Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your
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Joanne Lockwood: Joanne Lockwood, your guide on this journey of exploration into the
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Joanne Lockwood: So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to
Joanne Lockwood: ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.
Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 117
Joanne Lockwood: with the title infusing empathy. I have the
Joanne Lockwood: absolute honor and privilege to welcome 2 guests today,
Joanne Lockwood: Rita Hallgató and Fiona Dawson. Rita and
Joanne Lockwood: Fiona are collaborators in D&I and storytelling.
Joanne Lockwood: And when I asked Rita to describe her superpower, she said it is her
Joanne Lockwood: impossible dreams and the strength of other women.
Joanne Lockwood: And when I asked Fiona, she said this is her ability
Joanne Lockwood: to listen and make people feel heard. Hello, Fiona.
Joanne Lockwood: Hello, Rita. Welcome to the show. Hello, Jo.
Fiona Dawson: How are you? Joanne. Hey. Well, as I
Joanne Lockwood: said, this is my first venture into a a threesome,
Joanne Lockwood: I guess. We can call this my first, polyamorous podcast if you
Joanne Lockwood: want. So let's see how it goes. Yeah. My
Joanne Lockwood: my show notes have gone out the window. We're off piece today, so anything can
Joanne Lockwood: happen. So Rita, Fiona, infusing empathy,
Joanne Lockwood: who wants to go first? I'll jump in first, I think.
Fiona Dawson: Are you wanting to know how we infuse empathy? Go on. Tell
Joanne Lockwood: me your story. Yeah. Tell tell me your story. You're a DIY story. Tell tell
Joanne Lockwood: us more about yourself. So Rita and I started
Fiona Dawson: we realized that we are super our superpowers
Fiona Dawson: naturally come together to be able to have a really powerful
Fiona Dawson: impact when it comes to corporate DEI work. So my
Fiona Dawson: background was in corporate diversity, equity, inclusion,
Fiona Dawson: belonging, and accessibility. And then in 2010,
Fiona Dawson: I left the corporate environment and started off being an independent
Fiona Dawson: filmmaker. I have always recognized, of course, as many
Fiona Dawson: people do, the power of personal storytelling to be able to help build empathy
Fiona Dawson: and touch hearts of minds and, like, create change. So
Fiona Dawson: rather than lecturing people too much or, you
Fiona Dawson: know, criticizing people for not understanding or calling them
Fiona Dawson: haters, Instead, my work kind of pulls away from
Fiona Dawson: that, and I create films that help people
Fiona Dawson: feel someone else's lived experience so that you can
Fiona Dawson: find things in common and therefore build empathy.
Fiona Dawson: That work that I started doing has kind of merged into a
Fiona Dawson: corporate space. And so last year, Rita and I were working
Fiona Dawson: on a really cool project together, making a short film
Fiona Dawson: for a client who has international operations,
Fiona Dawson: and we got to create a film together for this client to be able to
Fiona Dawson: use for internal distribution. And we realized that
Fiona Dawson: our skill set and our background was just such a nice marriage
Fiona Dawson: as it were, where I'll let Rita talk about, you know, where she comes
Fiona Dawson: from. But we found that when we can put these two perspectives together,
Fiona Dawson: we have an opportunity to be able to work with corporations and corporate
Fiona Dawson: D&I programs in a pretty unique way and actually
Fiona Dawson: move corporations towards creating short form story
Fiona Dawson: content and focusing on values and
Fiona Dawson: lived experience in order to help employees
Fiona Dawson: internally understand one another despite their their
Fiona Dawson: perceived differences and help them realize they actually have a lot more in common
Fiona Dawson: than we realize on the surface. So it's,
Fiona Dawson: extremely rewarding work. We get
Fiona Dawson: to get to know people, like, at an emotional level,
Fiona Dawson: and help them be more intimate with their personal storytelling
Fiona Dawson: than people are typically afforded within a corporate environment.
Fiona Dawson: So it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. Wow. I'm,
Joanne Lockwood: I've got loads I wanna talk about there. Rita, do you wanna
Joanne Lockwood: dovetail into, yeah, your part of that equation? Yeah. Just to add to
Rita Hallgató: that, like, I have been in the corporate HR international corporate
Rita Hallgató: HR world for over 15 years,
Rita Hallgató: and I've gone independent, last
Rita Hallgató: year, early last year. And I noticed that
Rita Hallgató: D&I obviously has been a hot topic in the corporate environment,
Rita Hallgató: even before that. And what I'm seeing is that we've not made
Rita Hallgató: enough progress. And sometimes it feels that we're going
Rita Hallgató: backwards, in D&I and in our initiatives
Rita Hallgató: and approach. And, you know, I might even say that we're
Rita Hallgató: approaching it wrong. We're focusing on the wrong targets. And
Rita Hallgató: I'm seeing a lot of businesses still in 2024 looking at
Rita Hallgató: diversity as the means, Whereas I think we should be, aiming
Rita Hallgató: to create an environment that's inclusive, equitable, accessible, that
Rita Hallgató: makes people feel they belong, which then would result in
Rita Hallgató: diversity. And whilst working in this project together with
Rita Hallgató: Fiona, we realized that, you know, we share the same
Rita Hallgató: values. We share the same view in how
Rita Hallgató: we see we would approach D&I in the corporate workplace. And I
Rita Hallgató: believe personal storytelling is exactly the means that
Rita Hallgató: companies can potentially use and and and build empathy
Rita Hallgató: and and and even compassion. So that's that's where we
Rita Hallgató: started collaborating. I love the way you used the word feel. And I'm a I'm
Joanne Lockwood: a a passionate advocate and believer that people
Joanne Lockwood: feel included. They feel belonging
Joanne Lockwood: through culture, through the environment. Now I always say that
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion is how you make people feel by how you treat them, so how we
Joanne Lockwood: treat people in terms of how they they fit into the organization. And I also
Joanne Lockwood: agree with what you said there about the DEI is the input, the output, and
Joanne Lockwood: I would describe it as positive people experiences. You know, you have a positive
Joanne Lockwood: experience of working with me, working the organization as a customer, as an
Joanne Lockwood: employee, as a stakeholder, shareholder, whatever it may be. It's about focusing on
Joanne Lockwood: that outcome because we all wanna be treated positively. And I
Joanne Lockwood: think that's where we get caught up with the wokism or the anti woke stuff
Joanne Lockwood: we get caught accused of. We're not trying to change the world. We just wanted
Joanne Lockwood: my everyone have a a better experience in life and and workplace.
Joanne Lockwood: So that that what you said there was really, really resonant. And,
Joanne Lockwood: if you don't know, I mean, I I I've been both sides of the camera.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I've been I do a lot of professional speaking, a lot of stuff in
Joanne Lockwood: corporates. I even took part in Channel 4 UK documentary
Joanne Lockwood: a few years ago as well. So I'm used to having people sticking
Joanne Lockwood: a lens in front of me and saying, how do you feel? And it's kind
Joanne Lockwood: of It's a tough gig sometimes, isn't it, building that trust?
Fiona Dawson: Yeah. No. It it is. And, like, I and also for
Fiona Dawson: your audience, I'll explain where I am in the world
Fiona Dawson: because my accent is very British, so I'm aware of Channel 4.
Fiona Dawson: But I have not lived in the UK since 1998, and
Fiona Dawson: I lived and volunteered in Bangladesh for 6 and a half months. I was in
Fiona Dawson: Portugal for a year, and then I ended up in Houston, Texas in the
Fiona Dawson: year 2000. So I've lived in the US now for 24
Fiona Dawson: years, eleven and a half years in Houston, moved to New York, 9
Fiona Dawson: total in New York and DC, and then back to Texas.
Fiona Dawson: So in my filmmaking work and capacity, I didn't
Fiona Dawson: go to film school. I just literally quit my job make my
Fiona Dawson: dreams come true, and there you go. And I had the good fortune
Fiona Dawson: of connecting with people, and I'll specifically name, like, Gabe
Fiona Dawson: Silverman and Jamie Coughlin at Side by Side Studios.
