Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I'm your host for
Joanne Lockwood: the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I have
Joanne Lockwood: interviewed a number of amazing people and simply had a conversation around the
Joanne Lockwood: subject of inclusion, belonging and generally making the world
Joanne Lockwood: a better place for everyone to thrive. If you'd like to join me in the
Joanne Lockwood: future, then please do drop me a line to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk
Joanne Lockwood: that's S-E-E Change Happen dot co dot uk.
Joanne Lockwood: You can catch up with all of the previous shows on iTunes,
Joanne Lockwood: Spotify and the usual places. So plug
Joanne Lockwood: in your headphones, grab a decaf and let's get going.
Joanne Lockwood: Today is Episode 80
Joanne Lockwood: with the title Beyond The Barriers, and
Joanne Lockwood: I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Belinda Riley. Belinda
Joanne Lockwood: describes herself as a diversity and inclusion consultant
Joanne Lockwood: and also clinical hypnotherapist.
Joanne Lockwood: When I asked Belinda to describe her superpower,
Joanne Lockwood: she said that she truly cares and wants to
Joanne Lockwood: get it right, not just feel like she's right, whilst also
Joanne Lockwood: recognising her own privileges and using those to help others.
Joanne Lockwood: Hello, Belinda, welcome to the show.
Belinda Riley: Hello, Joanne. Thank you very much for having me. It's lovely to see you
Belinda Riley: again. Yes, it's great to catch up. Belinda,
Joanne Lockwood: tell me we're speaking in the green room, just full, went
Joanne Lockwood: live, and we talk about beyond the barriers. What does that mean to you?
Belinda Riley: So, beyond the barriers for me, means a number of different things. And
Belinda Riley: in my work, I also do a number of different things. But in essence, it's
Belinda Riley: about going beyond the barriers of either limiting
Belinda Riley: beliefs that people have that hold them back from
Belinda Riley: really achieving their potential or thriving
Belinda Riley: in all areas of their life. But it's also, in my
Belinda Riley: consultancy work, it's around going beyond the barriers of
Belinda Riley: inequality to make workplaces work
Belinda Riley: for everyone. So, limiting
Joanne Lockwood: beliefs? Yeah. I
Joanne Lockwood: think when we first met, probably about four or five years ago, I was probably
Joanne Lockwood: going through a stage of my life where this sense of
Joanne Lockwood: imposter syndrome, these limiting beliefs, these things hold you back,
Joanne Lockwood: this little voice in your ear that says you can't, you can't, you can't.
Joanne Lockwood: Many people suffer from that, don't they? Oh, absolutely. And
Belinda Riley: I'm fascinated, actually, about how impostor syndrome
Belinda Riley: shows up for people. And I've done a lot of work in this
Belinda Riley: area and there's lots of research in this space, and I think the
Belinda Riley: research says that kind of 70% of women experience impostor syndrome,
Belinda Riley: 40% of men. In my work, what I've kind of
Belinda Riley: come across is realising that most people experience
Belinda Riley: some form of impostor syndrome or have some kind of impostor
Belinda Riley: feelings. That does hold them back. And
Belinda Riley: often impostor syndrome can show up in loads of different ways
Belinda Riley: of that idea of not feeling good enough, not feeling worthy enough, feeling
Belinda Riley: like that you don't belong or that you're a fraud and
Belinda Riley: someone's going to find out that you don't really know as much as
Belinda Riley: what you say that aligns with what you're doing.
Belinda Riley: But for me, more importantly, when I've looked closely into
Belinda Riley: impostor syndrome, is seeing how much is being left on the
Belinda Riley: table, how many great ideas, how much
Belinda Riley: innovation, how many opportunities, how many ideas
Belinda Riley: are people not following through because of those
Belinda Riley: impostor feelings and those limiting beliefs and those words that they
Belinda Riley: tell themselves? And it's inspired me
Belinda Riley: to really think more broadly around that and how do I build
Belinda Riley: awareness and kind of empower people to overcome those
Belinda Riley: impostor feelings so that they can go on and achieve and
Belinda Riley: thrive and realise and fulfil their potential?
Joanne Lockwood: So you said just now that proportionally more women
Joanne Lockwood: experienced it than men. I also believe
Joanne Lockwood: that it's kind of people from marginalised, minority or unheard
Joanne Lockwood: voices backgrounds tend to be more is that down to
Joanne Lockwood: socialisation more than anything or is that just
Joanne Lockwood: is it nurturing, basically? Well, what I've kind of
Belinda Riley: discovered in the work that I have done is that I
Belinda Riley: believe that impostor syndrome is actually compounded by the
Belinda Riley: systemic barriers or the systemic inequality that exists in the
Belinda Riley: world, and in particular in the workplace.
Belinda Riley: And I think often when people are talking about
Belinda Riley: impostor syndrome, it's kind of saying that something's wrong with you as an
Belinda Riley: individual for having these feelings, but often it's not explored within
Belinda Riley: the context of the worlds of which we live and the worlds in which
Belinda Riley: we work. And I think that that's why
Belinda Riley: often, in my experience and what I see, these impostor feelings
Belinda Riley: are compounded for women and other sort of marginalised or
Belinda Riley: underrepresented groups. And I think there's a reason for that. And
Belinda Riley: I've looked really closely because I think when I started looking at impostor
Belinda Riley: syndrome, I remember when I moved from my career in
Belinda Riley: the public sector into the private sector, I remember thinking, oh, my
Belinda Riley: God, I'm not going to fit. They've employed the wrong person,
Belinda Riley: I'm going to get there and they're going to go, thanks so much for coming,
Belinda Riley: Belinda, but we've made the wrong decision
Belinda Riley: because I thought, based on my ideas about
Belinda Riley: the workplace, that I didn't really have a role. But what I
Belinda Riley: realised quite quickly when I started this new job is that I
Belinda Riley: wasn't the only person who was experiencing these impostor
Belinda Riley: feelings or this impostor syndrome. And people who
Belinda Riley: I was looking up to, who were and are
Belinda Riley: absolutely phenomenal leaders of
Belinda Riley: businesses, entrepreneurs, I had the privilege in my role
Belinda Riley: of working with royalty, with Olympic
Belinda Riley: champions, Paralympic champions, world champions, in
Belinda Riley: athletes. And I couldn't believe that there was some
Belinda Riley: similarity in around some of these impostor feelings.
Belinda Riley: And it really triggered in me. Where do these feelings
Belinda Riley: come from? Why do people think they're not good enough, even when you've kind of
Belinda Riley: achieved what most people would only dream of
Belinda Riley: achieving? And where does that come from? So I started kind of doing a
Belinda Riley: little bit of inquiry and as you mentioned at the beginning
Belinda Riley: of our conversation, I'm also a
Belinda Riley: hypnotherapist and really interested in how sort
Belinda Riley: of the mind works and the rules of the
Belinda Riley: mind and the power of the mind. And I also had the
Belinda Riley: privilege of studying with a phenomenal woman called Marissa Pierre. I don't know
Belinda Riley: if you've come across her before, but she's a phenomenal
Belinda Riley: therapist. She coined rapid transformational
Belinda Riley: therapy. And she was saying that in her kind of
Belinda Riley: 35 years of being a hypnotherapist, a therapist, and
Belinda Riley: she uses a number of different types of therapies is that she
Belinda Riley: identified that there was kind of three limiting beliefs that
Belinda Riley: there's no boundaries to this idea that you're not enough,
Belinda Riley: that when you look up, what you want isn't available to
Belinda Riley: you. Or this idea that you don't fit or you don't
Belinda Riley: belong. And so when I was sort of re upskilling with
Belinda Riley: her, I looked into that and was thinking about that in the context of the
Belinda Riley: workplace and in the context of the work that I was doing around
Belinda Riley: diversity, inclusion and inequality. And
Belinda Riley: my role was really looking to advance
Belinda Riley: minorities or marginalised groups into leadership roles.
