Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood, and I'm your host for the
Joanne Lockwood: Inclusion Bites Podcast. In this series, I have interviewed a number
Joanne Lockwood: of amazing people. I simply had the conversation around the subject of
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion, belonging and generally making the world a better
Joanne Lockwood: place for everyone to thrive. If you'd like to join me in the future,
Joanne Lockwood: then please do drop me a line to
Joanne Lockwood: Jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk
Joanne Lockwood: that's SEE Change Happen dot co dot
Joanne Lockwood: uk. You can catch up with all of the previous shows on
Joanne Lockwood: iTunes, Spotify and the usual places,
Joanne Lockwood: so plug in your headphones, grab a decaf and
Joanne Lockwood: let's get going. Today is Episode
Joanne Lockwood: 78 with the title Too White to Be
Joanne Lockwood: Black and Too Black to Be White.
Joanne Lockwood: And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Holly Straker
Joanne Lockwood: Humphreys. Holly describes herself as an inclusion
Joanne Lockwood: leader and when I asked Holly to describe her superpower,
Joanne Lockwood: she said that her strange talent is for writing effective
Joanne Lockwood: emails and complaints to companies. Her
Joanne Lockwood: best achievement was an email to the CEO of Dyson to challenge
Joanne Lockwood: them on how they perpetuated idealizations of Western
Joanne Lockwood: beauty in the way they talked about their hair care products and
Joanne Lockwood: stigmatised Afro hair as a problem.
Joanne Lockwood: Hello, Holly, welcome to the show. Hi, Joanne. Thank
Holly Straker-Humphreys: you so much for having me. I sound like a bit of a loser, don't
Holly Straker-Humphreys: I? No, not at all. We've known each other
Joanne Lockwood: a few years now and I would never put you in any category like that,
Joanne Lockwood: so, no, you're an amazing and wonderful person, so no,
Joanne Lockwood: not at all. So holly, this episode
Joanne Lockwood: isn't titled too White to Be Black and Too Black To Be White.
Joanne Lockwood: Why, does that mean something to you?
Holly Straker-Humphreys: Yeah, I'm turning 30 this
Holly Straker-Humphreys: year. Wow. Yeah, I need to get myself on board with
Holly Straker-Humphreys: that. And I would say it's probably
Holly Straker-Humphreys: only the last two, three, four
Holly Straker-Humphreys: years where I felt truly
Holly Straker-Humphreys: comfortable in being me and truly
Holly Straker-Humphreys: comfortable in knowing who I am,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: what I stand for, my identity.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: So I guess if we take that right back to the beginning and
Holly Straker-Humphreys: maybe why I wasn't comfortable.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: So I am mixed race.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: I am half white, so my dad
Holly Straker-Humphreys: is white British, and my mum is of
Holly Straker-Humphreys: Beijing descent, so from Barbados. That's where
Holly Straker-Humphreys: my mom's family is from. And I've grown
Holly Straker-Humphreys: up in North Leeds, which is a relatively
Holly Straker-Humphreys: affluent area in Leeds. Quite a middle class area.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: Attended predominantly white
Holly Straker-Humphreys: schools throughout my childhood.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: And I think, looking back, you
Holly Straker-Humphreys: only know what you know. Right? So I guess that was just the environment
Holly Straker-Humphreys: that I was used to, but there was probably
Holly Straker-Humphreys: always something that made me feel like,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: why aren't I just fitting in here? And it's
Holly Straker-Humphreys: not that. I had loads of great friends, I
Holly Straker-Humphreys: had an amazing childhood. Like, I was like serial packet
Holly Straker-Humphreys: nuclear family, so I could not
Holly Straker-Humphreys: complain about any of my experiences. I never had
Holly Straker-Humphreys: any particularly negative experiences around the
Holly Straker-Humphreys: way that I looked or my identity, it was just
Holly Straker-Humphreys: something inside me just didn't always click, probably,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: particularly when I was older. And then if
Holly Straker-Humphreys: you flip to more of the black
Holly Straker-Humphreys: side of my identity, I
Holly Straker-Humphreys: have a massive big Beijing Caribbean family
Holly Straker-Humphreys: and we have super strong
Holly Straker-Humphreys: family values. There's a lot of Sunday get togethers around
Holly Straker-Humphreys: food and it'll be a Sunday night at 06:00 and everyone's
Holly Straker-Humphreys: dancing in the kitchen. We have such good, positive energy
Holly Straker-Humphreys: in our family. Like my family is everything.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: But we often get comments. So me and my
Holly Straker-Humphreys: brother around our accents, how we speak, where we
Holly Straker-Humphreys: lived, like ingest from our family, we're very
Holly Straker-Humphreys: comical family. We'll make jokes out of
Holly Straker-Humphreys: each other a lot. But I guess that's where the sentiment
Holly Straker-Humphreys: of two white to be black and two blacks to be
Holly Straker-Humphreys: white came from. You just didn't quite fit in either community.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: And growing up and even where I am now.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: I think it takes you a long time when you are of
Holly Straker-Humphreys: mixed heritage to really understand how to be
Holly Straker-Humphreys: you happily in the middle and how you can appreciate
Holly Straker-Humphreys: and value both sides of your identity or multiple sides of
Holly Straker-Humphreys: your identity but
Holly Straker-Humphreys: still feel like you
Holly Straker-Humphreys: belong somewhere and find your people. So
Holly Straker-Humphreys: yeah, I just have a lot of memories of going to
Holly Straker-Humphreys: visit my white grandparents in the
Holly Straker-Humphreys: countryside and sitting in a countryside pub and me and my brother being the
Holly Straker-Humphreys: only non white people and my mum as well, and
Holly Straker-Humphreys: then going to visit my mum's
Holly Straker-Humphreys: parents in Hare Hills, which is quite an ethnically
Holly Straker-Humphreys: diverse area in Leeds, and just feeling, oh, this isn't quite
Holly Straker-Humphreys: what I'm used to. So it was just almost two worlds coming together
Holly Straker-Humphreys: and where do I fit in the middle of it?
Holly Straker-Humphreys: So, yeah, that's how I describe where that's come
Holly Straker-Humphreys: from. I think you described yourself
Joanne Lockwood: as feeling you have a see of privilege
Joanne Lockwood: because of maybe your accent, because of
Joanne Lockwood: your barely light brown
Joanne Lockwood: skin. You feel you have
Joanne Lockwood: benefited from some of the characteristics as well as the affluent
Joanne Lockwood: area you grew up in. Oh, God. Yeah. I
Holly Straker-Humphreys: think I straighten my hair
Holly Straker-Humphreys: now. I think particularly, probably because
Holly Straker-Humphreys: I work in a corporate environment, it just feels better. I
Holly Straker-Humphreys: wish I didn't feel that way, but it does.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: The way that I speak doesn't sound
Holly Straker-Humphreys: particularly different to other people in a corporate environment.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: Obviously, as you mentioned, quite light
Holly Straker-Humphreys: skin. I've always had both my parents went
Holly Straker-Humphreys: to Diversity, so I've always had that kind of
Holly Straker-Humphreys: access and education and I guess
Holly Straker-Humphreys: aspiration from them as well. So there's so
Holly Straker-Humphreys: much this is why it's quite a strange
Holly Straker-Humphreys: there's a lot at play here, because if you took my life on
Holly Straker-Humphreys: paper, it's been wonderful, but still, that sense of
Holly Straker-Humphreys: belonging was missing for quite some time.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: So, yeah, it's a complex one because I've
Holly Straker-Humphreys: had brilliant childhood, amazing access to
Holly Straker-Humphreys: opportunities, I've been able to excel my career,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: but still, there was something that was always missing for me in terms
Holly Straker-Humphreys: of really understanding and feeling comfortable in
Holly Straker-Humphreys: who I was. You've mentioned your
Joanne Lockwood: hair a couple of times. What, once in your superpower about the complaint to
Joanne Lockwood: Co Dyson,
Joanne Lockwood: how much pressure do you feel
Joanne Lockwood: that you're self imposing around the way your
Joanne Lockwood: hair looks? Or is there a genuine
Joanne Lockwood: discrimination against Afro
Joanne Lockwood: style hair in the workplace, in society?
