Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary
Joanne Lockwood: for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood,
Joanne Lockwood: your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion, belonging, and societal transformation.
Joanne Lockwood: Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a world where
Joanne Lockwood: everyone not only belongs but thrives? You're
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Joanne Lockwood: to share your insights or to join me on the show.
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: Today is episode 142
Joanne Lockwood: with the title, Empowering Belonging. And I
Joanne Lockwood: have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Alisa de Vere.
Joanne Lockwood: Alisa is a confidence expert, a leader
Joanne Lockwood: of the ERG Alliance that equips organisations with
Joanne Lockwood: the tools and brain science to create sustainable,
Joanne Lockwood: inclusive, and impactful employee resource group. And
Joanne Lockwood: I asked Alyssa to describe a superpower. She said that it is helping
Joanne Lockwood: people feel confident and valued by creating spaces
Joanne Lockwood: where everyone belongs. Hello, Alissa. Welcome to the
Joanne Lockwood: show. Jo, I'm so excited to be here. I can't imagine a more
Alyssa Dver: perfect conversation for today. No.
Joanne Lockwood: And we met, I suppose, coming up from a month ago. It was actually,
Joanne Lockwood: to put a date stamp on it, it was the day after the,
Joanne Lockwood: US presidential elections where the news of the result was just
Joanne Lockwood: filtering through. Wasn't it? It was. And I was so glad to be with you
Alyssa Dver: and not in Boston where I am right now because I tell you that
Alyssa Dver: was a tough day. Yeah. So
Joanne Lockwood: we were at a, the ERG Alliance event
Joanne Lockwood: in London, weren't we, on that day? That's right. In Waterloo, South Southwark.
Alyssa Dver: Yeah. It was it was really nice to be, and and, you know, it's
Alyssa Dver: interesting too, of course, for me being kind of the representative American in the
Alyssa Dver: room. You know, everyone was like, why? And, I still don't have
Alyssa Dver: those answers. No. And you put a brave face on
Joanne Lockwood: it, if I remember rightly. Yeah. We could everyone could tell that there was
Joanne Lockwood: a a lot of confusion and pain behind the eyes. Oh,
Alyssa Dver: yeah. Well, I, you know, I guess that's good because
Alyssa Dver: I don't wanna fake anybody ever. I will
Alyssa Dver: say this, you know, in processing it now for several weeks,
Alyssa Dver: there is a lot of pain still. And every day, the news
Alyssa Dver: is, you know, almost more unbelievable with some of the appointees
Alyssa Dver: and some of the ramifications and things that are happening. But
Alyssa Dver: it's also rallied maybe an energy or
Alyssa Dver: a a latent complacency.
Alyssa Dver: Right? I think that we we often take a lot for
Alyssa Dver: granted, whether it's women's rights or any kind of rights, civil
Alyssa Dver: rights. And those are things that we have to continue to put
Alyssa Dver: our focus on. So for what it's worth, it
Alyssa Dver: bites. But at the same time, we are gonna bite back
Alyssa Dver: in a way that is productive, smart, and, sustainable. So
Alyssa Dver: we have a lot of work to do. I think a lot of people are
Alyssa Dver: realizing that. They're taking maybe the rest of the year to kind of re energize
Alyssa Dver: and at the same time find a new approach. Yeah. It's
Joanne Lockwood: I find that the whole world of politics is it's
Joanne Lockwood: very divisive, isn't it? I mean, we're gonna be talking around ERGs
Joanne Lockwood: and staff networks and empowering people and creating belonging,
Joanne Lockwood: which is an inclusive approach. Whereas politics
Joanne Lockwood: is you're in, you're out. You're with
Joanne Lockwood: us, you're against us. And and there's no room for the for the losers
Joanne Lockwood: almost, is there? Yeah. Well, think about
Alyssa Dver: elementary, middle school, high school. I mean, why is it any different? You know,
Alyssa Dver: power, people who wanna be popular, who wanna have power in
Alyssa Dver: that. The only way they
Alyssa Dver: I should say the only way. The most common way, of course, is to
Alyssa Dver: make themselves either bullies or make the and or make the
Alyssa Dver: rest of the population feel less confident. And
Alyssa Dver: so, unfortunately, that that's kind of the definition
Alyssa Dver: of divisiveness. Right? Somebody's a winner, somebody's a loser.
Alyssa Dver: And it's just sad. It's a human condition that unfortunately
Alyssa Dver: transcends ethnicity, culture, country.
Alyssa Dver: Right? And you look at all over the world. Or you end up in a
Joanne Lockwood: a democracy that is constrained. Someone like,
Joanne Lockwood: Switzerland, for example, where it's a consensus
Joanne Lockwood: voting all the time and it's very hard to make change, which creates a very
Joanne Lockwood: stable political government, but you don't evolve as
Joanne Lockwood: a country or evolve as a society because you can never get
Joanne Lockwood: consensus. That's the other challenge, isn't it? Yeah.
Alyssa Dver: Well, you can never get consensus. Let's think about that for a second, though. Because
Alyssa Dver: if we're really inclusive, we're inviting difference.
Alyssa Dver: We embrace and celebrate differences. Right? So consensus
Alyssa Dver: may not be something that is attainable. And maybe that's okay. I mean, we're getting
Alyssa Dver: very ideological here. But, the reality
Alyssa Dver: is this, is if you really have all those beautiful different voices at a
Alyssa Dver: table and you want them to agree,
Alyssa Dver: that's kind of by definition not going to work. It shouldn't
Alyssa Dver: work. Right? But if we can come to a place
Alyssa Dver: where and, you know, I'm not I don't love the word compromise.
Alyssa Dver: It kind of implies that we're all not getting what we want.
Alyssa Dver: But if we can come to a place of compromise where everyone goes, you know,
Alyssa Dver: that'll work for me enough. And that's one of my favorite words is
Alyssa Dver: enough. Because I don't think we use enough enough. But, like, instead of
Alyssa Dver: having to be totally, you know, if my list has
Alyssa Dver: 10 requirements, but I get 8 or 7 of them
Alyssa Dver: fulfilled, and you get 8 or 7 of yours fulfilled, that's enough.
Alyssa Dver: So consensus may not be the right
Alyssa Dver: choice there. Oh, I I hear what you're saying about the word consensus. I I
Joanne Lockwood: always try and reframe it so that I'm not seeing it as
Joanne Lockwood: I've given way or I've had to compromise. I
Joanne Lockwood: wanna see compromises. Actually, I'm satisfied that
Joanne Lockwood: we've both given ground. We've both met in the middle.
Alyssa Dver: Right. We both acknowledged each other's feelings, our needs.
Joanne Lockwood: And when we sat down and talked about something, I go, actually, you're
Joanne Lockwood: right. We need a bit of that as well. And so we're we're not giving
Joanne Lockwood: ground. We're we're we're sharing ground and understanding each
Joanne Lockwood: other's needs. I think that's that's how I would frame compromise. I agree. 100%.
Alyssa Dver: 100%. Wouldn't it be a better world?
Alyssa Dver: It would be. Right? You know, I don't wanna label anything or
Alyssa Dver: try to avoid labels. But, you know, this this
Alyssa Dver: historically dictatorial stance
Alyssa Dver: of, you know, it's mine, and I has to be my
Alyssa Dver: way or the like, it's it's just we gotta do
Alyssa Dver: something about that. And and at the same time, we don't have to
Alyssa Dver: impose. Right? Like, just because we choose whatever it might
Alyssa Dver: be, a lifestyle or a preference, doesn't
Alyssa Dver: mean you have to. Right? And I think I think
Alyssa Dver: there is this, I don't know. I don't even
Alyssa Dver: know the words to how I am, like, so so beyond trying to
Alyssa Dver: explain things, as I said. But I think there is this assumption that we
Alyssa Dver: all have to, like you said, consensus, we all have to agree. We don't have
Alyssa Dver: to agree. And that's okay. Yeah. No. I I agree we
Joanne Lockwood: don't have to agree. And I think it's I I always try and come from
Joanne Lockwood: the angle that if I can understand why you believe something, I don't
Joanne Lockwood: actually have to believe the same thing as long as I can understand and relate
Joanne Lockwood: to your lived experience and the fact that you're
Joanne Lockwood: straight or you're black or you have a disability, whatever it may
Joanne Lockwood: be, I can't walk in your shoes, but, and I can't necessarily
Joanne Lockwood: have empathy for what you go through, but I can relate to
Joanne Lockwood: your stories, to your lived experience, and I can go, actually, I've never seen it
Joanne Lockwood: through that those eyes before and that that lens before. But now you say that,
Joanne Lockwood: I I really do understand why it's important to you.
