Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I am your host for the
Joanne Lockwood: Inclusion Bytes podcast. In this series, I will be interviewing a number
Joanne Lockwood: of amazing people and simply having a conversation about the subjects of
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion, belonging and generally making the world a better
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Joanne Lockwood: deca and let's get going. Today
Joanne Lockwood: is episode 14 with the title why is it
Joanne Lockwood: so Hard for Women to get in the boardroom? And I have the
Joanne Lockwood: absolute honour and privilege to be joined by Gllian Jones
Joanne Lockwood: Williams. I first met Gillian many, many moons ago
Joanne Lockwood: when I was her business's IT support consultant. That's going back
Joanne Lockwood: a bit. Gillian describes herself as someone who works with
Joanne Lockwood: organisations to help them move away from focusing on
Joanne Lockwood: diversity and truly engaging in creating an inclusive
Joanne Lockwood: climate. I asked Gillian to describe her
Joanne Lockwood: superpower and she said her superpower
Joanne Lockwood: is inspiring people. Welcome to the show,
Joanne Lockwood: Gillian. How are you? Hello, Joanne. I'm very, very good and thank
Gllian Jones Williams: you so much for inviting me. And, yes,
Gllian Jones Williams: I really do hope I inspire people, particularly
Gllian Jones Williams: women. It's a massive passion
Gllian Jones Williams: for me, watching women develop. I've
Gllian Jones Williams: been running my business for 25 years and I've had the privilege
Gllian Jones Williams: over those 25 years of coaching
Gllian Jones Williams: many, many women in senior positions and
Gllian Jones Williams: two senior positions, and I've listened to their
Gllian Jones Williams: challenges, I've tried to help them work with their
Gllian Jones Williams: organisational culture. I've listened to their
Gllian Jones Williams: inner inhibitors and I think I've got
Gllian Jones Williams: to the point where I'm now understanding a bit
Gllian Jones Williams: more about, potentially, why this is such
Gllian Jones Williams: a struggle for women. And just to put some context, before
Gllian Jones Williams: we start talking about it, I saw some
Gllian Jones Williams: figures from a report by Deloitte's last year, which
Gllian Jones Williams: talked about the fact that globally, there was only just
Gllian Jones Williams: about 16.1%
Gllian Jones Williams: of women on boards. And what was even
Gllian Jones Williams: worse about that, that was only a
Gllian Jones Williams: 1.9% increase since
Gllian Jones Williams: 2017. So if we carry on at the rate we're
Gllian Jones Williams: going, it might be 30 years before there's actually
Gllian Jones Williams: gender parity in the boardroom, which is shocking, isn't it?
Joanne Lockwood: Completely. And stats. I'm almost appalled at
Joanne Lockwood: where a lot of companies think it's a great target to aim for
Joanne Lockwood: 25% women or 30% women. I think surely the target should be
Joanne Lockwood: 50% or nothing, really, don't you think?
Gllian Jones Williams: Yeah. And also I have to wonder
Gllian Jones Williams: whether there is a little bit of sneakiness going on. I'm sure it's not deliberate
Gllian Jones Williams: in nonexec roles as well at the moment,
Gllian Jones Williams: because obviously if you have a non exec on the board, are we reporting
Gllian Jones Williams: that as part of the female makeup of the
Gllian Jones Williams: board? I guess it depends on whether the
Joanne Lockwood: nonexec is being paid or if it's a voluntary role. So many non exec
Joanne Lockwood: roles, expenses only, aren't they? Yes,
Gllian Jones Williams: absolutely.
Joanne Lockwood: Do you think it's a man problem or
Joanne Lockwood: a woman problem? Do you think that men are making it hard or do you
Joanne Lockwood: think that women are being turned off by those roles
Joanne Lockwood: because they just don't want to get engaged in that kind of work?
Gllian Jones Williams: Yeah, I think it's both. And I
Gllian Jones Williams: think both of them need to be tackled. I still
Gllian Jones Williams: think that there does exist a lot of prejudice about the fact
Gllian Jones Williams: that women cannot take on that role
Gllian Jones Williams: wholeheartedly immerse themselves in the
Gllian Jones Williams: responsibility and the workload of a board member,
Gllian Jones Williams: particularly if they have family to look after.
Gllian Jones Williams: So I think that there is some unconscious bias going on there and I think
Gllian Jones Williams: there's some conscious bias going on there. But I also think
Gllian Jones Williams: it's to do with two things for women. One
Gllian Jones Williams: is how they feel, and we hear
Gllian Jones Williams: a lot about impostor syndrome and things like that at the moment,
Gllian Jones Williams: but also about how well organisations
Gllian Jones Williams: are prepared to set up a
Gllian Jones Williams: progression, plan a career path and really prepare them, because the step
Gllian Jones Williams: up from senior manager to board member is a very,
Gllian Jones Williams: very big and different one. And there's a lot of preparation
Gllian Jones Williams: that I think needs to take place.
Joanne Lockwood: For me, I see a lot of women in their
Joanne Lockwood: late twenty s to mid 30s, quite rightly
Joanne Lockwood: wanted to take time out for their family, and that is
Joanne Lockwood: lost time, because that's the peak part of your business growth, your
Joanne Lockwood: professional development, isn't it? And that's where you establish your
Joanne Lockwood: credentials. And quite rightly, women are establishing
Joanne Lockwood: their credentials as a great parent. And why does it have to be
Joanne Lockwood: a choice made? Absolutely. And I think that's
Gllian Jones Williams: very outdated, isn't it, when people think it has to be either
Gllian Jones Williams: or. And of course, there's another issue nowadays is that often
Gllian Jones Williams: women are leaving it until they're 40, so maybe
Gllian Jones Williams: they're establishing more of their career. I mean, when I had my
Gllian Jones Williams: children, I was 30 when I had my first child, and I remember the
Gllian Jones Williams: midwife sprinkling my notes with Prima
Gllian Jones Williams: gravido, which meant elderly first mother, and
Gllian Jones Williams: of course, nowadays that's sort of almost the norm, and
Gllian Jones Williams: then going up to 40. And so women are getting a
Gllian Jones Williams: good chunk of experience and work done
Gllian Jones Williams: before that age and then maybe going off
Gllian Jones Williams: to have their families and coming
Gllian Jones Williams: back very quickly. But perhaps one of the issues about that
Gllian Jones Williams: is that people don't perceive that you're
Gllian Jones Williams: ready to be on a board until you're in your 40s.
Gllian Jones Williams: They want people to be older, and
Gllian Jones Williams: maybe that's coinciding with family time.
Gllian Jones Williams: So if they're thinking, no, 30, 35, still a bit young,
Gllian Jones Williams: can't have you, you won't be able to stand up to
Gllian Jones Williams: some of the larger, more dominant male counterparts.
Gllian Jones Williams: And then when you're older and having children, that again makes
Gllian Jones Williams: you worry, well, can you take on a big role when you've just had young
Gllian Jones Williams: children as well? So there's lots
Gllian Jones Williams: of, I think, views about
Gllian Jones Williams: when is the right time, the right age, and why can't a woman
Gllian Jones Williams: in her early thirty s be on a board.
Joanne Lockwood: For sure? Absolutely. I often see that
Joanne Lockwood: across genders where there's this perception that you have to be of a certain age.
Joanne Lockwood: Did anyone tell Mark Zuckerberg he couldn't have found a
Joanne Lockwood: multibillion dollar company at the age of 1816 or whatever? He did. And we
Joanne Lockwood: look at a lot of these startups in tech. These were
Joanne Lockwood: formed by young people in their teens and early
Joanne Lockwood: 20s. No one told them they couldn't be a director at that age.