Fiona Dawson: They collaborated with me on the trans military project that I
Fiona Dawson: started in 2012, where we
Fiona Dawson: were sharing stories of active duty transgender service
Fiona Dawson: members in order to raise awareness that they were still banned from the
Fiona Dawson: US military, and that project lasted around
Fiona Dawson: 8 years or so. And so it was through that experience of
Fiona Dawson: working with Gabe and Jamie that I learned some of the practical
Fiona Dawson: aspects of filmmaking. So I've somehow become a a direct a
Fiona Dawson: film director, but I love being on camera
Fiona Dawson: as well. Like you, Joanne love hosting stuff. Like,
Fiona Dawson: I'm working on an unscripted show that I that I host. But I
Fiona Dawson: think that when it comes to creating a space
Fiona Dawson: for people to feel comfortable sharing how they feel,
Fiona Dawson: Of course, the foundation of that is trust, and
Fiona Dawson: I had to had to learn, but also I think
Fiona Dawson: that I know my personality is
Fiona Dawson: that I do create a place where people can
Fiona Dawson: feel vulnerable because I am willing to be vulnerable too.
Fiona Dawson: Like, I'm willing to share parts of me, and I think that when we
Fiona Dawson: do that, it can be symbiotic. It's like a dance. Like,
Fiona Dawson: I love interviewing people because I
Fiona Dawson: love forgetting that the the cameras are around,
Fiona Dawson: the lights are around, and it's just me and that one or
Fiona Dawson: sometimes 2, 2 people that you're interviewing, but it's like a
Fiona Dawson: dance and, like and you're connecting with the eyes and, like,
Fiona Dawson: you just allow to that person and elicit their
Fiona Dawson: story. And, you know, I'll share, you know, parts of me
Fiona Dawson: too, and it's like an exchange. You know? I don't think you could
Fiona Dawson: expect someone just to pour their heart out if you're not willing to
Fiona Dawson: pour your heart out too, And, of course, I have to create space where
Fiona Dawson: I'm not taking over. It's not too much of me, but somebody
Fiona Dawson: who's creating an environment, excuse me,
Fiona Dawson: somebody who's creating an environment for somebody else to share has to be
Fiona Dawson: able to share themselves as well. And, that's what
Fiona Dawson: I found in this work, you know, and if now, like, maybe 14 years
Fiona Dawson: of making films and it's, it's
Fiona Dawson: very, very powerful, and I think that you you see the
Fiona Dawson: audience's reaction afterwards, and, like, with the trans military
Fiona Dawson: work, we had the short film on the New York Times, and then the
Fiona Dawson: feature documentary premiered at South by Southwest, and so I went
Fiona Dawson: to a lot of different film festivals. And after watching those films,
Fiona Dawson: like, the number of people in the audience that will come up to you afterwards,
Fiona Dawson: thank you for doing the work, and thank you for sharing the stories.
Fiona Dawson: And I had so many people who privately came
Fiona Dawson: out to me after watching the film. So you like, you're in a
Fiona Dawson: theater and, like, you're the the film director, and they're coming
Fiona Dawson: up to meet you. And there were several people throughout the year
Fiona Dawson: of touring with that film that would kinda take me aside
Fiona Dawson: and whisper that, you know, they're trans and they're early in their transition, and no
Fiona Dawson: one really knows. And thank you so much for sharing these stories because it
Fiona Dawson: helps me see that I can be
Fiona Dawson: out. Like, I can be myself and, you know, our characters as they
Fiona Dawson: were, you know, who are real people, They their stories inspired
Fiona Dawson: other people and helped other people feel less alone. So
Fiona Dawson: it's it's really awesome to now, like, take that
Fiona Dawson: experience of being an independent filmmaker
Fiona Dawson: and take it into corporations because most people
Fiona Dawson: go to a corporation or go to some business for their job,
Fiona Dawson: and they spend more time there than they do at home. And
Fiona Dawson: so why would we not take this work into a
Fiona Dawson: business where people are? You know, I want to affect change, and so I've got
Fiona Dawson: to take it to where people are the majority of the time. And it's just
Fiona Dawson: a really beautiful experience. I've I've got so much I wanna dive into there,
Joanne Lockwood: but let's let Rita chip in first before we, come back. Yeah. To
Rita Hallgató: just add to Fiona's words, I mean, corporate workspace
Rita Hallgató: is such an amazing place where personal
Rita Hallgató: storytelling can work in 2 ways. It can be educative,
Rita Hallgató: but not in like telling what people to do, but you know, using
Rita Hallgató: empathy and, you know, using personal stories to to share
Rita Hallgató: how people, you know, feel in their workplace. And there are a lot of businesses
Rita Hallgató: out there who are very inclusive, you know, who are very accessible.
Rita Hallgató: You know, people feel they belong, and and it gives them the opportunity
Rita Hallgató: to show it to other people inside and outside of their
Rita Hallgató: company who I think, you know, you could benefit more from
Rita Hallgató: using personal storytelling. And on the other side, I think it
Rita Hallgató: helps businesses who are very early in their inclusive journey,
Rita Hallgató: to to learn more about, you know, how they how they could
Rita Hallgató: make make it more inclusive. And Fiona is amazing at that. Like, I mean, my
Rita Hallgató: surname literally means listener, but I'm not a listener.
Rita Hallgató: I'm not really good at that. And I sat through interviews
Rita Hallgató: with Fiona, you know, listening in the background as the executive producer.
Rita Hallgató: And the safe space she creates is amazing, and
Rita Hallgató: and it's truly truly amazing to to listen how she
Rita Hallgató: connects with with the people she interviews and and shares their
Rita Hallgató: stories. Thank you, Rita. Yeah. Yeah. We have a a
Joanne Lockwood: mutual virtual hug here. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So whereabouts in the
Joanne Lockwood: world are are you, Rita? Are you Texas as well? Or are you, somewhere else?
Rita Hallgató: Jo. I'm actually based in I'm based in London, but I
Rita Hallgató: yeah. I'm originally Hungarian. So obviously, people can hear my
Rita Hallgató: accent. Some people can even guess that I'm having Eastern European accent, but I've
Rita Hallgató: lived in the UK for about 12 years and a year and
Rita Hallgató: a half in between in India. But yeah, I've spent
Rita Hallgató: almost a third of my life in the UK so far. So, yeah, I'm
Rita Hallgató: based in London. They were all kind of displaced because I was originally born in
Joanne Lockwood: Singapore. I didn't live there for long, but I was originally born in Singapore. So
Joanne Lockwood: I guess I'm not living in my country of birth either. And that
Joanne Lockwood: that shared that shared sort of lived experience. It it's
Joanne Lockwood: I think it's remarkable that you've you've you've both fallen into
Joanne Lockwood: what you do and together. I'm I'm
Joanne Lockwood: I'm conscious about the fact that, you know, Fiona, you live in Texas, which isn't,
Joanne Lockwood: from an outsider's perspective, isn't the most tolerant
Joanne Lockwood: of of administrations within the state. And,
Joanne Lockwood: Rita, your your Hungarian background, we we can all see a lot of
Joanne Lockwood: challenges emanating from Hungary and certain
Joanne Lockwood: Eastern European countries and the attitudes of old.
Joanne Lockwood: So do do you find that you're having an
Joanne Lockwood: uphill battle to push against maybe the infrastructure
Joanne Lockwood: where you're based, or or do you find it's quite an Joanne open door you're
Joanne Lockwood: working I got you a person on reach. Or a meet to get person. Got
Joanne Lockwood: it. Yeah. I mean, I think the D&I space is an
Rita Hallgató: uphill battle. Like, you know, we've all seen that
Rita Hallgató: D&I budgets are being cut. And it's kind of, you know, the
Rita Hallgató: same uphill battle as in a lot of other things, but, in in the corporate
Rita Hallgató: world. But we're definitely seeing fellow
Rita Hallgató: practitioners, and D&I colleagues telling us, you know, how
Rita Hallgató: they would love to do a number of things, but they, they aren't able
Rita Hallgató: to because, you know, when when budgets are tight, unfortunately,
Rita Hallgató: D&I budgets are the first to to be cut, even within the people
Rita Hallgató: budgets. And and it's really sad to see, but
Rita Hallgató: at the same time, I think it it gives us power, more
Rita Hallgató: power to fuel into myself, to to push back
Rita Hallgató: and to maybe educate leaders that
Rita Hallgató: the way they've been thinking about D&I is not the right approach.
