Beth Stallwood 00:00:38 - 00:01:32
Welcome to the WorkjoyJam pod podcast. I'm your host, Beth Stallwood. In this episode, I am joined by the wonderful Catherine Garrod and we go on a journey through inclusion, through culture, thinking about the things that we need to do, as well as diversity, as well as thinking about how do we help underrepresented groups, but more about how do we understand what's going on with overrepresented groups of people. How it's everybody's responsibility, and there are so many little, tiny things that we can do that don't involve changing the world, but will actually change everything, whether that's for your employees, your customers, the communities that you belong to. Because if we all feel included, the world will definitely become a better place. If we understand different people's perspectives, we're able to have better relationships, and we're able to create a fairer organisation, a fairer society, and everything to be much, much better. I do hope you enjoy this conversation.

Beth Stallwood 00:01:38 - 00:01:55
Well, welcome to the WorkjoyJam. Today I have the lovely Catherine Garrod with me. But rather than me do an introduction, I thought I would hand over to you. Catherine. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are, what you do, and how you came to do what you do?

Catherine Garrod 00:01:55 - 00:03:41
Oh, my goodness. Hello. Thank you for having me. Yes, I can. So I guess I grew up, looking back retrospectively as an adult, I grew up sort of with this inner internal sense that the world didn't work fairly for everyone. And really interesting as an adult, I look back retrospectively and I'm like, huh, maybe that's led me to what I do today. So my company is called Compelling Culture and I work with organisations to see if people from underrepresented groups are having the same good experience as people from overrepresented groups. And if they're not, figure out what the actions are to close the gap. So the first probably 15 years of my career was about making the experience better for employees and that was very internally focused and just thinking about the amount of time and energy we spend at work. I believe we should enjoy it and I believe that people need purpose, and when they feel good about what they're doing, it's better for their wellbeing. So why wouldn't you do it? And obviously, the benefit for organisations is that they've got happy, productive employees who can deliver, you know, presumably whatever it is that they're there to do. So I've just always had that belief. In the last eight years, that belief has extended to think about consumer and community so making products and services work better for everyone as well. And then last year, which, of course, is how we know each other, I published a book called Conscious Inclusion: How to EDI (which stands for equity, diversity, and inclusion) one decision at a time.

Beth Stallwood 00:03:43 - 00:04:00
Amazing. And I'm so glad that you said there that you do think people should enjoy their work, because you probably shouldn't be on this podcast if you don't believe that, unless you want to have, like, a really heated debate about how work should be rubbish and we should all just get on with it. We're definitely in the right zone. So that's amazing.

Catherine Garrod 00:04:00 - 00:04:02
Would have been a bit awkward, wouldn't it?

Beth Stallwood00:04:02 - 00:06:00
I'd be like, I'm not sure I agree with you there, Catherine, but I definitely agree with you right here. It would be the shortest podcast in history, and obviously, I agree with you. Purpose, wellbeing, more productive, better engaged. Why wouldn't we want employees that are like that and how can we kind of close that gap between people who experience very different things in the same workplace. I love now that you're thinking beyond the employee and thinking about your kind of products and communities and the people that organisations serve and how we can help make sure that they're all together. Also loving the book, Conscious Inclusion, and one thing that I just really wanted to say about the book is I love the idea that it's one decision at a time. I think EDI can feel really complicated. It can feel really hard, and I think it can feel almost impossible to get right. And I love the idea that we can just do things one thing at a time. Let's do some simple stuff. Let's make a change, see where we get to, and from my perspective, one of the things I always think is that a really key facet of getting any joy at work, a key feature of it, is being included and being able to feel like you are part of something. So if I take it from the employee angle, if you do not have that, if you do not feel like you're included, if you do not feel like it is fair, etc, it is likely that you will not get as much work joy as you want, and you'll probably be in the work gloom category. So what I wanted to ask you about this is - how do we go about, and you've probably got loads of ideas on this, if an organisation is at that point where they're thinking, we want to do more about this, we want to understand better whether maybe it is employees, maybe it is our consumers, maybe it's the communities. Wherever it is, what can organisations do to understand the baseline of, are we doing some of this stuff yet and are we doing it good enough yet?