Holly Straker-Humphreys: Well, I guess you don't have to look far in the research to find,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: yes, there is, in terms of how people are treated at
Holly Straker-Humphreys: school, being discriminated, put in
Holly Straker-Humphreys: exclusion for certain natural Afro
Holly Straker-Humphreys: hairstyles. And then similarly at work, people have
Holly Straker-Humphreys: been directly discriminated against for how their
Holly Straker-Humphreys: hair is. But I guess for me, I am
Holly Straker-Humphreys: lucky to have not experienced either of those things.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: I guess for me it's been a lot more subtle,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: but I know from some research that's been done
Holly Straker-Humphreys: around how we experience issues around race, sometimes the subtle
Holly Straker-Humphreys: things can be more damaging psychologically
Holly Straker-Humphreys: because it's harder to pinpoint, harder to understand. It is. It all
Holly Straker-Humphreys: in my head? Is it just me? So, like,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: going back to being at school, we used to get on
Holly Straker-Humphreys: the bus and go to swimming with the whole class and everyone was like, oh,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: washing the hair after swimming. And it's like, oh, no way.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: Afro hair wash as a child is a two to three hour
Holly Straker-Humphreys: activity on a Sunday night, usually with your mum
Holly Straker-Humphreys: screaming, smacking you with the hairbrush.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: And it kind of just started to
Holly Straker-Humphreys: lay these little seeds around, feeling
Holly Straker-Humphreys: dirty or not feeling as
Holly Straker-Humphreys: other kids could just go in the shower, wash their hair, come out and
Holly Straker-Humphreys: I don't think anyone ever actually said anything
Holly Straker-Humphreys: not explicit, but it just started with that. And then when you
Holly Straker-Humphreys: lay over, kind of like skin tone and things like that, I think I
Holly Straker-Humphreys: just subconsciously started to build
Holly Straker-Humphreys: this slightly negative perception. And then you move
Holly Straker-Humphreys: into like at lunchtime, let's all braid our hair. And it's like, oh,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: no, the bubble stuck in my hair. You can't just get that brush through my
Holly Straker-Humphreys: hair because it will snap. It's just those little subtle
Holly Straker-Humphreys: things. And then I think, as I've got
Holly Straker-Humphreys: older, the programmes that you watch on
Holly Straker-Humphreys: television, the adverts that you see, you never
Holly Straker-Humphreys: see hair that looks like mine in
Holly Straker-Humphreys: a positive way. It's always all
Holly Straker-Humphreys: the adverts on TV are antifreeze
Holly Straker-Humphreys: combat. That frizz smoothen your hair.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: Growing up at my age, I'd never really seen
Holly Straker-Humphreys: anyone have hair
Holly Straker-Humphreys: like mine and it be really appreciated, maybe
Holly Straker-Humphreys: apart from Melby and the Spice Girls. Now I'm thinking back
Holly Straker-Humphreys: on it, and I do idolise her quite a lot. She has fab hair,
Joanne Lockwood: doesn't she? I've always been envious of her hair. And anybody with that
Joanne Lockwood: kind of real bouncy, big Afro, e, kind of
Joanne Lockwood: curly, is very powerful. I think
Joanne Lockwood: movie stars with it and it's a very power cut. I
Holly Straker-Humphreys: think and I guess I could probably see that,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: but for the environment that I was in, it just didn't feel
Holly Straker-Humphreys: right. And I know when I started going to job
Holly Straker-Humphreys: interviews and I would always straighten my hair, I just
Holly Straker-Humphreys: did not feel comfortable. And this is why, I think,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: looking at the impact of
Holly Straker-Humphreys: inclusion across and how it's embedded in
Holly Straker-Humphreys: societal structures is so powerful, because
Holly Straker-Humphreys: nobody as a child was ever explicitly racist to me, said
Holly Straker-Humphreys: there's anything wrong with the colour of my skin. I had a brilliant
Holly Straker-Humphreys: childhood, like, we're surrounded by plenty of black people from
Holly Straker-Humphreys: my family, but still there was something that
Holly Straker-Humphreys: just did not make me feel proud of the way that
Holly Straker-Humphreys: I looked, particularly in terms of my hair,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: powerful. So the work you're doing now is
Joanne Lockwood: in corporate environments around the
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion, belonging, dei, whichever acronym you prefer.
Joanne Lockwood: Do you think your heritage, your mixed heritage and
Joanne Lockwood: your lived experience gives you an additional superpower of insight
Joanne Lockwood: into that environment? I think
Holly Straker-Humphreys: so, yeah. I think I have always
Holly Straker-Humphreys: seen myself as because I've had that kind of
Holly Straker-Humphreys: socioeconomic privilege, I've managed to get
Holly Straker-Humphreys: myself to a point in my career I actually never thought I
Holly Straker-Humphreys: would. And so I feel quite a heavy
Holly Straker-Humphreys: responsibility as a
Holly Straker-Humphreys: woman of colour, in quite a senior
Holly Straker-Humphreys: corporate role, to use my power,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: position, experience to uplift
Holly Straker-Humphreys: others who maybe just do not get that opportunity because
Holly Straker-Humphreys: of the networks they exist in, access to
Holly Straker-Humphreys: financial resources, even just general
Holly Straker-Humphreys: role models and aspirations. Like, the famous thing is hard to be
Holly Straker-Humphreys: what you can't see. I know
Holly Straker-Humphreys: people can feel quite uncomfortable, and rightly so, of being that
Holly Straker-Humphreys: token black person that's on every career site or
Holly Straker-Humphreys: every recruitment poster. And I get that,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: like, we shouldn't be there. However, I've always been quite
Holly Straker-Humphreys: comfortable in being that person because I
Holly Straker-Humphreys: know that for me, that would have made a
Holly Straker-Humphreys: difference, seeing someone like me. So I almost see
Holly Straker-Humphreys: it as a bit of a duty and responsibility,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: not in a negative way. I feel
Holly Straker-Humphreys: quite empowered by being able to do that
Holly Straker-Humphreys: and I do quite a lot of mentoring, specifically
Holly Straker-Humphreys: people from minority backgrounds. And it's a consistent
Holly Straker-Humphreys: theme around just not quite feeling like
Holly Straker-Humphreys: you fit in confidence, identity.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: And once you can help connect
Holly Straker-Humphreys: people with others like them, or just shift that mindset around,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: your uniqueness can be your
Holly Straker-Humphreys: superpower and get you to places that you thought it might
Holly Straker-Humphreys: hold you back. I've seen people progress
Holly Straker-Humphreys: massively, both in their careers, but personally, just in terms
Holly Straker-Humphreys: of confidence, values, understanding who they are.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: And I think it took me a
Holly Straker-Humphreys: while in my first corporate
Holly Straker-Humphreys: jobs to understand that my different perspective
Holly Straker-Humphreys: wasn't weird or wrong, it actually
Holly Straker-Humphreys: was really valuable. And as soon as I started to use my voice in that
Holly Straker-Humphreys: way, I was like, oh, wow, maybe
Holly Straker-Humphreys: this could get me somewhere. And the more confident I did with that, the
Holly Straker-Humphreys: more confident I was with that, the faster my career
Holly Straker-Humphreys: excelled. But I guess you've got to work to get to that
Holly Straker-Humphreys: point. It's not as easy to just turn up to work one day and be
Holly Straker-Humphreys: like, right, I'm a constant black female, let me go and take on the world
Holly Straker-Humphreys: and give all my ideas. I really had to
Holly Straker-Humphreys: find my people at work, get that kind of
Holly Straker-Humphreys: girl gang around me to support and empower me
Holly Straker-Humphreys: and uplift my voice, find managers that really
Holly Straker-Humphreys: truly believe me and pushed me, and find other people
Holly Straker-Humphreys: who looked like me to share the
Holly Straker-Humphreys: experiences with and keep pushing ourselves.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: So, yeah, there's a lot of work and you are
Holly Straker-Humphreys: working against systems and structures as well.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: We can't discount that.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: But I have seen people get there and it's an amazing thing and
Holly Straker-Humphreys: that's what drives me in my role against all
Holly Straker-Humphreys: the crap that we also have to deal with. Joanne, you'll know, as an
Holly Straker-Humphreys: inclusion specialist. Yeah, just
Joanne Lockwood: picking up a few things you said there you had to get your girl gang
Joanne Lockwood: together to give you that confidence, to give you that boost and to sort of
Joanne Lockwood: almost like challenge the incumbent or challenge the monoculture.
