Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your
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Joanne Lockwood: Lockwood, your guide on this journey of exploration into the
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Joanne Lockwood: 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 130
Joanne Lockwood: with the title, from tech to d and I
Joanne Lockwood: transformation. And I have the absolute honor and privilege to welcome
Joanne Lockwood: Toby Mildon. Toby is a workplace inclusion specialist.
Joanne Lockwood: And when I asked Toby to describe his superpower, he said
Joanne Lockwood: that he takes the scariness out of EDI
Joanne Lockwood: and makes it practical and easy to implement.
Joanne Lockwood: Hello, Toby. Welcome to the show. Hi, Joanne. Thanks
Toby Mildon: for inviting me along. It's lovely to be with you today. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: We met. I think we met many years ago at the
Joanne Lockwood: National Cybersecurity Centre near Victoria in London, didn't we? No. I think that's
Joanne Lockwood: first time we actually met in person. Yeah. It was donkeys years ago,
Toby Mildon: and then I think I realized that we we're also both
Toby Mildon: fellows of the Royal Society of Arts, so I spotted
Toby Mildon: you on their website or that, you know, they've got a database
Toby Mildon: don't they of of Yeah. Fellows and, yeah, and then
Toby Mildon: we I know that we've had several cups of tea at RSA House
Toby Mildon: in London. We have. Yeah. We have. That was
Joanne Lockwood: PC, wasn't it? Pre COVID, So back in the old days. That that was
Toby Mildon: pre COVID when it was perfectly acceptable to meet somebody for a cup of
Toby Mildon: coffee. Yeah. It was. Now we Yeah. Now we have to socially distance
Joanne Lockwood: all. We do it online or do it on Zoom. Yeah. So, Toby,
Joanne Lockwood: tech to DNI transformation. Tell me more about what you do
Joanne Lockwood: and how you take the scariness out of EDI. Yeah. So
Toby Mildon: that scariness out of EDI actually was some feedback that we received
Toby Mildon: recently from 1 of our clients. They said that
Toby Mildon: we we take a lot of the the anxiety and the fear out
Toby Mildon: of talking about EDI, which we see a lot
Toby Mildon: with senior leaders and businesses. They're they're they're worried about saying
Toby Mildon: the wrong thing, causing offense, causing embarrassment. They're
Toby Mildon: concerned about a cancel culture, particularly if they're a senior leader
Toby Mildon: where they where they have got status in the organization.
Toby Mildon: But in terms of tech to DNI transformation, I
Toby Mildon: think it's based on my personal experience, which is
Toby Mildon: similar to yours, really, and that when I left university, I spent
Toby Mildon: the first half of my career working in technology
Toby Mildon: and working on tech transformation projects. So I was
Toby Mildon: an IT consultant for Accenture. I then moved into health care
Toby Mildon: technology, implementing software into hospitals, and
Toby Mildon: ended up at the BBC as a technical project manager on the
Toby Mildon: redevelopment of the news website, the development of what is now the
Toby Mildon: BBC Sounds app, and lots of accessibility
Toby Mildon: projects. And then I pivoted my career when
Toby Mildon: I was at the BBC. I mean, between you and me, I was I was
Toby Mildon: getting a bit bored working on websites and apps, and I used to
Toby Mildon: work really closely with the management team of our of our technology
Toby Mildon: and engineering department. And they were concerned at the time about
Toby Mildon: the gender imbalance that that we had in tech compared to the
Toby Mildon: rest of the BBC where there was a a bit more of an even gender
Toby Mildon: split. And they created a plan to get more women
Toby Mildon: into technology, initially, and they needed a project
Toby Mildon: manager to run that plan. And I put my hand
Toby Mildon: up and volunteered to do that. It started off as a part
Toby Mildon: time job, 1 day a week, and then I quickly
Toby Mildon: realized it was actually a full time occupation. There were some really valuable
Toby Mildon: lessons. I I quickly learned that diversity was
Toby Mildon: was much bigger than women in engineering, that
Toby Mildon: there are many other aspects to diversity that needed addressing
Toby Mildon: in the corporation. And, yeah, and so that that's how
Toby Mildon: my transition happened. Yeah. I I
Joanne Lockwood: had a similar epiphany. I think when I started doing this work around
Joanne Lockwood: EDI, I thought it was all about me when I started, all about this
Joanne Lockwood: 1 sort of micro bit, and then you realize it's actually about everybody.
Joanne Lockwood: And I was the phrase I always say is if everybody
Joanne Lockwood: can succeed, everybody is welcome, everyone can thrive, I'm
Joanne Lockwood: part of everybody. So that benefits me and people and all people.
Joanne Lockwood: And we don't need to narrow it down just to 1 specific strand
Joanne Lockwood: or thread or characteristic, and it's important to create the
Joanne Lockwood: culture where everyone can succeed, isn't it? Yeah. I think a lot
Toby Mildon: of organizations, though, begin with those single strands, unfortunately.
Toby Mildon: It's 1 of the misconceptions that I think you and I need to bust in
Toby Mildon: the work that we do. There's there seems to be this kind of
Toby Mildon: siloed thinking or certainly a hierarchical approach to
Toby Mildon: EDI. So a lot of organizations say, yeah. We've got an EDI
Toby Mildon: strategy. Our focus right now is on gender or
Toby Mildon: even they might even say, well, it's women in technology or or women
Toby Mildon: on boards. You know, they they really narrow it down, and and
Toby Mildon: next quarter, we'll be focusing on people of an ethnic minority
Toby Mildon: background. And then the year after next, we're going to save the whales, and
Toby Mildon: then we may eventually get around to disability. We're not sure yet because we
Toby Mildon: we're not sure that disability is a priority. So we have those
Toby Mildon: kinds of conversations. And like you say, actually, inclusion is
Toby Mildon: is a lot more holistic because we are all diverse. We're
Toby Mildon: we're we're based in the UK. We live in a very diverse country.
Toby Mildon: Diversity exists on our doorstep. It's a conscious
Toby Mildon: act about whether or not we allow that diversity into our
Toby Mildon: organizations. And so, therefore, like, the work the
Toby Mildon: conversations that I like to have with my clients is how can we shift
Toby Mildon: towards making sure that we're creating equity? Because once
Toby Mildon: we've created that equity, then we can make sure that we've got a quality of
Toby Mildon: opportunity. Then we can focus on building that culture
Toby Mildon: of respect, inclusion, and belonging. And
Toby Mildon: at that point, we're going to be in a much better position to attract, recruit,
Toby Mildon: and retain diverse talent in the organization, which is
Toby Mildon: the ultimate goal for many organizations. Yeah. I think part of the problem
Joanne Lockwood: sometimes is we're we're using our own biases and stereotypes
Joanne Lockwood: and perceptions of people or individuals to make an
Joanne Lockwood: assumption around their challenge. Yeah. People
Joanne Lockwood: maybe look at me and my particular identity and characteristic and make an assumption
Joanne Lockwood: as to what what matters to me or what I think is important. I'm
Joanne Lockwood: sure you get faced with people who look at you and say, I think I
Joanne Lockwood: know what Toby's challenges are. But really beneath the surface,
Joanne Lockwood: our challenges are subtly different than what people expect, aren't they? Definitely.