Joanne Lockwood: So why do you have to have time served
Joanne Lockwood: often? Maybe you become entrenched in your
Joanne Lockwood: views. Maybe people have this
Joanne Lockwood: bias to perceive. You must have done 30, 40 years with an accountancy
Joanne Lockwood: or legal background to be a good board director.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, it's not true, really, is it? Not true at all. And I think
Gllian Jones Williams: one of the other things that they're
Gllian Jones Williams: missing is a bit like, as you go up a leadership ladder as
Gllian Jones Williams: well, is that it's not
Gllian Jones Williams: necessarily about your technical expertise. That
Gllian Jones Williams: is what's going to make the difference on the board. It's more about your
Gllian Jones Williams: emotional intelligence, your ability to lead, your ability to
Gllian Jones Williams: galvanise people into action, have
Gllian Jones Williams: charisma, vision. And
Gllian Jones Williams: women do bring a huge amount to the boardroom in
Gllian Jones Williams: terms of their negotiating skills, in terms
Gllian Jones Williams: of their financial acumen. Maybe that comes from years of budgeting,
Gllian Jones Williams: I don't know, and their emotional
Gllian Jones Williams: intelligence in terms of bringing a
Gllian Jones Williams: balance to a board. And I'm going to talk quite frankly,
Gllian Jones Williams: Joanne, I have worked over the last 25 years, as you can imagine,
Gllian Jones Williams: with a huge amount of all male boards
Gllian Jones Williams: and it's quite a tough environment to be in
Gllian Jones Williams: because they tend to set themselves
Gllian Jones Williams: into quite a club there that it's almost very,
Gllian Jones Williams: very difficult for new people to come in and feel comfortable with
Gllian Jones Williams: as well. It's different nowadays, but
Gllian Jones Williams: certainly 25 years ago, you can imagine the stats
Gllian Jones Williams: were very, very different too.
Joanne Lockwood: And I think the makeup of the board sets the
Joanne Lockwood: tone for the organisation, doesn't it? So if the board is all
Joanne Lockwood: male, it's setting the tone for the organisation.
Joanne Lockwood: Therefore, when women join in the junior ranks, they're
Joanne Lockwood: already in a world that is male dominated, they're already in a world that is
Joanne Lockwood: designed by men, for men. So the flexibility,
Joanne Lockwood: as you say, the EQ, a lot of that stuff isn't pervasive in the
Joanne Lockwood: organisations at the junior level either, is it? So we're designing
Joanne Lockwood: this. Why don't women succeed? Because they're not committed. Well, they're
Joanne Lockwood: not committed in a male dominated world. They're committed in the
Joanne Lockwood: business world, they can deliver, they can work, as we know,
Joanne Lockwood: but they don't want to be men, they want to be women. And
Joanne Lockwood: that's what men want men to be. Men. They don't want women to be women
Joanne Lockwood: sometimes. Is that part of the problem? I do think it
Gllian Jones Williams: is, and I think that the
Gllian Jones Williams: wider sort of diversity angle here,
Gllian Jones Williams: starting to lose some of their shackles about our
Gllian Jones Williams: unconscious bias and our view of how a
Gllian Jones Williams: person should be and what a person should look like. I mean, if I asked
Gllian Jones Williams: everybody to close their eyes and imagine a
Gllian Jones Williams: board of directors, they probably would struggle
Gllian Jones Williams: to push the women in there in their visualisation because
Gllian Jones Williams: of so many years of programming them. And that's not
Gllian Jones Williams: to criticise people for it, that's how it always
Gllian Jones Williams: was and for a lot of people being brought up that way. And maybe
Gllian Jones Williams: what needs to happen is for ambitious women
Gllian Jones Williams: who believe that they could be a board member and want to
Gllian Jones Williams: be a board member before they accept a job, they should
Gllian Jones Williams: really examine the makeup of that board
Gllian Jones Williams: at the time, even if it might be ten years away from
Gllian Jones Williams: where they're going now, and they might need to do
Gllian Jones Williams: that. They should perhaps ask that and say, could you tell me what your board
Gllian Jones Williams: is made up of and how diverse it
Gllian Jones Williams: is? What are your targets?
Joanne Lockwood: What are you looking, how are you looking to change that? How are you going
Joanne Lockwood: to evolve that? Do you think it's good enough as it is and maybe ask
Joanne Lockwood: them if they're happy with it? I guess those are questions, aren't they? Yeah.
Gllian Jones Williams: Yes. It must be tough
Joanne Lockwood: being a woman going into a boardroom maybe
Joanne Lockwood: newly appointed and you're the only woman. That must be really daunting.
Gllian Jones Williams: Yeah. You'd have to have a certain set of
Joanne Lockwood: resilience within you to be able to cope with that environment, wouldn't you?
Joanne Lockwood: Is that some of the challenge of getting the second woman onto the board? Because
Joanne Lockwood: the first woman has to be comfortable in that environment? Or maybe it's
Joanne Lockwood: just not that easy getting the first woman on the board, let alone the second,
Joanne Lockwood: 3rd or fourth, or even trying to get the mix of 50 50. There must
Joanne Lockwood: be a real challenge. It is a real challenge and I think for the
Gllian Jones Williams: first woman on a boarD, that can be really,
Gllian Jones Williams: really hard for them. And I think this is where impostor
Gllian Jones Williams: syndrome really does tend to kick in. I have
Gllian Jones Williams: heard stories still of, even at port
Gllian Jones Williams: level, them being asked to get the coffee or are they going
Gllian Jones Williams: to take the minutes in this meeting? And when you are
Gllian Jones Williams: surrounded by powerful male
Gllian Jones Williams: counterparts, finding it quite difficult to
Gllian Jones Williams: stand up and just say, actually, I think that John could
Gllian Jones Williams: take the minutes or Mohammed can take the minutes or something like
Gllian Jones Williams: that. So I think you're absolutely
Gllian Jones Williams: right. The first woman on the board has to be very
Gllian Jones Williams: resilient, has to really be able to
Gllian Jones Williams: get their voice heard, has to be able to have
Gllian Jones Williams: that gravitas to be accepted. And of course,
Gllian Jones Williams: I'm lucky. I'm very, very tall. I've always been
Gllian Jones Williams: quite a big bird, if you like, and so therefore
Gllian Jones Williams: I can make my presence felt just by being in a room. But
Gllian Jones Williams: for those lucky women who have petite
Gllian Jones Williams: figures or are more quietly spoken and things like
Gllian Jones Williams: that, then they've got a double challenge, haven't they, now?
Joanne Lockwood: Because, yeah, we talk about bias again,
Joanne Lockwood: the tone of voice, the power in your voice, your
Joanne Lockwood: stature, all those things add credibility to your authority, don't they?
Joanne Lockwood: And if you say, if you are a woman who has
Joanne Lockwood: a softer voice, more considerate in the way you speak and a slighter
Joanne Lockwood: frame, you're not seeing it as an alpha. And that's
Joanne Lockwood: what people are looking for on boards, aren't they? Yeah. And particularly
Gllian Jones Williams: then, if you add to that, if they have quite an
Gllian Jones Williams: introverted character and they prefer to
Gllian Jones Williams: listen and make very good,
Gllian Jones Williams: succinct summaries of things as opposed to
Gllian Jones Williams: us extroverts who will just waffle on about anything all the time, that
Gllian Jones Williams: perception might then be that they're not adding as much value
Gllian Jones Williams: to those people who are talking
Gllian Jones Williams: significantly. So you're absolutely right. That's
Gllian Jones Williams: one of the things that I coach women quite a lot on, is that
Gllian Jones Williams: projection and voice, how they should look
Gllian Jones Williams: when they're trying to get their point heard,
Gllian Jones Williams: what to do if they get cut off by people, or if other people
Gllian Jones Williams: seem to pick up their ideas and go, yes, that's brilliant. Even though two minutes
Gllian Jones Williams: ago they hadn't really taken any notice of their idea.
Gllian Jones Williams: And it's all stuff which really they shouldn't have
Gllian Jones Williams: to worry about, having earned that
Gllian Jones Williams: place on the board. Everybody on a board, male
Gllian Jones Williams: or female, should be accepted for what they bring to the table
Gllian Jones Williams: and who they are, introverted, extroverted, et cetera. But I do
Gllian Jones Williams: think that women have to work extra hard to
Gllian Jones Williams: be able to get that hearing and get
Gllian Jones Williams: noticed, or people just form a perception of them.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I suppose I come from the view that,
Joanne Lockwood: rightly or wrongly, that one of the key attributes of a board
Joanne Lockwood: member is gravitational presence.
