it. And I think, so recognising what belonging meant, it allowed me to step back and say, this isn't fulfilling me, this isn't making my life better. I am performing, I am forcing myself, covering, masking, pretending, whatever it may be. So I suppose that essence of Icky Guy and that essence of belonging now tries to drive me to do what I do. And it also drives me to recognise what doesn't work for me. So I'm not scared to step out and say, I'm sorry, that doesn't work for me. That's not me.

I don't feel it. So I suppose that's my answer to your question. Discovering belonging and what I love, that's so powerful.

I love that. And to be okay, to say no, to walk away from spaces and conversations that are not acceptable. That's beautiful, those boundaries, right? Having those healthy boundaries spot on.

Yeah. And I get challenged. I'm a trans woman in my late 50s. There's a lot of trans critical views, transcritical rhetoric, and people want to debate it. And I've discovered I don't owe anybody an argument, I don't owe anybody a justification, I don't owe anybody a defence. So I'm quite comfortable saying, I accept. We have dim perspectives, we're so polarised, there's no way we can come to the centre of this table and have a conversation. Therefore, I'm sorry, I don't owe you an argument.

I don't owe you a justification, because that's what you want to do. You want to provoke me into an argument or justification where you want to win. I don't need to be right. I don't need to win or lose. It doesn't fulfil me. Why take part in this? So it's allowed me to sort of step away from those. And when I see the negative language, the negative comments, I'm able to look at it very detached, very pragmatic. And the phrase I use, I see it as graffiti.

So graffiti sprayed onto a wall. It's anger expressed on a wall. It's not at me. You have anger. You have something that makes you different perspective to me. You're spraying on a wall. I don't have to look at it. I can drive past it, I can see it and go, Whatever.

I don't internalise it. I just see it for what it is. It's anger expressed somewhere else. So it allows me to reframe in that way. So I don't take things to heart. Okay, yes, I accept my armour sometimes gets pierced when I'm not ready, when I'm vulnerable or I feel too relaxed. Sometimes it can hit me. But mostly my self care, my resilience kick in and I may need to hide for an hour or two and come back.

But mostly I can process that and go, use my techniques, get out of this rut. It's just graffiti, it's not personal. They don't know me and then step away from it. So, yeah, I think all those combination of things is what I've discovered about myself in the last three, four, five.

Years that's so important, that those tools for self care and to just block out negativity and harshness when it's all around us, it's so hard. I love that you shared that. Thank you.

I'm going to carry this on. This is my show. But I'm also conscious that I can't put my fingers in my ear and bury my head in the sand. So I'm not excluding and blocking out those thoughts. I'm just processing them in a way that I don't internalise. So I look at them, I understand them, I recognise them. I hear your argument, I hear your debate, I hear your view, but I don't want to engage in it. So I'm not denying you to hold that view.

In fact, sometimes I actually spend. Time reading critical views, not just about trans or gender identity, but critical views around racism, critical views around other characteristics, because I think you have to know what's going on in the world, be able to process it and say, no, that's not what I think. I've spent a lot of time trying to do some research on the crisis going on in Israel and Palestine and with Hamas. I don't have an answer. I don't know the answer. But what I do know is I don't know. So I need to find out more. I have an opinion, and my opinion is peace needs to win.

People need to stop dying. People need to not kill each other. People can't have their families, their lives, everything ripped apart through conflict. That's what I stand against. Who's right? Who's wrong? I don't know. I can't solve that problem. But what I do know is, let's talk about peace. Let's talk about resolving this.

Let's talk about stopping people dying. So that's my focus. I do listen to perspectives. I don't shut them out, but I do it in a way where I'm able to process them and learn about things and form my own model, if you like. In my head around things and continually wanting to challenge it, avoiding the confirmation, avoiding biases that I know I probably hold, is deliberately trying to test myself to find alternate theories, alternate solutions. Probably my science background, my It background is you're always trying to look for information, different information, things, different solutions, different ways of working. So, yeah, I continue to challenge myself in that way. Sorry, that's me going off on one left.

And that rigour is really important. That rigour and your recognition of I thought you said it so beautifully when you said you don't owe an argument to anybody. But for that rigorous scientific processing of a complex problem. And coming up with a response rather than a mindless reaction needs a quiet time where you are able to block out unnecessary static and take in input, but nevertheless have that moment for yourself where you can think through things and have a thoughtful response to a situation that's absolutely important. In fact, that's perhaps more important than being reactive to everything and responding instantly to every noise that comes your way. You don't owe an argument to anybody. I loved when you said that.

I think that's also a good trait for leaders to approach, that you haven't got to have the answer now. You don't have to respond now. You can hold the space. You can say, Look, I need to think about that. You're right. There's some challenges there. Give me half an hour. Let me come up with some ideas.

Let's get back after a cup of coffee, and let's sit down when we're both ready for that conversation. And otherwise you do tend to just go off on your first thought, your first bias, your first reaction, and we need to be measured and considered a lot of the time. Beautiful, in my humble opinion, anyway. Kg, thank you. Thank you. We could carry on all day, I know we could. And hopefully one day we'll actually meet in person somewhere. Somewhere in the world.

And for you, the listeners, thank you for getting to the end of this episode of the Inclusion Bytes Podcast. Please do subscribe, if you're not already subscribed. And it's B-I-T-E-S. Inclusion Bites. B-I-T-E-S. Tell your friends tell your colleagues. I've got a number of other exciting guests lined up, and I'm sure you'd be equally inspired over the next few weeks and months. So this is episode 90.

It's not long till we turn 100. So hoping that there's going to be a guest who's going to be magical for the hundredth. Who knows, of course, that could be you being a guest. So, yeah, please sign up. I welcome any suggestions and feedback on how we can improve. To jo.lockwood@seechangehapen.co.uk. And finally, my name is Joanne Lockwood, and it's been an absolute pleasure to host this podcast for you today. Catch you next time.

Bye.