Rita Hallgató: And and because I think a lot of leaders expected
Rita Hallgató: initiatives to bring immediate results, and it
Rita Hallgató: did not happen because the approach has been wrong. And it's not a
Rita Hallgató: it's not a sprint, it's a marathon. And I think that's where
Rita Hallgató: the early learnings, you know, for fellow D&I
Rita Hallgató: practitioners came from when, you know, we all started doing bits and
Rita Hallgató: pieces, and and we realized, you know, hang on. This isn't gonna bring
Rita Hallgató: meaningful change. And now we're facing this
Rita Hallgató: challenge that I think a lot of us now know how
Rita Hallgató: we would approach it or how we should approach it, but now we don't have
Rita Hallgató: the budget. So it's a bit of a catch 22 situation where
Rita Hallgató: where I think we are finding our way to make this work in the corporate
Rita Hallgató: environment. But now a lot of the lot of the in
Rita Hallgató: house D&I practitioners don't have the budget. So, yeah, definitely an
Rita Hallgató: uphill an uphill battle. Yeah. We see I mean, I
Joanne Lockwood: see a lot of rhetoric in the obviously, I'm UK based at the moment. A
Joanne Lockwood: lot of rhetoric in the UK press around the government talking
Joanne Lockwood: about D&I initiatives are a waste of money. They haven't
Joanne Lockwood: delivered the benefits. All this kind of pushback. And I think even here, the
Joanne Lockwood: same from the US in certain, you know, government issues. They're pushing back
Joanne Lockwood: against EDI, D&I training. I think
Joanne Lockwood: you you both made the point that people went into it without the
Joanne Lockwood: right expectations, without the right momentum and
Joanne Lockwood: longevity. They're not tracking it. They're seeing D&I as an overhead, which why we're seeing
Joanne Lockwood: budget cuts. We're not seeing D&I as an investment. In the same way, we
Joanne Lockwood: see maybe leadership development or the people space. It's always still seen
Joanne Lockwood: as an investment often. So I think we need to move that narrative from
Joanne Lockwood: seeing D&I as a cost and a hassle and and a
Joanne Lockwood: wokeness and a and a and a sojourn we have to sort of fight our
Joanne Lockwood: way through to actually leveraging productivity,
Joanne Lockwood: happiness, discretionary effort, reduce
Joanne Lockwood: hiring costs, reduce turnover, reduce onboarding, all these kind of
Joanne Lockwood: immediate, which we can quote Gartner and McKinsey
Joanne Lockwood: and all these stats that the cows come home. But a lot of companies just
Joanne Lockwood: don't get it right, do they? And I think the storytelling you're approaching it with,
Joanne Lockwood: for me, is key. Listening to the impact you're gonna
Joanne Lockwood: have with people's lives. Yeah. When you say, Laffy, I know it's
Joanne Lockwood: people coming up to you afterwards having experienced the
Joanne Lockwood: content you're producing and with a tear in their eye with the
Joanne Lockwood: story to tell back to you. That must be immensely empowering. Yeah. It
Fiona Dawson: is. Like, just, oh my gosh. Hearing you say those words until I got chills
Fiona Dawson: and getting emotional just thinking about it because it is. And you
Fiona Dawson: can't separate that experience from a
Fiona Dawson: workplace as well. Like, I think for traditionally, you know,
Fiona Dawson: workplace has been where, you know, leave your personal life at
Fiona Dawson: home, leave your feelings at home, leave everything else at home, work, go to work,
Fiona Dawson: you know, be a machine at work, and then and then go back
Fiona Dawson: home, and, like, we know that doesn't exist anymore. You know, that model of the
Fiona Dawson: workplace, you know, is is gone, is
Fiona Dawson: vanished. And I think, like, going back to
Fiona Dawson: your point about where we are in the world, you know, I'm in
Fiona Dawson: Austin, Texas, so it's the capital of Texas.
Fiona Dawson: I actually happen to be in a WeWork that's on congress, and I
Fiona Dawson: can see the state capital from from this building.
Fiona Dawson: And so I am faced with the politicians in Texas
Fiona Dawson: on a daily basis, and I
Fiona Dawson: personally love being in this place in the world
Fiona Dawson: because I feel there is so much great work to
Fiona Dawson: be done. I do work with, Equality Texas.
Fiona Dawson: Like, that's the one not the nonprofit that my company, Freeline
Fiona Dawson: Productions, does work for, and we're helping
Fiona Dawson: educate, entertain, and inspire through personal storytelling with
Fiona Dawson: Equality Texas. And I think
Fiona Dawson: that talking about both in the
Fiona Dawson: UK and in the US and states across the
Fiona Dawson: US, how, like, DEI is being canceled and gotten rid of,
Fiona Dawson: I personally believe it's not going away. It's just
Fiona Dawson: shifting and it's got, you know, it's gonna probably be labeled something else.
Fiona Dawson: But when you're talking about people development and leadership, you can't
Fiona Dawson: have a leadership training if you don't talk about the just diversification of
Fiona Dawson: your workforce. Like, from stats here in the
Fiona Dawson: US, like, 1 in 5 Gen z
Fiona Dawson: identifies as LGBT. You know, the future is
Fiona Dawson: very queer. Not only here in the US is it very queer,
Fiona Dawson: you know, white people by numbers are gonna be
Fiona Dawson: less than 50%. I mean and that's just a fact, but
Fiona Dawson: we're all, like, spiritual beings having a human experience. We just happen to be put
Fiona Dawson: into different human needs. So, you know, so it's like, if
Fiona Dawson: you want to be a leader, you're gonna have to educate yourself on
Fiona Dawson: what these humans are going to look like and
Fiona Dawson: behave like and be culturally raised in order to
Fiona Dawson: have a successful workforce, in order to have a successful business.
Fiona Dawson: And, you know, Rita and I know, like, studies show that when you have an
Fiona Dawson: inclusive environment, it's better for your bottom line. Like,
Fiona Dawson: we've known that for a long time. But instead of going, oh, it's
Fiona Dawson: better for the bottom line. Therefore, I need to hire this many, you
Fiona Dawson: know, black people, this many gay people, you know, this many
Fiona Dawson: people living with disability. And if I get them all together in a room, then
Fiona Dawson: we're gonna make lots of money. And, of course, we know that's rubbish.
Fiona Dawson: It doesn't work like that. Like, you've got to be able to be
Fiona Dawson: less afraid of bringing vulnerability,
Fiona Dawson: kindness, courage, empathy,
Fiona Dawson: joy, fear, sadness, grief,
Fiona Dawson: all these things that we all experience. Let's
Fiona Dawson: talk about them at work as well. I mean and that's when
Fiona Dawson: you start to create a space where people can be seen and
Fiona Dawson: heard. A lot of people say they don't like labels, and I can understand that,
Fiona Dawson: but labels help you find each other. You know, I'm a very out and
Fiona Dawson: proud bisexual, cisgender, immigrant
Fiona Dawson: woman living with a non apparent disability, and I'm gonna give those
Fiona Dawson: labels so that somebody who's also living with one of those identities
Fiona Dawson: knows that I can relate to potentially to their experience, and we can talk about
Fiona Dawson: it. And and that's that's what we I think we need to to bring into
Fiona Dawson: that environment. So, you know, one more thing I'll
Fiona Dawson: say, then I'll stop talking because I really just feel like I'm going off in
Fiona Dawson: multiple angles. I just think that we're living in a
Fiona Dawson: time of the universe, of the world, of society,
Fiona Dawson: where there are massive shifts happening. There's a big change,
Fiona Dawson: and change is extremely scary to lots of people. And
Fiona Dawson: so if us as d DEI practitioners,
Fiona Dawson: storytellers, people who build empathy, if we can help
Fiona Dawson: carry people through change and help decrease that fear,
Fiona Dawson: then I think that, you know, we'll create places where everybody
Fiona Dawson: can, be happy and live in joy. And with you, yeah, I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: we we should all be queer meat sacks. I think that's probably a good way
Joanne Lockwood: to look at it, isn't it? Yeah. Exactly.