Joanne Lockwood: And as you were saying, I thought, well,
Joanne Lockwood: all that's there already is the boy gang, so it's not
Joanne Lockwood: like they've done anything different. They've got their own tribe, they've got their own boy
Joanne Lockwood: gang, their own white boy clan, and
Joanne Lockwood: they inherently have this superpower about them because they're amplifying each other
Joanne Lockwood: and it's just the way things have been, because that's been the incumbent culture, if
Joanne Lockwood: you like. So you're doing no different, getting your
Joanne Lockwood: own amplifier, supporters and mentors around
Joanne Lockwood: you that are going to look after your needs.
Joanne Lockwood: And I often find
Joanne Lockwood: that it's not a fault of the privileged
Joanne Lockwood: people who have incumbent, they're just unaware that
Joanne Lockwood: that's how they're operating and they're not aware that people don't
Joanne Lockwood: have the same access to the opportunity because they just see the opportunity,
Joanne Lockwood: it's in the air they breathe. Yeah. You only know what
Holly Straker-Humphreys: you know and what your experience is, so why would
Holly Straker-Humphreys: you think any different? And the more I talk to
Joanne Lockwood: people in the kind of the dei space, inclusion space,
Joanne Lockwood: you realise that most people have impostor syndrome. Most
Joanne Lockwood: people have worry about not being good enough, whether it's around their
Joanne Lockwood: identity, whether it's about their capability. And so what you said
Joanne Lockwood: there is often we think about the
Joanne Lockwood: mindset of the we call it the marginalised
Joanne Lockwood: candidate, or the marginalised person or the minority person,
Joanne Lockwood: whatever that terminology really means. It's kind of a crass way of describing it.
Joanne Lockwood: But the mindset of people who aren't the default
Joanne Lockwood: tends to be one that impostor syndrome exists, or the access to the networks
Joanne Lockwood: that exists, the access to information doesn't exist. And it's really hard to break that
Joanne Lockwood: down and create those support structures in organisations to
Joanne Lockwood: empower, as you're saying, those mental programmes those fast track programmes. Those
Joanne Lockwood: are awareness programmes. Yeah,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: completely. And what you were just talking about there brings
Holly Straker-Humphreys: my mum to mind, actually, who my mom is a little bit of a
Holly Straker-Humphreys: superpower within a superwoman within herself,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: and I carry some of her within me in
Holly Straker-Humphreys: terms of she
Holly Straker-Humphreys: grew up predominantly in Hair Hills, which,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: as I mentioned, was an ethnically diverse area.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: My grandparents had moved over from Barbados,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: so part of that generation of coming over from the Caribbean. But my
Holly Straker-Humphreys: mom was kind of found her way in a lot of quite white environments.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: So she worked in a university, she went to university,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: worked in a lot of corporate organisations.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: And she's always said she loves to be that only black
Holly Straker-Humphreys: woman in the room, almost to prove everything wrong,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: prove the status quo that I'm here and I can do this. And I
Holly Straker-Humphreys: think I carry that a little bit. I almost can get a
Holly Straker-Humphreys: little bit of a thrill of walking into a meeting room, meeting a new
Holly Straker-Humphreys: executive, and I'm not only a
Holly Straker-Humphreys: mixed race woman, but also I look quite young. I
Holly Straker-Humphreys: still get ID for paracetamol in the supermarket
Holly Straker-Humphreys: and I think that's 16. So there we go.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: And I've got a northern accent. My voice
Holly Straker-Humphreys: sounds relatively young as well, and people kind of look at me and at
Holly Straker-Humphreys: the start, they're not really listening. You can tell with body language
Holly Straker-Humphreys: and then by the end, they're like, oh, shit, she maybe knows what she's
Holly Straker-Humphreys: talking about. And I get a bit of a thrill from that in that
Holly Straker-Humphreys: prove people wrong. And I think you can
Holly Straker-Humphreys: take a lot of fire and drive from working
Holly Straker-Humphreys: against some of the systems that we have
Holly Straker-Humphreys: in society. So I've definitely got that from my mom.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: And she'll listen to this and she'll love this because she
Holly Straker-Humphreys: loves getting a mention. Yeah, you're so right. And
Joanne Lockwood: I think when you have a
Joanne Lockwood: powerful voice in the room that has a different
Joanne Lockwood: perspective, it's hard not to listen, although some people
Joanne Lockwood: choose not to listen, but a lot of people do listen. And I hear what
Joanne Lockwood: you're saying about being the only person in the room. I
Joanne Lockwood: often am the only person in the room who's trans. And
Joanne Lockwood: if I see another trans person in the room, I get a bit jealous, go,
Joanne Lockwood: Hang on a minute, this is my space, I want to be the only person,
Joanne Lockwood: I want to be the one kind of pathiva sort of thing. But, no,
Joanne Lockwood: it's also from psychological safety point of view, it's really, really hard sometimes
Joanne Lockwood: to know you're the only person in the room, know that you're going to
Joanne Lockwood: end up having certain questions or certain
Joanne Lockwood: conversations with people all the time. They'll want your opinion on
Joanne Lockwood: something. Can I not be transferred one day? Do I have to talk about
Joanne Lockwood: being a black woman all the time? Can I just not talk about being
Joanne Lockwood: something else? There is a lot of pressure for you to be representative, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: there? Yeah, completely. And I think there's
Holly Straker-Humphreys: also that pressure that a lot of people feel of when you are
Holly Straker-Humphreys: the first and only one, if you don't
Holly Straker-Humphreys: do an amazing job, like, have you ruined
Holly Straker-Humphreys: that perception of the whole community? So you carry a lot
Holly Straker-Humphreys: of that weight as well because we know that that's how people think, oh, we've
Holly Straker-Humphreys: got the first black Prime Minister, for example. If
Holly Straker-Humphreys: they're not great, then that changes the perception
Holly Straker-Humphreys: of the whole black community and whether they can do a good job of being
Holly Straker-Humphreys: a Prime Minister, for example. So I think you carry a lot of
Holly Straker-Humphreys: that weight as well, to really prove you're not just there
Holly Straker-Humphreys: for you, you're there for all of your people.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes, I know what you mean.