Toby Mildon: I mean, people people look at me with a physical disability
Toby Mildon: using an electric wheelchair, and, yeah, you're right. They make all sorts of
Toby Mildon: assumptions. 1 1 of my diversity heroes is Verna
Toby Mildon: Myers. She was 1 of the her books was 1 of the first books that
Toby Mildon: I read when I was entering the EDI space,
Toby Mildon: and she so and if anyone doesn't know Werner, she's an American
Toby Mildon: lawyer by background. She was until recently head of
Toby Mildon: diversity inclusion at Netflix. She's done a couple of really good TED
Toby Mildon: Talks. 1 of her TED Talks is called Leaning Into Our Biases, and
Toby Mildon: in that, she says that our biases are the stories that we make up about
Toby Mildon: people before we get to know them. And I just I I love using that
Toby Mildon: definition with clients because it's just so easy to understand.
Toby Mildon: And what she's getting at is that you're right. It's these the
Toby Mildon: stereotypes, the assumptions, or the presumptions that people
Toby Mildon: make about you on the surface without really getting to know
Toby Mildon: who you really are. Yeah. I'd say 1 of the biggest terms I have
Joanne Lockwood: is being left handed. You know, that excludes me for far
Joanne Lockwood: more in life than being trans, you know, being left handed. You know? Yeah. I
Joanne Lockwood: often talk about it. You know? You can't see that in me, but yet it's
Joanne Lockwood: been a barrier all of my life. Yeah. I've had to adapt and overcome
Joanne Lockwood: by being kind of ambidextrous. Yeah. I like that left handed
Toby Mildon: example because 1 of the metaphor is it a
Toby Mildon: metaphor that I use? It's the diversity iceberg. So you can
Toby Mildon: see 10% of the iceberg poking above the waterline and the these are
Toby Mildon: all visible characteristics. But 90% of the iceberg is
Toby Mildon: hidden beneath the waterline, and these are our kind of invisible,
Toby Mildon: non apparent characteristics, and often they're not the
Toby Mildon: traditional types of diversity that we might think about. It's other
Toby Mildon: like you say, it's other things like, are you left handed or right handed? The
Toby Mildon: world has been made mostly for right handed people, so
Toby Mildon: there's a bias there in terms of right handedness, but it could all be other
Toby Mildon: things. Are you an introvert? Are you an extrovert? Did you grow up in the
Toby Mildon: countryside or in the middle of the city? These you know, all of these
Toby Mildon: things shape our outlook on life, our experiences,
Toby Mildon: and and things like that. Yeah. I think what you've you picked
Joanne Lockwood: up on there is if do you fall into the default, yeah, in
Joanne Lockwood: people's blinkers, in people's mindsets? You know? I'm
Joanne Lockwood: in a arguably, a same sex relationship. It's almost impossible to
Joanne Lockwood: find mainstream greetings cards from Sainsbury's or, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, Clinton's or something like that. You walk in and say, I wanna find a
Joanne Lockwood: a card for my wife on Valentine's or for her birthday. And it's
Joanne Lockwood: all cishetronormative imagery. I've got a
Joanne Lockwood: friend who is is black, and he finds it extremely difficult to
Joanne Lockwood: find Christmas cards or greetings cards with black representation on it. It's
Joanne Lockwood: all white imagery, and you think it's these little things where you're you
Joanne Lockwood: don't fit into that default category. And I'm not gonna use the word normal. It's
Joanne Lockwood: just the default in people's heads that you become unconsciously
Joanne Lockwood: excluded when people aren't thinking about your need. Yeah. And
Toby Mildon: that that those are really good examples of how
Toby Mildon: products have been designed out of bias. So
Toby Mildon: the people that are designing those greeting cards have
Toby Mildon: their own innate biases and they're just not thinking
Toby Mildon: about the diverse representation of characters on
Toby Mildon: greetings cards, and we see it everywhere. We see it in TV
Toby Mildon: programs, film, books.
Toby Mildon: A tiny proportion of children's
Toby Mildon: books include disabled characters
Toby Mildon: or characters who are are not white, basically.
Toby Mildon: And if you're a kid and you're reading these books, it's sending you a
Toby Mildon: message that it is kind of creating the uttering message. It's
Toby Mildon: it's saying you you're different. And
Toby Mildon: yeah. Yeah. And, was it somebody said to me the other day, there's a famous
Toby Mildon: quote, you can't be what you can't see, and that's why
Toby Mildon: it's important that we make sure that we've got
Toby Mildon: diversity in organizations. Because if you, you know, if you if you're
Toby Mildon: aspiring to get to the top of your industry or the top of your
Toby Mildon: company, if you don't have those rumble, you you
Toby Mildon: you can't be what you can't see. Yeah. And that feeds
Joanne Lockwood: into sort of like the, the environmental class
Joanne Lockwood: of microaggression where you don't see yourself represented in the
Joanne Lockwood: media, in imagery, in the world. Therefore,
Joanne Lockwood: you're constantly oppressed by being an
Joanne Lockwood: outsider or other, aren't you? Yeah. And and you start to
Toby Mildon: internalize those biases. So when I did my first
Toby Mildon: unconscious bias training when I was working at the BBC as as a participant,
Toby Mildon: not not as a trainer, I I did the Harvard Implicit
Toby Mildon: Association test, and I found out that I was mildly biased
Toby Mildon: against disabled people, which I was
Toby Mildon: shocked about initially. And then when I started
Toby Mildon: looking into why I had this bias, I could
Toby Mildon: understand my own internalised ableism because
Toby Mildon: I've grown up in a world that's been designed
Toby Mildon: largely by non disabled people. As a disabled peers person, I've
Toby Mildon: had to kind of fit into that mold. And growing up, there was
Toby Mildon: just a lack of visible disabled role models
Toby Mildon: in high up in business, in politics, in
Toby Mildon: education, in the film, TV,
Toby Mildon: books that I read. When I worked for the BBC,
Toby Mildon: we we did some research, and we found out that
Toby Mildon: disabled people were more likely to be portrayed as
Toby Mildon: villains, victims, and heroes than non disabled people. So
Toby Mildon: I grew up thinking that disabled people would either
Toby Mildon: become a a Paralympic hero, a James Bond villain because most of
Toby Mildon: them have a disability or or it's some form of disfigurement or
Toby Mildon: a benefit cheat because those were the messages that the British
Toby Mildon: media were putting out into society, and
Toby Mildon: and these messages then enter the back of your brain as this
Toby Mildon: secret silent script, which then influences
Toby Mildon: how you interact with people in adult life.
Toby Mildon: In my case, it it means that I've got this mild bias
Toby Mildon: against disabled people. It's interesting you mentioned James Bond. I I
Joanne Lockwood: often use the James Bond analogy in in all my train that I
Joanne Lockwood: deliver, and it is. You know? We we define James Bond,
Joanne Lockwood: the character, as good, ideal, protector,
Joanne Lockwood: white male, straight, womanizer, hero,
Joanne Lockwood: perfect body figure, and then he's a the baddie
Joanne Lockwood: always has some kind of disability or facial disfigurement or a
Joanne Lockwood: foreign accent or what all these stereotypes kick in. This is
Joanne Lockwood: good. This is bad. And it's no wonder. And then we we did the same
Joanne Lockwood: with Disney and female and young women portrayal.