Rita Hallgató: Yeah. And, and Kionna talked about, yeah, Kionna talked about
Rita Hallgató: society. And I think it's super important to
Rita Hallgató: remind ourselves that corporations have the ability and
Rita Hallgató: power to influence broader changes in the society. And I
Rita Hallgató: think we, or people in corporations and especially people in
Rita Hallgató: leadership tend to forget that, that, you know,
Rita Hallgató: everything starts somewhere, and big companies
Rita Hallgató: have that power. And leading by example is super
Rita Hallgató: important in businesses because that's where
Rita Hallgató: we're able to make broader changes and, you know, changing
Rita Hallgató: the society from the individual's perspective is is a lot
Rita Hallgató: more difficult. But if you look at, you know, the big enterprises and the
Rita Hallgató: way they make changes in their policies that affect, you know, their
Rita Hallgató: employees could have easily a broader
Rita Hallgató: impact on the society. So that's why I believe that
Rita Hallgató: we do have to focus on educating and
Rita Hallgató: helping corporations to really bring those changes and
Rita Hallgató: not just pay the lip service because that's where we
Rita Hallgató: can then influence bigger bigger changes and and not
Rita Hallgató: just, you know, in the UK or in the US, but in places like Hungary
Rita Hallgató: as well or in, you know, other other countries. We've we've seen examples
Joanne Lockwood: where the power of the corporate voice, if you
Joanne Lockwood: like, for want of a better word, corporate allyship. We've seen it with in Florida
Joanne Lockwood: with Disney. We've seen it with the bathroom bill in the US where
Joanne Lockwood: corporations basically pulled out. Was it South Carolina for a while and
Joanne Lockwood: said, we're not gonna operate here if you're gonna have these discriminatory tactics. We've
Joanne Lockwood: seen people putting pressure on Bermuda and places like that where
Joanne Lockwood: ships are are registered, where they ban gay marriage. So we've seen
Joanne Lockwood: that going on. We've seen other regimes being, you know, if you
Joanne Lockwood: like, ostracized Myanmar and places like that in the world
Joanne Lockwood: where they they look yep. Queer rights have been
Joanne Lockwood: pushed back. But then we see governments such as the UK
Joanne Lockwood: government and the potential next US
Joanne Lockwood: government, almost red light or green lighting, sorry,
Joanne Lockwood: anti trans and anti gay type rhetoric. And it it's
Joanne Lockwood: we we need to stand up as a as a as a as a corporate
Joanne Lockwood: nation, if you like, because my time in corporate life is very
Joanne Lockwood: welcoming. It suddenly becomes messy for me in
Joanne Lockwood: in in pits of society influenced by the government sometimes,
Joanne Lockwood: and I think that's that's the struggle. So, Fiona, you wanted to
Joanne Lockwood: dive in there? I wanted to add something as well, like and I
Fiona Dawson: totally agree that, you know, businesses, corporations do have this
Fiona Dawson: opportunity to continue their leadership in this space. And when it
Fiona Dawson: comes to budgets, you know, when a DEI budget is
Fiona Dawson: cut, really, I would love to see marketing teams jumping
Fiona Dawson: in. Like, marketing teams typically have much, much larger
Fiona Dawson: budgets than DEI, and I think that here in
Fiona Dawson: the US where a few companies, particularly last year, were
Fiona Dawson: kind of, like, in hot seats based upon their
Fiona Dawson: actions with DEI, like, if marketing and
Fiona Dawson: DEI were communicating really, you know,
Fiona Dawson: in in foots in step together, then a lot of that I think could
Fiona Dawson: have been very different. And I think with the work that
Fiona Dawson: Rita and I do, you know, when it comes to filmmaking,
Fiona Dawson: I personally would love to work with a
Fiona Dawson: marketing team and a DEI team, but the marketing
Fiona Dawson: team with a DEI perspective because those budgets are gonna be able to
Fiona Dawson: fund the kind of films that we're making and the animation that we're
Fiona Dawson: making. It doesn't have to be labeled DEI,
Fiona Dawson: and I think people you know, marketing teams will spend
Fiona Dawson: 100 of 1,000, if not 1,000,000 of dollars on flashy ads and that kind of
Fiona Dawson: stuff. But for a smaller budget, you could make an authentic
Fiona Dawson: independent film and have incredible impact.
Fiona Dawson: And I I just think that there is so much opportunity that's out
Fiona Dawson: there. This is this is not like a desert.
Joanne Lockwood: So, Basa, I understand you you work with a lot of start ups
Joanne Lockwood: and, entrepreneurs, buildings, you know, building hope hopefully,
Joanne Lockwood: hyperscale businesses. They have the ideal opportunity to
Joanne Lockwood: to start with EDID and Inclusive
Joanne Lockwood: Leadership at at heart, but often often often they're founded by
Joanne Lockwood: a tight knit pair or small group of of college leavers
Joanne Lockwood: or whatever it may be. And it's often hard for them to bring other
Joanne Lockwood: people into their mix in the early stages. So how do you encourage businesses like
Joanne Lockwood: that to embrace the power of of of
Joanne Lockwood: of of of more of of a broader demographic? I mean, it's
Rita Hallgató: it's not easy because when founders start their
Rita Hallgató: business and, you know, they try and make it work and they they
Rita Hallgató: try and build a viable and long term sustainable
Rita Hallgató: business. Often, you know, the people part is important,
Rita Hallgató: but it's not the number one priority. Like, you know,
Rita Hallgató: they they would hire people who will
Rita Hallgató: help them to get to that next stage to to to
Rita Hallgató: achieve that goal. And in an ideal world, it would
Rita Hallgató: happen along with a long term people strategy
Rita Hallgató: where they are building a sustainable
Rita Hallgató: work place from the get go. But
Rita Hallgató: to be fair and honest, small businesses, you know, struggle a lot
Rita Hallgató: at the very beginning, and I don't think D&I and
Rita Hallgató: sort of inclusion proactively comes into the picture before
Rita Hallgató: they reach 60, 70 employees. And, you
Rita Hallgató: know, I don't blame them because they have so many things
Rita Hallgató: to be worried about. And and and, you know, we don't get
Rita Hallgató: to see those businesses that don't even make it to this stage Joanne and a
Rita Hallgató: lot of them don't. But there's definitely an opportunity
Rita Hallgató: and and not by, you know, they don't need to hire a D&I practitioner
Rita Hallgató: or a or a senior people leader from the get go, but
Rita Hallgató: there's definitely opportunities for those founders
Rita Hallgató: and leaders early on to educate themselves
Rita Hallgató: and to be conscious and mindful about how they are going to
Rita Hallgató: build an inclusive workplace. And what I'm
Rita Hallgató: hearing and seeing the most is oftentimes leaders don't know where
Rita Hallgató: to start and that's that's another problem, right? Like, okay, I want to
Rita Hallgató: build an inclusive workplace, but where do I start? And, and, and that's
Rita Hallgató: what makes it, makes it difficult. And I think us as fractional
Rita Hallgató: people leaders like myself, you know, have this opportunity to
Rita Hallgató: to support these founders and and build that
Rita Hallgató: workplace. But it's it's unfortunately in a
Rita Hallgató: very, you know, difficult business environment. It's
Rita Hallgató: not a not an immediate priority. Yeah. I I've I've experienced very similar
Joanne Lockwood: in some of the works work I've been doing. It's a shame because what
Joanne Lockwood: we're effectively saying is D&I isn't important until
Joanne Lockwood: I can afford it. Where we should be saying Yeah. D&I should
Joanne Lockwood: be integral to the founder's mindset at the very early
Joanne Lockwood: stages because you can't afford not to do it. You know, when we talk about
Joanne Lockwood: these businesses struggling or not growing or not not succeeding,
Joanne Lockwood: is it because they haven't got that diversity of mindset? They
Joanne Lockwood: they're they're giving living in an echo chamber. They need to broaden their horizons on
Joanne Lockwood: that. Yeah. And it's I think it starts with
Rita Hallgató: this, you know, small simple things. And and a lot of these founders
Rita Hallgató: might still think, you know, with numbers in their head, with diversity in
Rita Hallgató: their heads. And how many times we heard, oh, we don't want quotas. And it's
Rita Hallgató: exactly it's not it's not what they should start with. If you think
Rita Hallgató: about inclusion, you start with policies. Right? Look at all your
Rita Hallgató: policies. How inclusive are they? Are they allowing your
Rita Hallgató: employees to be their true themselves to be, their true
Rita Hallgató: themselves? And are they allowing them to feel belonging
Rita Hallgató: and and is your workplace accessible? So there are some very
Rita Hallgató: easy, you know, starting points to look at.