Joanne Lockwood: And there are many women who don't necessarily have that gravitas and presence,
Joanne Lockwood: but have the capability. And we're judging people on that
Joanne Lockwood: gravitas and presence rather than their insights, as you say, their
Joanne Lockwood: EQ, their decision making criteria, their ability to teamwork,
Joanne Lockwood: their ability to represent the voice of half the population, for
Joanne Lockwood: example. We don't value those attributes, but we do value
Joanne Lockwood: this bear pit type machoism of being a fight,
Joanne Lockwood: your voice. And that's what we're valuing more than those softer skills, aren't
Joanne Lockwood: we? Yeah, absolutely. And I think that was a really interesting thing you
Gllian Jones Williams: said about gravitas. I've
Gllian Jones Williams: coached many, many women and when we
Gllian Jones Williams: start the sessions, they say, my boss has
Gllian Jones Williams: said that coaching would be useful for me because I need to be
Gllian Jones Williams: more assertive and I need to have more gravitas. And I talk to
Gllian Jones Williams: them for a while and I think, actually
Gllian Jones Williams: you appear to have a good level of gravitas and
Gllian Jones Williams: assertion. So I'm struggling here to see
Gllian Jones Williams: the perspective from your boss. And then I say, or
Gllian Jones Williams: is it that your boss has interpreted assertion for
Gllian Jones Williams: aggression and therefore they
Gllian Jones Williams: want you to be more like them? And they think about it, and
Gllian Jones Williams: most times they say, yeah, thinking about it, because they're very shouty bang the table.
Gllian Jones Williams: And that's not how I get things done. So the
Gllian Jones Williams: perception might be that gravitas
Gllian Jones Williams: equals verging onto the
Gllian Jones Williams: aggression. And I've worked with some
Gllian Jones Williams: boards, I remember one very, very clearly, and I think
Gllian Jones Williams: that they get habitualized into their own behaviour and
Gllian Jones Williams: then it's very hard for them to take an outside look
Gllian Jones Williams: in. And I remember once I was running a team day, the next day and
Gllian Jones Williams: I had dinner with this board and the HR director, who was a fairly
Gllian Jones Williams: quietly spoken person, and it was so full
Gllian Jones Williams: on and the challenges were coming, even though I just joined very
Gllian Jones Williams: quickly, what's your background? What do you do all over the place? And
Gllian Jones Williams: even as quite a strong character, I thought, whoa, this is tough.
Gllian Jones Williams: And I said to the HR person, are they always like this? And she
Gllian Jones Williams: went, what? What do you mean? And I
Gllian Jones Williams: think they were so habitualized to the way they spoke to each
Gllian Jones Williams: other and the level of noise, they couldn't see what it
Gllian Jones Williams: felt like for other people coming in, kind of this.
Joanne Lockwood: Bombastic banter sort of thing.
Joanne Lockwood: Do you think beauty bias disproportionately affects women? Do you
Joanne Lockwood: think that women are more successful the more
Joanne Lockwood: attractive or the more feminine they are,
Joanne Lockwood: but they're not valued for that femininity. They're successful.
Joanne Lockwood: Men want women to be attractive, but they don't want women to be attractive and
Joanne Lockwood: bossy, if you like. It's kind of that double edged sword, isn't it?
Gllian Jones Williams: It really is truly a paradox, I think,
Gllian Jones Williams: when you look at diversity,
Gllian Jones Williams: and of course, the fact that women already
Gllian Jones Williams: stand out by virtue of being a woman
Gllian Jones Williams: and then can get criticised for that look.
Gllian Jones Williams: And really, it's hard for them either
Gllian Jones Williams: way, because if they try and behave femininely,
Gllian Jones Williams: then people will accuse them of being too
Gllian Jones Williams: much that way, or trying to use their feminine charms to do things, or
Gllian Jones Williams: if they go the other way and try and wear suits and look very, very
Gllian Jones Williams: masculine, that doesn't work either. And for me, I think it's so
Gllian Jones Williams: important that any woman who is considering being on a
Gllian Jones Williams: board there is authentic. I think it's quite
Gllian Jones Williams: possible to be feminine and still have gravitas
Gllian Jones Williams: and still be there, and they've got to be who they truly
Gllian Jones Williams: are, because it's a hard enough job being a board member
Gllian Jones Williams: without having to try and pretend to be something that's not really
Gllian Jones Williams: you, isn't it? But I
Joanne Lockwood: just think a man, say, who is a little bit rotund
Joanne Lockwood: with a shirt that doesn't quite button up on the belly,
Joanne Lockwood: a collar that's strangling them, red rosy
Joanne Lockwood: cheeks with lots of hair coming up their nose and ears and big bushy
Joanne Lockwood: eyebrows, is seen as a jolly good chap and
Joanne Lockwood: lots of life experience. Whereas if a woman
Joanne Lockwood: wasn't kept and presenting in a very
Joanne Lockwood: attractive way, that would be very negative. But to a man being a bit
Joanne Lockwood: unkempt, a bit, a bit kind of not that desirable,
Joanne Lockwood: if you like, it's not a problem. Men aren't judged on their beauty, are they?
Joanne Lockwood: They're judged on their gravitas only.
Gllian Jones Williams: Yes. And certainly, if I think back over the
Gllian Jones Williams: years, how many slightly scruffy
Gllian Jones Williams: women with a tattoo, certainly with no hair
Gllian Jones Williams: growing out their nose. But have I seen in the boardroom,
Gllian Jones Williams: and I must admit, when I look at the board members that I've coached and
Gllian Jones Williams: worked with, they have generally been
Gllian Jones Williams: very well presented, and I suspect that's because
Gllian Jones Williams: they felt that they needed to be
Gllian Jones Williams: to do that. And actually, I'm thinking of a couple of occasions
Gllian Jones Williams: where I've coached people and their bosses have told
Gllian Jones Williams: them, or even me, that they needed to think about their
Gllian Jones Williams: dress sense and the way that they
Gllian Jones Williams: dressed. And those bosses have been women as well,
Gllian Jones Williams: which has been quite shocking. Who said they need to change the
Gllian Jones Williams: way they dress or maybe even dress more femininely? So
Gllian Jones Williams: it's not always the men that
Gllian Jones Williams: cause women to change their appearance,
Gllian Jones Williams: for sure. To be fair to men, though, if you look at some of
Joanne Lockwood: the very visible public male leaders,
Joanne Lockwood: most of them are, well, they understand their own personal brand,
Joanne Lockwood: the value of looking smart, and their appearance does
Joanne Lockwood: matter. So I guess men are starting to do that. Maybe not our current prime
Joanne Lockwood: minister, that. Was just going through my mind when you said that.
Gllian Jones Williams: But then if you look at Rishi Sunak, you would say, absolutely.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. So men do understand about the necessity for personal
Joanne Lockwood: brand being groomed. So I think we're probably evening up the
Joanne Lockwood: challenge now in the boardroom that both genders need to
Joanne Lockwood: have this professional brand image, be ready to be on camera
Joanne Lockwood: anytime sort of thing. So I kind of think it's only fair.
Joanne Lockwood: We're talking just before we got online about one of the challenges women in their
Joanne Lockwood: 50s face, which is, as we talked about, the M
Joanne Lockwood: word, and that is right at the time where women are looking to
Joanne Lockwood: be successful in the boardroom, in the senior part of their career, and
Joanne Lockwood: menopause is right in the middle of their life. How do you help women
Joanne Lockwood: with that? Well, there is so much help that I
Gllian Jones Williams: think women need with the menopause, and the first one
Gllian Jones Williams: is to be able to talk about it, because
Gllian Jones Williams: it's only really been in the last five years that that
Gllian Jones Williams: word has been allowed to be banded around. Before that,
Gllian Jones Williams: it was a real taboo. And I think for that reason, a lot
Gllian Jones Williams: of younger women even didn't really know what that was all
Gllian Jones Williams: about unless their mothers had told them. But it affects
Gllian Jones Williams: women massively in the workplace. And
Gllian Jones Williams: just a few things which could impact, particularly in the boardroom, is the
Gllian Jones Williams: lack of sleep. That might be because of night sweats and things like
Gllian Jones Williams: that, the losing the mind, the
Gllian Jones Williams: emotional fog that comes from lack of sleep and almost the
Gllian Jones Williams: hormones changing, the lack of self
Gllian Jones Williams: esteem, which comes throughout that period for many, many
Gllian Jones Williams: women. And because for everyone, it's different.