Joanne Lockwood: I suppose I'm guilty of it. If I see somebody else who's
Joanne Lockwood: trans or nonbinary or gender diverse,
Joanne Lockwood: misrepresenting my view of the world, I think, hang on a minute,
Joanne Lockwood: you don't speak for me, you're damaging my brand.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: Yeah, I get that completely, but I guess that's just
Holly Straker-Humphreys: how society and people, we've
Holly Straker-Humphreys: lumped everyone together under these labels, so
Holly Straker-Humphreys: that's how it plays out. So
Joanne Lockwood: I often hear from people one of the biggest barriers to inclusion is the
Joanne Lockwood: fear of getting it wrong. Either doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing,
Joanne Lockwood: causing a microaggression inadvertent. So do you
Joanne Lockwood: scare people by being here?
Holly Straker-Humphreys: I hope not. I think I've always
Holly Straker-Humphreys: had feedback and I'm only going based
Holly Straker-Humphreys: on this, that I can often
Holly Straker-Humphreys: break down some of that fear by
Holly Straker-Humphreys: providing people a bit of a safe space to come
Holly Straker-Humphreys: with challenges, perceptions, ideas and
Holly Straker-Humphreys: not place judgement, but help them appreciate the other
Holly Straker-Humphreys: perspective. So, particularly in my last
Holly Straker-Humphreys: role, I worked so closely with our entire extended
Holly Straker-Humphreys: leadership team and exact leadership team and
Holly Straker-Humphreys: built really close relationships with each of them to be
Holly Straker-Humphreys: that safe space. So if they're going on a company town hall and they don't
Holly Straker-Humphreys: know, should they say BAME or
Holly Straker-Humphreys: should they not, like I'm the place that they can come and test
Holly Straker-Humphreys: out those test out
Holly Straker-Humphreys: the ways that they should shouldn't speak their ideas, what they're thinking,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: how to approach things. But I completely
Holly Straker-Humphreys: get the fear. Like, the way that social
Holly Straker-Humphreys: media can come and take you down and cancel you now
Holly Straker-Humphreys: is wild. And I get it because people are
Holly Straker-Humphreys: tired, people are angry, people have been through
Holly Straker-Humphreys: this stuff over and over again, so I get that
Holly Straker-Humphreys: side of things. However, I think it's not
Holly Straker-Humphreys: helpful. Like, we need these people if
Holly Straker-Humphreys: we want to see things change, like, we have to work with
Holly Straker-Humphreys: them. So I always take the approach of
Holly Straker-Humphreys: building close relationships with
Holly Straker-Humphreys: these types of people to be able to understand their fears,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: understand what's been their life experience. Because sometimes
Holly Straker-Humphreys: people hold things that have happened to them that they feel are
Holly Straker-Humphreys: just as important as an issue around race, for example.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: And they haven't necessarily had the education
Holly Straker-Humphreys: around how some of those issues are
Holly Straker-Humphreys: systemic and ingrained in society. So they can't understand
Holly Straker-Humphreys: why that maybe holds a little more weight around a certain conversation
Holly Straker-Humphreys: or has more impact for an individual. So
Holly Straker-Humphreys: I definitely like to say that I
Holly Straker-Humphreys: hopefully don't make people fearful. However, I think on the
Holly Straker-Humphreys: flip side, in roles like ours, you also
Holly Straker-Humphreys: do have to be ready to make people feel a little uncomfortable. You've
Holly Straker-Humphreys: got to call things out, you've got to challenge them and
Holly Straker-Humphreys: it's quite hard to find that balance, I
Holly Straker-Humphreys: think. So yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: An interesting one,
Joanne Lockwood: interestingly. Use the word perspective and I think that's really, really valuable.
Joanne Lockwood: It's about understanding a perspective. We often want to be
Joanne Lockwood: right. Wars and
Joanne Lockwood: disagreements and divorces and whatever often
Joanne Lockwood: started by the desire or the need to be right,
Joanne Lockwood: whereas we don't spend enough time understanding why
Joanne Lockwood: somebody thinks something or what their lived experience is. And
Joanne Lockwood: the example I often use is we go into the voting booth with a little
Joanne Lockwood: bit of paper and our stubby little pencil and we tick the box based on
Joanne Lockwood: the candidate that we believe is going to be the best person. And we don't
Joanne Lockwood: tick the same box, we all tick the box that resonates with us.
Joanne Lockwood: And it's not that we're right or wrong, it's just that we have a perspective
Joanne Lockwood: on why we believe that person could do the best job. And
Joanne Lockwood: it's so important in my view, not to
Joanne Lockwood: argue about outcomes but discuss perspectives, because we don't have to
Joanne Lockwood: agree, but we can understand why someone thinks something.
Joanne Lockwood: And that's a hard challenge. I'm so with
Holly Straker-Humphreys: you on that and I think one of the biggest
Holly Straker-Humphreys: fundamental change in my own perspective.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: So growing up in quite a middle class
Holly Straker-Humphreys: environment, I used to enjoy
Holly Straker-Humphreys: watching crappy things on Channel Four and Channel
Holly Straker-Humphreys: Five around, what are they called? Like
Holly Straker-Humphreys: benefits fraudsters and all of those
Holly Straker-Humphreys: ridiculously dramatised
Holly Straker-Humphreys: TV shows,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: obviously that then fuels your mind full of
Holly Straker-Humphreys: crap around perceptions around these groups of people that I maybe
Holly Straker-Humphreys: didn't come across in day to day life because of the environment that I was
Holly Straker-Humphreys: in. And then I met Jack,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: who is my now husband, who grew up in
Holly Straker-Humphreys: a completely different socioeconomic
Holly Straker-Humphreys: environment, so grew up in the more deprived areas
Holly Straker-Humphreys: of Leeds and
Holly Straker-Humphreys: just spending time with him, hearing his
Holly Straker-Humphreys: experiences about growing up. And why
Holly Straker-Humphreys: would a young twelve year old male smash up a bus stop
Holly Straker-Humphreys: with a brick? Or
Holly Straker-Humphreys: why would people be on benefits and not be able to get a job
Holly Straker-Humphreys: because their mental health is so poor, because of the poverty
Holly Straker-Humphreys: that they're living in. Just understanding that perspective honestly
Holly Straker-Humphreys: changed my life. And it was quite weird because
Holly Straker-Humphreys: on paper you would see Jack as a CIS straight
Holly Straker-Humphreys: white male and me as a woman of colour and you would
Holly Straker-Humphreys: assume certain things about how we might fare in society
Holly Straker-Humphreys: when actually it was quite the opposite. And I think
Holly Straker-Humphreys: socioeconomic status is like the missing piece when
Holly Straker-Humphreys: we talk about inclusion because it's such a big driver and it
Holly Straker-Humphreys: intersects across all the different demographics, but it always
Holly Straker-Humphreys: seems to be missing in inclusion conversations. So I
Holly Straker-Humphreys: know that growing up as a moody, strappy teenager,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: watching all of those crappy TV shows, and I'd be
Holly Straker-Humphreys: mouthing off on Facebook statuses about an engaging
Holly Straker-Humphreys: conversations about certain groups and then meeting Jack, I was like, oh my
Holly Straker-Humphreys: gosh, wow. And interestingly, he's had the
Holly Straker-Humphreys: same experience understanding the lives of middle class
Holly Straker-Humphreys: people. Not everyone's, I don't know if I can swear on this podcast,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: not everyone's a middle class who doesn't give a shit
Holly Straker-Humphreys: about who doesn't care about
Holly Straker-Humphreys: issues that he might have experienced, or just because they
Holly Straker-Humphreys: drive a certain car with a nice house doesn't mean they're an idiot.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: So it's been a really interesting
Holly Straker-Humphreys: experience to bring our world
Holly Straker-Humphreys: together and I think we are both better people because of
Holly Straker-Humphreys: it. And I also feel like I can do my
Holly Straker-Humphreys: job so much better because I personally
Holly Straker-Humphreys: have gone through a process of shifting and changing my
Holly Straker-Humphreys: perspective. So when I need to work with leaders to help them understand
Holly Straker-Humphreys: the experiences of women within their business and the challenges that
Holly Straker-Humphreys: they might face in their career and how that particular
Holly Straker-Humphreys: leaders actions and behaviours might be impacting, that like helping
Holly Straker-Humphreys: them shift that perspective. I feel like I can go about
Holly Straker-Humphreys: that in quite an effective way because I've personally gone
Holly Straker-Humphreys: through that. And
Holly Straker-Humphreys: even as a mixed race
Holly Straker-Humphreys: female, I've got a couple of hidden disabilities that I'll throw in there as
Holly Straker-Humphreys: well. It does not make me perfect and does
Holly Straker-Humphreys: not make me be able to be an advocate for all of
Holly Straker-Humphreys: inclusion. No matter who we are, everybody has to
Holly Straker-Humphreys: educate themselves because we only know our worlds and what we
Holly Straker-Humphreys: know. So, yeah, I think that was
Holly Straker-Humphreys: also quite a profound experience
Holly Straker-Humphreys: for me in terms of perspective.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I completely agree that we speak through our own
Joanne Lockwood: lens and our own privilege and our own characteristics, our own lived experience.