Rita Hallgató: And then secondly, it's talking to your people, listening to your
Rita Hallgató: people. And I've had an amazing colleague who,
Rita Hallgató: taught us, you know, don't fall for the solution.
Rita Hallgató: Fall for the problem. And I've seen that a lot, especially in the
Rita Hallgató: HR world when and in the D&I world as well, when when when
Rita Hallgató: those leaders are like, oh, I've got this great idea. Let's implement this. But
Rita Hallgató: is that really a problem in your business? Do you really need that? Whilst, you
Rita Hallgató: know, going in a different direction where you ask your people, you know, what do
Rita Hallgató: they need? What would make them feel more included
Rita Hallgató: in your company? And there you go, you've got your actions. And so I
Rita Hallgató: think it's simple. It's just the approach where we put
Rita Hallgató: diversity away as the means and we focus on how do we make this
Rita Hallgató: place accessible, equitable, and inclusive.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. It's it's really hard though managing
Joanne Lockwood: diverse groups of people. I mean, I'm I'm the chair of a board of a
Joanne Lockwood: professional association, and I've got 9 people
Joanne Lockwood: with vastly different backgrounds, thinking styles, ages,
Joanne Lockwood: genders, and perspectives. And it's really
Joanne Lockwood: hard to to chair that board sometimes where you're trying to allow
Joanne Lockwood: everyone to have a voice, move things on, reach consensus,
Joanne Lockwood: and if you like, work with the disagreements
Joanne Lockwood: or work with the differences of perspective to bring that harmony where
Joanne Lockwood: togetherness where we make a decision that we all stand behind. It must be
Joanne Lockwood: really hard, you know, as you say, in a startup environment where founders
Joanne Lockwood: wanna, you know, in quotes, get shit done and make things happen. And
Joanne Lockwood: they've got all these people. They've gotta say, oh, I've gotta be nice to them.
Joanne Lockwood: I gotta be nice to them. I just wanna just wanna get on with this.
Joanne Lockwood: Is that is that some of the challenge there, Rita? Yeah. But I think it's
Rita Hallgató: a challenge everywhere. But it's like it's a sprint. It's not a sprint.
Rita Hallgató: It's a marathon. And so I think we need to approach it differently as well.
Rita Hallgató: Like, you know, do we want an an immediate decision and
Rita Hallgató: a and a consensus which, you know, might lead to some
Rita Hallgató: results? Or do we actually
Rita Hallgató: allow others to to add their input
Rita Hallgató: and feel heard. And yeah. So I think it's it's a
Rita Hallgató: difficulty in every any workplace meeting, whether it's a
Rita Hallgató: small emerging business or a large corporation. But I
Rita Hallgató: love working in those challenging
Rita Hallgató: environments because that's how I learn. And I think if we allow
Rita Hallgató: ourselves to be vulnerable in the sense that, you know, I
Rita Hallgató: don't know how to, let's say, moderate a meeting like that because there are so
Rita Hallgató: many different kinds of people in there. But I'm going to allow
Rita Hallgató: myself to be open to that experience and see
Rita Hallgató: how it goes, then we might actually get something more meaningful out of that.
Rita Hallgató: Maybe it takes a little bit longer, but it would definitely, I think,
Rita Hallgató: bring greater results. Thank you. Fiona, you you you
Joanne Lockwood: talked about getting marketing involved, and that really that
Joanne Lockwood: really resonates. Because I'm thinking here, brand. Brand is
Joanne Lockwood: owned by marketing. And when we talk about recruitment, we talk about
Joanne Lockwood: employer value proposition. We're talking about recruitment marketing. We talk about
Joanne Lockwood: Joanne and culture have to figure very heavily in our marketing
Joanne Lockwood: strategy and in our recruitment strategy. We're not gonna recruit people
Joanne Lockwood: who don't resonate with our brand. And what what we tend what what I, in
Joanne Lockwood: my experience, what I tend to find is when people are going through the hiring
Joanne Lockwood: process, the the the hiring manager or the hiring team
Joanne Lockwood: have a disconnect of priorities with the corporate objective. They're
Joanne Lockwood: trying to fill an empty chair. They're trying to get their project done. They're trying
Joanne Lockwood: to make something happen. And they'll they'll just go, oh, here's a CV. Let's
Joanne Lockwood: hire them. Or, yeah, I know somebody, and we we all the best
Joanne Lockwood: inclusive hiring practices go out the window because I've got a
Joanne Lockwood: CV on my desk and they'll do. And for the
Joanne Lockwood: priorities, you know, hiring velocity, cost to hire, and the experience. You can't
Joanne Lockwood: have them all high. You gotta spend more money to get better experience or
Joanne Lockwood: or slow down. So I often see recruiters and the hiring
Joanne Lockwood: managers breaking away from the corporate objective. And what
Joanne Lockwood: we really need as a practitioner, I always say, I need to jump
Joanne Lockwood: leapfrog the hiring team and talk to comms, talk to marketing,
Joanne Lockwood: talk to HR, talk to the DEI people, and get them to do a
Joanne Lockwood: pincer movement on the hiring teams and say, okay. Now we need to think about
Joanne Lockwood: how we can hire more inclusively in a more in a more
Joanne Lockwood: contemporary hiring process than just the way we've we've
Joanne Lockwood: done it, which means we always end up hiring the people we've always
Joanne Lockwood: hired. And that's not to say they're not the right people, but that we haven't
Joanne Lockwood: had the choice to evaluate whether they're the best people. Is that Right. Us back
Joanne Lockwood: into marketing? Yeah. I I mean, I think that
Fiona Dawson: with all of this, it's kind of breaking down as many silos as
Fiona Dawson: you can within an organization and ensuring that all
Fiona Dawson: of these different teams are communicating and
Fiona Dawson: collaborating together. And I think that comes down to creating a culture and an
Fiona Dawson: environment where that happens organically and
Fiona Dawson: starting off potentially with, you know, workspaces, whether
Fiona Dawson: people are physically at a building or whether they're online or whatever, be able
Fiona Dawson: to create, as Rita was saying, like, an accessible
Fiona Dawson: environment physically and culturally in
Fiona Dawson: order, you know, for these conversations to happen.
Fiona Dawson: And I think if you, if you want to take it back to marketing and
Fiona Dawson: the external comms, I think
Fiona Dawson: sharing content that is
Fiona Dawson: actually authentic and actually genuine and isn't
Fiona Dawson: just, you know, placating to an audience and, you know, somebody
Fiona Dawson: thinking, oh, you know, we want to I'm gonna use LGBT again
Fiona Dawson: because it's my world, but, you know, we wanna we wanna hire more LGBTQA
Fiona Dawson: plus people, therefore, you know, we're gonna go sponsor this thing at pride,
Fiona Dawson: and we're gonna create this ad with this, you know, cute
Fiona Dawson: couple of, you know, 2 genders and that way we're gonna attract
Fiona Dawson: all the gays. And it's like, Jo. Let's take a
Fiona Dawson: step back. And let's, you know,
Fiona Dawson: create content that has
Fiona Dawson: more of organic authentic feel to it.