Belinda Riley: It really got me thinking about those three
Belinda Riley: factors and how does that actually show up in the
Belinda Riley: workplace. And what I realised is that when I was
Belinda Riley: looking at, in particular women and other marginalised groups,
Belinda Riley: we're constantly held to a kind of
Belinda Riley: masculine standard around what is success. And we're often told that we
Belinda Riley: need to work harder, that we need to do more to be
Belinda Riley: successful. And there's often this ingrained belief in workplaces that
Belinda Riley: we operate a meritocracy that if you work hard, you will progress at the same
Belinda Riley: rate as your peers. But the reality is that's not true. But
Belinda Riley: the systems are designed to support that
Belinda Riley: process. But then when I looked a little bit deeper as well,
Belinda Riley: when you look up, it's not available to me. Well, when you look into companies
Belinda Riley: and you look in businesses and you look in who is in those seed in
Belinda Riley: your leadership for, again, women and marginalised
Belinda Riley: groups, there's not that many people that look like you or sound
Belinda Riley: like you. And then often again, the same communities
Belinda Riley: when they're walking into a room and they look around, there
Belinda Riley: is, again, only few people that necessarily look like you.
Belinda Riley: So when we come back to this idea of I don't belong, or
Belinda Riley: I'm not enough, or I don't fit, that is kind of or I'm a fraud,
Belinda Riley: or people are going to find out I don't belong, you can. Kind of see
Belinda Riley: that those limiting beliefs that we have are compounded every
Belinda Riley: day to reinforce this idea that what you're seeing
Belinda Riley: is actually true because the world is telling you
Belinda Riley: and reinforcing some of those thought processes.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I love that you break the three down. And I always
Joanne Lockwood: think that there's the old adage and you can't be what you can't see,
Joanne Lockwood: and not fitting walking into a room, being the only one
Joanne Lockwood: or seeing other people who are like you not succeeding as
Joanne Lockwood: well as other people are. It creates that limiting
Joanne Lockwood: belief. I agree completely. I think you're also
Joanne Lockwood: right about this perception about you got to be superhuman sometimes.
Joanne Lockwood: I can't show weakness, I can't show failure. And
Joanne Lockwood: as a woman, we end up having to juggle multiple
Joanne Lockwood: home tasks and work tasks and childcare tasks. Even in the
Joanne Lockwood: most modern relationships, there's still
Joanne Lockwood: that unbalanced burden, if you like,
Joanne Lockwood: in many families. So trying to be super human to
Joanne Lockwood: do everything or feeling like you're letting someone down if you can't
Joanne Lockwood: do everything is a massive challenge as well, isn't it? Yeah,
Belinda Riley: absolutely. And I think we put ourselves sometimes under
Belinda Riley: so much pressure that it kind of reinforces
Belinda Riley: this idea of if I make a mistake or if I
Belinda Riley: can't do everything that I said I'm going to do or that I fail
Belinda Riley: at something, that there's something wrong with me, that I'm
Belinda Riley: not good enough. And almost it becomes this self fulfilling prophecy
Belinda Riley: around there's not enough feelings. And
Belinda Riley: the words that we tell ourselves, and I think a lot of people don't realise
Belinda Riley: this, is that the words we also tell ourselves are the most important
Belinda Riley: words. And often we
Belinda Riley: have such a strong inner critic, we're
Belinda Riley: very good at internalising the negative. And I just
Belinda Riley: wish that we were just as good at internalising the
Belinda Riley: positives, our successes and the things that we do well.
Belinda Riley: And I think that if we're able to do that, we could start to kind
Belinda Riley: of overcome some of those limiting beliefs.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, you've probably heard of the phrase fake it till you make it.
Joanne Lockwood: And sometimes it depends on how you say it and how you think about it
Joanne Lockwood: because it can be a kind of a negative term. But I also
Joanne Lockwood: think it's your definition of faking because impostor syndrome
Joanne Lockwood: is almost telling you that everything you're good at is fake.
Joanne Lockwood: So sometimes you've just got to keep on believing in yourself that that faking
Joanne Lockwood: until you make it is not actually you're not actually being fake, you're just
Joanne Lockwood: being really, really hard on yourself and you are good at what you can do.
Belinda Riley: Yeah, well, it's interesting that you bring that up. I think
Belinda Riley: that in the work that I've been doing as a hypnotherapist and again, studying
Belinda Riley: with Marissa Pierre is understanding how the mind works.
Belinda Riley: And there's what's called these rules of the mind and this is where this idea
Belinda Riley: of kind of faking it till you make it almost comes through. But let me
Belinda Riley: give you kind of a new way of kind of reframing that, is that when
Belinda Riley: we actually understand how our mind works, we can actually work with
Belinda Riley: our mind rather than against it. Because the mind
Belinda Riley: doesn't actually distinguish between what is real or
Belinda Riley: what is fake, what is fact, what is fiction.
Belinda Riley: It's actually just listening and responding to the words that you tell
Belinda Riley: it. So the whole idea that you might not believe
Belinda Riley: that you are talented at something, but if
Belinda Riley: you tell yourself enough, then your mind will actually
Belinda Riley: respond to the words that you're saying it. So
Belinda Riley: our minds are designed to keep us safe, in essence. And this goes
Belinda Riley: back and I know that you've had lots of conversations with previous
Belinda Riley: sort of guests around this idea, but our mind
Belinda Riley: is designed to take us away from kind of keep us safe. And that also
Belinda Riley: means that it takes us away from things that are perceived pain
Belinda Riley: towards what is perceived pleasure or safety. But
Belinda Riley: when we know that we can work with our minds to tell it
Belinda Riley: what we want it to be, so we can shift from I'm not good enough
Belinda Riley: to I am enough, through that consistency and that
Belinda Riley: repetition, our mind starts to respond and believes what
Belinda Riley: we tell it. And so often people talk about
Belinda Riley: this whole idea of affirmations and people go
Belinda Riley: get a bit icky about sometimes affirmations, but in essence, affirmations are
Belinda Riley: just the words that we tell ourselves all the time. And if we go back
Belinda Riley: to what we were saying before, so often the words that we tell ourselves are
Belinda Riley: very negative. I'm not good at that. No, I can't do that or
Belinda Riley: I'm failing or that, or people are going to laugh at me or judge me
Belinda Riley: if I do those things and they literally hold ourselves back. But if we start
Belinda Riley: to tell ourselves a different narrative because everything actually
Belinda Riley: begins with a thought and we've got the power to control
Belinda Riley: our thoughts and change out and change our thoughts and our
Belinda Riley: thoughts, everything starts with a thought that creates a feeling and
Belinda Riley: then that feeling kind of creates a behaviour or an action that then kind
Belinda Riley: of creates certain thoughts again. So coming back to that
Belinda Riley: idea that you've got to fake it till you make it, actually, if you tell
Belinda Riley: your mind something enough, it will start to believe it and then
Belinda Riley: your behaviours start to align with that belief system.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I agree. I look back at my
Joanne Lockwood: own journey of the last six years and some of the early
Joanne Lockwood: stages of that imposter syndrome limiting police really impacted
Joanne Lockwood: me. One thing I identified was that
Joanne Lockwood: I didn't have any benchmark just to know
Joanne Lockwood: how I was doing. I didn't have any positive
Joanne Lockwood: reinforcement. I worked alone, like many of us do with
Joanne Lockwood: freelance or independent. So you haven't got colleagues around you
Joanne Lockwood: saying you can compare notes or even when they say, wow, you're doing
Joanne Lockwood: amazing, you go my reaction was now
Joanne Lockwood: I down talk that almost embarrassed to be celebrated
Joanne Lockwood: success. And I eventually
Joanne Lockwood: overcame it by realising that I was benchmarking against
Joanne Lockwood: myself. And the incremental change was almost
Joanne Lockwood: untied with a continuum that very micro changes. I was
Joanne Lockwood: improving and I had to start looking further back. So I had to start
Joanne Lockwood: looking a month ago or two months ago.