Joanne Lockwood: It will never be important to me, but I can understand now it's important for
Joanne Lockwood: you, it's important to me as well, sort of thing. Just trying to find that
Joanne Lockwood: middle ground, isn't it? Yeah. Well, yes. And
Alyssa Dver: and I think that oftentimes people make
Alyssa Dver: very poor assumptions. Right? We know assumptions are never good, but
Alyssa Dver: they can be very dangerous. And and what I mean by that is
Alyssa Dver: you don't know what somebody's been through. You have no
Alyssa Dver: idea. You, you know, you're talking to somebody at any given
Alyssa Dver: moment and you don't know what they just came out of or have lived through
Alyssa Dver: in the past. And so their perspective is gonna be
Alyssa Dver: different than yours. But it doesn't mean it's better, wrong, right. It's just
Alyssa Dver: different. At the same time, isn't
Alyssa Dver: that a beautiful thing? We get all this
Alyssa Dver: different views of things, whether it's, you know,
Alyssa Dver: for innovation reasons or just to enrich our
Alyssa Dver: intellectual appreciation of all of it. But I don't
Alyssa Dver: think everyone I know I'm not, you know, clearly that's not a shared
Alyssa Dver: viewpoint. You know,
Alyssa Dver: I I don't know how or why I have that, to be honest
Alyssa Dver: with you. I have a lot of my own lived experiences that make
Alyssa Dver: me that way. But it's there's an irony
Alyssa Dver: here, . Because I want people to be more
Alyssa Dver: accepting because I'm more accepting. Right? So
Alyssa Dver: I try and also understand, and I use brain
Alyssa Dver: science as my tool to understand why
Alyssa Dver: does somebody feel so bigoted? Or why do they feel
Alyssa Dver: so assumptive? What like, what is behind that
Alyssa Dver: so that I can be a little bit more
Alyssa Dver: prepared and and maybe I don't want to say supportive. That's not the right
Alyssa Dver: word either. But so so that
Alyssa Dver: I can create a a common ground. Do you have any theories
Joanne Lockwood: with your brain science and your your experience as to
Joanne Lockwood: why, yeah, as you say, I, we,
Joanne Lockwood: many people we know, want to see betterment. We want to
Joanne Lockwood: feel we want people to succeed. We want people to genuinely feel
Joanne Lockwood: safe, secure, have opportunities.
Joanne Lockwood: And we believe we're the best in people, but there are other people who have
Joanne Lockwood: a different view where they're not, well, whether it's
Joanne Lockwood: selfish or self centred or self effacing, Begins
Joanne Lockwood: with the word self. They're not thinking in those ways. So what
Joanne Lockwood: is the difference? And without going into personality disorders, narcissistic
Joanne Lockwood: tenders, what word should we use? Can we? Can we,
Alyssa Dver: please? Well, alright. We'll we'll make it very
Alyssa Dver: I don't want to say simple. It's not simple, but we'll make it, somewhat easy
Alyssa Dver: to digest. You know, there's two reasons. Well, first of all, no baby is
Alyssa Dver: born selfish. Right? Like you don't come out and you're like, I'm
Alyssa Dver: gonna be a jerk when I grow up. Like, you know. You don't it's a
Alyssa Dver: learned behavior, right? So they learn it from somewhere, some people,
Alyssa Dver: some situations. And in many cases,
Alyssa Dver: it may be a defensive mechanism from some trauma or
Alyssa Dver: from other things too, of course. Right? So
Alyssa Dver: you can't always blame the people or the situation,
Alyssa Dver: but you can at least explain that there's a reason why that person is feeling
Alyssa Dver: the way they are. Now, reality overall is that our
Alyssa Dver: brains, as evolved as they are, they're still pretty
Alyssa Dver: cave like, right? In that we respond to fear. That is
Alyssa Dver: our immediate, you know, I'm about to be hurt.
Alyssa Dver: And hurt, not just physically hurt, but emotionally hurt. Like, someone's not
Alyssa Dver: gonna like me. Somebody's gonna think I'm a loser.
Alyssa Dver: And in that moment of what is usually subconscious,
Alyssa Dver: because we don't stop and say, Oh, I'm feeling this way. It's
Alyssa Dver: a reaction. And the reaction goes right into our brain stem, which
Alyssa Dver: is the cave person part of our brain. Right? That's the oldest
Alyssa Dver: part. It's the part of the brain that keeps us
Alyssa Dver: in survival mode. And survival mode is
Alyssa Dver: interesting because survival mode has 2 kind of
Alyssa Dver: extremes. 1 is very aggressive behavior, defensive
Alyssa Dver: aggressive. It could be somebody
Alyssa Dver: like, Oh, I didn't say that. Or it could be, you know, You.
Alyssa Dver: You're the problem. Those kinds of aggressive behaviors.
Alyssa Dver: But it could also be the other extreme, which is shy hunkering
Alyssa Dver: down, trying to disappear. You know, the people who don't want to say anything,
Alyssa Dver: maybe even passive aggressive, you could put in that bucket. But
Alyssa Dver: people who are quiet, who are introverted in a way that you
Alyssa Dver: go, you know, say something. And
Alyssa Dver: that's survival mode, right? They're scared. And that
Alyssa Dver: fear, that trigger of whatever it is. And I mean,
Alyssa Dver: it's kind of almost farcical in
Alyssa Dver: some ways, right? I watched our political news. We started on that
Alyssa Dver: foot. And I'm like, that guy that guy's scared,
Alyssa Dver: right? He's scared. He's scared of losing face. He's scared of something. And
Alyssa Dver: so, what do they do? They get overly aggressive. They become
Alyssa Dver: passive puppets, right? And that's the heart of it.
Alyssa Dver: I mean, it's what it's the heart of it. It's the head of it, right?
Alyssa Dver: It's that's what it's all about. So, when we don't belong,
Alyssa Dver: when we're not included, we go into that
Alyssa Dver: survival mode. And if we can make people or
Alyssa Dver: help people feel more belonged, more included,
Alyssa Dver: maybe we wouldn't have so many damn dictators all over the world.
Alyssa Dver: And I did stress that. Dictators. Sorry.
Joanne Lockwood: Dictator. Yes. I yeah. There was a an enunciation of
Joanne Lockwood: that word, wasn't there? It's heavily loaded towards the first syllable.
Alyssa Dver: Well and let me be clear. It is not it
Alyssa Dver: is not, you know, male or and women
Alyssa Dver: have this these issues too. And more and more, I think, you
Alyssa Dver: know, for lots of social reasons, women are
Alyssa Dver: acting equally defensive and
Alyssa Dver: aggressive as well as shy. You know, we we do see those polars all over
Alyssa Dver: the place. I've lived 2 lives as as you're aware,
Joanne Lockwood: and I've noticed a complete difference in the way I view the
Joanne Lockwood: world, the way I show up, the way I interact.