Gllian Jones Williams: And then you've got other physical symptoms as
Gllian Jones Williams: well, which can make it very, very difficult for them
Gllian Jones Williams: to feel comfortable in the workplace. And certainly
Gllian Jones Williams: it's something that I think all managers need to be
Gllian Jones Williams: prepared to talk to their women when they get to
Gllian Jones Williams: that age or they're having things. And let's say when we say that age as
Gllian Jones Williams: well. Actually, although 51 might be the average age
Gllian Jones Williams: for women, often it can start anytime. From age 36
Gllian Jones Williams: onwards, women can become perimenopausal. So
Gllian Jones Williams: there's a lot of things that can happen, and that could be one of
Gllian Jones Williams: the reasons why they perhaps don't feel as
Gllian Jones Williams: motivated. If they're tired all the time, they're drained, they're beginning
Gllian Jones Williams: to worry that they're forgetting things, they're having these hot
Gllian Jones Williams: flushes, they're embarrassed about it. So that really
Gllian Jones Williams: could impact upon, I think,
Gllian Jones Williams: going into the boardroom. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: And as you're saying, there's still this stigma about
Joanne Lockwood: being in your menopause. It's been a
Joanne Lockwood: loss of fertility, a loss of womanhood, a loss of all these things. And
Joanne Lockwood: coupled with the hormonal changes and psychological changes and the
Joanne Lockwood: physical changes is a whole sense of loss of well being, loss of self, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: there? You feel like you've lost your best years.
Gllian Jones Williams: And there's the other thing. And this goes for men and women as
Gllian Jones Williams: well, in terms of ageism. And
Gllian Jones Williams: at what age should we start saying, well, they're
Gllian Jones Williams: 55 now, so maybe not recruit them into boardroom,
Gllian Jones Williams: need younger blood, or this, that and the other. And coming from a
Gllian Jones Williams: woman of a certain age here, and I think to myself, I'm still the managing
Gllian Jones Williams: director of my own business. I still drive it, I still come up with
Gllian Jones Williams: ideas every day. I'm not planning to retire in the next
Gllian Jones Williams: few years. So why do we have to think
Gllian Jones Williams: about age when we're looking at that?
Gllian Jones Williams: It could be any age from a younger woman to somebody still
Gllian Jones Williams: in their 60s, who's got a lot of value to add.
Joanne Lockwood: I think also now we're in this kind of
Joanne Lockwood: COVID coexistence of a world. The
Joanne Lockwood: requirement to move, travel, meet, fly, commute
Joanne Lockwood: everywhere is different. And there are roles that people can perform
Joanne Lockwood: now more adequately, whatever age
Joanne Lockwood: they are. So ageism, I think, should be less of a factor.
Joanne Lockwood: But are there enough? The conversely, we're in a world where
Joanne Lockwood: there's less jobs, less roles around.
Joanne Lockwood: So we've got the younger generation emerging, trying to get into the workplace.
Joanne Lockwood: We've got older generation who have maybe been made redundant from what they were
Joanne Lockwood: doing. There's a whole load of generations now looking for
Joanne Lockwood: work. And who does the employer look
Joanne Lockwood: to? The voice of experience and age or the
Joanne Lockwood: youthfulness of growth or blend?
Joanne Lockwood: Both can be a tough choice for them. It is a tough choice and I
Gllian Jones Williams: would hope that they would go for the best person for
Gllian Jones Williams: the job. And actually that's one of the
Gllian Jones Williams: responses that I gave to somebody recently. I was doing a
Gllian Jones Williams: women's presentation and one of the questions at the end was,
Gllian Jones Williams: how do you deal with a man who says, I bet they
Gllian Jones Williams: will employ you because you're a woman? When I go for a
Gllian Jones Williams: promotion. And that was the answer I said, is to just look
Gllian Jones Williams: them squarely in the eyes and say, I'm sure that they will choose the best
Gllian Jones Williams: person for the job. But I think you're so right
Gllian Jones Williams: in thinking about
Gllian Jones Williams: the new world and COVID and what this means
Gllian Jones Williams: to everybody, really, but particularly women, because
Gllian Jones Williams: if you think about it, the reasons why women were
Gllian Jones Williams: never promoted, such as ability to travel
Gllian Jones Williams: overseas, well, as you rightly said, well, that doesn't really count anymore. We're not going
Gllian Jones Williams: there. Not accepted in certain cultures. Well, that might have been if
Gllian Jones Williams: you're in the same room, but we're not necessarily in the same room
Gllian Jones Williams: now needing to work flexibly, be at home. Well,
Gllian Jones Williams: now working from home can be seen as a productivity enhancer.
Gllian Jones Williams: And we're really going to start challenging people in the future
Gllian Jones Williams: who say, you can't work from home now that
Gllian Jones Williams: we've had to work from home from five months. So a lot of these reasons
Gllian Jones Williams: are being kind of knocked out of the ballpark. And for
Gllian Jones Williams: me, I've been wondering lately I've been
Gllian Jones Williams: working on something which I call virtual visibility,
Gllian Jones Williams: levelling the playing field, because is this
Gllian Jones Williams: going to be the catalyst that
Gllian Jones Williams: now affords women more opportunities or
Gllian Jones Williams: is this going to remove some of the
Gllian Jones Williams: leg up that they were beginning to get? Because now that we're
Gllian Jones Williams: all remote and maybe we can't go
Gllian Jones Williams: to the pub on a Friday night, which if you have children you couldn't do
Gllian Jones Williams: before. Well, you can go to the pub on a Friday night now and bring
Gllian Jones Williams: your children virtually, can't you? Sure.
Joanne Lockwood: And bring your children into the conference call at six in the evening if you
Joanne Lockwood: have to, because of time zones, you have to have an evening
Joanne Lockwood: conference call. You could do that now, it's not a problem. Everything has
Gllian Jones Williams: changed now and I think whatever happens
Gllian Jones Williams: in the next six months to 18 months,
Gllian Jones Williams: working from home and flexible working is going to be a massive topic
Gllian Jones Williams: for everybody to think about and how much
Gllian Jones Williams: this happens. But with it brings another
Gllian Jones Williams: challenge for women, because if they really, really
Gllian Jones Williams: want to get noticed, to be pushed up the
Gllian Jones Williams: ladder, they have got to look at this virtual
Gllian Jones Williams: visibility now, because it's so easy to get lost in a
Gllian Jones Williams: screen of 20 people. Even more
Gllian Jones Williams: difficult sometimes to get a good hearing than if you
Gllian Jones Williams: were physically in the room. So if they work at it
Gllian Jones Williams: and have a good strategy for it and accept that they need to
Gllian Jones Williams: be more visible and do more networking, as I said, it could be that the
Gllian Jones Williams: playing field is being levelled a bit. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I hear that. I also hear that lots of studies are now showing that
Joanne Lockwood: women have also been disproportionately impacted
Joanne Lockwood: by working from their home environment in terms of
Joanne Lockwood: childcare, responsibility, care and responsibility, home admin,
Joanne Lockwood: working in multigenerational homes with elderly
Joanne Lockwood: parents, maybe, or even working in homes where they're
Joanne Lockwood: of a certain faith, where culturally women's roles are
Joanne Lockwood: different. So it's not all sweetness and light for women at home,
Joanne Lockwood: is it? No. And I think that's the difference between the
Gllian Jones Williams: COVID world and the returning
Gllian Jones Williams: to the workplace phase, because whilst
Gllian Jones Williams: women were working from home during COVID they still
Gllian Jones Williams: had a massive responsibility. Even if I think their
Gllian Jones Williams: partners were helping out with homeschooling and things like that, I
Gllian Jones Williams: think so much of it fell to them. And if you've got a four year
Gllian Jones Williams: old who's clinging on the door screaming, but I want Mummy, and I
Gllian Jones Williams: want Mummy, it can be really hard.
Gllian Jones Williams: And the feeling of guilt for women. I've done a lot of webinars during
Gllian Jones Williams: this period to help people cope with relationships at
Gllian Jones Williams: home and staying motivated while working at home. And guilt was
Gllian Jones Williams: one of the things that they brought up a lot in terms
Gllian Jones Williams: of trying to look after the children, be there,
Gllian Jones Williams: obviously not being able to go to school and do their work at the same
Gllian Jones Williams: time. So I think this period has been tremendously
Gllian Jones Williams: challenging. However, they must make sure
Gllian Jones Williams: that when the children do go back to school, when they don't have to do
Gllian Jones Williams: this anymore, that they can really maximise
Gllian Jones Williams: the benefits and get that visibility up again.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, for sure. And I'd like to think that
Joanne Lockwood: women would have also required even more life skills as a
Joanne Lockwood: result of it. Another string to their bow in terms
Joanne Lockwood: of multitasking. Yeah, they have. It's
Joanne Lockwood: power up, isn't it, yes, for sure.