Joanne Lockwood: This is good. This is bad. This is how women behave. This is how men
Joanne Lockwood: behave. And we get bombarded with this all the time, don't we? Yeah. We
Toby Mildon: do. We do. And and it shapes it shapes our
Toby Mildon: biases, and our
Toby Mildon: biases are formed through the cultures that we grow up
Toby Mildon: in the grow up in and the experiences that we have,
Toby Mildon: and it affects us on 3 levels. It affects us
Toby Mildon: in how we think and how we feel and how we act,
Toby Mildon: and it's a lot harder for us to change the way that we
Toby Mildon: think. So our focus really needs to be on
Toby Mildon: how we act and and to change our behaviors to be more We've
Joanne Lockwood: seen a a lot. I'd say the last 18 months, I've
Joanne Lockwood: seen it a lot more. There seems to be this pushback against
Joanne Lockwood: wokeism for whatever that may mean. Yeah. It's almost
Joanne Lockwood: like people who have been marginalized for generations
Joanne Lockwood: have finally started to achieve equity in society, in
Joanne Lockwood: the workplace, and their lives. And now people are saying, hang
Joanne Lockwood: on. We've gone too far. What about me? What about what about me, the
Joanne Lockwood: able-bodied white person? I'm being left behind. Yeah. And
Toby Mildon: we're getting this pushback because it's threatening
Toby Mildon: to them. There's a lot of people who think that if they don't
Toby Mildon: tick I'll be quite blunt with you, you know, if they if they don't tick
Toby Mildon: a diversity box or boxes, that they
Toby Mildon: will be at a disadvantage, that somebody will overtake them
Toby Mildon: in their career. That's not what we're trying to
Toby Mildon: accomplish as as, you know, as per as
Toby Mildon: the professionals that you and I are. I think we're we're on a
Toby Mildon: mission to create more equity in society. And what do we
Toby Mildon: mean by equity? It's about seeing the individual,
Toby Mildon: understanding what disadvantages they do have, and
Toby Mildon: trying to close the gap so that we do create that equality. Because we
Toby Mildon: we don't we don't have equality out of the box, unfortunately.
Toby Mildon: You know, we live in a society where there isn't equality, so we
Toby Mildon: need to focus on closing the gap. And that that means starting with equity
Toby Mildon: and giving people the resources and the support that they need
Toby Mildon: to actually help them compete on a level playing field because we
Toby Mildon: we're not competing on a level playing field at the moment. Oh, this is also
Joanne Lockwood: this myth of meritocracy, isn't it? And I again, to to quote
Joanne Lockwood: some government rhetoric, and I've heard it from
Joanne Lockwood: the the new government before they got in and the old government in the UK.
Joanne Lockwood: Because we're this episode recorded just just post the general election.
Joanne Lockwood: Where's this is this belief or that this mantra around they
Joanne Lockwood: wanna promote and support hardworking family? What is a
Joanne Lockwood: hardworking family? I mean, we we that that's laser with
Joanne Lockwood: bias and meritocracy and stereotyping and
Joanne Lockwood: trying to create pictures in people head of what a not hardworking
Joanne Lockwood: family is, a family that wants to work, but calm, or whatever it may
Joanne Lockwood: be. Yeah. So it's meritocracy, belief, and myth is is
Joanne Lockwood: rampant in all areas of society. It is. It is. And
Toby Mildon: there's a lot of organizations that say, well, we have a culture
Toby Mildon: of meritocracy. That kind kind of comment
Toby Mildon: usually comes from the in group or the majority group
Toby Mildon: who do believe that there is meritocracy because their experience
Toby Mildon: is that there's fairness, that there's equality, that the best
Toby Mildon: person gets the job. But what they don't understand or they I
Toby Mildon: I just don't think it's in that kind of sphere of awareness yet.
Toby Mildon: This, you know, this is a lot about the work that you and I do
Toby Mildon: is that there are people in an organization that don't share that same
Toby Mildon: experience, that don't have the same type of
Toby Mildon: privileges that the in group has
Toby Mildon: had, whether that's access to education, speaking
Toby Mildon: English as a first language. There's a whole number of privileges that
Toby Mildon: we hold that that, yeah, that create that. And I think talking about
Toby Mildon: privilege, a lot of people get quite defensive about it as a
Toby Mildon: topic because a lot of people think, well, you know, I had to
Toby Mildon: work really hard to get to where I am now to my
Toby Mildon: position in the company. And thing is nobody's disputing
Toby Mildon: that. You you you did work hard to get to your current
Toby Mildon: position. The thing is there's about it's about having an understanding
Toby Mildon: that not everyone was gifted with certain things
Toby Mildon: in life that helped accelerate that journey.
Toby Mildon: So I'll just give you a personal example. Like, I've got somebody
Toby Mildon: on my team who's got the same disability as me.
Toby Mildon: Thing is I grew up in the UK. He grew up in South Africa.
Toby Mildon: And my privileges are that I grew up in the UK where
Toby Mildon: English is my first language, where I have access to free health
Toby Mildon: care, access to free education. The NHS has saved my
Toby Mildon: life for more than 1 occasion, and the health care that I've received from
Toby Mildon: the NHS has enabled me to go off to university and get
Toby Mildon: good jobs and things like that. Whereas my colleague growing up in South Africa
Toby Mildon: didn't have the same access to education as I had. He didn't
Toby Mildon: have the same level of qualifications, which held him back. It meant that he
Toby Mildon: wasn't able to access employment, didn't have access to the same
Toby Mildon: type of health care as well because they have an insurance system over in
Toby Mildon: South Africa. It's very expensive to have the spinal surgery
Toby Mildon: that that we've both had. So
Toby Mildon: just the very fact that I was born in the UK, which I had no
Toby Mildon: choice over, that was outside of my control, has actually
Toby Mildon: afforded me many advantages that have effectively
Toby Mildon: given me a leg up in life. And that's what we when
Toby Mildon: we talk about privileges privilege, that's what we're really talking about here.
Toby Mildon: It's about the the gifts that you've been given
Toby Mildon: that help you that help give you a leg up. Yeah. I I
Joanne Lockwood: often talk about privilege being a bit like a pension fund.
Joanne Lockwood: The earlier you've paid into it, the more it's worth as you go
Joanne Lockwood: through life. And your friend, his pension pot didn't
Joanne Lockwood: start accruing value until maybe his thirties,
Joanne Lockwood: twenties thirties. Your privilege meant that you were
Joanne Lockwood: depositing into your pension fund from from year 1.
Joanne Lockwood: So therefore, no matter how much this person now has
Joanne Lockwood: some of the privileges of society, you will never catch
Joanne Lockwood: up or they'll never catch up to you because you paid in 30 years earlier,
Joanne Lockwood: and you'll you've accrued more privilege as a result of that.