Joanne Lockwood: And I I could liken it to finding a religion or finding my
Joanne Lockwood: epiphany or whatever it was whatever it may be. And why
Joanne Lockwood: I look back on that that time in my life is realising that once you've
Joanne Lockwood: told that biggest secret, that biggest thing inside you, once
Joanne Lockwood: you've effectively opened your kimono to the
Joanne Lockwood: world and said this is who I am underneath, There's not a
Joanne Lockwood: lot left to hide and you've also realised that fear, all
Joanne Lockwood: this apprehension, the things that are holding you back are
Joanne Lockwood: just so what? No big deal, you can get over it. I
Joanne Lockwood: think you're right in saying that some people have this
Joanne Lockwood: defensiveness, insecurity, the little child inside
Joanne Lockwood: them that doesn't want to be found out, doesn't
Joanne Lockwood: want to be, you know, wants to be in with a big crowd, you know,
Joanne Lockwood: they're always chasing this and they surround themselves with people who say yes all
Joanne Lockwood: the time or amplify their their beliefs. Whereas I I
Joanne Lockwood: find it much much more interesting now to to exist in, I
Joanne Lockwood: say, chaos. We live in a world where I don't have to have all the
Joanne Lockwood: answers, and I'm really, really comfortable with that these days. I love
Alyssa Dver: how you you said that. Yes. A 100%. But you said
Alyssa Dver: some people. I think everyone does. And it's
Alyssa Dver: few that and I say everyone, including you and I,
Alyssa Dver: that there's probably moments you still you regress a little. I
Alyssa Dver: mean, I do too. Now what we know from our research at the Institute
Alyssa Dver: is that by the time we're 60 years old, we're finally
Alyssa Dver: comfortable in our own skin and as a population. Right? You know, why is
Alyssa Dver: that? Because by the time you're 60, you finally realize all that minutia that you
Alyssa Dver: mentioned, all those things that just don't matter. Like, I'm not
Alyssa Dver: changing now. Like, this is who I am. Get over it. Right? But
Alyssa Dver: there are going to be moments, I don't care how confident someone out
Alyssa Dver: there thinks they are. In fact, it takes confidence
Alyssa Dver: to realize you're not confident. Right? And when you
Alyssa Dver: finally come to that conclusion that, you know what? I'm not perfect. I'm not right
Alyssa Dver: all the time. And, you know, I'm human. If if
Alyssa Dver: that's the way it is. And when you accept that really wholly,
Alyssa Dver: it is liberating. You're absolutely right. Oh, yeah. I just sort of
Joanne Lockwood: phew in my my brow here, you know, you have to start to get your
Joanne Lockwood: your shit together. If you're like, well, I'm 30 60. I'm 60 in 7 weeks'
Joanne Lockwood: time. So I'm kind of glad that I've kind of arrived at that
Joanne Lockwood: plateau just at the I mean, I think what
Joanne Lockwood: would have happened if I got to this point and I locked in my personality
Joanne Lockwood: at 60. It was the other one. I think, wow, at least
Joanne Lockwood: I'm locking in the right personality at 60 and thinking I've got going together. But
Alyssa Dver: Well, thank you too for doing it because we love who you
Alyssa Dver: are. Yeah, I think I think my fifties have
Joanne Lockwood: been in training for my sixties. You know, I think when you get to this
Joanne Lockwood: point in your life, approaching 60, you're right. You don't have to be
Joanne Lockwood: anything anymore. All of those, I
Joanne Lockwood: suppose again, human instinct when you were young, you're trying to nest
Joanne Lockwood: build, you're trying to acquire stuff, you're trying to feather everything
Joanne Lockwood: and making sure that you have an environment where your children can grow up safely.
Joanne Lockwood: You can then provide for them. All this kind of stuff that we do is
Joanne Lockwood: very primeval. And we get to, I suppose, our age. Sorry.
Joanne Lockwood: I wasn't trying to say that you're our age. Our age. No. We're we're
Alyssa Dver: yes. 60 scissors. Sis, sis, scissors.
Alyssa Dver: Sixty sisters. I can't even say it. We don't need that
Joanne Lockwood: baggage anymore. You know, we can shed that baggage. And I was talking to someone
Joanne Lockwood: yesterday about the difference between baggage and luggage. Baggage is stuff you
Joanne Lockwood: carry around with you, that you collect over the years. Luggage is the stuff
Joanne Lockwood: where you sort your baggage out and say, this is all I now need
Joanne Lockwood: to have a great life from here on in. So this is a shedding
Joanne Lockwood: of the baggage and just picking up the luggage now. Yeah. So I'll give
Alyssa Dver: you another data point that reinforces exactly what you just
Alyssa Dver: said. You know, we we've done a lot of research through the institute over the
Alyssa Dver: years, the last decade plus. And some of these data
Alyssa Dver: points, when you first collect them, you're like, really? And then you start to, like,
Alyssa Dver: ask people, and you'll it's just completely validated. And one of
Alyssa Dver: them was, you know, when you're in your twenties, your thirties, you have a
Alyssa Dver: bazillion friends typically. Like, you look at
Alyssa Dver: wedding pictures and there's, like, how many grooms men and grooves
Alyssa Dver: at bridesmaids. Right? And then you get into your later years
Alyssa Dver: and the average number , I'm gonna ask you to guess. What's the average number
Alyssa Dver: of people you'd really consider a good friend? Really honest,
Joanne Lockwood: I could survive just my wife and I
Joanne Lockwood: as as the core must haves,
Joanne Lockwood: and our children, and my parents, maybe. I don't I don't mean
Joanne Lockwood: maybe in a nasty way. I'm just saying that if it came down to it
Joanne Lockwood: and I had to lock the door and not let anybody in, my wife and
Joanne Lockwood: I would be very happy together. But I suppose outside of that, there were 5
Joanne Lockwood: people maybe. Maybe. 2. 2 was
Alyssa Dver: the statistical audit appointment. Tongue tied today. 2.
Alyssa Dver: And part of that is letting go of the baggage. Because
Alyssa Dver: there's a lot of people that we collect over the years that are out of
Alyssa Dver: convenience. You know, people that are there during your kids' young
Alyssa Dver: years where you needed to carpool and you needed some backup or whatever.
Alyssa Dver: Friends that were just fun to go out drinking buddies. You know, whatever it was.
Alyssa Dver: And you get older and you're like, you know, I have so little time. And
Alyssa Dver: it's not because I'm planning to die anytime soon. It's just that a day is
Alyssa Dver: 24 hours and I gotta sleep at least 8 of them. Right? So,
Alyssa Dver: like, with the time I have, I wanna be really mindful of the people that
Alyssa Dver: matter to me. And so you'd really do that, what I call pruning
Alyssa Dver: of your relationships. And subsequently, you get rid of the
Alyssa Dver: baggage. And you're like, you know what? I don't have time for that person and
Alyssa Dver: their drama. I don't have time for this person who's only asking me
Alyssa Dver: for stuff all the time. So you do go through some of that in
Alyssa Dver: your fifties. And you end up in your 60s. And you're kind of like, I'm
Alyssa Dver: lighter. I don't need any more stuff. I don't need more people. I don't need
Alyssa Dver: any more anything. I just want to live in my own skin
Alyssa Dver: and respect my values, my needs, and my wants. And the people that
Alyssa Dver: I love in the same vein. Yeah. I've I've moved into I've I've talked to
Joanne Lockwood: other people, a sufficiency phase of my life. So
Joanne Lockwood: I've gone away from acquisition and assets and
Joanne Lockwood: gluttony into a sufficiency. So what you're saying there is is is
Joanne Lockwood: mirroring that that feeling. I'm shedding the
Joanne Lockwood: gluttony of relationships to the simplicity of
Joanne Lockwood: to sufficient relationships that feed my
Joanne Lockwood: needs. We're symbiotic in our needs with each other rather
Joanne Lockwood: than it being, as you said, unbalanced. You're a taker. I'm
Joanne Lockwood: always a giver with you. We don't need that, do we? Yeah. And, you know,
Alyssa Dver: I think there's a a beautiful I don't
Alyssa Dver: know. Justification, I guess, I would call it where you say I say to myself
Alyssa Dver: regularly, if I waste time, for example, with
Alyssa Dver: that person and all their nonsense,
Alyssa Dver: it's less time I can give less energy, less
Alyssa Dver: focus to the people or the person that really needs me
Alyssa Dver: now. Right? And so, you get judicious.
Alyssa Dver: You get judicious with what you do, where you go,
Alyssa Dver: what you join, what you sign up for, and who you hang out with.
Alyssa Dver: Because you recognize we have limited asset. And
Alyssa Dver: you know, I don't regret any of the past. I think it's all part of
Alyssa Dver: our, you know, own life experience. But at the same
Alyssa Dver: time, you know, I think a lot of people hold on to relationships.
Alyssa Dver: They hold on to things well
Alyssa Dver: past their due and and subsequently do regret that. So the sooner you
Alyssa Dver: can prune, the better. Software subscriptions, you need to not
Joanne Lockwood: renew them. Exactly.
Joanne Lockwood: That's that's the worst thing about Black Friday and
Joanne Lockwood: Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday is all my AppSumo and all those
Joanne Lockwood: other software deals I've got all renew at this time of year. So it's
Joanne Lockwood: got 200 dollars for this, $50 for that, $100 for this, you
Joanne Lockwood: think? Blimey. So so I started for all this last year and some
Joanne Lockwood: more. I'm sorry. Well, needless to say, there's an app for that.
Alyssa Dver: I can't remember the name, but you There's probably and an app to unsubscribe you
Alyssa Dver: from all of that. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. For sure. But you're
Joanne Lockwood: right. We need to unsubscribe from our friends that aren't bringing us value.