Joanne Lockwood: But, yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: The women you speak to more anxious about going back to a physical
Joanne Lockwood: workplace, or do you not think that's gender specific?
Joanne Lockwood: Everyone's kind of got a bit of anxiety about going back on the train or
Joanne Lockwood: back into the workplace. Yeah, I think people
Gllian Jones Williams: of both genders are anxious about
Gllian Jones Williams: it, but certainly for women,
Gllian Jones Williams: and it's a really difficult one at the moment
Gllian Jones Williams: because if your boss wants you to go back to the workplace,
Gllian Jones Williams: as many of them do, but your children aren't at school, there aren't so
Gllian Jones Williams: many school clubs open. It's more difficult to get childcare.
Gllian Jones Williams: We don't know if we're suddenly going to have another mini lockdown or a major
Gllian Jones Williams: lockdown or anything like this. And I think the uncertainty
Gllian Jones Williams: causes a lot of anxiety. And what that does is it means
Gllian Jones Williams: that people just kind of focus on what they have to, I. E. The work,
Gllian Jones Williams: and maybe thinking about their career and what they need to be
Gllian Jones Williams: doing to promote themselves is something that
Gllian Jones Williams: has been put on hold over this period. For a lot of
Gllian Jones Williams: women, I think they've simply been just getting by and getting through the
Gllian Jones Williams: day because it has been so busy for them. For
Gllian Jones Williams: women who don't have children, it might have been very different. It might have
Gllian Jones Williams: been much more of a time to think. Actually, I can stop and reflect and
Gllian Jones Williams: I can perhaps do some more self development. So I think
Gllian Jones Williams: there's very, very different experiences, but
Gllian Jones Williams: certainly a lot of anxiety.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I've seen that. People I speak to, they're kind of
Joanne Lockwood: comfy now. It was a big shock to have to pull up your
Joanne Lockwood: dining room chair and work from home, but now people are kind of used to
Joanne Lockwood: it and settled in, aren't they? I suppose as a human species, we
Joanne Lockwood: kind of get used to our status quo. And it's been long enough now
Joanne Lockwood: where we've got a new status quo, where we're now comfortable,
Joanne Lockwood: and then to go back onto the train, back into the office, it's like, oh,
Joanne Lockwood: that's different again. It's maybe like being out of work for six months
Joanne Lockwood: when you go back, it's a real culture shock to your system again, isn't it?
Joanne Lockwood: Trying to get back into the rhythm. We've gone back to the office this week.
Gllian Jones Williams: We went back yesterday, but on the proviso that
Gllian Jones Williams: nobody has to go back. We've gone back because we wanted to
Gllian Jones Williams: and we're lucky enough to have separate offices in a big space.
Gllian Jones Williams: And so everything is in place for us. So we're very safe there and we
Gllian Jones Williams: all drive to work but my team certainly
Gllian Jones Williams: wanted to go back, and I wanted to go back
Gllian Jones Williams: sometimes, but on other days, like today, when I'm doing calls
Gllian Jones Williams: all day, then there's no point in me driving to the office just to
Gllian Jones Williams: sit and do that. I'm not going to interact with anybody. So I think we
Gllian Jones Williams: have to take a much more common sense approach to it
Gllian Jones Williams: and allow people to choose.
Joanne Lockwood: I think you're right, and I think it will certainly
Joanne Lockwood: unlock the can do of flexible
Joanne Lockwood: and non rigid working practises.
Joanne Lockwood: And I think that's going to be the good thing that comes out of this.
Joanne Lockwood: I still do see a lot of companies almost like
Joanne Lockwood: focusing on the fact they're going to get back into the office, they're going to
Joanne Lockwood: bring everyone back into this big, expensive office they've got, or this big
Joanne Lockwood: asset without necessarily considering the feelings of the
Joanne Lockwood: individuals. Because the office won't be the same, will it?
Joanne Lockwood: We know that you've got hand sanitizers on every
Joanne Lockwood: desk everywhere, signs everywhere, stickers on the
Joanne Lockwood: carpet. You're having to wipe down things. So
Joanne Lockwood: this place that was friendly and warm and safe, you go
Joanne Lockwood: back there. It's now this really unfriendly,
Joanne Lockwood: dehumanising kind of environment. I went to the
Joanne Lockwood: cinema the other week and it put me off
Joanne Lockwood: going back because it's so not the experience I wanted. I went to
Joanne Lockwood: have my hair done and it wasn't enjoyable having my hair done. It
Joanne Lockwood: put me off going for my nails. So all these things that I used to
Joanne Lockwood: do because I enjoyed the experience have
Joanne Lockwood: gone, we can't enjoy that experience anymore. And it's so
Joanne Lockwood: different, so true. And I think that
Gllian Jones Williams: this is going to be something that women really have to think
Gllian Jones Williams: about because it's going to interfere into their thought process.
Gllian Jones Williams: Everything that they always knew in terms of I'm working hard
Gllian Jones Williams: at this role, I'm getting my visibility up, I'm getting on good
Gllian Jones Williams: projects, I'm hoping that they're seeing me as a
Gllian Jones Williams: progression, as a successor and I'm going to progress
Gllian Jones Williams: that they're hoping that all of this is going to happen. And then suddenly you
Gllian Jones Williams: have a five month interruption, which takes a lot of that
Gllian Jones Williams: away. And then, as you said, when they do go back, if
Gllian Jones Williams: they go back, or if they partially go back, the experience
Gllian Jones Williams: is so different, it might start challenging them about, is this what
Gllian Jones Williams: I really want and does this still
Gllian Jones Williams: work for me? And I think it's always right to be
Gllian Jones Williams: challenged and to think about it because the experience of
Gllian Jones Williams: having to home school and look after children for four or
Gllian Jones Williams: five months and be there could make women feel one
Gllian Jones Williams: way or the other, they might have absolutely loved it and thought, I'm really missing
Gllian Jones Williams: doing this and this is so great. Or they could just be
Gllian Jones Williams: thinking, I really want to spend more time back
Gllian Jones Williams: in the office. And I have had some women who say, I cannot wait for
Gllian Jones Williams: my nursery to open. I need it. I really do need
Gllian Jones Williams: it. And that is the whole point, I think, for women as
Gllian Jones Williams: well, is never being judged
Gllian Jones Williams: because some people have views
Gllian Jones Williams: that you can't get it right. If you work, you're not a
Gllian Jones Williams: good mother, and if you don't
Gllian Jones Williams: work, then you're no good technically
Gllian Jones Williams: or intellectually or something like
Gllian Jones Williams: this. And so it's something which I think we
Gllian Jones Williams: battle with through the whole of our life. I've got two children and we battle
Gllian Jones Williams: with it the whole of our lives. Is certainly
Gllian Jones Williams: when children are very, very young, is never feeling like
Gllian Jones Williams: we're doing a good job. I'm not being a good wife or partner. I'm not
Gllian Jones Williams: being a good worker. I'm not being a good mother because I can't pay attention
Gllian Jones Williams: to these things. And that will have been exacerbated
Gllian Jones Williams: during COVID So I think that women do need to
Gllian Jones Williams: take time to regroup. Remember that it was a unique
Gllian Jones Williams: experience that they had. And think about what
Gllian Jones Williams: lessons do they want to learn and what does that mean for
Gllian Jones Williams: them in their career. There's one other thing I've
Gllian Jones Williams: been thinking about, Joanne, as you talked about why women don't
Gllian Jones Williams: progress so well. And I think it's
Gllian Jones Williams: because you tend to have a bit of a
Gllian Jones Williams: bell curve here, where you have maybe 20%
Gllian Jones Williams: of women who have always wanted children are
Gllian Jones Williams: very home caring. They know that they'll want to stay at home or just get
Gllian Jones Williams: a simple job, which means that they can spend lots of time with their family
Gllian Jones Williams: and they're not being overly pushed at
Gllian Jones Williams: work. And then you get about 20% who either never want
Gllian Jones Williams: children or sadly, may not be able to have children. But then in the
Gllian Jones Williams: middle, there's the 60% who are transitional and they
Gllian Jones Williams: may or may not want children. And what sometimes happens is
Gllian Jones Williams: they coast, not deliberately, but they might be
Gllian Jones Williams: 25, 26, 27, just got married and they think,
Gllian Jones Williams: okay, probably I want to have children in two years. So I won't
Gllian Jones Williams: worry too much about the fact that I'm not getting promoted because when the
Gllian Jones Williams: child goes to school, I will. And
Gllian Jones Williams: the problem is that they don't make their career plans.