Joanne Lockwood: And that's where I started realising
Joanne Lockwood: that I was improving. Yeah.
Belinda Riley: And I think it's really interesting that is that sometimes we forget where
Belinda Riley: we started and where we've come, and often when
Belinda Riley: we start to change and develop and grow, sometimes that can
Belinda Riley: feel very incremental. And as you said, unless we're kind
Belinda Riley: of clear of where we started, and so often we don't, and often
Belinda Riley: we fail to stop and
Belinda Riley: celebrate our successes, our wins, some of the, you
Belinda Riley: know, whether they're big wins or small wins, and actually seeing the
Belinda Riley: progress. And often our limiting beliefs are based on
Belinda Riley: experiences that we had years and years and years and years
Belinda Riley: ago and aren't actually relevant or aligned to where we are
Belinda Riley: now. So the fact that you're able to see that, I think
Belinda Riley: is phenomenal. And I think sometimes we do just need to cheque in
Belinda Riley: with what is it that we've done? Look back
Belinda Riley: and see how far we've come, celebrate that, but also get
Belinda Riley: clear about where we want to go. What does success
Belinda Riley: look like to us, and then what is the action we need to be taking
Belinda Riley: to achieve that? Someone said to me that it's
Joanne Lockwood: a very British thing to be self deprecating
Joanne Lockwood: or not taking credit for what we can
Joanne Lockwood: do. Is it just a British thing or is it a world over trait?
Joanne Lockwood: This is imposter syndrome. That's a very good question.
Belinda Riley: I was having this exact same conversation with a German friend of
Belinda Riley: mine only a few days ago.
Belinda Riley: And I think that in my experience and I've had the
Belinda Riley: privilege of working with people across cultures
Belinda Riley: around the world. I think
Belinda Riley: the term impostor syndrome is one thing,
Belinda Riley: but I think what's sort of equivalent to the impostor feelings I think are
Belinda Riley: fairly universal. I think it's just about how you describe it.
Belinda Riley: So, yes, I think the British do regularly say, and I'm an Australian,
Belinda Riley: and I was trying to think about are we self deprecating in
Belinda Riley: the same way that British people are? But I've been in Britain for so long,
Belinda Riley: for 20 years, I can't quite distinguish what's different. But no, I do
Belinda Riley: think that it's different interpretations
Belinda Riley: of how you would describe impostor syndrome.
Belinda Riley: But I do feel that when we're looking at kind of more broadly
Belinda Riley: limiting beliefs, I feel that most people have them. And
Belinda Riley: often those limiting beliefs stem all the way back into
Belinda Riley: childhood. And it's about our
Belinda Riley: interpretation. So you and I could have experienced
Belinda Riley: very similar things or different things, but our limiting beliefs come
Belinda Riley: from our interpretation of those events. And then
Belinda Riley: every time we're in a situation where those feelings are
Belinda Riley: triggered again, it kind of compounds those feelings of not
Belinda Riley: being enough or those compounding those feelings of impostor
Belinda Riley: syndrome. You said at the
Joanne Lockwood: beginning, I introduced you as a diversity inclusion
Joanne Lockwood: consultant. And one of the things that I always find when I speak to
Joanne Lockwood: people,
Joanne Lockwood: one of the biggest challenges they have is overcoming this
Joanne Lockwood: fear of getting it wrong. Everyone's worried about upsetting somebody to
Joanne Lockwood: the point where they'd rather disengage than engage. So
Joanne Lockwood: how do you get people comfortable having uncomfortable conversations, or feeling
Joanne Lockwood: uncomfortable, if you like, around these kind of
Joanne Lockwood: conversations out of their depth whilst giving them a safe
Joanne Lockwood: space? Yeah, well, first and foremost, I think it's realising
Belinda Riley: that you're not alone.
Belinda Riley: Most people are more worried about themselves than they are worried about
Belinda Riley: the other person and what you think about them. And I think there's something quite
Belinda Riley: freeing in that. Again, only the other day
Belinda Riley: I was talking to an old colleague and they're like, oh, my God, I said
Belinda Riley: that. And I was like, My goodness, nobody would have even noticed that.
Belinda Riley: But what you felt, where you'd made a stumble or you'd done
Belinda Riley: something wrong, that you really noticed. Nobody else even
Belinda Riley: noticed that. So I think also we're very, very harsh
Belinda Riley: on ourselves and I think sometimes we've just got
Belinda Riley: to kind of let some of that go. I
Belinda Riley: think that also we have to get comfortable being
Belinda Riley: uncomfortable and creating space and kind of almost
Belinda Riley: that psychological safety for people to be able to
Belinda Riley: talk about issues and talk about different
Belinda Riley: experiences, because otherwise, if we're not out there
Belinda Riley: learning and building awareness and breaking down some of these barriers, nothing
Belinda Riley: ever changes. And I regularly and I do a
Belinda Riley: lot of work with leaders and a lot of leaders feel and say to me,
Belinda Riley: but what happens if I say the wrong thing? And it's like,
Belinda Riley: but, yeah, you might say the wrong thing,
Belinda Riley: but also, what is your intention? Actually? You often are speaking
Belinda Riley: louder by not saying anything at all.
Belinda Riley: And I know in talking to lots of people, the fact
Belinda Riley: that people are willing to have that conversation and open
Belinda Riley: to learning and opening to making a mistake
Belinda Riley: is far more engaging than feeling like you're not being
Belinda Riley: seen heard or even being given the opportunity to have a
Belinda Riley: voice. Yeah, we do see
Joanne Lockwood: countless examples, though, in the media where someone's made a slip
Joanne Lockwood: up and they get berated for the recent example of
Joanne Lockwood: the lady waiting to our former queen
Joanne Lockwood: or our deceased queen having a
Joanne Lockwood: conversation to a charity, a black person who's a charity worker, and how that
Joanne Lockwood: conversation went around where you're from. So people see that
Joanne Lockwood: and they either go, oh, that makes me really nervous, or
Joanne Lockwood: the opposite reaction is they get kind of defensive about this political correctness and
Joanne Lockwood: wokeness in society and you can't say anything these days without
Joanne Lockwood: someone jumping on you. How do we kind of have those conversations where we're
Joanne Lockwood: helping people through that? Yeah, I
Belinda Riley: think the social media has made life quite challenging for
Belinda Riley: people, but also, I think in that example, there was a
Belinda Riley: real lack of awareness. And I think that when people do make
Belinda Riley: mistakes and what was said
Belinda Riley: wasn't appropriate, and I think that they weren't being aware of the impact of
Belinda Riley: that constant questioning about, but no, where are you really from? Where are you really
Belinda Riley: from? And the impact that that has. I think that
Belinda Riley: for me, we have a responsibility to educate
Belinda Riley: ourselves and to learn and to
Belinda Riley: use those kind of moments around how do we actually reflect and what is
Belinda Riley: the impact that that has on other people's lived experiences?
Belinda Riley: And I think that for me, where I
Belinda Riley: see a real issue is when people aren't open to that
Belinda Riley: learning. We talked at the beginning about privilege
Belinda Riley: and it is about recognising that we have got
Belinda Riley: certain privileges, but also it's around
Belinda Riley: there's a great quote that I often use in my work and I better
Belinda Riley: make sure I get it right. It's a Stephen Covey quote, is that we
Belinda Riley: see the world not as it is, but as we are.