Toby Mildon: And I think that's what we've got to remember is that, also, privilege is not
Joanne Lockwood: around that you can't succeed. It's just
Joanne Lockwood: harder to succeed because of and part of your identity
Joanne Lockwood: or upbringing or characteristic. Yeah. I I'm yeah. I really like the
Toby Mildon: way that you put it. If it's okay with you, I'll I'll pinch that and
Toby Mildon: use that with some of the conversations that I have with with companies. Feel
Joanne Lockwood: free. No. I I mean, quote me all you like. I'm happy to be quoted.
Joanne Lockwood: So yeah. But, yeah, it it is. It's it's that's the challenge. I you know,
Joanne Lockwood: III saw something once at someone else's quirk. I remember who it
Joanne Lockwood: is now. That when you're used to privilege,
Joanne Lockwood: equality feels like oppression. And I think that backs up what you were saying where
Joanne Lockwood: people are so used to breathing in the air around them. They don't see
Joanne Lockwood: how smoggy it is a mile away or when
Joanne Lockwood: they're looking down. And I saw another great analogy where it's a
Joanne Lockwood: it's a it's a if it's a it's a it's a terrain map.
Joanne Lockwood: People with privilege are on top of the mountain looking down.
Joanne Lockwood: Everything looks a very short, small distance. When you're at the bottom of the mountain
Joanne Lockwood: looking up, everything is enormous. The valleys,
Joanne Lockwood: the the navigation between 2 points is is extreme, whereas you when
Joanne Lockwood: you're at the top, it looks like 1 step across. So, again, it's your
Joanne Lockwood: perspective on your environment also. Is
Joanne Lockwood: is it impacted by by your privilege and and your your
Joanne Lockwood: your your status in society? Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I agree. But you mentioned right
Joanne Lockwood: at the beginning around this fear of getting it wrong,
Joanne Lockwood: this saying doing the wrong thing, and it creates this paralysis.
Joanne Lockwood: And, you know, I when I do surveys in my training and my
Joanne Lockwood: speaking sessions, 1 of the biggest barriers is the fear of getting it
Joanne Lockwood: wrong, and you you highlighted there as something you've observed. What what do you think
Joanne Lockwood: causes the fear, and what do you think we can do to Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Take the scariness out of EDI, if you like? So a lot of the fear
Toby Mildon: of getting it wrong is damage to, I think, your reputation,
Toby Mildon: particularly with senior leaders. I've talked to a lot of senior leaders, I think,
Toby Mildon: where they're suffering from imposter syndrome.
Toby Mildon: III was working with a Fintech organization, and
Toby Mildon: we do a lot of EDI surveys, you know, where we go in and we
Toby Mildon: we ask employees how they feel in the business, whether they feel like
Toby Mildon: they're included or and whether they feel like they're included or that they belong or
Toby Mildon: not. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the
Toby Mildon: majority of people in the organization, regardless of identity,
Toby Mildon: said that they felt that they did belong in the in the organization
Toby Mildon: with the exception of LGBT colleagues.
Toby Mildon: And so we we took that that information back to 1 of the
Toby Mildon: company directors, and he said to me, that's
Toby Mildon: really interesting, but but who am I as a straight bloke
Toby Mildon: to be talking about LGBT matters in the in the
Toby Mildon: organization? So he didn't understand his role in it
Toby Mildon: and then after a conversation, he did understand the importance
Toby Mildon: of supporting and being an ally for LGBT stuff
Toby Mildon: even though he didn't identify as being LGBT himself. He, you know, he I
Toby Mildon: think there was a lot of fear about not understanding
Toby Mildon: LGBT matters using the right
Toby Mildon: language or the wrong language, that kind of thing. But after a conversation
Toby Mildon: with us, he did understand the importance because as as a company
Toby Mildon: director, he he's response helping to create the right culture in the
Toby Mildon: business and and and making LGBT staff feel like
Toby Mildon: they they belong. I think also in it's it's recognising how you can
Joanne Lockwood: use your privilege, isn't it? And I think that's what people are scared of. The
Joanne Lockwood: example I always use is the men allowed women to vote,
Joanne Lockwood: And that sounds quite provocative and offensive if I say that.
Joanne Lockwood: But that that was a reality in 1918. Men held all the seats
Joanne Lockwood: in parliament. Yeah. Men were the only people that could vote,
Joanne Lockwood: and it took an act of parliament by men, okay, with
Joanne Lockwood: pressure from suffragettes and women's movements to change the
Joanne Lockwood: law. So privilege has to open the door. So men
Joanne Lockwood: have to men have to tackle sexism. Able body people have
Joanne Lockwood: to tackle ableism. Straight people have to tackle
Joanne Lockwood: homophobia or or or transphobia or biphobia.
Joanne Lockwood: White people have to solve or tackle racism. So we need the people who
Joanne Lockwood: hold those privileges to open and to also make the change, don't we? And I
Joanne Lockwood: think Yeah. But often, I've I've seen situations. I
Joanne Lockwood: and there's a a person I know who who's a man who talks about
Joanne Lockwood: menopause. And I've seen people on LinkedIn, on Twitter
Joanne Lockwood: attack this person saying, well, you're a man. That's that's all women need, a man
Joanne Lockwood: talking about menopause. It's like, hang on a minute. We need to create awareness for
Joanne Lockwood: everybody here. Yeah. I think what you're talking about there is,
Toby Mildon: is quite important. You need you need people within
Toby Mildon: to enforce change from within,
Toby Mildon: so an inside out approach.
Toby Mildon: That's not gonna happen without outside in pressure.
Toby Mildon: So you were saying about, when women voting, the the
Toby Mildon: outside pressure was coming from suffragettes and, you know, other
Toby Mildon: movements. But like you say, that change would not have happened unless
Toby Mildon: there were people on the inside who were acting
Toby Mildon: as allies or sponsors, advocates of change.
Toby Mildon: And it does sadden me when you've got
Toby Mildon: people on LinkedIn who are advocates. So
Toby Mildon: you've got men, for example, who are raising the conversation
Toby Mildon: about menopause in the workplace, for example, and they are
Toby Mildon: being an ally and they're advocating for for support and change and things
Toby Mildon: like that, and then they're being attacked. That that does
Toby Mildon: sadden me. And it's not it it happens in in all
Toby Mildon: strands. It happens around LGBT rights. It
Toby Mildon: happens around championing disability rights and things like
Toby Mildon: that. That was that I think it was probably 18 months ago or
Joanne Lockwood: so, maybe even longer. There was, that incident with ladies
Joanne Lockwood: and Lady Susan Hussey and that the black charity
Joanne Lockwood: lady, Ngozi Filani. Lady Susan Hussey was a,
Joanne Lockwood: I think, part of our Queen's household or
Joanne Lockwood: something, and she kept asking this Ngozi, where where was she
Joanne Lockwood: from? Oh, yeah. I remember that. She got berated for it.
Joanne Lockwood: And I the thing I took away from it was
Joanne Lockwood: that education should have been the outcome,
Joanne Lockwood: not public vilification. Yeah. Yeah. My my criticism of the
Joanne Lockwood: Palace, excuse me, or the firm
Joanne Lockwood: was they weren't creating the right awareness training. They weren't equipping
Joanne Lockwood: their representative with the tools, if you like, to
Joanne Lockwood: converse cultural intelligence, we we would probably call it, wouldn't we,
Joanne Lockwood: around different people's identities and how to have
Joanne Lockwood: conversations that aren't necessarily triggering, but also recognizing
Joanne Lockwood: difference between intent and impact and then being accountable for that. That that's
Joanne Lockwood: what didn't really occur at the time. It was kind of a powering
Joanne Lockwood: on in the face of this, discomfort.