Catherine Garrod 00:06:00 - 00:08:53
My long term clients tend to contact me. They've been doing stuff and they've got people involved and they care and they're passionate and they might have been doing really, really good stuff, but they're not sure if that's adding up to long term change and sustainable change. So the point at which organisations, contact me, is to go help exactly as you're describing. It feels broad and it feels complex and how do we do this? The thing I just kind of end up repeat, repeat, repeat, is look at your data. Whatever data you're using to tell you if people are having a good experience. If it's at work, it might be your engagement survey, if it's customers, it might be things like your NP's score or your retention or repeat bookings or whatever. So whatever it is that you do, if you provide something that people can download, have a look at who is and who isn't, have a look at who's having a good experience and who's having a bad experience. And slice all of that data by demographics because every time I've helped organisations do this, what you find is your overrepresented population is huge, right? Because they're the over-represented population. They share lots of similar demographics and lived experiences and they are usually having the best time because most of what's been designed has been designed by people that are a bit like them, good for them, right? But when you break your data down and you look at the underrepresented groups and how they are scoring on things like autonomy and fairness in your engagement survey or customer satisfaction or repeat bookings or whatever, what are those scores? And actually, again, every time I've done this with organisations, those scores are lower because things haven't been designed as well with them in mind or the person on the end of the phone that they're talking to, to get help from isn't necessarily reflecting them. So things aren't working as well for them. So once you can see that in your data, it becomes this very natural catalyst to go, well, I don't like that. I don't want that to be true. I don't want people to be having a significantly different experience because of a different demographic or a different life characteristic. When we do our research, our design and our testing, who are we involving in the research and the design and the testing? If you can involve diverse groups in all of those processes, right the way throughout an organisation, in every team, it doesn't really matter what you're doing. That's when you build real confidence that what you're doing is going to be serving the people that, that you want to be serving.

Beth Stallwood 00:08:54 - 00:09:27
And that's also, isn't it, where you get it at the cultural level. So it's just inbuilt into how you do stuff versus, I mean, when we're recording this, it's just been International Women's Day. So there's been lots of lovely events and things, etc, which I'm not saying are a bad thing, I think they can be a great thing. They can raise awareness, they can help people feel good, they can do a lot of things, but they're not actually getting to the point of how do we do stuff around here at the everyday, every decision, every conversation, every product design, every meeting level.

Catherine Garrod 00:09:27 - 00:09:50
Totally agree. I think to your point, communication and events are important and they have their place, but that cannot be it. That cannot be the entirety of an organisation's plan that is very much about connecting people, raising awareness, celebrating, educating as you're celebrating. It has a really important part a of much wider strategy.

Beth Stallwood 00:09:50 - 00:09:58
Yeah, yeah. And I would never kind of want to think, oh, no, you shouldn't do those things, but they should be one of the things you do.

Catherine Garrod 00:09:58 - 00:10:01
I agree.

Beth Stallwood 00:10:02 - 00:10:08
You can't go, just because it has been International Women's Day, we've done a women's day event - tick for all women.

Catherine Garrod 00:10:08 - 00:10:11
Absolutely not. It's not worked yet.

Beth Stallwood 00:10:12 - 00:10:14
If that was going to work, it would have worked already.

Catherine Garrod 00:10:14 - 00:10:15
Exactly.

Beth Stallwood 00:10:15 - 00:10:51
Would have been there. It would have been done. So I think this is all really interesting and obviously from a cultural level, helping people, customers, colleagues, etc, to feel like things are designed for them, are appropriate for them, are in line with what they need, is all a really good thing. And I always think about this, do we need anything more than that? It’s just a good thing for human beings. I'm at the level, where I just want to do good stuff for humans. But there was also a proper commercial business advantage to doing this stuff, isn't there? It's not just around being good humans.

Catherine Garrod 00:10:51 - 00:11:41
It's fascinating, actually, I've had this conversation a few times recently. I think many, many, many organisations have gone way beyond the business case on inclusion. Now they kind of get it. If you design products and services that work better for everyone, guess what? You're going to appeal to more people. You're going to have more people buying your products and services, and you almost need to focus on the risk of not doing it now. So what I talk about is that inclusion is actually about remaining relevant in the future. So whether you are employing people, are those people going and having a search on your corporate website and your annual report or your social media pages, and are they looking for the words diversity and inclusion? If they are, and many people will be, and they can't find anything, they won't apply to work for you.