Fiona Dawson: And the one of the tools that comes to mind is creating
Fiona Dawson: really strong ERGs, you know, employee resource groups or
Fiona Dawson: BRGs, business resource groups, and being able to engage the
Fiona Dawson: employees that you already have and make sure that those
Fiona Dawson: ERGs are also intersectional. So a lot of companies will have, you know, a
Fiona Dawson: pride ERG of veterans, people with disabilities. But
Fiona Dawson: all of us human beings, in addition to being meat sacks, we can use
Fiona Dawson: the analogy as icebergs where only 10%
Fiona Dawson: of who we are might be, you know,
Fiona Dawson: apparent above the surface, but most of who we
Fiona Dawson: are is is unapparent and beneath the surface. And you don't
Fiona Dawson: belong just to 1 ERG. You know? You've got
Fiona Dawson: multiple identities. And so I think that starting with those
Fiona Dawson: ERGs, you know, and then bringing people together in collaboration,
Fiona Dawson: making sure that marketing is including ERGs
Fiona Dawson: in their decision making, you know, potentially start off with sharing
Fiona Dawson: stories of people that belong to ERGs and kind of, like, growing
Fiona Dawson: up from there. And to, you know, reiterate what Rachel was
Fiona Dawson: saying about it being a marathon and not a sprint is, like, always bear
Fiona Dawson: that in mind. Like, just the smallest little action
Fiona Dawson: can sow the seeds of really long term significant
Fiona Dawson: change and making sure that it is always
Fiona Dawson: authentic and always comes from heart. And it's not
Fiona Dawson: just checking a box because they think it's the right thing to do. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I from a meat sack point of view, I don't think anyone's ever
Joanne Lockwood: shouted out from the rooftop. We need to hire more trans people. Mhmm. But they
Joanne Lockwood: they we don't fit on their Noah's Ark sometimes. You know? The Noah's
Joanne Lockwood: Ark has to have black people, white people, disabled Right. Disability.
Joanne Lockwood: Maybe some gay people, maybe some lesbians. Well, we're not sure about bisexual people.
Joanne Lockwood: Oh, what about the bisexuals? Yeah. I mean, do you wanna talk about the
Fiona Dawson: bisexuals? I mean, could that Let's go there. Yeah. Let's go there. Well, I I
Fiona Dawson: mean, for me okay. So I'll share something.
Fiona Dawson: So when it comes to marketing, for example, say you're marketing to the
Fiona Dawson: queer community and oftentimes when
Fiona Dawson: people are represented, like stock imagery, for example, like stock
Fiona Dawson: imagery could do with a bit of an injection of inclusion
Fiona Dawson: because they naturally go to, oh, let's put, like,
Fiona Dawson: 2 men, and I'm gonna use, like, binary gender language.
Fiona Dawson: Jo we've got 2, you know, cute guy cute guys that are gonna be assumed
Fiona Dawson: to be gay, or we've got 2 women that assume to be lesbians. But
Fiona Dawson: how to get bicep how do you represent bisexuals in that imagery? Because any
Fiona Dawson: of those people could be bisexual. And if you
Fiona Dawson: have, you know, content where you've got somebody who is
Fiona Dawson: presenting, you know, female or male gender and then
Fiona Dawson: another, you know, female gender, they're not necessarily straight. You
Fiona Dawson: know, one or both of them might be bisexual. And then if you wanna
Fiona Dawson: really go further, like, what about families that have more than 2
Fiona Dawson: adults in their makeup? You know, where do they belong? Going back to
Fiona Dawson: Rita's policy, like, here in the US, your health care is dependent
Fiona Dawson: upon your policy. What about families that, you know, are in
Fiona Dawson: polyamorous relationships, but you can only put one add on your
Fiona Dawson: health insurance? You know? What do we do with that? So it's like
Fiona Dawson: constantly thinking about ways that our societies
Fiona Dawson: and our systems have set up barriers to access the basic
Fiona Dawson: things you need in order to take care of yourself and your family.
Fiona Dawson: So yeah. So the but bi bisexuality just for the record,
Fiona Dawson: let me let everyone understand here in the United States, studies show
Fiona Dawson: that close to 60% of people who identify
Fiona Dawson: as lesbian, gay, and bisexual are bisexual. So
Fiona Dawson: we are not actually represented so much in media and filmmaking and
Fiona Dawson: TV. We've got all these stereotypes and and tropes. And,
Fiona Dawson: you know, I've got a book if anyone wants to understand more about it.
Fiona Dawson: That's that's a whole other podcast conversation, Joe. Oh, yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: And, I mean, just to chuck another grenade in there. The,
Joanne Lockwood: you the imagery you you you portrayed about these these cute
Joanne Lockwood: 2 men, these cute 2 women, they could be bisexual. Well, they could be non
Joanne Lockwood: binary, and they could all be trans as well. Right. You know? Exactly. I I
Joanne Lockwood: spent 50 odd years of my life, and no one knew what was on the
Joanne Lockwood: inside. Jo, yeah, we don't know, do we? Exactly. So And most
Joanne Lockwood: majority of people. Most trans people also identify
Fiona Dawson: as bisexual, so realizing that there's a difference between
Fiona Dawson: biological sex, gender, and sexual orientation,
Fiona Dawson: and the US military is the world's largest
Fiona Dawson: employer of trans people. More than 15,000
Joanne Lockwood: It's now a safe space to be out, to be supported. I I
Joanne Lockwood: knew a I still know a a colonel in the air force
Joanne Lockwood: who is trans. She she gets a huge
Joanne Lockwood: amount of respect being a colonel, obviously, because
Joanne Lockwood: people salute her and look up to her and and they do as she
Joanne Lockwood: says. She she gets far more respect and support being as part of the military
Joanne Lockwood: community than she ever would in in in civilian life and out out
Joanne Lockwood: in the streets. So Yeah. Yeah. It's it's well recognized under this
Joanne Lockwood: administration. The military is hugely supportive, isn't it? Well, I
Fiona Dawson: mean, you might be talking about Sherry Sawowski, who is a
Fiona Dawson: yes. Retired Sherry Sawowski. No? Okay. Somebody else. So
Fiona Dawson: she's, she's a retired colonel in the US military. So in fact,
Fiona Dawson: prior when trans people were still banned in the US military, there was
Fiona Dawson: still the large the US military was still actually the largest employer of trans people.
Fiona Dawson: So this isn't a new phenomenon. Trans people serve in the
Fiona Dawson: US military at twice the rate than cisgender or non transgender
Fiona Dawson: people do. So we need to consider, not just in the US, but the
Fiona Dawson: military is a workforce as well. And so how are
Fiona Dawson: militaries around the world providing an inclusive
Fiona Dawson: workforce? But I think the
Fiona Dawson: like the the US military has
Fiona Dawson: long had a history of providing a
Fiona Dawson: space for trans people to be gainfully employed,
Fiona Dawson: to have community, to have a job that feels like
Fiona Dawson: you're part of something bigger than yourself, to access health care, to be
Fiona Dawson: able to get education, you know, all of those things that a
Fiona Dawson: cisgender person would like to have as well. So it's not
Fiona Dawson: new that the US military has been in an environment where trans people
Fiona Dawson: have been able to serve And, yeah, it depends on different
Fiona Dawson: units. It depends upon your leadership on how you're treated. So, like, when the
Fiona Dawson: ban was still in effect, we found that there were many
Fiona Dawson: people who were out as trans and serving despite
Fiona Dawson: the Joanne, but because their leadership knew
Fiona Dawson: that it the ban was wrong, and they didn't
Fiona Dawson: care who you are, like, what your gender is, do you have my
Fiona Dawson: back out where it matters? And that
Fiona Dawson: you know, can you do your job? And so those people are allowed to
Fiona Dawson: serve, and then you would find other units where there might be, you
Fiona Dawson: know, transphobia or a leader that did not get
Fiona Dawson: you as a trans person. And then that's when you ostracized,
Fiona Dawson: you know, potentially kicked out. So I
Fiona Dawson: think that the military ban on
Fiona Dawson: trans people was outdated policy, going back to policy as well.
Fiona Dawson: It had nothing to do with the government. I mean, nothing to do with government.