Toby Mildon: Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because I I do wonder if
Toby Mildon: we look at something like the royal family and
Toby Mildon: the palace or or the firm as as you put it,
Toby Mildon: I do wonder. They they probably don't approach EDI in
Toby Mildon: the same way that that businesses do.
Toby Mildon: And, yeah, I mean, they they are at the end, you know, they they should
Toby Mildon: operate like a like a business or an organization because they
Toby Mildon: are representing people. They should
Toby Mildon: probably go through the same type of training and and
Toby Mildon: have the same kind of EDI strategies as as you would
Toby Mildon: expect 1 of the FTSE 100 companies to have. Yeah. Because that they
Joanne Lockwood: they hold our global reputation in their in the
Joanne Lockwood: power of their words. And to be charitable, I I'd
Joanne Lockwood: like to think that the the current king and the slimmed down
Joanne Lockwood: monarchy or the slimmed down firm, to me,
Joanne Lockwood: tend to resonate with a more contemporary communication
Joanne Lockwood: style and openness and inclusion culture
Joanne Lockwood: that maybe the generations of the past. We we were probably stuck in the Victorian
Joanne Lockwood: era or the Edwardian era for too long. Yeah. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: But going back to the sort of fear of getting it wrong, so a lot
Joanne Lockwood: of it is the nervousness of, you know, as being responsible for big
Joanne Lockwood: organization, knowing full well that someone's gonna lambaste you for
Joanne Lockwood: those errors. Yeah. I've mentioned the phrase cultural intelligence just
Joanne Lockwood: now, but you you're probably well aware that that starts
Joanne Lockwood: with the drive. You know? That kind of I need to find out
Joanne Lockwood: more. I need to do better. But then how do we get people to to
Joanne Lockwood: to find that why, to find that drive in the first place? So the the
Toby Mildon: why is really important. And to to to borrow the words of
Toby Mildon: Simon Sinek, who wrote the book, start with
Toby Mildon: why. You have to begin with the why. And I think
Toby Mildon: if you're a senior leader, you need to identify 2 whys.
Toby Mildon: There's the why for your business, and then there's your why.
Toby Mildon: And your personal why is what's going to to motivate
Toby Mildon: you. Thinking about the business why, it's very easy for us to
Toby Mildon: kind of go on to Google or chat GBT and type in why is diversity
Toby Mildon: inclusion important to my business or my industry.
Toby Mildon: And you get back the generic responses like, wow.
Toby Mildon: It's good for profitability. It's good for employee engagement. It's good for decision
Toby Mildon: making. It's good for creativity creativity and innovation and
Toby Mildon: all that. And you can go out and you can read the the
Toby Mildon: the 4 I think it's 3 or 4 McKinsey reports now, which are
Toby Mildon: kind of the were worth reading about the business case behind
Toby Mildon: EDI. But you have to translate that into the
Toby Mildon: why for your business. So when I talk to people in
Toby Mildon: health care, very often, the why is about delivering better
Toby Mildon: patient outcomes, a safer health care service,
Toby Mildon: minimizing errors, and things like that. That that's the
Toby Mildon: why for health care, for example. When I worked for
Toby Mildon: a when I worked with a Fintech organisation, their why was
Toby Mildon: to expand their user base, so they primarily
Toby Mildon: worked with entrepreneurs by providing banking services
Toby Mildon: to entrepreneurs, and they they realized that entrepreneurs are a very diverse
Toby Mildon: bunch of people, and they wanted to speak to that audience, and they wanted to
Toby Mildon: grow their their user base. So the why,
Toby Mildon: you have to understand what your why is for your business
Toby Mildon: and then communicate that throughout the business.
Toby Mildon: Equally, you need to understand your personal why. Sometimes this
Toby Mildon: comes naturally to leaders that I talk to. So I talk to loads of
Toby Mildon: leaders who they'll they'll say to me, I'm really interested
Toby Mildon: in inclusion because my my
Toby Mildon: my kid has just come out as, you know, as gay,
Toby Mildon: for example, and they and and now
Toby Mildon: they're they're thinking about how their kid is gonna fit
Toby Mildon: into the workplace culture of the future,
Toby Mildon: or they might say, well, my kid's just been diagnosed with
Toby Mildon: with autism at school, and I'm worried about
Toby Mildon: whether they're going to be able to access employment in the future. So those senior
Toby Mildon: leaders are driven by or motivated by, say,
Toby Mildon: that kind of thing. But in the absence of that, I think it's really
Toby Mildon: important that you identify what your personal why is. It could
Toby Mildon: be a a values based why. It could be a practical
Toby Mildon: why. So yeah. It's almost I'm gonna use the
Joanne Lockwood: word sad that you have to have an event
Joanne Lockwood: that knocks or dents your privilege for you to realize that
Joanne Lockwood: you had the privilege in the first place, and now you're aware
Joanne Lockwood: of the needs of others. And Yeah. I say it's sad, but
Joanne Lockwood: I I've I also had that epiphany myself
Joanne Lockwood: some 10 years ago when I embarked on my own gender transition.
Joanne Lockwood: I suddenly got it. The world changed with that 1 act for
Joanne Lockwood: me. You you were obviously born into your
Joanne Lockwood: world and have experienced your why,
Joanne Lockwood: you know, your pension pot of privileges and, all discrimination has
Joanne Lockwood: been built up for many years. My mine suddenly arrived on my doorstep at
Joanne Lockwood: the age of 50. And I looked back and thought, wow. 50 years, I haven't
Joanne Lockwood: cared. And then you just gotta put that shame and guilt away and go, that
Joanne Lockwood: doesn't help anybody and go, can I do tomorrow? What can I do
Joanne Lockwood: today? What can I do right now? Yeah. Yeah. It's not until
Toby Mildon: something happens that's brings it into our sphere of awareness that
Toby Mildon: we that we take action. I think that that's for anything
Toby Mildon: in life. I think quite often we we sail through life,
Toby Mildon: for example, not thinking about our own health. So
Toby Mildon: we we drink things that we shouldn't be drinking.
Toby Mildon: We eat food that we shouldn't really be eating. We put on
Toby Mildon: weight. We live with that because it's not debilitating.