Catherine Garrod 00:11:42 - 00:12:34
You will not attract people that care about society and hold those strong values themselves. People are looking more and more, you know, particularly if they get to a position in their career where they can. But actually, younger generations are really looking more and more to find organisations that reflect the values that they have, and they want to know what an organisation's position is on some of these things. Also from a consumer point of view, there's 8 billion people in the world so depending on what your products and services really matter, just take your local, immediate postcode and surrounding areas. If you're not reflective of the people living in that area or working in that area or the businesses in that area, and someone else is, they're going to go to the someone else.

Beth Stallwood 00:12:35 - 00:14:50
Yeah. It's actually quite simple, isn't it? That bit of it. It's quite simple. I remember at one point I got quite obsessed with understanding the difference in the generations. And I'm a firm believer that there's more that unites us than divides us when it comes generations. And I think there's a lot that has been said about them, and I think people use it as a bit of generational bashing, and I don't like that at all because I think we all just want better things for ourselves. But when, when I read some of the research, I think it was on millennials, talking about how they're the most ethical generation that they've ever researched. And with ethics comes things like fairness, comes things like diversity, comes things like inclusion, comes things like beyond that, how good are you? How well are you doing for your environment? Are you caring about social impact? Are you caring about all these other things. And when we think about it, we're kind of two generations beyond that now in terms of people who will be coming into the workforce. And I have also seen it coming in with younger generation coming into the workforce. They are being more selective about the type of organisation they work for. I also see it in people. I don't know if you do, but especially around the kind of 15-20 years into your career when you can make choices because you have skills and you have the ability to go, hmm, hang on a minute, do I want to keep working in that kind of world or can I take my skills and work somewhere that maybe has more sense of purpose and a better understanding of people than potentially the place I've worked for before? So you can actually lose talent at many different ends if you don't pick the stuff up and do this stuff well. Oh, it's so interesting, isn't it, about how we all have something to do with these things. One thing that actually drives me slightly mad and I don't know, I reckon it will drive you mad as well. Is this idea that the one person who has like a job title of EDI Manager in an organisation of 5000 people, that that one person is responsible for everything to do with inclusion? And I'm like, oh, yeah, no.

Catherine Garrod 00:14:51 - 00:17:41
I think it's a form of naivety and I sort of understand it. Whilst I don't agree with it, I think inclusion is a relatively new skill set. My background, I worked in HR for many, many years. HR is usually the most underfunded department in an organisation, so just doesn't have the headcount, the budget, the capacity to go and invest on these skills, yet they are the people that the organisation turned to to expect to have all the answers on this thing. So actually, some of the work that I love is when clients say, can you come and do an upskill session with the HR and the Comms team? And I'm like, absolutely. So there's that part. But I think to your wider point, it's a bit of a naivety and, well, if HR and recruitment go and sort everything out, then we'll just be a diverse and inclusive organization and it's just a lack of understanding around the inherent biases that we all carry. Every single one of us, over 90% of our kind of thoughts and decisions on a daily basis are automatic and they are based on our own lived experiences. And with 8 billion people on the planet, they're not very reflective of everyone's experiences. So, you know, the work of inclusion is to get into that 10% thinking, and one of the things that I say is, look, no one can be an expert in everything. I'm not an expert in everything. This is literally what I do but I've still only had my lived experiences, and, of course, I am open to learning and unlearning and receiving feedback and apologising when I get it wrong and all of those things, which I think is really important. So not everybody has to know everything, and not everybody has to do everything, but everyone can do something, and that comes back to applying it to the work that people are already doing. You've got people with this fantastic expertise and skills and experiences in the jobs that they do. Conscious inclusion is literally making that work, work better for everyone. And once you do that, it just unlocks it, makes it safe. It makes it, you know, it moves it from being something overwhelming and just feeling impossible to how I can do that in my job. You know, I already have data, or we already have a process for designing things or reviewing things. Let's just update the way that we do those things. So it's not about loading more work and responsibilities and expectation onto people. It's about evolving and tweaking, mostly the work that people are already doing.