Joanne Lockwood: And as a di professional, I think we both learned
Joanne Lockwood: over the years that to know the lens through which we speak
Joanne Lockwood: and ensure that we do the work, we put the hard
Joanne Lockwood: graft in to understand other perspectives and don't end up with face value.
Joanne Lockwood: And I'm a great believer in talking about cultural intelligence
Joanne Lockwood: and it is about that lifelong learning to get
Joanne Lockwood: perspectives of people. And, as you say, the way the media
Joanne Lockwood: demonise the Tories as a
Joanne Lockwood: class, or the benefits goungers, or
Joanne Lockwood: the striking nurses, we want to sell clicks and
Joanne Lockwood: media and we're trying to influence and the
Joanne Lockwood: media works on divide and conquer, as does the government,
Joanne Lockwood: I think. Exactly. It's understanding what the game of
Joanne Lockwood: play is and choosing not to play that game and try and
Joanne Lockwood: navigate through it. Exactly. We're just playing into the
Holly Straker-Humphreys: hands of what they want to create when actually the
Holly Straker-Humphreys: only people losing out are as human
Holly Straker-Humphreys: beings. Yeah. I mean, you really got to look at what?
Joanne Lockwood: Reality shows like I'm a Slave to Get Me Out Of Here and Love
Joanne Lockwood: Island. They're trying to pitch you against each other and they
Joanne Lockwood: deliberately create scenarios to create tension because
Joanne Lockwood: there's lots of studies. If you put humans in a group, the conflict doesn't
Joanne Lockwood: always arise. Most people will just get on with each other and you
Joanne Lockwood: build a community. So unless you put a disruptor in there, there's no
Joanne Lockwood: telly. It's just ten people getting on with each other,
Joanne Lockwood: looking out for each other and having a bit of a laugh. So you've got
Joanne Lockwood: to put Matt Hancock in the jungle to create that disruption.
Joanne Lockwood: You got to starve people and make them fight for food
Joanne Lockwood: in order to get their animal instincts out, because by default,
Joanne Lockwood: they don't exist. And as a society, we would get
Joanne Lockwood: on with each other a lot better if it wasn't being
Joanne Lockwood: stoked by the media and sometimes by the
Joanne Lockwood: government creating the division.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: Yeah. I always say money rules the world.
Joanne Lockwood: It does influence and power. Yeah. People
Joanne Lockwood: wanting more of it. And even in the
Joanne Lockwood: utopian world, there's always somebody who rules the world, isn't there,
Joanne Lockwood: that keeps the utopia intact.
Joanne Lockwood: What do you think the biggest challenges that organisations
Joanne Lockwood: face? I know that when we worked together at your previous
Joanne Lockwood: company that you had some very
Joanne Lockwood: forward thinking ways of measuring and embedding
Joanne Lockwood: systems and process around EDI and inclusion into the organisation.
Joanne Lockwood: What are organisations failing to do, if you like? Now.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: I think some of my views and
Holly Straker-Humphreys: experiences might be quite different to what other EDI
Holly Straker-Humphreys: professionals might think. But if you typically look
Holly Straker-Humphreys: at some of the reading around what are the best things
Holly Straker-Humphreys: that organisations can do to embed or start a dei
Holly Straker-Humphreys: strategy? It's always get some employee
Holly Straker-Humphreys: resource groups together and get an exec sponsor. Like they're the two
Holly Straker-Humphreys: things that will often come up. And I think
Holly Straker-Humphreys: with that first one around employee resource groups, there
Holly Straker-Humphreys: is so much power in bringing people together who face
Holly Straker-Humphreys: similar challenges to have each other's back,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: informally mentor each other, like just finding
Holly Straker-Humphreys: your people, finding your community, as I've talked about. However,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: what I don't quite agree with is then
Holly Straker-Humphreys: putting it on that marginalised community to then
Holly Straker-Humphreys: fix the problems that they experience in the workplace for
Holly Straker-Humphreys: free on top of their day job. That then probably
Holly Straker-Humphreys: takes time away from their day job. Meaning they maybe then
Holly Straker-Humphreys: aren't able to perform at their best enrol and then how does that impact their
Holly Straker-Humphreys: career? And sometimes with limited budget as
Holly Straker-Humphreys: well, and also limited experience
Holly Straker-Humphreys: in skill and knowledge, in some of the things that are really needed to
Holly Straker-Humphreys: make a change, like people policy or
Holly Straker-Humphreys: recruitment or change management,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: all of those. Things. And I think we've kind of
Holly Straker-Humphreys: just in a lot of places,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: bucketed dei into this nice thing to do. And
Holly Straker-Humphreys: if we've got these groups and we're talking about it and we've got something that
Holly Straker-Humphreys: we can put on our career site or in our annual report, then
Holly Straker-Humphreys: that's fine. But is that really going to drive the change
Holly Straker-Humphreys: that we want to see? No. And with
Holly Straker-Humphreys: the second point I made around exec sponsors,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: they can have equally so much power if you've got a
Holly Straker-Humphreys: senior voice at the table driving this piece of
Holly Straker-Humphreys: work, like, you can make phenomenal change. However, what about the
Holly Straker-Humphreys: rest of the leadership team? Isn't it just part of every single one of
Holly Straker-Humphreys: their roles to be an advocate, an ally, a
Holly Straker-Humphreys: sponsor, be role modelling the right behaviours and
Holly Straker-Humphreys: actions, setting the tone for what the organisation should be? And I think it's
Holly Straker-Humphreys: very easy to put all the responsibility for that
Holly Straker-Humphreys: onto one individual, rather than how are they all taking that
Holly Straker-Humphreys: into their everyday teams, departments, lives, job?