Toby Mildon: It's not healthy, but it's not debilitating. And then you have a heart
Toby Mildon: attack, and you end up in A and E, and the doctor says, oh, you
Toby Mildon: really should start looking after yourself. You really should start
Toby Mildon: eating healthily, and it takes an event like that to,
Toby Mildon: to knock you, and it it just shifts it from that kind of
Toby Mildon: other than consciousness into your consciousness. Consciousness is where the action
Toby Mildon: happens. Yeah. Is it? Yeah. Complete. And that and that's the fundamental reason
Joanne Lockwood: why McKinsey stats don't work. Accenture,
Joanne Lockwood: PwC, whatever stats you Deloitte's, whatever reports you're gonna read, they don't
Joanne Lockwood: work because we eat too much, we drink too much, we drive
Joanne Lockwood: too fast, we we touch things, we we poke around stuff that we
Joanne Lockwood: know we shouldn't, but we do. The facts don't change people. It
Joanne Lockwood: has to be something has to get through our armor,
Joanne Lockwood: into our psyche, into our consciousness to go,
Joanne Lockwood: now I get it. And that's the challenge, isn't it? Going from really
Joanne Lockwood: understanding, understanding your why, not just knowing
Joanne Lockwood: is the right thing to do. Well, the why has to be an emotional
Toby Mildon: connection, and this is something that Simon Sinek talks about. And
Toby Mildon: he he talks about how difficult it is
Toby Mildon: to connect with the why because it is an emotional thing. It's really
Toby Mildon: difficult for us to put the why into words. When you look
Toby Mildon: at his model, it's like a bull's eye chart. You know? So you've got
Toby Mildon: why in the middle, you've got how, and then you've got what on
Toby Mildon: the edge. And he says, the what is dead easy. And and
Toby Mildon: loads of people, they they know how to do the what. They get excited
Toby Mildon: by it. They just go ahead and they do loads of the what. They do
Toby Mildon: loads of stuff. And in terms of the world that you and I work in,
Toby Mildon: that looks like raising so running lots of
Toby Mildon: diversity and inclusion events and designing yeah, implementing lots
Toby Mildon: of EDI initiatives and things like that, and they get very excited by
Toby Mildon: by that without understanding, actually, what's
Toby Mildon: the strategy behind that, which is the how. Are we doing the right
Toby Mildon: things? Are we doing the things that are actually going to make a difference?
Toby Mildon: Are we getting good value for money? Are we gonna get a return on investment
Toby Mildon: with our activities? But in the middle, it's the
Toby Mildon: why, which is the emotional bit. That's really, really hard for us
Toby Mildon: to articulate because it's a feeling in a lot of
Toby Mildon: cases. Yeah. III and I also find it's a good challenge to people to say,
Joanne Lockwood: okay, you want to have gender greater equity, gender
Joanne Lockwood: greater parity. Why? Why is that? People
Joanne Lockwood: look at you as if say they're looking also looking at me as they say,
Joanne Lockwood: well, you should know. You're an idiot expert. You should know why. And I said,
Joanne Lockwood: I I do, but I I don't I need to know why you think it's
Joanne Lockwood: a good idea for your business and for you personally. Is it is
Joanne Lockwood: it just because when you're at the IOD dinner, you can
Joanne Lockwood: go, yeah, we're positive gender pay gap, or is it because you
Joanne Lockwood: actually believe it's gonna benefit your organization at all levels
Joanne Lockwood: and your customer experience and your shareholder value. And and
Joanne Lockwood: and not only that that as a reason, but
Joanne Lockwood: also understanding how it contributes to delivering that
Joanne Lockwood: ROI, isn't it? That's that's the important thing. Not just having this
Joanne Lockwood: balance sheet expectation of of success. Yeah.
Toby Mildon: Exactly. Okay. I'm going, yeah, going back to this this woke
Joanne Lockwood: anti wokeism pushback and, you know, this mood that we're we're seeing at the
Joanne Lockwood: moment, we'd part of part of the pushback often
Joanne Lockwood: is is organisations aren't realising this ROI, return
Joanne Lockwood: and inclusion, return on investment, however you wanna describe it. Why why is
Joanne Lockwood: that? Why aren't people realising the ROI? It's because they don't know
Toby Mildon: how to track it. I had a really interesting conversation. 1 of the first I
Toby Mildon: I've got my own podcast, and 1 of the first episodes I ever did
Toby Mildon: was with, Peter Cheese, who's the chief exec of
Toby Mildon: the CIPD, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Toby Mildon: And there was 1 thing that he said in that interview that really stuck with
Toby Mildon: me was that a lot of people working in HR are
Toby Mildon: lacking commercial skills. They don't know how to talk business
Toby Mildon: language. They don't know how to go to a board
Toby Mildon: meeting and speak business. And quite often, there's
Toby Mildon: AAA disconnect because board members are like,
Toby Mildon: oh, it's just that, you know, there's HR fluffy stuff. Like, let them get on
Toby Mildon: with the HR fluffy stuff. And then the HR people don't know how to
Toby Mildon: speak the the corporate commercial language.
Toby Mildon: Part of that is about your business case. And when
Toby Mildon: let me give you an example of, like, what I think what is really powerful.
Toby Mildon: I I do a lot of, like, ETI, you know, surveys with companies and things
Toby Mildon: like that. My favorite question is and I think
Toby Mildon: if I if I could just have 1 question in the survey,
Toby Mildon: like, this would be it. It's, are you thinking of leaving the
Toby Mildon: business in the next 6 months because you don't feel respected
Toby Mildon: for who you are or that you belong. And then you answer,
Toby Mildon: yes, yes, but for other reasons, maybe,
Toby Mildon: no, prefer not to say. And then what we do is we correlate
Toby Mildon: that to salary data, and we run that through our cost of
Toby Mildon: attrition algorithm, and we can calculate cost of
Toby Mildon: attrition. And just as an example, we'd we I did this with a
Toby Mildon: company, data company. They employed about
Toby Mildon: 900 peeps. Small number of people were seriously thinking of
Toby Mildon: leaving the business. And we ran it through the algorithm, and it would
Toby Mildon: potentially cost this organization 1 and a half £1, 000, 000.
Toby Mildon: So if you take that number to a CFO and you say, look. We
Toby Mildon: got 1 and a half £1, 000, 000 on the table. Should I just throw
Toby Mildon: that out the window, Or shall we invest £30, 000
Toby Mildon: to try and retain these people to give them a
Toby Mildon: greater sense of belonging? Like, is that a good return on investment? I think most
Toby Mildon: CFOs will go, hell, yeah. You know? Let's put 30 grand into
Toby Mildon: this and potentially save, you know, save ourselves 1 and a half £1, 000,
Toby Mildon: 000. And that's the kind of data, that's the kind
Toby Mildon: of commercial conversations that we that we should be having.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I I did a lot of work in the recruitment
Joanne Lockwood: sector, and I I'm always saying to the people I'm
Joanne Lockwood: communicating with, you don't start your recruitment project
Joanne Lockwood: by all all the stuff where you are now. You don't the first thing you
Joanne Lockwood: don't do is write job description. What you do is you you you recruit with
Joanne Lockwood: retention in mind. So your first objective has to be retention. So what
Joanne Lockwood: helps you retain good people? Belongingness, culture,
Joanne Lockwood: values, removing toxicity, psychological safety.
Joanne Lockwood: So unless you get that bit right first, why do you wanna put
Joanne Lockwood: more fish into a dirty tank? They'll just get fed rot and die. So
Joanne Lockwood: it's really trying to drill home to people. Retention has
Joanne Lockwood: to be your your top priority. Because if you get your attention right, less
Joanne Lockwood: people will leave. They'll be more willing to recommend you. People will see
Joanne Lockwood: you as a fantastic company. They'll wanna join you. They'll wanna stay. They'll wanna be
Joanne Lockwood: promoted. It becomes self fulfilling prophecy. But if you start not
Joanne Lockwood: caring about why people are leaving, they would just keep leaving. You just bring them
Joanne Lockwood: in through this revolving door, and it will just cost you Definitely.