Beth Stallwood 00:17:42 - 00:18:08
And I think that is really reassuring for people as well, because this idea that maybe you're a manager or a leader in an organisation, you already have an expertise, you already have a team, you already have, like, a million and one things on your to do list and no hours in the day to do them. It can feel like it's another thing I have to add onto my list. But what you're suggesting is it's not about adding to your list. It's about adapting how you do the things on your list.

Catherine Garrod 00:18:08 - 00:18:31
Yeah and not ripping it apart and starting again. It's usually modifications. You go back to the one person who has inclusion in their title. If you flip that, just go with me a bit here, because this might sound a bit strange., it's expecting that one person with inclusion in their title to become an expert in all the other people in the organisation's jobs and what they do and work out how to do it inclusively. It doesn't make any sense.

Beth Stallwood 00:18:31 - 00:18:32
Doesn't make any sense.

Catherine Garrod 00:18:32 - 00:19:03
Whereas if, you know, you collaborate. I talk about, build with, not for. I talk about combined skill and will. So if you've got the skill of, here's how to apply inclusion with the will of, yes, I want to make products and services or policies or process or whatever it might be, work better for everyone, get people together. You know, nobody has all the answers, but actually, if you can involve people in that design and that thinking and that testing, you go further, faster.

Beth Stallwood 00:19:03 - 00:19:21
And that makes it much more practical and much more. You're able to see it come to life and you're able to be part of that versus waiting for somebody else to tell you what to do or to do it for you, which will inevitably not be how you wanted to do it. Or as often not possible.

Catherine Garrod 00:19:21 - 00:19:25
Yeah And often not possible because that person doesn't have the skill of your job.

Beth Stallwood 00:19:25 - 00:19:30
Yeah. And they're not supposed to have the skill of your job either. That's not their expertise.

Catherine Garrod 00:19:30 - 00:19:30
No.

Beth Stallwood 00:19:32 - 00:19:52
Talk to me a little bit about any practical stuff. So you talk about how do we build it into these jobs? Have you got some examples of how people have done that? Or how you've advised people to go, okay, here's just one little tiny thing that you could do consciously every day that would help you be better at what you do when it comes to inclusion.