Holly Straker-Humphreys: And are they collectively as a leadership team, talking about
Holly Straker-Humphreys: how dei impacts the business goals? Or is it just
Holly Straker-Humphreys: because we've got that one person that goes to the monthly meeting
Holly Straker-Humphreys: with the employee resource groups, then we're good, it's just not
Holly Straker-Humphreys: good enough. And you go to
Holly Straker-Humphreys: Joanne, you will know this. You go to so many webinars
Holly Straker-Humphreys: and talks and people sit and their first question they ask
Holly Straker-Humphreys: is, Why are we still here? Why haven't we seen any change? And
Holly Straker-Humphreys: it's because we're doing a rubbish job. Like we're not putting
Holly Straker-Humphreys: the right resource expertise, strategy
Holly Straker-Humphreys: metrics around what we want to see.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: And I think equally, if you look wider, we
Holly Straker-Humphreys: know that the workplace is just one piece of the
Holly Straker-Humphreys: inclusion jigsaw. Like we're not getting the right support from the government
Holly Straker-Humphreys: around, for example, shared parental leave, or
Holly Straker-Humphreys: looking at increasing statutory paternity
Holly Straker-Humphreys: pay so that we can reshift the balance around parental
Holly Straker-Humphreys: responsibilities and how that impacts the careers of women. Like
Holly Straker-Humphreys: we're not as a wider society, we say
Holly Straker-Humphreys: these things and we stand up and we say we care about inclusion and
Holly Straker-Humphreys: then our actions do the opposite.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: So I think it's something that every
Holly Straker-Humphreys: CEO would probably stand up on a town hall or
Holly Straker-Humphreys: they'd get asked in a slider, is it a priority? And they'd say, yes,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: but are they necessarily putting the infrastructure behind that to
Holly Straker-Humphreys: make it work and really,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: truly realising the benefits and potential that they could get
Holly Straker-Humphreys: within their organisation if they seriously
Holly Straker-Humphreys: address their challenges? No. So
Holly Straker-Humphreys: I think as a society we can do
Holly Straker-Humphreys: a lot better with this, but where's the appetite to do that?
Joanne Lockwood: Do you think that many organisations and I don't want to generalise
Joanne Lockwood: as EI professionals, we should never generalise or stereotype.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm conscious about that. Do you think that a lot of
Joanne Lockwood: EDI professionals, staff networks end
Joanne Lockwood: up being this sounds quite derogatory
Joanne Lockwood: coffee and cake on a Friday. Hashtag
Joanne Lockwood: celebrants, event organisers, bean
Joanne Lockwood: counters. How many of this, how many of that have we got? Where are our
Joanne Lockwood: pay gaps? They're more operational and
Joanne Lockwood: backward looking rather than strategic and embedded
Joanne Lockwood: as part of the business. Or how do we get past that?
Holly Straker-Humphreys: Yeah, I think what I do not want to
Holly Straker-Humphreys: portray here is that staff networks haven't achieved amazing
Holly Straker-Humphreys: things, because I know in some organisations, wow, they've really changed
Holly Straker-Humphreys: the game and still do. But whether it's right for them to be doing
Holly Straker-Humphreys: that on top of their role unpaid is my biggest bugbear
Holly Straker-Humphreys: here. And I think you're right. I've seen
Holly Straker-Humphreys: examples of places I've worked where that's what staff networks
Holly Straker-Humphreys: have become in terms of
Holly Straker-Humphreys: events and comms driven, which that absolutely
Holly Straker-Humphreys: has a place like. We need that awareness, we need those safe
Holly Straker-Humphreys: spaces for people to come together. And
Holly Straker-Humphreys: those events and things that people organise can sometimes be the
Holly Straker-Humphreys: catalyst for a lot of change. What I'm saying is we need the rest
Holly Straker-Humphreys: of the infrastructure to really drive the change around,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: applying a di lens over an entire
Holly Straker-Humphreys: people strategy, looking at where it fits into the business goals,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: picking apart all the systems and processes, having the right resource
Holly Straker-Humphreys: and education in place to do that. So I think
Holly Straker-Humphreys: they absolutely do have a place. It's just we're missing some of the
Holly Straker-Humphreys: other stuff that can really help drive
Holly Straker-Humphreys: and get us to the outcomes that we want to see.
Joanne Lockwood: So is it all about the business case or is it always
Joanne Lockwood: about doing the right thing for people? We see these polarised debates
Joanne Lockwood: on LinkedIn and other platforms about people who are evangelical about it's not
Joanne Lockwood: the business case. You can't put the business case before people, other people go, no,
Joanne Lockwood: hang on a minute, it's got to be the business case. Where do you sit
Joanne Lockwood: on the fence on that one? Interesting one.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: I probably put myself in the middle because, like,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: my personal values, I
Holly Straker-Humphreys: am very strongly aligned in terms of
Holly Straker-Humphreys: people getting access to opportunities
Holly Straker-Humphreys: and being uplifted and
Holly Straker-Humphreys: organisations having a bit of responsibility to fix the problems
Holly Straker-Humphreys: that the world has created. So that's where I'd sit on that side.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: On the business case side, I don't think that should be the single
Holly Straker-Humphreys: driver. However, I do think there is so much
Holly Straker-Humphreys: opportunity that businesses are just not tapping into because they
Holly Straker-Humphreys: haven't got this broad perspective that actually
Holly Straker-Humphreys: those communities can also benefit from. So, for example,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: if we take accessibility, like if
Holly Straker-Humphreys: organisations were thinking about accessibility first, the
Holly Straker-Humphreys: disabled community would be benefiting more from
Holly Straker-Humphreys: the products and services that we get in
Holly Straker-Humphreys: society. So whilst, yes, you don't want money
Holly Straker-Humphreys: to be the only driver of why we're thinking about the business
Holly Straker-Humphreys: case, but as a result of that, the
Holly Straker-Humphreys: communities that we're trying to help can also benefit. So I
Holly Straker-Humphreys: don't think I'm one or the other, I think it fits quite nicely together. And
Holly Straker-Humphreys: that's where you mentioned at the beginning around my
Holly Straker-Humphreys: letter to Dyson. So I wanted to buy
Holly Straker-Humphreys: the Dyson air wrap. This was a couple of years ago and I
Holly Straker-Humphreys: was having a read, doing my research, and all of the copy was like,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: combat your frizzy hair. Or like, I can't remember
Holly Straker-Humphreys: the exact wording, but it was like, fight, fight, the frizz kind
Holly Straker-Humphreys: of phraseology.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: And I was just like, why on earth am I
Holly Straker-Humphreys: going to invest? Like, this hairdryer is not cheap. Why am I
Holly Straker-Humphreys: going to invest the hundreds of pounds in something that's,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: like, contradicting my identity? Like, it just doesn't make sense,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: it's a racist.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: So, like, you like but I really wanted the
Holly Straker-Humphreys: hairdryer, so that's why I wrote the letter, in terms of, like, just offering my
Holly Straker-Humphreys: perspective. And to be fair, they were great. I got invited to speak to the
Holly Straker-Humphreys: marketing director, they changed all of the language, so
Holly Straker-Humphreys: shout out to Dyson. However,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: it all kind of works together. Like if you're doing the right thing and
Holly Straker-Humphreys: bringing people into your organisation, giving them opportunities to
Holly Straker-Humphreys: progress their career, do great work, be innovative, give their ideas,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: then the business case will speak for itself. But
Holly Straker-Humphreys: then also that community benefits on the other side of it, because I can buy
Holly Straker-Humphreys: a hairdryer that really works well in terms of being able
Holly Straker-Humphreys: to manage my Afro hair. So,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: yeah, I think you'll probably find me in the middle of
Holly Straker-Humphreys: that. I'm with you on that. What I always say is, if you think
Joanne Lockwood: about the three dynamics compliance, I e the
Joanne Lockwood: law, business case and the human factor. I always say if you get the human
Joanne Lockwood: factor right, the business case and the compliance become
Joanne Lockwood: they work. You don't have to focus on the business case, you just do the
Joanne Lockwood: right thing for people and make sure people feel that positive
Joanne Lockwood: experience and then the business case will fall out of that. And you can easily
Joanne Lockwood: quantify that by discretionary effort, empty seat
Joanne Lockwood: costs, retention. All those great things we know
Joanne Lockwood: comes out of inclusion and belonging that we know we're going to get better from.