Joanne Lockwood: Increase tenure by by by 10%, as you say, saves save
Joanne Lockwood: millions. Yeah. And and leaders can think
Toby Mildon: about what we would call the employee value proposition or the employer
Toby Mildon: brand, and there's 3 if you imagine a pyramid, there's kind of 3 levels to
Toby Mildon: the EVP. So at the bottom, you've got your your basics. You've got your
Toby Mildon: hygiene factors, so things like, you know, pay, number of
Toby Mildon: hours, that kind of thing. The middle layer is benefits,
Toby Mildon: so access to health care, access to gym membership,
Toby Mildon: company car, you need to make sure that those benefits are inclusive, for example.
Toby Mildon: So my personal example is that I've worked for many companies with free health
Toby Mildon: sorry. You know, with private health care. I'm immediately excluded
Toby Mildon: because they won't touch anybody who's got preexisting health
Toby Mildon: condition. So I'm like, well, that's that's no that health
Toby Mildon: care benefit's no good to me. They they didn't think about having
Toby Mildon: a health care policy, and they are available, by the way. That
Toby Mildon: covers preexisting health conditions where I could
Toby Mildon: have benefited from private health care. And then at the top of the
Toby Mildon: pyramid, you've got all of the aspirational stuff, and this is things like,
Toby Mildon: you know, connecting people with your values, connecting people with your your
Toby Mildon: purpose and your mission and things like that. It's it's kind of Hertzberg 2 factor
Joanne Lockwood: theory 101 mixed with a bit of Maslow, wasn't it, really? That's what we're talking
Joanne Lockwood: about. As is always the case, it's always a mishmash of
Toby Mildon: existing models. We're just Yeah. You know, re re you know,
Toby Mildon: repurposing them. Yeah. With an EDI lens, I think we often use
Joanne Lockwood: things like Hertzberg and Maslow and and these other kind of models.
Joanne Lockwood: But as soon as you start shining an EDI lens on them about well-being, actually
Joanne Lockwood: say this is the hygiene. Mhmm. This is the motivation.
Joanne Lockwood: And if if hygiene's 0, motivation you can motivate all you like, but hygiene's
Joanne Lockwood: 0. The performance are gonna wane, and and the environment's gonna
Joanne Lockwood: suck. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Beanbags and pizzas on Friday
Joanne Lockwood: isn't gonna solve isn't gonna solve toxic workplace where people feel bullied or
Joanne Lockwood: discriminated. That's funny. I worked for an organization and I I used to work with
Toby Mildon: the well-being, the person responsible for well-being. And,
Toby Mildon: companies are like you know, companies are saying, oh, we're really worried about people's mental
Toby Mildon: health and well-being. So we're gonna provide access to
Toby Mildon: an employee assistance program. We're gonna provide free counseling therapy.
Toby Mildon: We're gonna have these, like, lovely breakout rooms where you can relax
Toby Mildon: in a pod or something like that. You know? And then he was saying, but,
Toby Mildon: actually, if you're if you've got a bad relationship with your manager,
Toby Mildon: if you've got too much work to do and that is stressing you out, that
Toby Mildon: that that's the thing that needs addressing. Like, the beanbags and the
Toby Mildon: the the free coffee in the office and the free basket of fruit and all
Toby Mildon: that kind of stuff just won't cut it. It's the you need to
Toby Mildon: go back to the the root cause. Yeah. And I don't wanna get
Joanne Lockwood: political, but if you I look back at how I was viewing
Joanne Lockwood: the country 6 to 8 weeks ago or the last 2
Joanne Lockwood: years, I found this being this dark cloud of of
Joanne Lockwood: toxicity, not just because I'm a trans woman, but there was just a
Joanne Lockwood: general feeling of not wanting to
Joanne Lockwood: support the wider community. There was almost this dark cloud of of of anyone
Joanne Lockwood: who's marginalized or a minority needing equity was being
Joanne Lockwood: pushed out. EDI initiatives were being thrown
Joanne Lockwood: out the door. The this anti won't this came in, reinforced by the mainstream
Joanne Lockwood: media. And I I can say to people, I'm I don't care about the economy.
Joanne Lockwood: I don't care about mortgage rates. I don't care about interest rates. I don't care
Joanne Lockwood: about Ukraine. I don't care about Rwanda. What I care about
Joanne Lockwood: is waking up not feeling
Joanne Lockwood: unsafe as a human being in my society.
Joanne Lockwood: And I woke up on Friday morning thinking, regardless
Joanne Lockwood: who's who's in government, I that's why I want to change. I wanna wake up
Joanne Lockwood: not feeling that I and my friends and people I know
Joanne Lockwood: are feeling worried about their existence and right to exist, and I
Joanne Lockwood: think that's that goes down to the corporate level as well. You know, if you've
Joanne Lockwood: got that feeling, you're not gonna respond. You're not gonna perform.
Toby Mildon: Yeah. What you're saying really that it reminds me of something because I interviewed
Toby Mildon: somebody on my my podcast called Cynthia who's a trans woman,
Toby Mildon: and she was saying that 1 of the we were talking about
Toby Mildon: privileges earlier, weren't we? 1 of the things that she realized
Toby Mildon: when she she kind of talks about the first time that she steps outside
Toby Mildon: her front door and walks down her street, she
Toby Mildon: felt unsafe as a trans woman.
Toby Mildon: And she took for granted, maybe I don't know if that's the right
Toby Mildon: word or not, but I think she until that moment,
Toby Mildon: she didn't she wasn't aware of of
Toby Mildon: feeling unsafe. And and like you're saying, like, you want you
Toby Mildon: the there's been there's there's been a lot of negative political
Toby Mildon: rhetoric over the last conservative government
Toby Mildon: and certainly in the the general election campaign. I think a lot of
Toby Mildon: politicians have tried to create divisions rather
Toby Mildon: than unity. And, yeah, I mean, just wanting to wake
Toby Mildon: up in the morning and feel safe, I think, is a a
Toby Mildon: basic a basic need that,
Toby Mildon: yeah, that's really important. I mean, you know, when I when I was
Toby Mildon: thinking about who to vote for in the general election, actually, I was my
Toby Mildon: the my decision was purely based on which political
Toby Mildon: party I thought would do a better job for disabled people. I
Toby Mildon: wasn't even thinking about the economy or anything like that even though
Toby Mildon: I should. As as an entrepreneur, I should be thinking about the, you know,
Toby Mildon: the the economy policy economic policies, but I thought, yeah,
Toby Mildon: the conservative government have done such a shitty job for
Toby Mildon: disabled people over the last 10 years. Disabled
Toby Mildon: people are there's increase in disabled hate
Toby Mildon: crime. There's, you know, disabled people that are out out of
Toby Mildon: work. There's so much inequality for disabled people in
Toby Mildon: British society. I'd say, you know, the number 1 thing for me
Toby Mildon: was about supporting disabled people, helping them live their best
Toby Mildon: lives. Yeah. Just trying to get us up all Mhmm. Several layers on Maslow's
Joanne Lockwood: hierarchy. Get us off the bottom and the second rung out, but into the
Joanne Lockwood: start creating a belongingness and a and a spirit within us.