Fiona Dawson: Of course. It's part of the government entity, but it wasn't like it was
Fiona Dawson: outdated policy that needed updated. So it didn't really matter so much as
Fiona Dawson: to who was president. It was like, is the Department
Fiona Dawson: of Defense going to update their medical policies and
Fiona Dawson: include trans people to be able to serve? And
Fiona Dawson: finally, they did. And then there was a bit of a bump with 1
Fiona Dawson: president from another, whatever. Couple of executives and things You bet. Just ignoring him
Joanne Lockwood: for a while. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Because it was an executive order,
Fiona Dawson: like but now, you know, trans people
Fiona Dawson: can serve openly, but then you still need to update your policies to
Fiona Dawson: include intersex people. 1 in 100 people are born
Fiona Dawson: intersex, meaning they can have any combination of male and
Fiona Dawson: fish, male and female sex tissue chromosomes and or
Fiona Dawson: hormones. And for the longest time, because of how
Fiona Dawson: your genitals look, you have been prohibited from serving in
Fiona Dawson: the US military, which is kind of ridiculous. And so it's like just being
Fiona Dawson: on top of, and that's where, again, like Rita and I, I think have this
Fiona Dawson: great collaboration where she's the expert on the policy in the HR.
Fiona Dawson: Like I know enough to be dangerous on that. I'll be the
Fiona Dawson: storyteller, but marrying
Fiona Dawson: like updated policy with sharing someone's lived
Fiona Dawson: experience and you can help build intuition. Rachel, I can see you.
Joanne Lockwood: You're dying to get back in there. Come on. Go for it. No. I mean,
Rita Hallgató: I I love that Fiona brought that up because I recently read a
Rita Hallgató: report of a large global consulting
Rita Hallgató: firm. And I was I was going like
Rita Hallgató: nuts about it because they were talking about numbers.
Rita Hallgató: Right? Like D&I report was just all numbers. And here's a
Rita Hallgató: simple solution for for businesses. And, you know,
Rita Hallgató: just reflecting to and Fiona said, you know, the US military just
Rita Hallgató: just you know, quote unquote, needed to, you know, change their policy.
Rita Hallgató: How about if companies and corporates start
Rita Hallgató: reporting their inclusion numbers and not their, you know, this is
Rita Hallgató: the number of this type of person we have. This is the number of this
Rita Hallgató: type of person. So let's talk about, you know, what's the gender pay gap
Rita Hallgató: in your business? How many and what kind of policies have been
Rita Hallgató: implemented to ensure, you know, equality, equity, inclusion,
Rita Hallgató: etcetera? How do the carrier of members or underrepresented
Rita Hallgató: groups, track, etcetera? So, you know, let's not
Rita Hallgató: try and always talk about numbers, numbers, numbers, because it's almost like
Rita Hallgató: showing off like, oh, look at how diverse you are. But are you truly
Rita Hallgató: inclusive? Here's a simple solution that any company could do: ditch
Rita Hallgató: those reports and start talking about the type
Rita Hallgató: of policies that you implemented and the changes that you made so
Rita Hallgató: that your people, wherever they come from, can
Rita Hallgató: feel themselves and and included. And and I think the the
Rita Hallgató: US military is a good example of, you know, they could have talked about
Rita Hallgató: the numbers, but, the the true change
Rita Hallgató: came with a policy change. So we we know
Joanne Lockwood: we've talked about it already today that
Joanne Lockwood: diversity, inclusion, equity, belonging, all these kind of things, the
Joanne Lockwood: culture influences better outcomes for business.
Joanne Lockwood: We know that. It's been out there for for donkey's years. We know we know
Joanne Lockwood: this. But what we've also gotta recognize is the facts don't change people.
Joanne Lockwood: We still drive too fast. We still eat too much red meat. We drink too
Joanne Lockwood: much wine. Even though these things are bad for us, we shouldn't do it.
Joanne Lockwood: So for whatever reason, organizations aren't
Joanne Lockwood: seeing these kind of work initiatives or strategic
Joanne Lockwood: initiatives as being beneficial. And then we talked about the start ups
Joanne Lockwood: not seeing it as a as a something that they they can afford in the
Joanne Lockwood: early days. So how do we get businesses to to start to do
Joanne Lockwood: something? Because as I said, the facts don't change people. We we look at the
Joanne Lockwood: World Economic Forum as talking around a 160 odd years for gender equity in
Joanne Lockwood: the in the in the workplace in the western world. If you look at the
Joanne Lockwood: globally, it's sort 250 years, I think, when you include China and the Middle East
Joanne Lockwood: and those sort of places. We have to encourage those with the
Joanne Lockwood: power, those with the privilege, which this is pick a
Joanne Lockwood: pick a a demographic out of their head. This is straight white men as a
Joanne Lockwood: as an example who often hold the power and privilege. How do we get
Joanne Lockwood: them to enable the change? Because you can you can stand on the outside of
Joanne Lockwood: the castle banging the door down all you like, unless someone's prepared to open
Joanne Lockwood: it for you and welcome you in. How do how do we get how do
Joanne Lockwood: we get people who hold those privileges to to open the door, to have the
Joanne Lockwood: conversation? They're scared. They don't know what to do. They're worried
Joanne Lockwood: about being marginalized themselves. You wanna go first or you want me? I'm
Fiona Dawson: ready. Go on then. Jo for it. I I just say 2 words,
Rita Hallgató: and then I'll let you go. And by like, I think it's simple by building
Rita Hallgató: empathy and and and compassion. I think that's
Rita Hallgató: the very first step. Yeah. And I
Fiona Dawson: sorry. Have you have I got interrupted you? Okay. Good. I
Fiona Dawson: think to build on what Risha said, like, and how you do that
Fiona Dawson: is to help straight white men see themselves as diverse because they
Fiona Dawson: are diverse. We all are diverse.
Fiona Dawson: There's not it's not like straight white cisgender men versus
Fiona Dawson: everybody else. Like that's the approach we've been
Fiona Dawson: taking, going back to all the numbers. Like if you're, you know, we've created an
Fiona Dawson: environment where straight white cis men feel like they're left out of this conversation and
Fiona Dawson: their shit, and we need to change that
Fiona Dawson: experiences that are beneath their surface that no one is talking about.
Fiona Dawson: And that doesn't mean that we're leaving all the marginalized people behind.
Fiona Dawson: What it means is that we're opening and we're making the table
Fiona Dawson: bigger for everybody to get there, you know, and
Fiona Dawson: help like that straight white cis man has faced adversity
Fiona Dawson: too. And now we've created an environment where if that man
Fiona Dawson: wants to share his story, he's feeling
Fiona Dawson: like he's been told to go sit in the corner and be quiet, and
Fiona Dawson: it's making it worse. Not only does he face adversity, but
Fiona Dawson: maybe he has kids who have, or parents or other family
Fiona Dawson: members. And so that's why I think that we need
Fiona Dawson: to share everybody's story, including the straight white cis
Fiona Dawson: Joanne. And those people who were in power and leadership,
Fiona Dawson: I'll give them the opportunity to be able to
Fiona Dawson: lead and include everybody without
Fiona Dawson: feeling like they're not included in that work.
Fiona Dawson: And, and the 4 steps that I feel that you go through is like self
Fiona Dawson: awareness. So every human, if we could
Fiona Dawson: all increase our self awareness and if that straight
Fiona Dawson: white cis man can help increase his own self awareness too,
Fiona Dawson: and then it's awareness of others. Because once you've worked on yourself, it's
Fiona Dawson: easier to understand and work with other
Fiona Dawson: people. And then it's, courageous
Fiona Dawson: action and collaboration. But you're more likely to take courageous
Fiona Dawson: action collaboration if you've done your own work. And to get a tiny
Fiona Dawson: little bit woo woo here is like elevating consciousness
Fiona Dawson: and realizing the spirituality that we all share
Fiona Dawson: and that everything is going to be okay. Like,
Fiona Dawson: another analogy for you, you know, when you like Jo off on an
Fiona Dawson: airplane and like say down, down on the ground, as I know in the
Fiona Dawson: UK, it's raining a lot and you've
Fiona Dawson: got this cold cloud cover and you've got all
Fiona Dawson: this grotty weather on the bottom. But when you get on a plane and you
Fiona Dawson: go through those clouds, it's always, if it's the
Fiona Dawson: daytime, it's always gorgeous blue sky and gorgeous blue
Fiona Dawson: sunshine. And it's like all the joy and the prettiness that we see
Fiona Dawson: And that joy and prettiness never disappears just because of the
Fiona Dawson: layer of cloud. And so just being mindful of that and remembering that
Fiona Dawson: we don't have to take ourselves and each other quite so
Fiona Dawson: seriously, like all these stories that we make up in our minds.