Joanne Lockwood: I forget, frustrated when we see organisations
Joanne Lockwood: where they maybe hit the maturity model on the dei curve and they
Joanne Lockwood: still talk about diversity, we got to get more diversity. And then they
Joanne Lockwood: start thinking about inclusion, they think about belonging, then they think about
Joanne Lockwood: culture. I always want people to flip it on its head by saying, let's start
Joanne Lockwood: with culture. We get the culture right, we get our brand values
Joanne Lockwood: right, we get our employee values right, then our culture comes
Joanne Lockwood: belonging. I feel aligned with the organisation. If I feel belonging, I'm going
Joanne Lockwood: to feel included. If I feel included, then there's a place for me. Therefore,
Joanne Lockwood: the diversity will naturally permeate in that
Joanne Lockwood: environment. So I think often we see people trying
Joanne Lockwood: to hire their way out of a diversity problem or we got to do some
Joanne Lockwood: diverse hiring. And I say, well, going to market
Joanne Lockwood: is the last thing you do once you've got everything else in the
Joanne Lockwood: organisation. Otherwise all you're doing is you're bringing
Joanne Lockwood: new fish into a dirty pond and that's what happens. They don't
Joanne Lockwood: thrive, they just get finrot and leave. Yeah,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: completely. I know that when
Holly Straker-Humphreys: we worked together, Joanne, that's exactly what we were doing so we
Holly Straker-Humphreys: ran your journey to Conscious Inclusion
Holly Straker-Humphreys: workshops and powerful Allyship workshops
Holly Straker-Humphreys: top down from our senior leadership team
Holly Straker-Humphreys: along with giving them the opportunity to
Holly Straker-Humphreys: get a different perspective. So we did a reciprocal mentoring scheme
Holly Straker-Humphreys: as well that ran alongside that. So a member
Holly Straker-Humphreys: of our leadership team was matched with someone from a
Holly Straker-Humphreys: minority group in the organisation, so that the leadership team
Holly Straker-Humphreys: member could help uplift the person with their
Holly Straker-Humphreys: advice from their career and then
Holly Straker-Humphreys: they'd get to understand more about what life was
Holly Straker-Humphreys: like at the organisation from a different perspective.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: And doing those things got us to such
Holly Straker-Humphreys: a great place and you could feel the change. And then
Holly Straker-Humphreys: I've moved on from that particular organisation now, but now
Holly Straker-Humphreys: I know, as I was leaving, you started to see the shifts
Holly Straker-Humphreys: in percentage increases in particular demographics.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: And externally, I think people felt the authenticity
Holly Straker-Humphreys: around the change and we could clearly articulate the things
Holly Straker-Humphreys: that we had done. To be able to call ourselves well, I didn't think you
Holly Straker-Humphreys: can ever call yourself 100% inclusive, but to call ourselves an
Holly Straker-Humphreys: organisation, that's really working towards building an
Holly Straker-Humphreys: inclusive environment, so I'm so with you on that. And
Holly Straker-Humphreys: I think it can do so much damage because
Holly Straker-Humphreys: you will hire all these people from
Holly Straker-Humphreys: different backgrounds and if you haven't got that environment right, they'll just leave or
Holly Straker-Humphreys: it'll cause conflict or they won't be able to perform at their
Holly Straker-Humphreys: best. And then you've proved some of those
Holly Straker-Humphreys: perceptions right that people might have around diversity isn't
Holly Straker-Humphreys: actually valuable. It causes challenges and we're just doing
Holly Straker-Humphreys: it because we need to look good or look a certain way. So I think
Holly Straker-Humphreys: it can cause more damage than good if you don't go about it in the
Holly Straker-Humphreys: right way. Yeah, if you've read is
Joanne Lockwood: it Lily Zeng's book deconstructed? Oh,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: I need to order that brilliant. I've got it on
Joanne Lockwood: Audible and I was listening to it on the way I was driving to Manchester
Joanne Lockwood: the other week, I had about 4 hours in a car each way. It's about
Joanne Lockwood: a twelve hour book on Audible. And one of the things that
Joanne Lockwood: struck me and I don't know about you, but I follow them on
Joanne Lockwood: LinkedIn and often engage with their posts. And one of the
Joanne Lockwood: things that they talked about was
Joanne Lockwood: we often worry about having one of everybody, a bit like
Joanne Lockwood: Noah's Ark. We need one of these, one of those in order to have
Joanne Lockwood: representation. So we need to have a black person
Joanne Lockwood: in the room to talk about, et cetera. And what they
Joanne Lockwood: said was that it's not just about having one of everybody, it's having to
Joanne Lockwood: trust that the people who are in the room
Joanne Lockwood: have your back and are thinking about you. So we can't necessarily represent every
Joanne Lockwood: permutation of intersectionality, but we can trust that the people who
Joanne Lockwood: are having the conversations have have your back and
Joanne Lockwood: are considering you and are thinking about you and will talk to you. If they
Joanne Lockwood: need more information, then that's got to be some of the objective. And I think
Joanne Lockwood: we often get too engrossed in ticking boxes and bean
Joanne Lockwood: counting and not building trust and embedding
Joanne Lockwood: those sort of systems. And I think that was quite sightful.
Joanne Lockwood: I often talk about trust when we talk about employee engagement service,
Joanne Lockwood: when we talk about data capture. That's what we can we can
Joanne Lockwood: almost measure trust, how well people engage with us, do they believe in
Joanne Lockwood: us? Will they communicate with us? And
Joanne Lockwood: again, within inclusion belonging, trust is a huge element
Joanne Lockwood: against psychological safety. Bring your whole self to work. It's about being
Joanne Lockwood: comfortable with your peers and your colleagues, isn't it?
Holly Straker-Humphreys: Yeah, I really love that,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: how they've phrased that. Lily Zen is just like
Holly Straker-Humphreys: the ultimate on LinkedIn. Like
Holly Straker-Humphreys: anything they say, I'm like, yeah, take that in, write it down.
Joanne Lockwood: She can be a bit Shelty, so I often have to philtre the
Joanne Lockwood: sheltiness sometimes and often a lecture. But
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, the message they put out is always
Joanne Lockwood: helpful, always insightful.
Joanne Lockwood: I'd advocate anyone follow them
Joanne Lockwood: if they're on LinkedIn who want to find out more. And I don't often recommend
Joanne Lockwood: books, but I have it on the shelf behind me and I have it on
Joanne Lockwood: Audible as well, so I bought it twice.
Joanne Lockwood: Again. Go back to LinkedIn. This is where I often get the temperature
Joanne Lockwood: gauge and the thermometer of the world. A lot of
Joanne Lockwood: di practitioners are tired,
Joanne Lockwood: they're exhausted, they're working, advanced, but they feel this
Joanne Lockwood: onslaught of walking through treacle every day.
Joanne Lockwood: Do you feel that? How do we overcome that?