Gllian Jones Williams: And managers are really, really bad
Gllian Jones Williams: about sitting down and having conversations
Gllian Jones Williams: with women which allow them to talk about where children feature,
Gllian Jones Williams: because we've made it so PC in the offices now, they're afraid to
Gllian Jones Williams: say, do children feature in your plans? And how can we still
Gllian Jones Williams: develop you around it? Yeah, I
Joanne Lockwood: agree, because the reaction could be, how dare you ask
Joanne Lockwood: me about children? It's none of your business. Rather seeing as
Joanne Lockwood: a positive way of showing an interest and
Joanne Lockwood: a genuine manager or leader helping you develop your
Joanne Lockwood: career. And you're right, there is a lot of fear by men
Joanne Lockwood: of asking the wrong questions or things seem to be inappropriate.
Joanne Lockwood: There's a lot of fear there. Yeah, certainly. Yeah, understandably so. I mean, the
Gllian Jones Williams: PC police have got them on high alert all the
Gllian Jones Williams: time. So I think it needs to come from two
Gllian Jones Williams: ways. I think it needs to be that women are
Gllian Jones Williams: encouraged, and there are very few women who go to their
Gllian Jones Williams: bosses with a fully formed career plan. A lot of men
Gllian Jones Williams: do, but not many women. So women need to be encouraged to
Gllian Jones Williams: write that maybe 510 year plan and think about, what do I need to
Gllian Jones Williams: go and ask my manager for now and to feel
Gllian Jones Williams: comfortable in saying to them, of course, at some
Gllian Jones Williams: point in the next five years, I might want her to have children,
Gllian Jones Williams: because none of us know if, when,
Gllian Jones Williams: et cetera. However, I do want to progress to
Gllian Jones Williams: senior management, and therefore I want the development
Gllian Jones Williams: and to be able to have that conversation, because
Gllian Jones Williams: if a woman brings it up, then it feels better for the
Gllian Jones Williams: manager to speak about it. And then
Gllian Jones Williams: they couldn't be accused of discriminating. If
Gllian Jones Williams: a woman says, look, I think I want to go and have a baby in
Gllian Jones Williams: the next couple of years, but then I will want to come back and I
Gllian Jones Williams: will want to progress, then the manager can talk to them and say,
Gllian Jones Williams: what they can't do, obviously, is to start planning
Gllian Jones Williams: and discriminating or excluding them
Gllian Jones Williams: because they know that that's what's on their mind.
Gllian Jones Williams: And I think basically any manager who has a woman
Gllian Jones Williams: working for him who is between the ages of
Gllian Jones Williams: 20 and 50 has to expect that they may at
Gllian Jones Williams: some point want to have a baby or have a
Gllian Jones Williams: baby, maybe not near the
Gllian Jones Williams: 50s. I've worked in places where
Joanne Lockwood: when a woman in her late 20s got
Joanne Lockwood: engaged, suddenly all the men in the office started a
Joanne Lockwood: sweepstake on when they would have a baby and leave. Right. So it's like
Joanne Lockwood: this is real kind of expectation that engagement is a
Joanne Lockwood: signal for, we got three years now and then should
Joanne Lockwood: be gone sort of kind of attitude. And that could be career limiting as well,
Joanne Lockwood: can't it? People prejudging somebody and sexually discriminating
Gllian Jones Williams: if you're listening to this and you're doing a sweet state
Gllian Jones Williams: that needs to go in the bin. It does, obviously. Yeah,
Gllian Jones Williams: you're absolutely right. All sorts of things like that happen. And I think
Gllian Jones Williams: for women, it's a very, very frustrating thing anyway,
Gllian Jones Williams: that people start asking them all the time, isn't
Gllian Jones Williams: it? Because you don't know whether they've got a condition which means that
Gllian Jones Williams: they can't have children, whether they just really don't want to, but
Gllian Jones Williams: feel embarrassed because they feel they should say, oh, yes, I want
Gllian Jones Williams: one. It's a very delicate situation
Gllian Jones Williams: for people to say, when are you going to have children?
Gllian Jones Williams: So it's something to be avoided at all costs.
Gllian Jones Williams: I think. I've got a good friend who got
Joanne Lockwood: engaged purely because she was sick and tired of
Joanne Lockwood: people asking her when she was going to get married. So she'd been
Joanne Lockwood: with her partner for, I don't know, 20 od years, and there was just
Joanne Lockwood: this expectation, when's the wedding? When are you getting married?
Joanne Lockwood: They had this engagement of comedians, basically, so she could sort of
Joanne Lockwood: say, look, we're engaged right now, shut up, sort of thing. It was almost like
Joanne Lockwood: this way of stopping people asking her what she was doing, whether she was
Joanne Lockwood: single, was she settling down? Yes. And it can be really frustrating, can't it?
Joanne Lockwood: I guess women have their
Joanne Lockwood: own clock and they have their own family needs.
Joanne Lockwood: Maybe it's often easier for women to sort of say to other women,
Joanne Lockwood: well, I'm maternal, why aren't you maternal? It's almost like
Joanne Lockwood: sharing that kind of. That common thought
Joanne Lockwood: process and that, as you say, can be quite
Joanne Lockwood: ill judged where someone doesn't want to have a family or worse, or they can't
Joanne Lockwood: have a family for various reasons, they may. Have just
Gllian Jones Williams: had a miscarriage and not told anybody about it.
Gllian Jones Williams: So, yes, I think it's a subject that needs to be approached
Gllian Jones Williams: with care, but I think, again, a bit like the menopause, it's another subject
Gllian Jones Williams: which we should be able to just be much more open with
Gllian Jones Williams: at work in terms of discussing it, and it shouldn't
Gllian Jones Williams: be something which is a concern. And
Gllian Jones Williams: if you think about it in terms of discrimination, like this story that you've just
Gllian Jones Williams: told, nobody would go up to a man in the workplace and
Gllian Jones Williams: say, oh, so you got a girlfriend, when are you going to get engaged?
Gllian Jones Williams: And likewise, if a man
Gllian Jones Williams: had just got married, they wouldn't go and say to him, so when are you
Gllian Jones Williams: going to have a baby? It's
Gllian Jones Williams: something which, if we want equality and things
Gllian Jones Williams: like that, and I do a lot of work on
Gllian Jones Williams: inclusivity and conscious inclusion, things like that. And what I don't ever want
Gllian Jones Williams: is for workplaces to become so sterile that people can't say
Gllian Jones Williams: anything at all. But judging
Gllian Jones Williams: and taking clues from other people
Gllian Jones Williams: about things is really, really important. But it is about
Gllian Jones Williams: this same approach to men and women.
Gllian Jones Williams: So the career plan thing should be equal?
Gllian Jones Williams: Very much, I think. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I've just made some notes here as we're talking, and one of the phrases that
Joanne Lockwood: keeps popping in the DNI space is bringing your whole self to work. We always
Joanne Lockwood: talk about this, bring your whole self to work and being one true
Joanne Lockwood: self, being authentic and all this. And often that's
Joanne Lockwood: angled at sexual orientation or gender identity,
Joanne Lockwood: about being express your sexuality. But actually it's a whole lot deeper than
Joanne Lockwood: that. When we talk, we're talking just now, we think about mental health. We think
Joanne Lockwood: about the whole child
Joanne Lockwood: process, menopause, conception,
Joanne Lockwood: IVF, miscarriage. The whole reproductive
Joanne Lockwood: cycle of the human race is one of those things that can
Joanne Lockwood: impact not just a woman's mental health, but often a woman's mental health
Joanne Lockwood: at various stages in her career. And she doesn't feel able
Joanne Lockwood: to bring her whole self to work and talk about this. That's one of the
Joanne Lockwood: challenges, isn't it? It's so stigmatised. Women talk about
Joanne Lockwood: women's needs. Yeah, it's such a good point.