Belinda Riley: And I think that for me, that's really important, that
Belinda Riley: we start from a place of acknowledging that
Belinda Riley: and then being open to learning to make sure
Belinda Riley: that we do continue to evolve. I think it's
Belinda Riley: difficult, though, I think, because a lot of people are persecuted for
Belinda Riley: saying the wrong thing. But I also
Belinda Riley: think that sometimes it's about
Belinda Riley: the intent and it's also
Belinda Riley: recognising the barriers that certain people do
Belinda Riley: face every day. And that was a classic
Belinda Riley: example of that, of not recognising and not
Belinda Riley: being aware of and not,
Belinda Riley: I suppose, almost reinforcing an issue.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I agree that most most people are, by definition,
Joanne Lockwood: good at heart. Most people want to do well in the world, they wake
Joanne Lockwood: up with positive intent. But as as you
Joanne Lockwood: as we just discussed, the intent
Joanne Lockwood: doesn't always cover the impact. We have negative
Joanne Lockwood: impact and we slip up.
Joanne Lockwood: How do we recover that if we realise we've created a negative
Joanne Lockwood: impact or a problematic impact? Yeah, well, I think it's also about acknowledging
Belinda Riley: it. It's not denying that it happened. I think that we have to get
Belinda Riley: comfortable owning our mistakes and acknowledging it.
Belinda Riley: So acknowledging the mistake, apologising for
Belinda Riley: it, learning from it, but also then we need to be able to
Belinda Riley: move on. And I think that often we
Belinda Riley: don't do that. And I see that and I think actually one of the biggest
Belinda Riley: barriers to the work that I know that both you and I are very
Belinda Riley: passionate around advancing equality in the
Belinda Riley: workplace is the denial of the inequality that exists
Belinda Riley: and people not taking responsibility for
Belinda Riley: making change. There is enough
Belinda Riley: information out there for us to just because
Belinda Riley: you haven't experienced something or you haven't seen it or it hasn't
Belinda Riley: affected you, it certainly doesn't mean that it hasn't happened.
Belinda Riley: And I think that for me, is one of our greatest privileges, is
Belinda Riley: being able to use that privilege to break down some of those
Belinda Riley: barriers and using your voice and using your power and
Belinda Riley: influence to start driving change.
Belinda Riley: I often see, especially through this lens of
Belinda Riley: diversity, equity, inclusion, is that we're asking minority groups to fix the problem.
Belinda Riley: It is not their job to fix the problem of inequality. So
Belinda Riley: again, it comes back to, for me, that education piece, but
Belinda Riley: we also need to ensure that we're able to acknowledge
Belinda Riley: when we have made a mistake and what we're actually going to do about that.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, that's so true.
Joanne Lockwood: Black people can't fix racism, no women can't fix
Joanne Lockwood: sexism, et cetera, et cetera. But what we often find is in
Joanne Lockwood: our dei space when we're having these conversations, becomes an echo
Joanne Lockwood: chamber, becomes an echo
Joanne Lockwood: chamber of just within that community. So black
Joanne Lockwood: people talk about the challenges or black brown people of colour talk about the challenges
Joanne Lockwood: they face, but white people aren't listening. So how do we
Joanne Lockwood: get everybody in the room through allyship? But how do we
Joanne Lockwood: persuade people who are not part of those minority groups
Joanne Lockwood: to engage and learn more about the challenges, the
Joanne Lockwood: injustices, as you said? Well, I think
Belinda Riley: that there's a number of things. I mean, for me it is around
Belinda Riley: understanding, creating space and opportunities to build
Belinda Riley: awareness and understanding. There is so much
Belinda Riley: information out there and it's about how do people connect on a
Belinda Riley: personal level. I think, as I said before,
Belinda Riley: people have a responsibility to educate themselves
Belinda Riley: and to take action and for people to be aware
Belinda Riley: of how they can leverage their power. Well, first of all, that
Belinda Riley: they have got power and
Belinda Riley: influence. I think that there's also
Belinda Riley: an opportunity in terms of
Belinda Riley: ensuring that we're
Belinda Riley: listening to people's lived experiences and creating that space to
Belinda Riley: listen to people's lived experiences. And I think coming back to that
Belinda Riley: privilege is it's not always somebody's fault,
Belinda Riley: but it is about recognising that it exists. And I
Belinda Riley: think I mentioned before, one of the biggest barriers is the denial
Belinda Riley: that inequality exists in the first place. So how do we
Belinda Riley: ensure and I think that what I've seen is that everybody connects
Belinda Riley: in different ways. So how do you create those AHA
Belinda Riley: moments for people that they can connect
Belinda Riley: with? I think that what I've often seen is that
Belinda Riley: sometimes the messaging around diversity and equity
Belinda Riley: and inclusion creates a zero sum game. Like to advance
Belinda Riley: inequality means that other people need to miss out. And that's a real
Belinda Riley: misconception. Everybody stands to gain.
Belinda Riley: And I think for companies in particular, there is so
Belinda Riley: much out there that shows that the companies who get this right
Belinda Riley: are at a competitive advantage. So sometimes
Belinda Riley: it's about how do we ensure that people understand this in the
Belinda Riley: right way around what some of the benefits are.
Belinda Riley: I often say there's no business case for the status quo, but I
Belinda Riley: always say, well, tell me the business case. And I do find that a little
Belinda Riley: bit frustrating, but actually there's enough information out there that demonstrates the business
Belinda Riley: case as well as the human case. But recognising again, that
Belinda Riley: everybody stands to gain from getting this right. But I'd love to
Belinda Riley: hear from you, how are you experiencing this? Because it is a
Belinda Riley: challenge. It is. And
Joanne Lockwood: I have my own marginalised characteristic.
Joanne Lockwood: And as a trans woman,
Joanne Lockwood: like most people recorded this in February
Joanne Lockwood: 2023, there's a lot of anti trans rhetoric
Joanne Lockwood: caused through the Scottish Gender Recognition
Joanne Lockwood: Reform Bill, talking about
Joanne Lockwood: transgender prisoners who have been convicted of rape. There's
Joanne Lockwood: a whole load of rhetoric around. Think about the
Joanne Lockwood: women and children with damaging access and
Joanne Lockwood: all this focus on trans women. So it is I'm
Joanne Lockwood: well aware of the noise and this pervasive kind of
Joanne Lockwood: drone in the air that I and other trans people feel.
Joanne Lockwood: And it affects we talked, to use the word earlier, psychological safety.
Joanne Lockwood: It means I'm constantly on a state of awareness and stress and
Joanne Lockwood: anxiety in certain situations. And it's
Joanne Lockwood: really hard to I think, as you said,
Joanne Lockwood: you talk about the zero sum game. I'm not trying to steal
Joanne Lockwood: anybody's space, I'm not trying to take anything away from anybody.
Joanne Lockwood: All I'm saying is, can I exist in the
Joanne Lockwood: world? And you're not losing. There's nothing to lose here.
Joanne Lockwood: If there are bad people, there are bad people. There are bad people in all
Joanne Lockwood: books of life. And just because you're transgender doesn't mean say you're a bad person.