Joanne Lockwood: They're not adding they're decrementing rather than incrementing
Joanne Lockwood: our life. And And family too. I'm sorry to, like, pick
Alyssa Dver: up your friends. But, you know, there's family members that are also life suckers. And
Alyssa Dver: so and and, you know, yeah, you might have to see them at a
Alyssa Dver: holiday, but it doesn't mean you have to jump, you know, every
Alyssa Dver: time they say I need something. That's a hard one because
Alyssa Dver: you're like, oh, I feel indebted to family. You're born with family. You have
Alyssa Dver: no choice on that one. But you can still minimize the,
Alyssa Dver: the drain. As you're talking there, and I'm my brain's flying around in the
Joanne Lockwood: background thinking this is a very privileged conversation to have
Joanne Lockwood: the privilege of a supporting environment of
Joanne Lockwood: a a status of wealth and to be able to make these life choices.
Joanne Lockwood: Not everybody has this opportunity to pick and choose their their
Joanne Lockwood: friends. Some people are, are maybe struggling.
Joanne Lockwood: That that happens in organizations as well, doesn't it? It's always a
Joanne Lockwood: if you're living a working in a world where you're not being respected,
Joanne Lockwood: it's very easy for some and some, well, if you don't like it, leave and
Joanne Lockwood: go somewhere else. But that's also a very privileged thing to say, isn't it? Everyone
Joanne Lockwood: has that ability to up up sticks and go. Yeah.
Alyssa Dver: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Alyssa Dver: It's unfortunately it's it's kinda like family in some ways, really.
Alyssa Dver: You end up in an organization. Now maybe you chose that job originally,
Alyssa Dver: but, again, like you're suggesting, maybe you had to for a
Alyssa Dver: variety of reasons. And then all of a sudden, you're surrounded by all these people
Alyssa Dver: who may or may not get you, may not want to get you, and at
Alyssa Dver: the same time may not be anything like you. So that can
Alyssa Dver: be extraordinarily traumatic.
Joanne Lockwood: So we hear sequential tales of,
Joanne Lockwood: young young women who are probably now middle aged women, older women
Joanne Lockwood: who have put up with poor behavior
Joanne Lockwood: because at the early phase of their career, that was the only way they perceived
Joanne Lockwood: they could get on. And we're just seeing stuff in the UK press at the
Joanne Lockwood: moment around TV presenters who have been acting
Joanne Lockwood: inappropriately for many, many decades and never been called
Joanne Lockwood: out, or if they were called out, they were never listened to and never
Joanne Lockwood: respected. So the kind of Me Too, the other things that are going on,
Joanne Lockwood: it's not easy to sort of to stand your ground,
Joanne Lockwood: because principals don't pay the rent, do they,
Joanne Lockwood: sometimes? Yes. Very
Alyssa Dver: profoundly put. It is hard.
Alyssa Dver: It you know, I do the employee resource group employee networks, and that
Alyssa Dver: was one reason I felt really a need.
Alyssa Dver: I remember, you know, I had already started the American Confidence Institute, and the
Alyssa Dver: story behind that is kind of interesting because it goes back to a neurological
Alyssa Dver: crisis that I was dealing with with my son. So I had really good
Alyssa Dver: motivation motivation. I it was like
Alyssa Dver: urgency to get, my hands around what was going on
Alyssa Dver: with human behavior and brains for that reason.
Alyssa Dver: But one of the things I realized was that there were so many people
Alyssa Dver: in the workplace that were in that position where they just didn't
Alyssa Dver: feel like they belong. They weren't included. And so I was like, well, what can
Alyssa Dver: I do? And lo and behold, started getting a lot of calls from ERGs
Alyssa Dver: to present the confidence work. And when I started asking questions,
Alyssa Dver: it was kind of hilarious because the talent
Alyssa Dver: people, you know, HR and talent management would say to me,
Alyssa Dver: these groups, they're just for wine and cheese and, you know, food, like, and fun.
Alyssa Dver: And I was like, but they don't have to be. They're really good constructs. And
Alyssa Dver: if we just got organized. And then I was like, we? Who's the
Alyssa Dver: we? There was no we. And the we became me
Alyssa Dver: because I was like, I don't know. I can at least organize
Alyssa Dver: people. And so, you know,
Alyssa Dver: fast forward, that was in 2019 that we actually said, Okay,
Alyssa Dver: we're going to do this ERG thing. And then George Floyd and COVID and
Alyssa Dver: all kinds of other contributors.
Alyssa Dver: And despite the horrific news that
Alyssa Dver: continues to pour out through the US and other countries about
Alyssa Dver: getting rid of the D, getting rid of the I, everything is
Alyssa Dver: disgusting. The
Alyssa Dver: constructs are still, maybe even more so,
Alyssa Dver: important. You know, one of the things that I've
Alyssa Dver: said a long time is it was a bummer that ERGs, employee networks, I'll
Alyssa Dver: use those interchangeably today, but that they got
Alyssa Dver: kind of, latched on to diversity because I
Alyssa Dver: think that the core of those groups, it
Alyssa Dver: has to do with what's important to you no
Alyssa Dver: matter what that intersectionality is.
Alyssa Dver: If you want to be part of an LGBT group, great. But maybe you
Alyssa Dver: want to be part of the linen arts group because that brings you joy and
Alyssa Dver: pleasure and connection. And I, you know, I think we
Alyssa Dver: need to embrace this as a moment of, of expressing who we
Alyssa Dver: are in all different ways and and and enjoying the company of others
Alyssa Dver: who do too. I kinda like actually the
Alyssa Dver: fact that it's now pivoting into employee experience because
Alyssa Dver: if we can find people who we maybe there's nobody
Alyssa Dver: else that's blocking your organization and you have
Alyssa Dver: to want to stay at that organization for whatever reasons.
Alyssa Dver: But maybe you can connect with somebody who has a different aspect that you still
Alyssa Dver: really value. And I think that that opens up a whole new door of
Alyssa Dver: opportunity for us to bring inclusion and belonging. And that may
Alyssa Dver: be not so much a silver lining, but a nice
Alyssa Dver: evolution of this whole construct. I'm a big
Joanne Lockwood: fan of what you're saying here. I mean, I I talk about positive people experiences,
Joanne Lockwood: and that's the fundamental. We get caught up in these
Joanne Lockwood: acronyms, don't we? DEI, EDI. We put a J for justice in
Joanne Lockwood: there. We put a this in there. And it confuses the
Joanne Lockwood: layperson with all these buzzwords. And what we're really trying to say is we want
Joanne Lockwood: well-being. We want psychological safety. We want environments where people can
Joanne Lockwood: thrive, they feel safe, they can they can grow, they can develop,
Joanne Lockwood: they can be nurtured. That's all we're talking about and that's that's all
Joanne Lockwood: people rather than just some people. And if that's what we're trying
Joanne Lockwood: to do with DEI, EDI, is try and create positive
Joanne Lockwood: environments where people thrive and feel that sense of belonging and purpose.
Joanne Lockwood: And it's got hijacked into, as you say, food and flags
Joanne Lockwood: and fun and and which which are great because everyone loves a good party, everyone
Joanne Lockwood: loves a good it brings people together, but it's I often think that
Joanne Lockwood: some it gets lost in, I I call it, bean counting. Have I got it's
Joanne Lockwood: like Noah's Ark. Have I got one of those, 2 of those, 5 of these?
Joanne Lockwood: Where is everybody? If we're not careful, what we end up doing is we're focusing
Joanne Lockwood: on the numbers rather than the outcomes, which is how do people feel?
Alyssa Dver: That's right. That's right. Now, I'm I'm gonna take us a little
Alyssa Dver: bit outside of that box for a second if you'll allow me.
Alyssa Dver: My husband is a 5th grade teacher here in the US, and he works in
Alyssa Dver: a school that is bilingual,
Alyssa Dver: largely Brazilian Portuguese is the
Alyssa Dver: second language. A lot of these children have been
Alyssa Dver: through extraordinary trauma. And I keep using that phrase,
Alyssa Dver: extraordinary trauma, because I think there's everyday traumas that we all live through.
Alyssa Dver: But these are extraordinary, you know, they've left homes
Alyssa Dver: sometimes with a single parent, sometimes had, you
Alyssa Dver: know, all kinds of voyage journeys and so forth.