Gllian Jones Williams: If somebody has got polycystic ovaries or something
Gllian Jones Williams: like that, it's not something that they're going to bring up over
Gllian Jones Williams: lunch in a mixed group or something like
Gllian Jones Williams: that, but that could potentially be on their mind all the
Gllian Jones Williams: time or thinking about things. And I think
Gllian Jones Williams: from my experience of talking to women, if they feel that the time is
Gllian Jones Williams: right for a baby and they're trying for a baby and it's not happening for
Gllian Jones Williams: them, that becomes all consuming as well.
Gllian Jones Williams: Yes. And it's very difficult. It's not something that they want to go
Gllian Jones Williams: and talk about in mixed groups. It might be, they might confide
Gllian Jones Williams: in someone. So I think you're right, Joan,
Gllian Jones Williams: as we're starting to delve deeper and deeper into
Gllian Jones Williams: why don't women get in the boardroom?
Gllian Jones Williams: There's a lot of things that perhaps men would never
Gllian Jones Williams: be thinking about that would get in the way. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: And it still held a stigma and shame, and men are
Joanne Lockwood: uncomfortable talking about women's issues.
Joanne Lockwood: That ends up pushing and submerging into impact people's
Joanne Lockwood: mental health where people don't, can't talk about it, and it's a sign of weakness.
Joanne Lockwood: If you had a situation in your life that's in a sign of weakness. And
Joanne Lockwood: despite the fact that most men will have wives, daughters,
Joanne Lockwood: sisters, all having their own challenges that they should be fairly
Joanne Lockwood: understanding, but often they're not, are they?
Joanne Lockwood: Victorian men talk about men things men don't want to talk about women's
Joanne Lockwood: things. The old
Joanne Lockwood: way of men weren't allowed to go to the birth because it's far too. It's
Joanne Lockwood: not something that men. To get involved for them.
Gllian Jones Williams: Let's face it, I don't think I've ever, ever heard a
Gllian Jones Williams: conversation from a man who has come into work and talked
Gllian Jones Williams: to a colleague about his low sperm count.
Gllian Jones Williams: Maybe they do golf or something like that,
Gllian Jones Williams: but it's not something necessarily. That would be a matter
Gllian Jones Williams: of conversation, would it? No. Even having a
Joanne Lockwood: vasectomy isn't a dinner table conversation for men.
Joanne Lockwood: It's kind of like that you have as well. I didn't realise you've
Joanne Lockwood: had. It's
Joanne Lockwood: one of those sort of hidden secrets that people don't tend to talk about. But,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, I guess it's to stop. Men just don't talk about those kind
Joanne Lockwood: of personal issues in the same way, which is supposed to be known. Male suicide
Joanne Lockwood: is high as well for men can't talk about their own
Joanne Lockwood: feelings. But, yeah, both genders have their
Joanne Lockwood: own needs and their own mental health concerns, which
Joanne Lockwood: we should be encouraging people to talk about and bring the whole stuff to work.
Gllian Jones Williams: Yeah, absolutely. From everybody. So we talk about getting women
Joanne Lockwood: to the boardroom. Yes, we were
Gllian Jones Williams: on a medical show there for a minute. No, but
Joanne Lockwood: this is all part of the challenges. Yes. That
Joanne Lockwood: we talk about these obstacles when we talk about male privilege. It's not that men
Joanne Lockwood: put these obstacles in Women's way, it's the fact these obstacles are in women's way.
Joanne Lockwood: And how can men help women amplify
Joanne Lockwood: women and boost women so these obstacles don't become limiting and
Joanne Lockwood: this is the challenge we face, isn't it? So I see some organisations who are
Joanne Lockwood: focused on mentoring schemes and acceleration
Joanne Lockwood: programmes, then I hear pushback from men say, well, that's not fair. Why are
Joanne Lockwood: women getting all this amplification and I'm not? Don't I deserve
Joanne Lockwood: it? What do you say to that? Well, we get this all the time
Gllian Jones Williams: because we have a women's development programme called RIse.
Gllian Jones Williams: Now I'd like to make that very clear. It's not a women's leadership programme,
Gllian Jones Williams: although we might talk about a leadership style on one of the modules,
Gllian Jones Williams: because I don't believe that women should be put on women's leadership programmes.
Gllian Jones Williams: I think they should go on leadership programmes with men, but because
Gllian Jones Williams: of everything that we've talked about today, this is why
Gllian Jones Williams: women need to have a programme on their own
Gllian Jones Williams: and certainly in other organisations where we've had that pushback from men. So,
Gllian Jones Williams: great, let's do a men's programme. So let's look at what content they
Gllian Jones Williams: need and we'll have a men's programme. And we did, we separated them and did
Gllian Jones Williams: it, and that's absolutely fine if they want it for the right reasons. If it's
Gllian Jones Williams: not malicious obedience, you've got one. So I want one. But if there's a
Gllian Jones Williams: genuine need there, yeah, go for
Gllian Jones Williams: it. But don't just knock the fact that women
Gllian Jones Williams: have got one. Think about why do you want one?
Gllian Jones Williams: Because everything that we've talked about, I think, demonstrates
Gllian Jones Williams: the amount of tears and emotions that we've
Gllian Jones Williams: had on programmes where we've talked about how
Gllian Jones Williams: domestic abuse has affected their ability to assert
Gllian Jones Williams: themselves, how they're being bullied in the workplace. Not suggesting
Gllian Jones Williams: that men don't get that, but it might affect a woman differently
Gllian Jones Williams: about childcare, about
Gllian Jones Williams: hormones and other things which are affecting their work
Gllian Jones Williams: and all sorts of things like that. So that's what I say to that, Joanne,
Gllian Jones Williams: I'm very, very strong about it. Yes, completely
Joanne Lockwood: agree. Completely agree. The other thing I was interested to get your opinion
Joanne Lockwood: on is I work a lot with talent acquisition and
Joanne Lockwood: recruiting teams and a lot of vendors who are promoting these
Joanne Lockwood: unbiased recruitment processes. And I say that's
Joanne Lockwood: fantastic, aspirational. Love the idea of giving everybody a fair
Joanne Lockwood: chance. But how do we level the playing field? If we already
Joanne Lockwood: had a level playing field, then debiasing the future is fantastic.
Joanne Lockwood: But when we're sitting at 70% men, 30% women, whatever the
Joanne Lockwood: stats are, if we hire in an unbiased way, that will
Joanne Lockwood: never change because we're hiring at a fair proportion,
Joanne Lockwood: we've actually got to put some positive action in there. How does
Joanne Lockwood: your unbiased recruitment process allow for positive
Joanne Lockwood: action? How do you get more women into your funnel to
Joanne Lockwood: guarantee you're going to get more women out of the funnel and then retain those
Joanne Lockwood: women so that they could progress? And they go, they look at me like I'm
Joanne Lockwood: crazy and say, well, isn't the objective to get the thing fair? I said, well,
Joanne Lockwood: yes, it is, but we've actually got 1000 years
Joanne Lockwood: worth of correction we got to do first, how do
Joanne Lockwood: we now target underrepresented communities
Joanne Lockwood: in terms of ethnicity, in terms of gender, in terms of faith and
Joanne Lockwood: that was the challenge. I would say, you're so right. And I've got a really
Gllian Jones Williams: good example of that. Last year,
Gllian Jones Williams: an HR director was telling me they just appointed their new CEO
Gllian Jones Williams: and he was delighted to tell me it was a female. But they
Gllian Jones Williams: needed to have 80% more female
Gllian Jones Williams: applicants to end up with an equal short list of men
Gllian Jones Williams: and women. So that's
Gllian Jones Williams: often what needs to happen.
Joanne Lockwood: Debias recruitment process doesn't help you in that. It's a
Joanne Lockwood: nirvana. It doesn't change the world. And
Joanne Lockwood: I keep challenging people and they look at me like I'm going crazy, saying, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: this ideal? Yeah, well, it is a great ideal, but how do we fix the
Joanne Lockwood: problem first? How do we do action?