Fiona Dawson: You know, we're born to love and that's what we should do in and outside
Fiona Dawson: of the workplace. I love that analogy. I love the idea because, yeah, I was
Joanne Lockwood: I flew to San Francisco a couple of weeks ago, and you spend a lot
Joanne Lockwood: of your time above and above or at night when you see some beautiful
Joanne Lockwood: stars out there as well. So, yeah, I love that analogy. And I think what
Joanne Lockwood: you're saying there is it it's emotional intelligence 101 really,
Joanne Lockwood: isn't it? Self awareness, the awareness of others,
Joanne Lockwood: connecting, collaborating. That's that's what we're talking about. Jo,
Joanne Lockwood: Rita, what's your vision of the future? Yeah. Are we are we
Joanne Lockwood: gonna make a difference between us? I hope so. I I mean, I'd
Rita Hallgató: like to see today when all companies have
Rita Hallgató: truly inclusive and diverse boards and senior leadership
Rita Hallgató: teams who will be the champion of inclusion and acceptance.
Rita Hallgató: Are we gonna get there in the next decade? Maybe not. But
Rita Hallgató: I do believe that at some point, you know, we're we're gonna get closer to
Rita Hallgató: that. And so I'm going to, you know, do everything
Rita Hallgató: in my power in order to to to truly
Rita Hallgató: build inclusion and and and equality in the world, which,
Rita Hallgató: you know, I think including more people and being more
Rita Hallgató: inclusive doesn't mean excluding others. And and
Rita Hallgató: and I believe, you know, we can do this work,
Rita Hallgató: build inclusion by remaining still positive and and
Rita Hallgató: being on that, you know, upper up above that blue sky, and no one needs
Rita Hallgató: to feel, that, you know, they are under those gray
Rita Hallgató: clouds. So, yeah, I I hope so. I
Joanne Lockwood: like that. You we we we gotta recognize we can't build
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion by excluding and leaving people behind.
Joanne Lockwood: This is a this is a we thing. This is a together thing. It's a
Joanne Lockwood: collaboration thing. I'm a great believer that EDI, D&I,
Joanne Lockwood: whatever acronym you wanna use, is a cut it's a collaborative
Joanne Lockwood: sport, not a competitive sport, because it it's about combining
Joanne Lockwood: our resources to to everybody succeeds, not trying
Joanne Lockwood: to succeed ahead of somebody else. So, yeah, I I love that.
Joanne Lockwood: Fiona, what's your what's your vision here? Where are we where's the
Joanne Lockwood: world going? I was like, I know we're gonna get there because I'm
Fiona Dawson: seemingly positive. And I hopefully it will be before I'm 90
Fiona Dawson: years old. Jo we'll
Fiona Dawson: see. But no, I, I do. I, I think that we
Fiona Dawson: are truly living in a very fascinating time
Fiona Dawson: in, I don't want to say history, but in time of the
Fiona Dawson: world, like, I just think it's really cool that
Fiona Dawson: I think big systemic changes happening. I think it's for the
Fiona Dawson: betterment of societies, but it's extremely
Fiona Dawson: challenging to go through that. And like, like Rita said, like, I will
Fiona Dawson: do everything in this lifetime
Fiona Dawson: to do what I can to help build a world of
Fiona Dawson: equity. I know that I have been born with many privileges
Fiona Dawson: and I see myself as called to use the privilege that
Fiona Dawson: I have to be able to help other people. And I
Fiona Dawson: see good. I I think it's happening. Gonna be a bumpy road. It is a
Fiona Dawson: bumpy road, but absolutely. Being committed and, you know, I think,
Joanne Lockwood: you know, we we look at some of the leadership models. 1 of them is
Joanne Lockwood: one of the things is is commitment to the objectives. Commitment is is
Joanne Lockwood: a we need to have courageous conversations. We need to stand up for what we
Joanne Lockwood: believe in because there will be people who wanna push back, and that is
Joanne Lockwood: is having that strength of character. I think the thing we can do as
Joanne Lockwood: as consumers is we can vote with our pound or our dollar or our
Joanne Lockwood: cent or whatever currency and make sure we're amplifying
Joanne Lockwood: businesses that support our own values and our own brand ethics.
Joanne Lockwood: So even if we can't change the incumbents, we can make sure
Joanne Lockwood: the next generation sprout the green shoots we want to
Joanne Lockwood: see. And then the the other organizations will will
Joanne Lockwood: wither on the vine and become less relevant. You know? Yeah. There's there's
Joanne Lockwood: monolithic companies of the past. We've only got to see what's happened to this
Joanne Lockwood: the Twitter share price over the last, year or so to to
Joanne Lockwood: realize that hate doesn't doesn't sell. Yes. It maybe
Joanne Lockwood: there is a people who who will finance hate, but, fundamentally, it doesn't
Joanne Lockwood: win. Hate never wins. I just because cooking pushing
Joanne Lockwood: that pushing that fight. Wow. For my first,
Joanne Lockwood: threesome, my my my my amorous podcast here. I probably remember How
Fiona Dawson: was it for you? It it was it was it was fascinating. We're all in
Joanne Lockwood: different countries and different time zones. Well, I know I suppose Rita and myself, we're
Joanne Lockwood: in the same time zone, same country at the moment, but, the electrons are flying
Joanne Lockwood: around the world. Jo, Rita, how do we get a hold of you? How do
Joanne Lockwood: we find out more about what you do? I mean, I'm
Rita Hallgató: mostly on LinkedIn. People can find me on LinkedIn and, you know, I I do
Rita Hallgató: have a website too, but usually LinkedIn is the easiest. Rita Hallgató, although
Rita Hallgató: my surname is not easiest to to remember.
Rita Hallgató: But, yeah, I'm I'm on LinkedIn. I'm quite active there. And
Rita Hallgató: then, you know, Fiona and I are collaborating together on
Rita Hallgató: on, on different things. So we often talk together on
Rita Hallgató: things. And yeah. So that's that's where where I'm
Rita Hallgató: accessible at most. Fabulous,
Joanne Lockwood: and Fiona So on
Fiona Dawson: LinkedIn, Fiona like the princess, Dawson like Dawson's Creek, I
Fiona Dawson: think my LinkedIn URL is, like, free lion, so I'm easy to find there.
Fiona Dawson: And then the website, free lion productions.com, and we have a
Fiona Dawson: page, for Rita and I's collaboration. So you can read
Fiona Dawson: about us there and find Rita there as well. And there's also a page
Fiona Dawson: of my filmography, so you can see an example of, like, the docs that I've
Fiona Dawson: done and the animation and that kind of stuff. Jo, and
Fiona Dawson: email, fiona@freelionproductions.com. Thank you so
Joanne Lockwood: much, Peri. I've really enjoyed this conversation. As we
Joanne Lockwood: bring this conversation to a close, I want to express my
Joanne Lockwood: deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lending
Joanne Lockwood: your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion. If
Joanne Lockwood: today's discussion struck a chord, consider subscribing to
Joanne Lockwood: Inclusion Bites and become part of our ever growing
Joanne Lockwood: community, driving real change. Share this journey with
Joanne Lockwood: friends, family, and colleagues. Let's amplify the voices
Joanne Lockwood: that matter. Got thoughts, stories, or a
Joanne Lockwood: vision to share? I'm all ears. Reach out to jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: And let's make your voice heard. Until next time. This
Joanne Lockwood: is Joanne Lockwood signing off for the promise to return
Joanne Lockwood: with more enriching narratives that challenge, inspire,
Joanne Lockwood: and unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world,
Joanne Lockwood: one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.