Alyssa Dver: And oftentimes are still in a traumatic environment where maybe
Alyssa Dver: they're one of 10 people in a very, very small
Alyssa Dver: apartment. Maybe there's abuse and drugs. There's all kinds of things that
Alyssa Dver: happen. Needless to say, he teaches a course for
Alyssa Dver: other teachers on how to handle trauma. And, you know, I think one
Alyssa Dver: of the key messages is you're never going to understand, nor should
Alyssa Dver: you, nor, you know, it's almost a
Alyssa Dver: waste of time in many cases to try and really understand the trauma. But
Alyssa Dver: there are ways we can support that child in learning
Alyssa Dver: better, knowing that they've been through trauma. Right? And I
Alyssa Dver: I use that you know, I'm very inspired by all that because I think
Alyssa Dver: what a lot of managers will never understand
Alyssa Dver: is if you really want people to
Alyssa Dver: have the best performance they can be. Right? Like, as a manager, that's your
Alyssa Dver: job is like, how do I help you perform better? That that's it. Right? How
Alyssa Dver: do I make you, the best contributor you can
Alyssa Dver: be? I don't have to understand your
Alyssa Dver: experience, but I have to at least respect it. And I have to
Alyssa Dver: ask good enough questions to to make you
Alyssa Dver: psychologically safe, to allow you to thrive in a way that doesn't
Alyssa Dver: threaten my
Alyssa Dver: limitations. Right? And I think that's where the rubber hits the
Alyssa Dver: road is managers feel like, you know, they are, you know, you got to
Alyssa Dver: get the best out of your people. You got to like, you know, bring your
Alyssa Dver: whole self to work. Well, really? Really?
Alyssa Dver: Come on. Who are you joking? I can't bring my whole self to work if
Alyssa Dver: you're not even letting me open my mouth in a meeting,
Alyssa Dver: right? Or you're not even asking me what I need
Alyssa Dver: in this body that I have that's very different than yours. And I
Alyssa Dver: think there's a vulnerability there that we just we're never gonna I shouldn't
Alyssa Dver: say never. It's gonna be hard to train some of these people to
Alyssa Dver: relax a little bit. Yeah, I'm just picking out
Joanne Lockwood: some core thinking out of what you're just saying, and I I think I'm
Joanne Lockwood: gonna crystallize it as as listening to
Joanne Lockwood: understand. Not listening to reply, but listening to truly
Joanne Lockwood: understand. I think what I find is the traditional
Joanne Lockwood: I say traditional, the old school command and control leadership style is I'm
Joanne Lockwood: right. I know the plan. We're gonna do it my way.
Joanne Lockwood: And if you're not doing it my way, I'm gonna manage you until you do
Joanne Lockwood: or or you're out. Whereas the what we're trying to do now is
Joanne Lockwood: is develop teams of artisans, people who are
Joanne Lockwood: creative, people who are free thinking, people who bring that empowerment
Joanne Lockwood: and those ideas sharing into the workplace. And the leaders' role is different now.
Joanne Lockwood: It's about creating space and holding space for people
Joanne Lockwood: to explore ideas and come to
Joanne Lockwood: this consensus or this compromise, whatever we want to call it, of of
Joanne Lockwood: of a direction rather than saying, I've got all the ideas, this is what we're
Joanne Lockwood: going to do. It's what do we think? How are we gonna do this? I
Alyssa Dver: think we could even apply that comment to, again, the
Alyssa Dver: politics. Right? The difference between being
Alyssa Dver: led versus
Alyssa Dver: empowered. Right? And
Alyssa Dver: leaders fear empowering people because it
Alyssa Dver: means that they're gonna lose their own power, which in truth is just the
Alyssa Dver: opposite. You know? The old adage of hire
Alyssa Dver: people that are smarter than you. Like, it takes a really confident person
Alyssa Dver: to be like, hey. You know, this is an area that I know we need
Alyssa Dver: to do, and I'm not the expert, but you are. Right?
Alyssa Dver: So, yes, when you allow people, empower
Alyssa Dver: people to be in the words they use innovative, I'll even
Alyssa Dver: say entrepreneurial. Right?
Alyssa Dver: And I I I would go so far to say that most people who do
Alyssa Dver: leave a corporate world, myself included, I was a corporate,
Alyssa Dver: executive for 25, 30 years. And I I was
Alyssa Dver: like, I I can't deal with these constraints. My brain is too
Alyssa Dver: creative. I wanna do bigger or better things, and I can't do it in
Alyssa Dver: this environment. But I think a lot of people leave because of
Alyssa Dver: that reason. And yet, the talent, the
Alyssa Dver: innovation, the creativity that comes from allowing people to do that.
Alyssa Dver: Yeah. That's why companies take so long to move companies.
Alyssa Dver: Organizations would be government and nonprofit. You you know, any kind of organization.
Alyssa Dver: Because the management is, assuming that they
Alyssa Dver: need to lead and not empower. I I walked
Joanne Lockwood: out of corporate banking life in the
Joanne Lockwood: twilight of the nineties, 1998. It was just prior to year
Joanne Lockwood: 2000. There was a lot of memos going around
Joanne Lockwood: telling us about our bonuses that were on the on the line if
Joanne Lockwood: year 2000 went went wrong. And
Joanne Lockwood: just the tone of voice in these letters, the tone of voice in the communication.
Joanne Lockwood: I just thought, hang on a minute. I don't need this.
Joanne Lockwood: You're you're treating me as as a 2 year old. You're paying me a lot
Joanne Lockwood: of money, and you're talking me like I'm a 2 year old.
Joanne Lockwood: No. I'm not having it. And I walked into HR and I said, no. I'm
Joanne Lockwood: out. They looked at me and say, what, what, what, you can't do that?
Joanne Lockwood: I said, well, you changed the rules, not me. You know, you decided that you're
Joanne Lockwood: going to rearrange the department. You're going to do this, you're going to do that.
Joanne Lockwood: That's not the job I wanted. That's not the job I applied for. That's not
Joanne Lockwood: the job you offered me. You just think I'm going to be your pawn. I
Joanne Lockwood: decided at that point there I wasn't fit for corporate life. I wasn't prepared to
Joanne Lockwood: be the the pawn on the on the board and,
Joanne Lockwood: to be, ruled by the back by the back row. So,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, it was but I didn't know what being self employed truly meant. I just
Joanne Lockwood: knew that I could get up tomorrow and figure stuff out. Figure it out.
Alyssa Dver: Figure it out. And it is, again, a privileged position as you said
Alyssa Dver: earlier, right, to be able to do that, and some people can't.
Alyssa Dver: So the people that can't or won't and could be can't
Alyssa Dver: financially, but it could be can't because, emotionally, they're just not there. They don't have
Alyssa Dver: the the the wherewithal. A thousand reasons, right,
Alyssa Dver: why they can't. At least, if there's an environment
Alyssa Dver: where they can commiserate with other people who are in the same boat, that
Alyssa Dver: helps. At least if they can feel like I'm not the only one
Alyssa Dver: who sees the ridiculousness of the situation or the injustice of the
Alyssa Dver: situation, that helps. So,
Alyssa Dver: you know, I I do use that word commiserate
Alyssa Dver: a lot in the ERG language because I think there is an
Alyssa Dver: empowerment that comes. It's not whining. It's validating.
Alyssa Dver: It's saying, you know, I see this is wrong.
Alyssa Dver: And yet other people are saying, Yeah, we see it wrong
Alyssa Dver: too. So maybe they'll get up and do something to right it. But if
Alyssa Dver: nothing else, they don't feel like an outsider saying,
Alyssa Dver: you know, the emperor has no clothes. So,
Alyssa Dver: you know, I think that there is a real power in that coming
Alyssa Dver: together, in that ability to, again, share. Even if
Alyssa Dver: it's not an ethnicity share, it's not a
Alyssa Dver: gender share. It's not it's not that. It's just we see that this is
Alyssa Dver: we see it from the same side of things, and apparently, the rest of the
Alyssa Dver: organization doesn't. You don't feel so lonely in that.
Joanne Lockwood: ERG staff networks, however you wanna describe them, they go through
Joanne Lockwood: an evolutionary phase, both an
Joanne Lockwood: organization, being from a start up to
Joanne Lockwood: maturing, and the ERG will will match
Joanne Lockwood: the maturity model, if you like, with the organisation as well. So at the
Joanne Lockwood: early stages, it's a bit probably less less formal. And
Joanne Lockwood: eventually, you're working with a multinational conglomerate
Joanne Lockwood: with thousands and thousands of staff all over the world, then the ERG model
Joanne Lockwood: becomes multi territory, multi time
Joanne Lockwood: zone, and it has to have some structures.
Joanne Lockwood: Where do organizations make mistakes in the early days when they're starting
Joanne Lockwood: ERGs? What's their what's their biggest misstep, if you like?