Gllian Jones Williams: Right up until, I think the shortlist stage where
Gllian Jones Williams: then, if you've given all those opportunities, it has to be
Gllian Jones Williams: the right person for the job. And that's
Gllian Jones Williams: the important thing. Don't get me started on meritocracy.
Joanne Lockwood: Who designs the meritocracy? It's often the incumbent or
Joanne Lockwood: it's often the social construct of the environment you're
Joanne Lockwood: in. And when are we going to start designing meritocracy
Joanne Lockwood: around other skills? We're going to need another hour.
Joanne Lockwood: When people say, we always hire the best person for the job. And I always
Joanne Lockwood: say, in whose opinion? And it's like, what do you mean in my opinion?
Joanne Lockwood: Well, who says your opinion counts? So
Joanne Lockwood: we judge women or we judge people of a minority characteristic
Joanne Lockwood: against a majority rule set. And
Joanne Lockwood: yes, meritocracy. But let's examine the meritocracy
Joanne Lockwood: and make sure that we've got our process and our JD and our expectations of
Joanne Lockwood: the role right before we judge people against, oh, Fred
Joanne Lockwood: left, we need another Fred. Or we've got a Fred shaped hole. And that's
Joanne Lockwood: often what we do. We don't hire for capability, we don't hire
Joanne Lockwood: for flexibility, we don't hire for adaptability, we hire for time
Joanne Lockwood: served proof, evidence of what you did in the past. And as
Joanne Lockwood: every share dealer knows, past performance doesn't guarantee future
Joanne Lockwood: investment returns. Absolutely. Just because somebody's performed well in another company
Joanne Lockwood: doesn't mean so they're going to perform well. So I could have a whole rant
Joanne Lockwood: about meritocracy, as I just have,
Joanne Lockwood: and I think it's meritocracy and deBiase. Immigrant process is
Joanne Lockwood: stacked against change. Yes, it's going to
Joanne Lockwood: propagate the Social Security and I would challenge any organisation listening to this
Joanne Lockwood: is to answer that question, how are you doing this? I saw
Joanne Lockwood: a talk by someone from Schneider Electric and the way they're targeting their
Joanne Lockwood: campaign and the hiring process to be really proactive in terms of hiring
Joanne Lockwood: women. And they're doing some amazing stuff. And I think if you're an
Joanne Lockwood: organisation out there looking to change the way you work in terms of hiring women,
Joanne Lockwood: look at Schneider Electric, they've done some fantastic stuff.
Joanne Lockwood: But anyway, we're coming to the end of our hour together and
Joanne Lockwood: we haven't talked about your lockdown project, which is
Joanne Lockwood: this book you've written. Tell me about that. Oh, well, when I knew
Gllian Jones Williams: I was going to have to lock down and I needed to
Gllian Jones Williams: find a way to become sane, I have to be honest, because we're a face
Gllian Jones Williams: to face training company, we literally lost all of our
Gllian Jones Williams: business, as many did overnight. And it was
Gllian Jones Williams: a terrifying time after 25 years.
Gllian Jones Williams: So I started to write a book on Covid. It was a diary, and it
Gllian Jones Williams: was a daily diary of what it felt like for
Gllian Jones Williams: me to be locked down and my family and how to save a
Gllian Jones Williams: business. And you'll have to read the book to find out
Gllian Jones Williams: whether it's successful or not, or just see whether we're still around.
Gllian Jones Williams: And every night, I wrote during the Prime Minister's briefings
Gllian Jones Williams: and the number ten briefings, and during the day, every time news pinged
Gllian Jones Williams: up. So I have an absolute record of everything
Gllian Jones Williams: that happened on a daily basis. It's more from my point of
Gllian Jones Williams: view, so some of it is humorous. Somebody read it recently and said, I
Gllian Jones Williams: have cried and laughed out loud at it. So I may have called Boris
Gllian Jones Williams: Johnson a few names in the book as I went through, but nowhere
Gllian Jones Williams: near as bad as the names I called Trump.
Gllian Jones Williams: And the reason I wrote it was that I
Gllian Jones Williams: want to publish it to raise money for
Gllian Jones Williams: the members of the NHS staff,
Gllian Jones Williams: their families, who lost, NHS members who
Gllian Jones Williams: were trying to save our lives, really, and to keep the memory of them alive.
Gllian Jones Williams: I'm feeling very concerned now that we seem to have
Gllian Jones Williams: forgotten how much they did for
Gllian Jones Williams: us and will they really be remembered? And I
Gllian Jones Williams: hope that if I can get the book out there, it will help people to
Gllian Jones Williams: read it and really remember that talk about levelling the playing
Gllian Jones Williams: field and that's what the book will be called. That
Gllian Jones Williams: was know. Suddenly nothing we had anymore mattered. How much
Gllian Jones Williams: money we had didn't matter, how important we were, didn't matter. The only
Gllian Jones Williams: people that mattered were the NHS staff, because nothing else was going to
Gllian Jones Williams: save us. So that's why I wrote it.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, amazing. Listen to what you're saying there. It's
Joanne Lockwood: how quickly we forget and you think about Remembrance Day each year,
Joanne Lockwood: lest we forget the fallen. Yet we've
Joanne Lockwood: stopped clapping for NHS. We've given Sir
Joanne Lockwood: Tom a knighthood. All these things are now
Joanne Lockwood: becoming faint memories as we move into through Black Lives Matter, through
Joanne Lockwood: pride, through all the other things we're doing now. We're talking about different elements of
Joanne Lockwood: COVID and almost the NHS staff have faded in our
Joanne Lockwood: memories to a large extent. And yeah, I think it's very
Joanne Lockwood: admirable that we. In fact, I can't wait to read the book myself
Joanne Lockwood: and see if your laughs and giggles are the same as mine
Joanne Lockwood: over that period. I think we all saw those briefings
Joanne Lockwood: with irony and trying to read between the lines of what they're really trying
Joanne Lockwood: to say beneath their fluff and bluster.
Joanne Lockwood: But yeah, very interesting. Well, many thanks,
Joanne Lockwood: Jillian. I'm sure our listeners, the
Joanne Lockwood: one person is probably still listening to us. Hopefully you've made it to the
Joanne Lockwood: they. How can our special listener here get in touch with you?
Joanne Lockwood: Your website is emergeuk.com. Yes,
Gllian Jones Williams: www.emergeuk.com.
Gllian Jones Williams: Or link in with me, Gillian Jones Williams on
Gllian Jones Williams: LinkedIn, and
Gllian Jones Williams: be delighted to talk to you about all things women.
Gllian Jones Williams: One other thing to mention is that every year on
Gllian Jones Williams: International Women's Day, I go to organisations free
Gllian Jones Williams: of charge and I do presentations for them to raise money
Gllian Jones Williams: for a domestic abuse charity that I work for, Aurora New
Gllian Jones Williams: Dawn. So if anybody's listening and would like
Gllian Jones Williams: to have something like that next year, again,
Gllian Jones Williams: that's something which we like to do as well. So
Gllian Jones Williams: it's been really great talking to you, Joanna. Thank you for
Gllian Jones Williams: being such fun. It could have gone on forever, couldn't it? We could have gone
Joanne Lockwood: on forever. Yeah. And in fact, what listeners don't know is we were talking for
Joanne Lockwood: about three quarters an hour before we started recording, so
Joanne Lockwood: we could probably carry on for another couple of hours. But a huge thank you.
Joanne Lockwood: A huge thank you. And to our listener who's still
Joanne Lockwood: there, hopefully still there and not turned off yet, thank you for tuning and listening.
Joanne Lockwood: Please do subscribe. Keep up to date with future episodes of the
Joanne Lockwood: Inclusion Bites podcast. That's bites. Please tell your
Joanne Lockwood: friend, I'm sure our one listener has more than one friend. And your colleagues.
Joanne Lockwood: I have a number of exciting guests lined up, but I'm sure you'll all be
Joanne Lockwood: inspired by them over the next few weeks and months. Also, remember, if you'd like
Joanne Lockwood: to be a guest, please let me know. I'm always looking for more people to
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Joanne Lockwood: jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. Tell me about
Joanne Lockwood: what you'd like to see on future shows. How we can improve. So, finally, my
Joanne Lockwood: name is Joanne Lockwood, and it's been a pleasure.