Joanne Lockwood: So
Joanne Lockwood: the effect is we dehumanise. And once you dehumanise,
Joanne Lockwood: it gives society permission to treat you any way it likes for
Joanne Lockwood: their impunity. I think what's happening is the moment we see it through time. I
Joanne Lockwood: was speaking to a lady yesterday around the dehumanisation
Joanne Lockwood: of Arabs and Muslims. We saw around the dehumanisation of the
Joanne Lockwood: Japanese people in America after Pearl Harbour, we saw in
Joanne Lockwood: the Second World War and the Nazis around
Joanne Lockwood: people who are Jewish. So we see these dehumanising words
Joanne Lockwood: and we're seeing now the worrying thing is we see the rise of the
Joanne Lockwood: incel movement, the Andrew Tate, the toxic masculinity
Joanne Lockwood: dehumanising women as such as becoming property. So I
Joanne Lockwood: think as much as we're pushing forward, we're
Joanne Lockwood: having to hold our own at some point, because otherwise, if we don't hold, we're
Joanne Lockwood: sliding backwards in some of these areas. Yeah, absolutely. And I
Belinda Riley: think at the heart of all of this, it is about being
Belinda Riley: human. And I think there is a real reminder. And
Belinda Riley: whilst I think when we look at what people
Belinda Riley: experience, and as you've just explained, I don't
Belinda Riley: think there's anybody in the world who has not felt at some
Belinda Riley: point in their life what it feels like to be excluded or to
Belinda Riley: be rejected. Just some people only have to experience
Belinda Riley: this occasionally and often when I go into companies
Belinda Riley: to work with them, to really kind of help people connect with
Belinda Riley: what we're trying to do, and the goal is
Belinda Riley: helping people to connect with that. What does it feel like, closure?
Belinda Riley: Sometimes do these visualisation exercise, just close your eyes for a minute and
Belinda Riley: imagine what does it like walking in and the only
Belinda Riley: person you open up your eyes and you're the only person that looks. Like you
Belinda Riley: in the room. Remember that time
Belinda Riley: when you weren't picked at school to go to a
Belinda Riley: party, or you weren't invited to a party, or that you weren't
Belinda Riley: chosen to be on a sports team, being rejected from a date.
Belinda Riley: You ask somebody out and they say no. All of these feelings
Belinda Riley: are kind of universal, those feelings of not fitting in. And it comes back
Belinda Riley: to what I was saying before, not feeling worthy, not feeling enough. And
Belinda Riley: then for me, when people can connect with that, imagine
Belinda Riley: feeling like that every day, that every day you
Belinda Riley: step out of your house. And as
Belinda Riley: women, we have different thought processes to men because of
Belinda Riley: safety every day. And I have these
Belinda Riley: conversations regularly. Do you even think about what it feels like
Belinda Riley: to have to think right? Am I going to be coming home late tonight when
Belinda Riley: it's dark? Am I safe to do that? Can I get transport? How am I
Belinda Riley: going to get home? Does anybody even know where I am, for example?
Belinda Riley: And I know that that happens for women and for black boys
Belinda Riley: in particular as well, out in the community, because of these
Belinda Riley: stereotypes. But when people can actually connect, I
Belinda Riley: think sometimes to some of those human behaviours and
Belinda Riley: make a connection, then that for me, sometimes is a trigger to get
Belinda Riley: thinking, people thinking in a different way.
Joanne Lockwood: It was certainly something I had not foreseen
Joanne Lockwood: when I transitioned six, seven years ago.
Joanne Lockwood: As we grow up, we learn these social constructs, we learn our
Joanne Lockwood: behaviour model, we learn all these things. And what I hadn't appreciated was
Joanne Lockwood: the need to unlearn, to allow me to
Joanne Lockwood: relearn. And I experienced some safety
Joanne Lockwood: issues that completely came from left field. I had no
Joanne Lockwood: idea this was going to happen. I was so unprepared.
Joanne Lockwood: Fortunately, nothing terrible happened, but it was like a real
Joanne Lockwood: jolt. I can't do this anymore without thinking, I
Joanne Lockwood: have to plan this, I have to be aware of this. I need to cheque
Joanne Lockwood: that someone is watching me in case this goes wrong.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm not alone here. I've got support if I need it in a
Joanne Lockwood: bar or wherever that may be. And it was a really
Joanne Lockwood: scary enlightening, but also a wake up call
Joanne Lockwood: around my own set of privileges that I had that I hadn't even thought
Joanne Lockwood: about. And now I erased those privileges and I had this new
Joanne Lockwood: feeling, a number of stories. I was at
Joanne Lockwood: a dinner a couple of weeks ago with two other
Joanne Lockwood: women. We're sitting there having a conversation. They both looked their watch at some point
Joanne Lockwood: went, we better be going home soon. I don't want to get that last tube,
Joanne Lockwood: I don't want to get that last train. I want to make sure I go
Joanne Lockwood: now. I don't have to get my keys out and hold them between my fingers.
Joanne Lockwood: I thought, this isn't conversations, this is normal
Joanne Lockwood: conversations that women have around the table at that time. Of night
Joanne Lockwood: that, again, I was suddenly going, you're right. Yes,
Joanne Lockwood: you're right, I'm still trading off that old privilege.
Belinda Riley: Yeah. And often people don't necessarily lose. Well, what's the impact of
Belinda Riley: that? What is the emotional load with coming with
Belinda Riley: having to think about elements of your identity
Belinda Riley: each and every day? We talk a lot, don't we,
Belinda Riley: around health, well being, mental health,
Belinda Riley: these thoughts, as you've just described as well, that
Belinda Riley: can have quite a profound impact on people. And you think
Belinda Riley: about your kind of working memory. If a percentage of your time
Belinda Riley: and energy is thinking about this, what is the impact that that has in other
Belinda Riley: areas of your life? And we connect that to the workplace. How does
Belinda Riley: that impact productivity
Belinda Riley: in the workplace if people are already having to think about all of those things
Belinda Riley: before they even start the day? So, again, coming back
Belinda Riley: to companies and businesses need
Belinda Riley: to think about that because there's so much again being left on the
Belinda Riley: table, because people are worrying about things that because they can't be
Belinda Riley: their authentic selves, because that's not what fits
Belinda Riley: or what belonging. And again, there's something that
Belinda Riley: everybody can gain by creating a place where people can turn up and
Belinda Riley: be themselves, that there's
Belinda Riley: modifications to create the right environment for people to
Belinda Riley: thrive. Now, that's for me around, there's a great image, and I'm sure
Belinda Riley: you've seen it before, that describes equality versus equity, where you see people on
Belinda Riley: bikes. We shouldn't be treating everybody
Belinda Riley: the same because that's not recognising or
Belinda Riley: understanding some of the barriers or modifications that people
Belinda Riley: need to be able to get on the right size bike so that they can
Belinda Riley: get to the finish line. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I think it was JFK. Rising water floats all boats
Joanne Lockwood: evenly. Don't we have to recognise this? We need to add enough water
Joanne Lockwood: so that we are floating everybody, but it starts at the lowest boats
Joanne Lockwood: first and then raises to the highest boats. That's recognising that people need this
Joanne Lockwood: equity, we need to invest in. People
Joanne Lockwood: understand that the barriers, the additional challenges of being them.
Joanne Lockwood: And I think you're right when you're talking about this extra
Joanne Lockwood: load, cognitive load, my background in it, I used
Joanne Lockwood: to be a programmer many, many years ago, and I always think about these little
Joanne Lockwood: things or little subroutines in my head. So am I safe?