Alyssa Dver: Well, I'm gonna start with there's no
Alyssa Dver: maturity model. I think it's misled for people to think
Alyssa Dver: that there's a maturity model. We used to have an assessment ourselves for
Alyssa Dver: progression and this and the other. And the reality is this that the organization
Alyssa Dver: may have a programmatic maturity. You know, they finally
Alyssa Dver: get a policy document. They probably they finally
Alyssa Dver: get the rules and processes kind of in a place. Maybe they have a
Alyssa Dver: system to help manage it, whatever. Group
Alyssa Dver: itself ebbs and flows. And it ebbs and
Alyssa Dver: flows with the leadership of the group,
Alyssa Dver: the experience and the zeal of those leaders themselves which come and go.
Alyssa Dver: 2 years is an average tenure, but when I say average,
Alyssa Dver: most leaders don't even last that long. So, there's a lot of new
Alyssa Dver: people that come and go, and they may or may not have experience leading a
Alyssa Dver: group at all. So, the group itself, there may be new groups
Alyssa Dver: that pop up all the time. And we get inquiries
Alyssa Dver: at ELA all the time saying, oh, yesterday somebody emailed
Alyssa Dver: us. You ever heard of Slovenia Slovenian group,
Alyssa Dver: Slovenic group, I guess? And we'd like to know if
Alyssa Dver: there anybody else has one of those on the those happen. So
Alyssa Dver: the groups themselves will ebb and flow. And even if it's
Alyssa Dver: a, you know, big group that's been around for a long time, there's a
Alyssa Dver: reflection of the leadership. There's a reflection of the overall leadership of the organization.
Alyssa Dver: Of course, there's an ebb and flow of the political environment. I mean, there's a
Alyssa Dver: lot of things that can, in fact, impact the status of
Alyssa Dver: that group. So I think number one mistake
Alyssa Dver: is don't assume anything. Like, always go back to some of the fundamentals
Alyssa Dver: of, you know, make sure that it's clear who that group is
Alyssa Dver: serving specifically and why. And when I say
Alyssa Dver: go back, review those documents. Some people have charter missions. We
Alyssa Dver: charter and mission statements. We we have something a little bit more
Alyssa Dver: granular to really kind of call out some of the things that often get lost
Alyssa Dver: in those mission statements. Because who are you serving?
Alyssa Dver: You know, if you're serving women, are you serving any woman?
Alyssa Dver: Anyone who identifies as a woman? Women in general, what
Alyssa Dver: about men who want to support women better? Those are your allies.
Alyssa Dver: Are you supporting them? If so, okay. But define
Alyssa Dver: it. Right? And why? Be really clear. Why does this group
Alyssa Dver: need to exist? And what happens if the group goes away?
Alyssa Dver: So those fundamentals are really important. And and in light
Alyssa Dver: of those, when you're clear about who that group
Alyssa Dver: is for, the structure of the group, the processes of the group, the roles of
Alyssa Dver: the different not just in the leadership chain, but the executive
Alyssa Dver: sponsors, the role of the allies. When you have those fundamentals
Alyssa Dver: updated regularly, then everything else gets easier.
Alyssa Dver: I'm not going to say easy, but easier. So, when you make decisions
Alyssa Dver: about how do we inform and who do we inform and how frequently
Alyssa Dver: and what channels, what programs do we do, what gets funded, what
Alyssa Dver: doesn't get funded, Who's allowed to come to what?
Alyssa Dver: What safe spaces versus brief spaces are we gonna create?
Alyssa Dver: Those things get clearer. Are we gonna run things
Alyssa Dver: remotely? So people who are out in the fields who
Alyssa Dver: are maybe on a factory floor or frontline, are they
Alyssa Dver: gonna be easily
Alyssa Dver: participating? You know, those things get a lot clearer. So I
Alyssa Dver: think though that's the biggest mistake is people don't pay attention. I call them
Alyssa Dver: the fundamentals. It's kinda like, you know, the the definitional
Alyssa Dver: building blocks that make that group who they are. I see a lot of debates
Joanne Lockwood: on, LinkedIn around who who owns the
Joanne Lockwood: ERG. You know? And, is it employee led,
Joanne Lockwood: employee owned, or is it really the company? Who is the
Joanne Lockwood: master? Who who is the who drives the agenda?
Joanne Lockwood: And I see people criticising other
Joanne Lockwood: people for doing unpaid
Joanne Lockwood: voluntary work to support the company, and the company should
Joanne Lockwood: really be funding the ERG and giving it part of their job and giving them
Joanne Lockwood: time off. And people find they're doing it as a hobby or a
Joanne Lockwood: side side hustle. I don't really try and sort
Joanne Lockwood: that that that, that tension out. I appreciate there's
Joanne Lockwood: no right or wrong way. It's whatever works for you.
Joanne Lockwood: But how how can we rationalize the,
Joanne Lockwood: the the yin and the yang of that? I don't know
Alyssa Dver: if it's yin and yang. I think they're a little bit more confrontational than
Alyssa Dver: that. No. There's there's a couple points that you
Alyssa Dver: just put into that question. You know, all these organizations
Alyssa Dver: that wanna slap a b in the front of the word. Right? Business resource group
Alyssa Dver: or business employee resource group. You know? That's part of that whole
Alyssa Dver: debacle of really who owns the group. Now I'm gonna say
Alyssa Dver: something here that may not resonate well with a lot of people. But look,
Alyssa Dver: if you're taking money from the business, I'm sorry to say it's like
Alyssa Dver: your board of it's your board of advisors or whoever. Like, the
Alyssa Dver: business owns that. But if
Alyssa Dver: the business is smart, if the business is doing this for the right
Alyssa Dver: reasons, it is funding it like an investor and trusting
Alyssa Dver: that the leaders of that group are not only
Alyssa Dver: gonna make good decisions, but take the time to justify those
Alyssa Dver: decisions back to the board. So if I'm going to give you
Alyssa Dver: x number of pounds or dollars or euros, whatever it might
Alyssa Dver: be, that you come back and say, Here are the things that I want to
Alyssa Dver: do with that money. And subsequently, this is the outcome.
Alyssa Dver: Now, here's where the ERGs
Alyssa Dver: and the whole world is changing a lot. And you were in the London event.
Alyssa Dver: You know that my trends report for 2025 is all about the numbers.
Alyssa Dver: Right? We gotta get better with the numbers. And the numbers have to
Alyssa Dver: be speaking to the business people. So, when we say that,
Alyssa Dver: you know, it helps people feel included and belonging, that means nothing
Alyssa Dver: to a CFO. What means to a CFO is if you
Alyssa Dver: don't do this, this is how many people are gonna leave next year. If
Alyssa Dver: you don't do this, this is what the impact on profitability and productivity is gonna
Alyssa Dver: be with some kind of quantitative number. Right? And
Alyssa Dver: so, that has been a mistake since
Alyssa Dver: the 1960s. Right? The ERGs have been there, but there never really been
Alyssa Dver: this rally cry of we've got to show the quantitative outcome
Alyssa Dver: to the business because the businesses are funding this.
Alyssa Dver: So, one woman's opinion
Alyssa Dver: is the groups are employee
Alyssa Dver: run, but they are business
Alyssa Dver: funded and assisted. This whole thing about compensating
Alyssa Dver: the leaders, which you also kind of tucked in
Alyssa Dver: there. This has been a very heated debate
Alyssa Dver: since the get go. We in many of our
Alyssa Dver: ELA events, our conferences. We've we've literally had
Alyssa Dver: different panelists argue this. The audience gets very heated about
Alyssa Dver: it. And again, this is one woman's opinion. If you step up to be
Alyssa Dver: an ERG leader, you're giving yourself a really beautiful
Alyssa Dver: opportunity to practice
Alyssa Dver: leadership skills, to learn from other people, to have access to
Alyssa Dver: people and resources that you'll never get in your day job, in your higher job,
Alyssa Dver: as I like to prefer to call it. So it's an
Alyssa Dver: opportunity. It's like taking, you know,
Alyssa Dver: one of those, you know, somebody says, would you like to be in the management
Alyssa Dver: track? Yes. It doesn't always pan out that way for lots of reasons.
Alyssa Dver: But if you take that approach and proactively say, this is what I want
Alyssa Dver: to learn and who I want to learn from. And these are the some of
Alyssa Dver: the things I'm gonna do in that role. It's a beautiful opportunity.