Toby Mildon: And Yeah. And that's what leaders in business
Joanne Lockwood: have to recognise. That is that it's just that icky, cloudy,
Joanne Lockwood: dark feeling that people have. And I don't know if you've
Joanne Lockwood: seen the film inside out or inside out 2. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm
Toby Mildon: saying. I'm a great fan of that analogy because I always used to have this
Joanne Lockwood: little angry red man in my head driving everything, and then suddenly I found
Joanne Lockwood: joy, and joy took over. And I think what's
Joanne Lockwood: happened for me on Friday 5th July was
Joanne Lockwood: joy started flying the plane flying the plane again. And I'm I'm
Joanne Lockwood: hoping that is long lived, not short lived, and it's not
Joanne Lockwood: just a honeymoon thing, but I'd like to see that we have this different
Joanne Lockwood: attitude in society about inclusion, safety, supporting
Joanne Lockwood: people. Yeah. Because Yeah. To be honest, the economy is the economy.
Joanne Lockwood: It's not like you can do in a in a world economy these days. You
Joanne Lockwood: can't do too much. You can tweak it a bit bit like the latest
Joanne Lockwood: competitor did. You can tweak it a bit
Joanne Lockwood: and and crash it and and send the market scurrying, but
Joanne Lockwood: broadly with the Bank of England and other people with the fiscal controls out
Joanne Lockwood: there. You can only tweak the edges, really. It's about it's
Joanne Lockwood: about it's about the culture you're trying to breathe in the country that's that's gonna
Joanne Lockwood: lift people, create productivity, and up our GDP, and
Joanne Lockwood: all those things. It's the culture. Yeah. It's boosting
Toby Mildon: innovation, creativity, and we we get better
Toby Mildon: innovation, better creativity with diverse
Toby Mildon: people working on the problem. You know, 1 of my
Toby Mildon: clients, they're a they're a consultancy in the energy
Toby Mildon: market, and they're they're very much moving into the renewable energy
Toby Mildon: space because that, obviously, that's a the future in
Toby Mildon: achieving net 0 and things like that. And diversity and inclusion is really important for
Toby Mildon: them because they've realized they cannot solve a big problem like
Toby Mildon: climate change and achieving net 0 if you've got the same bunch
Toby Mildon: of people working on the problem falling into groupthink. You need to
Toby Mildon: have those diverse experiences, perspectives, etcetera,
Toby Mildon: etcetera. And it will just you know, if every company took
Toby Mildon: that approach, then it will help I think it really help
Toby Mildon: boost our economics. Yeah. Because
Joanne Lockwood: belonging is all is all around alignment of vision and values, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? And if we look at the important things
Joanne Lockwood: for many people today, it's it's feeling safe, feeling included, it's
Joanne Lockwood: psychological safety, but it's also alignment with
Joanne Lockwood: the planet. If you look at Gen z, I'm sure Gen Alpha are
Joanne Lockwood: gonna be like this on steroids, and even some younger millennials have really
Joanne Lockwood: focused on environmental sustainability recycling. So the
Joanne Lockwood: whole language about getting people back into work, making people work twice
Joanne Lockwood: as hard again and not coming down and commuting long distances
Joanne Lockwood: is against where society was moving in the last 3 or 4 years. I think
Joanne Lockwood: we need to go back to this recognizing we gotta look after ourselves and the
Joanne Lockwood: planet. Yeah. That's very heartening. Also, there's almost, like,
Toby Mildon: very industrial revolution language. It's like, let's get everyone into factories,
Toby Mildon: churning out widgets, working really hard 9 to 5.
Toby Mildon: We live in a different world now where where where the
Toby Mildon: world of work has changed. We're we're a lot more creative. We're a lot
Toby Mildon: more innovative. People are not expecting the same job for life
Toby Mildon: like they used to. They want portfolio careers. They want a lot more
Toby Mildon: autonomy over the way they work, whether that's working in, like, the gig
Toby Mildon: economy or working as a self employed
Toby Mildon: freelancer or something like that or and there's
Toby Mildon: definitely a trend, and we see this with younger people, of wanting to
Toby Mildon: work for businesses where you've got values alignment.
Toby Mildon: There's some really interesting research that is suggesting Gen zed,
Toby Mildon: for example, are choosing to work for companies with where
Toby Mildon: their values are aligned, and they're actively avoiding those companies
Toby Mildon: that don't have a values alignment. So those companies that are
Toby Mildon: not speaking to the younger generation values, a lot of
Toby Mildon: it around a fair society, a lot of it around
Toby Mildon: green greenness and saving the planet, they're missing
Toby Mildon: out on that on that talent. Yeah. I I have the
Joanne Lockwood: privilege of working with people who wanna work with me
Joanne Lockwood: because I'm a I'm a polarizing person being transgender.
Joanne Lockwood: It means that I turn people off, and they don't they don't knock on my
Joanne Lockwood: door. So, generally, people who do knock on my door know who I am and
Joanne Lockwood: wanna work with me. So I find it really good. So my values tend to
Joanne Lockwood: align because I self declare, if you like. So I
Joanne Lockwood: guess Gen z is the same. You put it out there and say, I don't
Joanne Lockwood: I don't need to be something to everybody. I need to be Marmite. I need
Joanne Lockwood: to I need some people to hate me and some people to like me. Let's
Joanne Lockwood: work on the people who like me and love me and celebrate me for who
Joanne Lockwood: I am. That's that's where we wanna be, isn't it? Yeah. Absolutely. Toby, it's been
Joanne Lockwood: absolutely fascinating. I can't believe the hour's up already, and, we had a good chat
Joanne Lockwood: in the green room beforehand. How do people get a hold of you? The the
Toby Mildon: best way is to find me on LinkedIn. I create lots of
Toby Mildon: content every week. Just connect with me on LinkedIn, drop me a
Toby Mildon: message, we can chat over there. And you've got a book and you've got
Joanne Lockwood: podcasts and other stuff as well, haven't you? Yes. I've actually got 2
Toby Mildon: books now. So my first book is called Inclusive
Toby Mildon: Growth, and my second book, which came out very recently, is
Toby Mildon: called Building Inclusivity. They're both available on
Toby Mildon: Amazon. I've got a podcast called the Inclusive Growth Show, which
Toby Mildon: you can find on Apple Podcasts and all of the other
Toby Mildon: lovely platforms that are out there. And I interview
Toby Mildon: lots of interesting, fascinating EDI experts,
Toby Mildon: including yourself, Joanne. So so yeah. Yeah. Go
Toby Mildon: go and find Joanne's upside with me. Fantastic. Thank you so much. And,
Joanne Lockwood: I'll put all links to all of the stuff I can find on in the
Joanne Lockwood: show notes. And, it's been an absolute pleasure spending this hour with you
Joanne Lockwood: having a good chat. Cool. Thanks, Joanne. Thanks for inviting me.
Joanne Lockwood: As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to
Joanne Lockwood: express my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for
Joanne Lockwood: lending your ear and heart
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Joanne Lockwood: is Joanne Lockwood signing off with a promise to return
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Joanne Lockwood: 1 episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.