Joanne Lockwood: Am I going to be disrespectful? Is someone going to misgender me? Is this going
Joanne Lockwood: to happen? So all these little things are firing off before I can actually do
Joanne Lockwood: any next the proper thinking, yeah, I've almost got this
Joanne Lockwood: extra burden every time I'm going, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Yeah, good, but carry
Joanne Lockwood: on. And that could be limiting beliefs, it could be all this other stuff in
Joanne Lockwood: there, all part of this load that I and others have
Joanne Lockwood: to consider through lack of privilege or whatever it may be
Joanne Lockwood: that others may not have to. Maybe they have their
Joanne Lockwood: own subroutines their own challenges. But, yeah, it's definitely I feel that cognitive
Joanne Lockwood: load there now. Yeah. And that's really powerful. And I think there's
Belinda Riley: also things that we can do to take some of that
Belinda Riley: away for people. What can we do? We shouldn't be adding to
Belinda Riley: that by constantly having to either fix
Belinda Riley: the problem or fixing
Belinda Riley: different things within workplaces. I think that those
Belinda Riley: in positions of power and influence don't, I think,
Belinda Riley: realise that they can do things differently to
Belinda Riley: alleviate some of that emotional load or even just
Belinda Riley: recognising that that's what people experience
Belinda Riley: every day in certain areas. And being the
Joanne Lockwood: only one in a room
Joanne Lockwood: should not be underestimated how what a load that
Joanne Lockwood: is. Because in one respect, you're representing everybody
Joanne Lockwood: who's like you. The conversations
Joanne Lockwood: are harder, you're looking out for microaggressions or discriminatory
Joanne Lockwood: comments or those challenges,
Joanne Lockwood: and you're worried about your personal safety, you're worried about a whole load
Joanne Lockwood: of factors going on, psychological safety. And
Joanne Lockwood: I think a lot of workplaces
Joanne Lockwood: are set up, so there are many places where you are the only one said
Joanne Lockwood: if you're a young black woman trying to succeed and go into
Joanne Lockwood: leadership roles, there are many role models in there. So what can
Joanne Lockwood: organisations do around coaching and mentoring and support
Joanne Lockwood: programmes? Equity, we talked about. Isn't it about equity? Yeah,
Belinda Riley: I mean, something that I'm really passionate about and have been doing a lot of
Belinda Riley: work and have been seeing quite phenomenal impact
Belinda Riley: is sponsorship programmes. And the
Belinda Riley: reason why I think sponsorship is probably one of the
Belinda Riley: most influential factors in kind of advancing
Belinda Riley: inequality or advancing equality in the workplace is
Belinda Riley: it shifts the responsibility around who's
Belinda Riley: kind of accountable for change.
Belinda Riley: Traditionally, and I think this is done with really great intention, we have all of
Belinda Riley: these programmes that focus on the minority, whether that's women,
Belinda Riley: whether it's ethnic minorities, et cetera, et cetera.
Belinda Riley: But I think unintentionally it's also the message
Belinda Riley: is we're trying to fix people to fit into an environment
Belinda Riley: where they don't fit. But actually,
Belinda Riley: if we shift that towards, well, actually, what can
Belinda Riley: we do to actually enable? Because people don't need fixing,
Belinda Riley: they just need the right environment for them to thrive and that might be different
Belinda Riley: to what certain people need. But when we talk about people who are
Belinda Riley: individuals and looking at what people individually need,
Belinda Riley: then we're going to have far greater success. And what we've
Belinda Riley: discovered, or what I've discovered through sort of different parts of work that I've done,
Belinda Riley: is that often people have access
Belinda Riley: to sponsorship informally by those who are in the
Belinda Riley: majority. We all have affinity bias, every
Belinda Riley: single one of us. We have very much human behaviour and in essence, affinity bias
Belinda Riley: is that we like to surround ourselves with people that are similar to us or
Belinda Riley: that we can connect on. And I think that dates right back to tribal times,
Belinda Riley: that if you're a part of a tribe, you're part of a community, you were
Belinda Riley: safer, and if you stepped outside of that, you were at risk. The thing is,
Belinda Riley: we're not back there, we're not in the same place anymore. But also
Belinda Riley: that kind of idea of being around people who are like us does make
Belinda Riley: us feel broadly safer. And as a result of
Belinda Riley: that, and as a result of people who are in the majority, those who are
Belinda Riley: like that get access to whether that be networks, whether that's
Belinda Riley: opportunities, whether that's information, and that creates huge
Belinda Riley: amounts of advantages and opportunities for
Belinda Riley: those. So when we're looking at kind of
Belinda Riley: formal sponsorship programmes, when you can help, especially leaders in
Belinda Riley: business, understand the barriers that people
Belinda Riley: face and how that is compounded when you apply
Belinda Riley: intersectional lenses and once they
Belinda Riley: recognise that but they can actually do something to
Belinda Riley: support those people by giving them access to
Belinda Riley: influential networks, information, opening doors,
Belinda Riley: creating visibility it can
Belinda Riley: lead to huge differences for
Belinda Riley: those people. But for me, that's around really active, visible and
Belinda Riley: accountable sponsorship. Now, what I've also seen is a lot of
Belinda Riley: people think that they're sponsoring others, but they're not, they're mentoring them.
Belinda Riley: And the difference for me is sponsorship is about how
Belinda Riley: you use your influence for others. Mentoring is about
Belinda Riley: sharing information, but it's really about what you do when
Belinda Riley: somebody's not in the room. So if people are really looking at ways
Belinda Riley: to advance sort of representation or
Belinda Riley: diversity in workplaces, my top tip often is
Belinda Riley: around, look at your sponsorship programmes, look at formal sponsorship programmes,
Belinda Riley: let's look at the systems, let's break down those barriers that exist,
Belinda Riley: let's challenge this belief of meritocracy
Belinda Riley: and let's really make a difference.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, the myth of meritocracy is is still powerful, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? I've I've I've been in a room full of recruiters and
Joanne Lockwood: and they all pipe up, yes, but the best person gets the jo,
Joanne Lockwood: and I say, using whose criteria?
Joanne Lockwood: And it's about who designs the criteria, designs the
Joanne Lockwood: meritocracy. And the criteria is designed often with
Joanne Lockwood: bias own lens, own lens stuff. You're looking at yourself
Joanne Lockwood: or I've got a Trevor and I want another Trevor. That's what we're saying, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? And that's often how the meritocracy is designed, someone just like that.
Belinda Riley: Yeah. Well, it's interesting, I leveraged this term
Belinda Riley: called meritocracy that I came across, because actually, I
Belinda Riley: think that what most companies
Belinda Riley: do, again, unintentionally and unconsciously, is
Belinda Riley: that they kind of employ, promote, develop people
Belinda Riley: who look and sound like those who are currently in positions of power. And this
Belinda Riley: term, meritocracy, was originally coined in Silicon Valley
Belinda Riley: with a recognition that those in the tech industry, they weren't being
Belinda Riley: employed based on their merit, they weren't being employed based on their skills, they were
Belinda Riley: being employed based on who looked like those that were already
Belinda Riley: there. And what that meant. And the bigger impact is that they were
Belinda Riley: missing out on the skills that actually
Belinda Riley: were going to help them and enable the businesses and I see that play
Belinda Riley: out again and again in businesses at the moment. And the
Belinda Riley: other question I often challenge people is, well, why would someone want to come and
Belinda Riley: work in your organisation? And I
Belinda Riley: think that if you can answer that question, that's what's going to
Belinda Riley: attract people in. Do you actually value the uniqueness
Belinda Riley: that individuals bring? Do you create the space for people to have
Belinda Riley: a voice? Because I often say, oh yeah, we really value diversity,
Belinda Riley: it's really important to us. Well, show me, what does that actually look like for
Belinda Riley: you? Why would a trans woman want to come and work in
Belinda Riley: your business? Are they going to be set up for success and
Belinda Riley: what are you going to do to enable them to be successful? What does that
Belinda Riley: actually look like? And for me, they're some of the tough conversations we
Belinda Riley: really need to have because when you start asking those questions, I'm
Belinda Riley: not sure that everybody always has an answer.