Alyssa Dver: Now you need your hired manager's support to do that. Of course, you
Alyssa Dver: don't wanna jeopardize your regular job. You certainly need
Alyssa Dver: the executive sponsor's support of the group to make all that, you
Alyssa Dver: know, open up all those doors and support you. But
Alyssa Dver: that's what it's about. There's some really
Alyssa Dver: terrible data out there. And I say data because it's
Alyssa Dver: not right. I I hate to call other organizations
Alyssa Dver: wrong, but they're wrong.
Alyssa Dver: We survey our members constantly. You know, at every event,
Alyssa Dver: we're always asking them. And this job is not
Alyssa Dver: compensated. It's not a job. It's a temporary
Alyssa Dver: assignment. It's like volunteering to be on the Parent Teacher Association
Alyssa Dver: or something else where you feel like you want to have your voice heard. You
Alyssa Dver: want to learn some things. You want to make new connections. But it's
Alyssa Dver: not a paid position. And the people who've gotten paid in the
Alyssa Dver: past or made payment available got burned.
Alyssa Dver: Because now all of a sudden, you have 2 bosses, 2 sets of performance reviews
Alyssa Dver: to deal with, and a lot of expectations
Alyssa Dver: that often are not in your control. So, you know, they
Alyssa Dver: give you a bonus, a spot bonus. They give you a cash card.
Alyssa Dver: Go, you know, have a nice cup of coffee somewhere. That's
Alyssa Dver: awesome. You know, maybe you're getting, a nice letter from
Alyssa Dver: your executive sponsor that you can put in your resume and your confidence
Alyssa Dver: collection someday to go, I did a great job. If you can
Alyssa Dver: get some of that put into your regular performance review, even better. For
Alyssa Dver: all those reasons, it's that those are valuable. They may not be
Alyssa Dver: cash convertible, but they're very valuable. But to
Alyssa Dver: expect that you're gonna get paid to do this work. I think that goes
Alyssa Dver: back to what we're saying before. DEI wanted all these people to be
Alyssa Dver: ambassadors and that was that was unpaid work. And I
Alyssa Dver: don't think that's fair. But if you're doing it for yourself in a way that's
Alyssa Dver: going to improve your ability to lead and contribute to the
Alyssa Dver: organization, whatever organization that is in the future,
Alyssa Dver: that's a great opportunity. Yeah. I suppose the way I would frame it is
Joanne Lockwood: it's a it's a fast track growth opportunity to step
Joanne Lockwood: out of your comfort zone, to step into something else. Also, if you're
Joanne Lockwood: operating at the senior level within the ERG, then it
Joanne Lockwood: will give you access to upper management in organisations
Joanne Lockwood: and across teams where you're networking with other ERGs, other
Joanne Lockwood: leaders. So you will be very well connected, very well known, and it's a
Joanne Lockwood: it's a fantastic opportunity for for career development, career advancement
Joanne Lockwood: as a CV line, especially if you went to another organisation.
Joanne Lockwood: It's it's a huge, great asset to you and your growth. So I
Joanne Lockwood: think you're right. This may be seen as a
Joanne Lockwood: financially rewarding at the time, but an investment in your career, investment
Joanne Lockwood: in a vocation that you can step out of being a
Joanne Lockwood: techie and into management without and have a test drive.
Alyssa Dver: Absolutely. And, you know, it's not just for the senior people. Like a junior
Alyssa Dver: person who maybe they wanna run an event and they've never
Alyssa Dver: done something like that. Well, what a great opportunity to
Alyssa Dver: experience it. You know, the the curricula that we designed and I
Alyssa Dver: mentioned the blueprints before. I said it's like a mini MBA.
Alyssa Dver: It really is. I mean, I went to the top business school in the world
Alyssa Dver: and I promise you it's like a mini MBA.
Alyssa Dver: So if you can get that for free with low risk and
Alyssa Dver: at the same time a lot of support around you so you're not
Alyssa Dver: studying on your own kind of thing. Oh my gosh. But people
Alyssa Dver: don't see it that way. They either like, I'm doing the work of DI or
Alyssa Dver: I'm doing, you know, all this other Yeah, it's it is additional
Alyssa Dver: work. I give it to you. It is a work and it's stressful and we
Alyssa Dver: see a lot of burnout. But that's largely because the
Alyssa Dver: expectations are not well set, and they
Alyssa Dver: are also not well managed. We get the same problem sometimes as we do in
Joanne Lockwood: in the hired job where people aren't
Joanne Lockwood: experienced or trained or capable leaders. And putting within
Joanne Lockwood: ERG for to to grow their leadership skills is good, but
Joanne Lockwood: it it's also fraught with problems as well. So we've got to make sure there's
Joanne Lockwood: good governance and rules and
Joanne Lockwood: policies, for whatever better way of describing it. Otherwise, ERGs could
Joanne Lockwood: become a political hotbed of matriarchal
Joanne Lockwood: patriarchal clashes and demigods kicking in and
Joanne Lockwood: it's my budget, not your budget. We're gonna do it my way. Dungeons and
Alyssa Dver: Dragons and ERGs, right? I think, yeah, absolutely.
Alyssa Dver: But, you know, I gave the example of a parent
Alyssa Dver: teacher organization. What what do you call them in the UK? Because here they go
Alyssa Dver: PTOs or you have the PTA,
Joanne Lockwood: Parent Teacher Association. Yeah. Yeah. Let me think about that. Village FATE,
Joanne Lockwood: organizing a carnival or something like that. Yeah. Right. Or
Alyssa Dver: even, you know, if you're on some kind of advisory board for a religious organization
Alyssa Dver: or even a board for a nonprofit or a a start
Alyssa Dver: up. Right? If there's no rules of engagement, if there's no kind of
Alyssa Dver: expectations of what your, contribution and
Alyssa Dver: subsequent behavior should be, yeah, yeah, yeah. It is chaos. You're
Alyssa Dver: absolutely right. But an ERG is no different. I say ERGs are
Alyssa Dver: internal in associations. That's what they are. So if you run them without
Alyssa Dver: any governance, without any guardrails, yeah, you better believe people are
Alyssa Dver: gonna run off the road. It's just nature of
Alyssa Dver: humans. But but it's not very hard to create those guardrails. And
Alyssa Dver: it's not very hard to also ensure that
Alyssa Dver: people in and around the organization and here's
Alyssa Dver: another huge mistake. The only way an ERJ, I'm gonna
Alyssa Dver: be very absolute with this. The only way one of these groups really does well
Alyssa Dver: is if it has good executive sponsorship. Why? Because they
Alyssa Dver: have the visibility, they have the ear, they have the power
Alyssa Dver: really to ensure that that group is
Alyssa Dver: respected. Right? But how many organizations
Alyssa Dver: train their ear their executive sponsors? And they they look at these c suite or
Alyssa Dver: director level people, and they're like, oh, they're so smart. They know everything.
Alyssa Dver: Baloney. Bullshit. They do not know how to be an executive
Alyssa Dver: sponsor. We say to them, Oh, you're all just to advocate. They're like, I don't
Alyssa Dver: know what that means. I don't know how to do that. So, one
Alyssa Dver: of the things I did is I went out and interviewed 50 executive sponsors and
Alyssa Dver: every single one of them were like, I don't know what I'm doing.
Alyssa Dver: And I'm like, well, of course you don't know what you're doing. You never were
Alyssa Dver: taught how to do this. It's a different role than
Alyssa Dver: the one that you do day to day, or your CFO or CMO or whatever
Alyssa Dver: it is. It's a completely different role. And nobody teaches
Alyssa Dver: you how to be a mentor. Nobody teaches you how to be an advocate.
Alyssa Dver: Nobody teaches you how to represent.
Alyssa Dver: And so, not training those executive sponsors knowing that they're a
Alyssa Dver: key, that's a huge monumental mistake. We
Alyssa Dver: did more training this year for executive sponsors than anyone. So, I'm encouraged that
Alyssa Dver: that's a trend. But at the same time, man, if you have executive
Alyssa Dver: sponsors that have never been trained, that's a vulnerability.
Alyssa Dver: That's a liability. The vulnerability of the sponsor is as career
Joanne Lockwood: developing as any other as the other way around, where you're you're
Joanne Lockwood: learning about different aspects of the business. You're you're probably drilling
Joanne Lockwood: down and coming in contact with people you wouldn't have come in contact, listening to
Joanne Lockwood: opinions, listening to views, getting your finger on the pulse.
Joanne Lockwood: If everybody at the C suite was executive sponsoring
Joanne Lockwood: in their own right, they would have huge insights into the
Joanne Lockwood: ground floor of their business, wouldn't they? Yes, absolutely.