Joanne Lockwood: How do we inspire di practitioners? Just brush
Joanne Lockwood: it off and carry on? I definitely
Holly Straker-Humphreys: feel that and I think you cannot escape it.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: Either because you log off from work and then
Holly Straker-Humphreys: you'll put on the news, or there'll be something in a WhatsApp
Holly Straker-Humphreys: group chat. Because we have so much access to information now,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: things are being shared so much more, which is a positive thing,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: but also can be so mentally draining, you
Holly Straker-Humphreys: physically cannot escape it. And
Holly Straker-Humphreys: my husband Jack is a family lawyer, he works in
Holly Straker-Humphreys: care, so kids that
Holly Straker-Humphreys: have social services involvement. So, like, our dinner table chat is very
Holly Straker-Humphreys: heavy and you almost see the cycle of
Holly Straker-Humphreys: what the families he works with, experience and how that
Holly Straker-Humphreys: plays out in terms of what I see in the working world.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: So it's everywhere.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: So, yeah, I definitely feel that. One thing that
Holly Straker-Humphreys: I will always treasure is a couple
Holly Straker-Humphreys: of colleagues that I worked with in my previous role. We have a
Holly Straker-Humphreys: WhatsApp chat called tired and Oppressed.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: And that's like our little safe space to run
Holly Straker-Humphreys: or to get advice, because some
Holly Straker-Humphreys: of the decisions that you have to make in our role, like, they're heavy, they're
Holly Straker-Humphreys: people's lives, and you could go one way or another. And even as an
Holly Straker-Humphreys: inclusion professional, I worry about being cancelled, like saying the wrong
Holly Straker-Humphreys: thing, so that's like my little safe space
Holly Straker-Humphreys: with a couple of colleagues and then
Holly Straker-Humphreys: I really have to proactively manage
Holly Straker-Humphreys: my mental health and how I take care of myself
Holly Straker-Humphreys: in terms of giving myself space to decompress from
Holly Straker-Humphreys: some of this. And I think as well, because
Holly Straker-Humphreys: you're working on it, you're living it, but also, if
Holly Straker-Humphreys: you're part of a minority group, it's you and your life as
Holly Straker-Humphreys: well. You experience these things day to
Holly Straker-Humphreys: day anyway, so it's coming at you from all angles.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: So I will watch a lot
Holly Straker-Humphreys: of crappy reality TV after work, just as an
Holly Straker-Humphreys: escapism. Like, you've got to find your escape or go for a long
Holly Straker-Humphreys: walk with my dog and just listen to music, or you've just got to
Holly Straker-Humphreys: have those self care strategies in place because it's a
Holly Straker-Humphreys: lot, it really is. And you can find yourself in the
Holly Straker-Humphreys: middle of a spectrum of people who are like the world's two
Holly Straker-Humphreys: PC. I just want to come to work, do my work and go home.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: This is ridiculous. Right through to our leadership team
Holly Straker-Humphreys: should have a black woman, someone who
Holly Straker-Humphreys: has additional accessibility needs, someone who it should be 50
Holly Straker-Humphreys: 50 gender split. Like, this isn't good enough. What are you doing?
Holly Straker-Humphreys: So you're getting attacked from both
Holly Straker-Humphreys: sides. So it is absolutely a lot. And
Holly Straker-Humphreys: you've got to be quite resilient in
Holly Straker-Humphreys: this role, I think.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: Resilient, but still carry empathy, still be able to
Holly Straker-Humphreys: challenge. There's so many skills that I've had to learn
Holly Straker-Humphreys: and develop quite quickly and I think you need a good
Holly Straker-Humphreys: network of people around you to help you do that,
Holly Straker-Humphreys: because it is a lot. It is. And that's one
Joanne Lockwood: of the reasons I liked in these podcasts, is you share lots of perspectives with
Joanne Lockwood: lots of different people around a topic you care passionately around,
Joanne Lockwood: and it allows you to listen to other people's
Joanne Lockwood: challenges as well, and other people's perspectives. And it means that it's
Joanne Lockwood: not just me, everybody else is going through this as well. And it is
Joanne Lockwood: easy, as you say, that it's too easy
Joanne Lockwood: to take on your own characteristic and
Joanne Lockwood: as a champion and then be thwarted by it, be ground down by it.
Joanne Lockwood: And sometimes you have to have that pressure cooker release valve that says,
Joanne Lockwood: let it go, I can't fix this and I need to turn the dial. The
Joanne Lockwood: noise, if you looked at what's going on in the papers at the moment
Joanne Lockwood: around trans people, it would just push your mental health away.
Joanne Lockwood: So you got to attenuate it and talk about something
Joanne Lockwood: else. So, yeah, it is exhausting.
Joanne Lockwood: I think we also probably need to do as a society or a business
Joanne Lockwood: community is to recognise Dei professionals
Joanne Lockwood: in the same way we recognise HR professionals. Maybe maybe the
Joanne Lockwood: professionalism still hasn't matured yet around.
Joanne Lockwood: We don't have a body like the CIPD. I'm not saying the CIPD is perfect,
Joanne Lockwood: but we don't have a dei is different
Joanne Lockwood: in HR. I don't think it should report to HR or be part of HR.
Joanne Lockwood: I think we can all have debates about whether talent acquisition, branding,
Joanne Lockwood: marketing, HR all have this, as you say, cross directorate,
Joanne Lockwood: Di impact. So Di needs to have its own voice and
Joanne Lockwood: should be in everyone's report, like health and safety and risk.
Joanne Lockwood: It should be in everyone's report. And I think we need to help
Joanne Lockwood: professionalise the industry or the business community and give people
Joanne Lockwood: support because it's still quite new, it's probably less than ten years old, really.
Joanne Lockwood: In many cases. A lot of people get into it like they get
Joanne Lockwood: into recruiting because there was a vacancy and they got it.
Joanne Lockwood: And I think we better training, better support
Joanne Lockwood: and move it on from being, as I said earlier,
Joanne Lockwood: just parties and hashtags.
Joanne Lockwood: It needs to be more tactical and strategic.
Joanne Lockwood: That's my soapbox.
Joanne Lockwood: We've talked for hours over the years and this has been another fascinating
Joanne Lockwood: conversation to dive a little bit deeper into your own perspective.
Joanne Lockwood: So how can people get hold of you? If you'd like people to get
Joanne Lockwood: hold of you, that is. Yeah, I know. That is fine. So
Holly Straker-Humphreys: you can find me on LinkedIn. Holly Streker Humphreys.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: I'm not a tweeter or anything
Holly Straker-Humphreys: like that. In fact, that is one of the things that I came off to
Holly Straker-Humphreys: save my mental health, because it's just way too much.
Holly Straker-Humphreys: So feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn
Holly Straker-Humphreys: and I'll be happy to chat to anyone, whether it's
Holly Straker-Humphreys: just someone who else who works in this industry, I think it's always good
Holly Straker-Humphreys: to build our network, someone who's thinking about getting into the industry
Holly Straker-Humphreys: or someone who maybe completely disagrees with everything that
Holly Straker-Humphreys: I've said. Good perspective. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I completely agree. It's great to be challenged and keep you on your
Joanne Lockwood: toes. I completely agree. But that's fantastic. And I know we're
Joanne Lockwood: connected and share insights from time to time as well. So. Thank
Joanne Lockwood: you, Holly. Also, thank you to you, the listeners, for tuning
Joanne Lockwood: in, for listening to the end. Thank you. I really appreciate that. If
Joanne Lockwood: you're not already subscribed, please do subscribe on all the major
Joanne Lockwood: platforms to keep updated on future episodes of the
Joanne Lockwood: Inclusion Bites podcast. That's B-I-T-E-S. . I try and release
Joanne Lockwood: them weekly where I can tell your friends, tell your
Joanne Lockwood: colleagues, please do share the love. I have a number of other exciting guests
Joanne Lockwood: lined up that I'm sure you'd be equally inspired by over the next few
Joanne Lockwood: weeks, months and hopefully year is. Of course, if you think you would like to
Joanne Lockwood: come on the show inspire people. I'd love to hear from you as I would
Joanne Lockwood: welcome any comments, feedback and suggestions you may have on how I can
Joanne Lockwood: improve. So, finally, my name is Joanne Lockwood.
Joanne Lockwood: It has been an absolute pleasure to host this podcast for you today.
Joanne Lockwood: Catch you next time. Bye
Joanne Lockwood: bye.