Belinda Riley: And I think that going back to what we were talking about, about
Belinda Riley: being unlearning and then having to relearn, is I
Belinda Riley: think that there's a lot of that that needs to happen. But again, we need
Belinda Riley: to create the space for people to be able to do that,
Belinda Riley: to think about how do we value
Belinda Riley: people who are different and how do we create the right environment. For people to
Joanne Lockwood: thrive when we're trying to
Joanne Lockwood: diversify. Some air quotes when I said diversity,
Joanne Lockwood: diversity that are we in
Joanne Lockwood: danger of creating a stereotype around
Joanne Lockwood: the person we're trying to hire. What I mean by that is
Joanne Lockwood: often when we say why do we want to hire more women?
Joanne Lockwood: And often we'll say we need more empathy, we need more compassion,
Joanne Lockwood: we need more soft skills into our
Joanne Lockwood: teams, that's making the quantum assumption that
Joanne Lockwood: women have those skills more than other people. And that's creating a
Joanne Lockwood: stereotype that women are naturally more emotional and compassionate and that's
Joanne Lockwood: saying that men can't be so we're almost creating a reverse bias there to
Joanne Lockwood: justify why we should hire more fairly. And I think sometimes
Joanne Lockwood: we get sucked up into these other stereotypes
Joanne Lockwood: and unfairly hiring women just because they're
Joanne Lockwood: emotional and compassionate and have high EQ,
Joanne Lockwood: supposedly. Well, actually, I think there is some research that
Belinda Riley: supports some of those statements. But I think more
Belinda Riley: importantly is I think that it's redefining
Belinda Riley: what are the skills that we actually need? And
Belinda Riley: I think that and not putting
Belinda Riley: people into these gendered stereotypes, but I think that because
Belinda Riley: people men can be very emotionally intelligent and
Belinda Riley: can have empathy and there's women that don't
Belinda Riley: have empathy so it shouldn't necessarily keep putting people into
Belinda Riley: boxes. It's about what are the skills that we need?
Belinda Riley: What does a leader look like in our business and who
Belinda Riley: are the best people then to deliver on that? And it goes back to your
Belinda Riley: point is are we even clear around what are the
Belinda Riley: skills and capabilities that we actually want and need for a
Belinda Riley: business to thrive. And I think that that has
Belinda Riley: changed and I think that there's a recognition that there's certain skills that we need
Belinda Riley: more of in the future world of work than
Belinda Riley: before. And I think that that is constantly evolving and changing as well.
Belinda Riley: But I think that it shouldn't necessarily just be defined about a woman brings this
Belinda Riley: or a man brings this, or somebody from this community brings this. It's
Belinda Riley: actually being clear on the skill, see? And
Belinda Riley: then starting from there. Yeah. And
Joanne Lockwood: also building trust as well.
Joanne Lockwood: I was talking to somebody the other day, and what we're talking about here
Joanne Lockwood: is diversity isn't about Noah's Ark, it's not having two of
Joanne Lockwood: everybody or one of this or some of that. And we've got to have
Joanne Lockwood: this matrix of different personalities and identities. It's
Joanne Lockwood: around the people who we have, trusting the people in
Joanne Lockwood: leadership or the mission of the organisation to
Joanne Lockwood: support them, recognise them, empower them, look after them, create their belonging,
Joanne Lockwood: create their culture. So you may be the only one. I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: I'm the only one often, but it doesn't
Joanne Lockwood: worry me, provided I trust the environment I'm
Joanne Lockwood: in to respect and look after me and not break me.
Belinda Riley: Yeah. And that comes back to that psychological safety, isn't it, is
Belinda Riley: that if you go into an organisation and everyone looks and sounds
Belinda Riley: the same, what you could determine from that
Belinda Riley: is that they're not valuing difference. And it's not always about having to
Belinda Riley: see a complete replica of yourself. But if there is
Belinda Riley: people who are representative of different backgrounds,
Belinda Riley: different whether it's socioeconomic background, different
Belinda Riley: educational backgrounds, different ages, all those different elements,
Belinda Riley: people who are neurodivergent if you've got people who are
Belinda Riley: representative of difference, it shows that,
Belinda Riley: well, my difference is more likely to be valued and
Belinda Riley: accepted because there appears to be because
Belinda Riley: of what I'm seeing. People are there because of their uniqueness
Belinda Riley: and the diversity of what they bring, rather than, oh, there's four women, there's four
Belinda Riley: of this and there's four of that. And I think that often people
Belinda Riley: think that diversity or having certain diversity is fixing the
Belinda Riley: problem of inequality. For me, diversity is an output
Belinda Riley: of inclusion and belonging.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I often talk about that, where people focus on these
Joanne Lockwood: diversity initiatives, diversity, hiring, let's go out, hire more
Joanne Lockwood: people. And I always say, no, hiring is the last thing you do,
Joanne Lockwood: not the first thing you do. And it's about getting your
Joanne Lockwood: culture right. If you get your culture right with your values and alignment,
Joanne Lockwood: belonging occurs. If belonging occurs, inclusion occurs. If inclusion
Joanne Lockwood: occurs, you will be more diverse because you're welcoming people. If you
Joanne Lockwood: get the diversity right, you're going to be compliant because you
Joanne Lockwood: won't get things. So it all starts with culture, starts with belonging,
Joanne Lockwood: starts with those values. Absolutely. And I think that,
Belinda Riley: again, this is where some of the messaging has
Belinda Riley: been misconstrued almost, is that, but I've
Belinda Riley: done this, I've hired that and it didn't work. And
Belinda Riley: what frustrates me sometimes about that is, oh, no, but we put women into
Belinda Riley: leadership roles, but they weren't successful. And it's like, well, did you look at
Belinda Riley: why did we actually set people up for success? Just putting someone into any
Belinda Riley: role, you're not going to put a doctor all of a sudden become a lawyer
Belinda Riley: and expect them to thrive because they thrive somewhere else. We have to
Belinda Riley: really set people up for success. What support does
Belinda Riley: somebody need to be successful in that role? And again, I
Belinda Riley: think it comes back to the why. Why is this
Belinda Riley: important? And understanding
Belinda Riley: why this hasn't been successful in the past. And
Belinda Riley: I think it's unpacking that. And I think that, again, it comes
Belinda Riley: back to, do we understand the different lived
Belinda Riley: experiences of people? And just because something worked
Belinda Riley: for you, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to work for
Belinda Riley: others. It's this concept of the concrete
Joanne Lockwood: cliff, isn't it, where it's really hard to break through the glass ceiling,
Joanne Lockwood: but what happens is you get there and you realise you don't like it. You
Joanne Lockwood: jump off the concrete cliff because it's so toxic, you don't want to be there
Joanne Lockwood: anymore. So it really is making sure that you are, as you say,
Joanne Lockwood: providing that support, that nurturing,
Joanne Lockwood: recognising the equity that needs to be pumped into this
Joanne Lockwood: circumstance. And, yeah, people might say, well, we don't need to do that
Joanne Lockwood: with men, they just get on with it. But that's not necessarily a
Joanne Lockwood: fair representation, because maybe these men have been nurtured already
Joanne Lockwood: and they don't necessarily have all the skills. So maybe instead
Joanne Lockwood: of focusing on these man attributes, we look at adaptability, learning, creation, all
Joanne Lockwood: these other things we talk about in the future. Recognising the world of work in
Joanne Lockwood: ten years time is completely different to the world of work today. If
Joanne Lockwood: you look at what's happening with AI Chat GPT
Joanne Lockwood: at the moment, the world's going crazy around AI image generation,
Joanne Lockwood: everyone's already talking about this. AI
Joanne Lockwood: taking over the world. And so if we're now generating