Alyssa Dver: Absolutely. And the whole ERG is a is
Joanne Lockwood: a a win win or should be a win win for
Joanne Lockwood: both the people of which it represents, but also the organization in which
Joanne Lockwood: it serves. That's exactly what I
Alyssa Dver: got into in the beginning. I was like, we're doing these wrong, and we gotta
Alyssa Dver: do them better. And the only way we're gonna do them better is if we
Alyssa Dver: rally a global community that can help
Alyssa Dver: figure out what those things are. You know, I said before that
Alyssa Dver: there's no progression. Well, you know what? There's no best practices either and
Alyssa Dver: there's no experts. And the reason being because
Alyssa Dver: every organization, of course, is different. Different culture, different leadership,
Alyssa Dver: every group itself is different. But that doesn't mean we
Alyssa Dver: can't have some benchmarks and some standards that people
Alyssa Dver: look and say, Okay, this is what we, you know, we need to have a
Alyssa Dver: policy guide. What's in that policy guide will vary from organization
Alyssa Dver: to organization. We need to have some governance for a group. And again, it
Alyssa Dver: may vary from one to the other, but there's certain aspects of governance that they
Alyssa Dver: all should have. We need to have structure. Not every group is going to have
Alyssa Dver: the same structure, but we need to have a structure. And here's what typically
Alyssa Dver: is in organizations for at least your group to consider.
Alyssa Dver: And I think that I know that
Alyssa Dver: not trying to be the expert and tell people what to do, but bring the
Alyssa Dver: community together to say, okay, how are we gonna make these groups
Alyssa Dver: better, stronger, more
Alyssa Dver: business centric without losing that employee
Alyssa Dver: control, I would say. Least employee
Alyssa Dver: value. Yeah, I think it's a huge
Alyssa Dver: win win. I think we're going to see the data and we're starting to see
Alyssa Dver: data already showing that when the groups are done well,
Alyssa Dver: the overall productivity and profitability of the organization goes up. And
Alyssa Dver: it's not just the people that are in the groups, it's the entire organization goes
Alyssa Dver: up. But we also see the opposite when you say, Yeah, we're going to
Alyssa Dver: have the groups because we want a checkbox. We want to be able to say
Alyssa Dver: that we have these groups, but we're not really going to support them well.
Alyssa Dver: We actually see profitability and productivity go down Because
Alyssa Dver: people know that the managers are full of crap. If you're listening to this, and
Joanne Lockwood: you're sitting there thinking, wow, that sounds utopian. I
Joanne Lockwood: want an ERG just like that. Our organization,
Joanne Lockwood: whatever, tick whichever box doesn't work for you. What advice would
Joanne Lockwood: you, or starting point, would you say to someone, if it's not working,
Joanne Lockwood: how does someone get involved and catalyze it? What are the key things to
Joanne Lockwood: kicking it into the right orbit? Oh, wow. Well, two things come to mind.
Alyssa Dver: 1st, and it's not a commercial because these are all free.
Alyssa Dver: Jump on our website, grab a copy of the book, which is a PDF of
Alyssa Dver: the ERG intelligence book. It's everything you need to know about ERGs. It's a
Alyssa Dver: short quick read. But you can at least start to think about some of the
Alyssa Dver: things that, you know, should be in place before you really get
Alyssa Dver: going. The second thing is
Alyssa Dver: to really talk to some employees. And usually, I mean, we just did this
Alyssa Dver: with actually a company that's based in
Alyssa Dver: the Netherlands, but they have they operate in 42 countries.
Alyssa Dver: They said, look, we want to do we want to have a conversation like
Alyssa Dver: a town hall almost where we can come and talk about what these groups could
Alyssa Dver: be like and will look like. And if you're interested in learning more, come and
Alyssa Dver: talk. And so we led that that conversation, knowing
Alyssa Dver: that not everybody was gonna show up, but at least you start to attract the
Alyssa Dver: people that have that interest, and you build that community then to
Alyssa Dver: build and leverage it through your organization. But to
Alyssa Dver: expect a single diversity person or
Alyssa Dver: department for that matter, if there's still a department in your organization,
Alyssa Dver: or to expect the employees to do it on their own, it's kind of naive.
Joanne Lockwood: This has been a fascinating conversation. This hour has flown
Joanne Lockwood: by in addition to the 20 minutes we were chatting in the green room
Joanne Lockwood: beforehand. I'm sure the listener who's got to
Joanne Lockwood: this point is dying to find out how to get a hold of you. Where
Joanne Lockwood: could people track you down? Well, all right. I'm going to give 2
Alyssa Dver: URLs because get on there and contact us on both pages will will
Alyssa Dver: find its way to me if you have a direct question. So the ergleadershipalliance.com
Alyssa Dver: is the one around ERGs. Ergleadershipalliance.com, just
Alyssa Dver: like that. And the American Confidence
Alyssa Dver: Institute.com is the brain science
Alyssa Dver: confidence entity. So if you have 1 or either one, you
Alyssa Dver: can go to and contact us and it'll get to me. And you work globally?
Joanne Lockwood: It's not just US focused? It's all across Europe, Asia?
Alyssa Dver: Everywhere. You know, it's interesting I say American confidence. And we were very
Alyssa Dver: deliberate when we started that because it is very focused on North
Alyssa Dver: and Central and South American confidence constructs.
Alyssa Dver: But the data and the research we've done globally, and we certainly do present
Alyssa Dver: around the world. And forgive me for saying that this, but at least physiologically,
Alyssa Dver: our brains are the same. So so, yeah. And
Joanne Lockwood: LinkedIn is a good place to track you down as well. Absolutely. Just my name
Alyssa Dver: is a little tough to spell, so I'll spell it out loud if that's okay,
Alyssa Dver: Jo. It's A-L-Y-S-S-A
Alyssa Dver: D-V-E-R. And
Alyssa Dver: you can find me. I'm the only one, thankfully, with that tough name.
Alyssa Dver: And I welcome any and all connections, comments, and love to connect with
Alyssa Dver: people online as well as over Zoom or whatever you use.
Joanne Lockwood: Fantastic. Again, thank you so much. It's been
Joanne Lockwood: a really insightful conversation, and I
Joanne Lockwood: hope that January doesn't bring you
Joanne Lockwood: more sadness, and that you and your friends can
Joanne Lockwood: find some solace in a future
Joanne Lockwood: where it's only 4 years. It's only 4 years, and I can just move to
Alyssa Dver: London, right? Go to London. Yeah. You're welcome here.
Alyssa Dver: No. You know, it is only 4 years, but at the same time, it's gonna
Alyssa Dver: be a tough 4 years. And I I rely on people like yourself and
Alyssa Dver: others in the community that we, we're so proud to support that,
Alyssa Dver: we're gonna get through this together. And it's gonna make us stronger, smarter, and
Alyssa Dver: more prepared for all the challenges that have yet to
Alyssa Dver: unfold. And let's hope that the this coming 4 years
Joanne Lockwood: is the end. So this is an end date.
Joanne Lockwood: There's no second bite of the cherry or third bite of the cherry. There's hope.
Joanne Lockwood: There's hope. Yeah. Well, again, if it if it isn't the
Alyssa Dver: end, we're gonna be ready. More ready than we ever were
Alyssa Dver: before. But, you know, here's the thing. It's not a fight,
Alyssa Dver: you know. Don't want people to think that, you know, it's this aggressive.
Alyssa Dver: We're gonna fight it. I think what it really is is really finding the
Alyssa Dver: way, as we've said through this entire interview.
Alyssa Dver: It's not a win win. It's not a it's not a win lose situation. We
Alyssa Dver: have to find win win. And so part of this is,
Alyssa Dver: maybe coming to the table with some some smarter ways to make
Alyssa Dver: people fear less that they're losing. And fearless that,
Alyssa Dver: we all have to be the top of the pyramid.
Alyssa Dver: It doesn't work that way. Yeah. I suppose we have to recognize that 75
Joanne Lockwood: odd million people are not all wrong. So there must be some
Joanne Lockwood: points of view in there that are worth sharing and understanding. Although
Joanne Lockwood: hard to work it out. Yeah. For sure. Thank you so much for having me
Alyssa Dver: today. What a what a lovely opportunity to talk with you. So thank you so
Alyssa Dver: much. Alyssa, thank you. 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.
Joanne Lockwood: If today's discussion struck a chord, consider subscribing to
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Joanne Lockwood: is Joanne Lockwood signing off for the promise to return
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Joanne Lockwood: world, one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.