Joanne Lockwood: content and products using AI, where do all these
Joanne Lockwood: other roles go? So it's in the same paradigm shift as
Joanne Lockwood: Deliverer, as Uber, as Facebook, as all these social media stuff. We
Joanne Lockwood: didn't have that ten years ago, now we have. So we look at
Joanne Lockwood: for ten years, the world of work is going to be phenomenally different this today,
Joanne Lockwood: and we need to hire people who are ready for that change. Yeah, and I
Belinda Riley: love that quote, what got us here isn't what's going to get us there. And
Belinda Riley: for me, that's about we have to keep evolving
Belinda Riley: and responding, and the world is changing, as you said it's
Belinda Riley: so rapidly. If we look back what's happened in the last four
Belinda Riley: to five years, probably the last time you and I were in person
Belinda Riley: together, how much has changed that we
Belinda Riley: didn't foresee. And I think that, again, this is about how
Belinda Riley: can we be agile, how can we be flexible, how do we
Belinda Riley: adapt to these changes? And I always
Belinda Riley: try and look for some of the positives. And I mean, COVID
Belinda Riley: was pretty horrendous for most people. And again, I think there
Belinda Riley: was some good things from that and there was some things that we
Belinda Riley: really struggled with. And I know for me, not being able to see my family
Belinda Riley: back in Australia was really difficult. But when I come back
Belinda Riley: to thinking about COVID within the context of
Belinda Riley: working, of the working world, it busted. So many myths about
Belinda Riley: the way we used to work that I think kind of reinforced and
Belinda Riley: prevented us from really shifting the dial when it came to
Belinda Riley: an inclusion and belonging perspective. Because I used to
Belinda Riley: always get told, oh, Belinda, people have to be in the office, people have to
Belinda Riley: be on client sites. Well, actually in the firm I used to work with, we
Belinda Riley: managed to mobilise over 300,000 people within a week. And
Belinda Riley: technology has enabled that to happen and still able
Belinda Riley: to deliver solutions for clients, still able to team, to
Belinda Riley: still be able to collaborate and still be able to be
Belinda Riley: successful. So it's always about for
Belinda Riley: me, how do we reimagine, what else can we do? What can we learn
Belinda Riley: to keep moving forward? And I think there's some huge opportunities
Belinda Riley: that came out of that and I don't think we've quite landed on what that
Belinda Riley: looks like going forward. And I know lots of people and companies are struggling with
Belinda Riley: that. But I think it also opened up a huge talent
Belinda Riley: pool because there was a lot of people who
Belinda Riley: weren't able to participate within the workforce because of
Belinda Riley: that needing to be present. Whether or not that was
Belinda Riley: around getting into the cities, how expensive
Belinda Riley: that is with people with caring responsibilities, people with
Belinda Riley: disabilities or a number of different reasons that may have
Belinda Riley: prevented people, that has now opened up. And I think for a lot of companies,
Belinda Riley: the biggest challenges that they have at the moment is winning the war on talent.
Belinda Riley: Or there's a lot of great talent out there. How do we think differently so
Belinda Riley: that you're the one that gets access to. That talent, and
Joanne Lockwood: talent is more empowered, more enlightened. Talent knows different now.
Joanne Lockwood: Talent knows it can work from home. And I
Joanne Lockwood: often wonder what motivation is driving some
Joanne Lockwood: of big businesses. I know the government are worried
Joanne Lockwood: about the rail infrastructure, the underground infrastructure, not having enough people to keep
Joanne Lockwood: it viable. We've got dead in the cities, coffee bars, cafes,
Joanne Lockwood: all these economies closing down. So there's an immense pressure to get people
Joanne Lockwood: back to the office just for the economies in the area without necessarily
Joanne Lockwood: thinking about the benefit to people. And I think when I hear people talking
Joanne Lockwood: about big global leaders talking about we need to get people
Joanne Lockwood: back in the office because it means the creativity, mentoring, learning of each
Joanne Lockwood: other, coffee machine, water cooler, chat. And I think,
Joanne Lockwood: okay, I get that there is some power and some benefit of have face to
Joanne Lockwood: face contact. I value it as well. But for me, when the answer
Joanne Lockwood: to every question is back in the office, that's where it falls over.
Joanne Lockwood: The answer to every question is, what can we do
Joanne Lockwood: in this particular case? And I think we need to recognise
Joanne Lockwood: that Back in the office is not the only answer or the default answer to
Joanne Lockwood: everything. So it's about being more innovative. Local hubs,
Joanne Lockwood: work clubs, that kind of stuff, in local businesses. Yeah, I used to
Belinda Riley: always laugh that often we're in the office and everybody's at their computer with their
Belinda Riley: headphones on, so you can kind of do that from anywhere. So I think
Belinda Riley: it's just about being creative and imaginative around how do
Belinda Riley: we use certain spaces and do you come in for those
Belinda Riley: collaborative days or those days for teaming? And then do you have those
Belinda Riley: meetings structured in a different way? I mean, to be honest, I don't have all
Belinda Riley: the answers, but I do think there's an opportunity to really think through different
Belinda Riley: things. That creates more opportunity for more people
Belinda Riley: to participate. And when we look at generations, and I think this is
Belinda Riley: the first time in history, isn't it, that we have five generations in the workforce
Belinda Riley: at one time, all with differing needs, all with differing
Belinda Riley: expectations. And so how do we
Belinda Riley: manage some of that? But if we don't, we are also
Belinda Riley: missing, and again, comes back, right back to what I was saying at the beginning,
Belinda Riley: is about how much is left on the table by not creating
Belinda Riley: the right environment for people, people to thrive.
Belinda Riley: And when we look at the new generations coming
Belinda Riley: through, they're very clear that they will not
Belinda Riley: work in an organisation or a company that does not value them
Belinda Riley: for who they are. And they're demanding. I think the
Belinda Riley: latest research is 80% of this
Belinda Riley: community want inclusion and if they get somewhere and people
Belinda Riley: aren't delivering on their promises, they're off, they're not going to stay.
Belinda Riley: And that's a hugely expensive exercise
Belinda Riley: for companies. So there's a real opportunity for people to get this
Belinda Riley: right that benefits everybody.
Joanne Lockwood: Fantastic. That's an awesome place that we can
Joanne Lockwood: close this down and draw a line there. That was immensely
Joanne Lockwood: inspiring, that last word you said
Joanne Lockwood: there, belinda, it's been an absolute pleasure. So how
Joanne Lockwood: can our audience get in touch with you? What's the best way to
Joanne Lockwood: connect? So the best way probably to connect with me is either through
Belinda Riley: LinkedIn is a great way, and often people connect with me there,
Belinda Riley: either via email, so that's
Belinda Riley: Belinda@belindariley.com
Belinda Riley: people can find me there. I'm also on Instagram, which
Belinda Riley: is at Belinda Riley, and I'm
Belinda Riley: just in the process of designing and developing a new app.
Belinda Riley: So when that comes out, it's going to be called beyond the barriers.
Belinda Riley: So that's a nice little connection to our
Belinda Riley: conversation. So I think you just type that into the App Store
Belinda Riley: at some point soon and you can find me there as
Belinda Riley: well. Fantastic. Thank you once again.
Joanne Lockwood: Thank you. Thank you to all the listeners. Thank you for
Joanne Lockwood: listening this far. Tuning in. Please do
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Joanne Lockwood: podcast. That's B-I-T-E. If you haven't already shared it with your
Joanne Lockwood: friends and colleagues, then please do. I've got a number of other exciting
Joanne Lockwood: guests lined up I'm sure you'll be equally inspired by over the next few weeks
Joanne Lockwood: and months. Of course, if you'd like to be a guest yourself, please let me
Joanne Lockwood: know. Just drop me an email.