Catherine Garrod 00:19:53 - 00:25:37
Yeah. So there's every day, every week, every month, every quarter, every year type of activities that happen in an organisation. So the every month, quarter and yearly stuff - write reminders into your process notes and guidance materials. Help people out at the point when they're coming to do that thing that they don't do very often. So let me give you an example of that. First, if you're doing succession planning in an organisation, or you're reviewing performance ratings or recognition awards or whatever, you choose the period of time, write into that process a reminder that says, look at the people that you've nominated, or look at the people that you've given the highest ratings, or look at the people that you've said are your highest potential people. How diverse is that group of people? And then if people look and they go, oh that's a bit uncomfortable, then it's like, is there anyone else you could include? What would it take? Have you overlooked somebody? So it's nudges and it's prompts. It's not saying that's wrong and you must do this and you must meet a quota, but by putting the questions in the guidance what you're doing is getting the brain to switch out of that 90% and into that 10% that is much more reflective and looks and sees and maybe goes and get some other perspectives and some feedback depending on what the process is. If somebody is still ultimately comfortable with the names that they've picked and they are all the same, I suspect what will happen next. So when I say, oh, they're all the same, you know, broad brush for not much diversity, I suspect what will happen is when they come to that process again, if they get a similar experience, it might take a few nudges to get there, but if you can build that in across an organisation that creates these aha moments. So that's some of your cycle stuff in a very, you know, helpful, practical, non judgmental way. Second one, you know, if you're pulling people together for a meeting, involve everyone in the conversation. If you don't do that, 30% of people can dominate 80% of the conversation. So you might have created diversity, but if you're only hearing from the same voices, you haven't created inclusion. So you might need to say, if you've got somebody really over invested and animated and excited to contribute, you might need to say, thanks Catherine, great to hear from you. I'd love to hear what everyone else is thinking. It would be really gentle, but I'd love to hear what everybody else is thinking. The middle one is my personal favourite, number three, deliberately go and seek alternative perspectives. Go beyond your immediate go to circle. Your immediate go to circle might not all be like you, they might be like you, but if you're asking the same people all the time about decisions that you're making about lots of people, you're just missing out on perspectives. Ask people, what do you like, what's missing? What resonates, what else? Make it safe to tell you that you got it wrong or you've missed something. I almost imagine giving them the red pen and mark your homework. You will always learn something bigger and better and it will make your work better. The fourth one is ask people what would help them feel included. So this is one on one, in person, in private. If you notice in a group scenario, someone isn't speaking up, but you really value their contribution. And you know that you have this really interesting conversation on Tuesday and you'd love for the rest of the group to hear it. It's not about going and telling that person to be more assertive or speak up. It's saying, is there something I can do differently because I would love the rest of the group to benefit from your contribution. And that might be something really simple like saying, just don't put me on the spot, tell me five minutes before the meeting you want me to give an update. It will be personal. And then the fifth one is we are all really heavily influenced by the five or six people we spend most of our time with. Really natural, really normal. It's how we build friendship circles and communities and all of those things. But if you're five or six people are all a bit like you in terms of career experience, education, demographics, if you recognise that's true, spend some time getting to know people who aren't just like you. You can do this in work by going to different events or spending time in different teams. But actually, there's loads of ways you can do it in private. So look at the people you follow on social media. Look at the authors of the books you read. Look at the directors, writers and producers, producers of the movies and documentaries and box sets that you watch. Who's educating you, who's entertaining you. If you like podcasts, have a look at the mix of the podcast hosts and the guests that they have. If you recognize that you're consuming a lot of similar content of people that are like you, one, it's normal, don't give yourself a hard time about it. But the algorithms have probably fed you. Here's more of the same.

Beth Stallwood 00:25:37 - 00:25:39
Here's more of what you already know.

Catherine Garrod 00:25:39 - 00:26:08
Go teach the algorithms. Go and mix up the people you follow on social media. It will literally just broaden your perspective while you're scrolling again. If you love, you know, box sets, movies, documentaries, just broaden who you're learning from. You can still enjoy the stuff that you enjoy, but it will raise your awareness and actually increases your empathy. And next time you're in a position where you're making decisions about people, you're much likely to be more successful.

Beth Stallwood 00:26:08 - 00:26:24
Yeah because what's gone on in your brain has educated you or broadened your perspective so that you're maybe more attuned to what someone else is saying to you or has remembered something that you read or listened to that said, ah, my experience is really different from that person's experience.

Catherine Garrod 00:26:24 - 00:27:11
Or you take that in the moment you go, I'd never thought about it like that before. So the next time somebody challenges you in a work place scenario, you might have got defensive previously and thought, no, I've got all of these years experiences. I know what's best. I think we can all fall into that sometimes. But the more you're aware, you kind of learn, there's so much you don't know, really. The more you become aware of that, then actually it makes it you're much more approachable for somebody to come and say, oh, I'm not sure that works. Well, that's not right. Or can we change it? Or can we just make some adjustments? Or did you know, were you aware of you just become much more approachable when you're more aware of the range of lived experiences that people have.

Beth Stallwood 00:27:11 - 00:28:52
I think just even becoming more approachable makes you more inclusive anyway, because people will come and tell you stuff that they maybe didn't tell you before because you seem like you're willing to learn or do something. Like you said throughout this, it's gentle. It's not a you have to do this, it's not a you must comply with this particular rule or process. It is nudging and it's expansive, isn't it? It's expanding your thinking, not narrowing your thinking. And I think so often when we think about diversity, specifically that word, and not the broader kind of inclusion or broader culture of inclusion, we often think about people in boxes and it's like, do they fit this particular demographic box? And have I done something for that particular box? Rather than thinking of us all as we may share certain traits, we may have similar lived experiences, but we're actually all really different and what every person needs is going to be different. It's just likely that we will know more about what other people need who are slightly different to us if we actually want to find out, if we're actually interested and curious and open and able to see things from other people's perspectives, even if it's not what we would necessarily think or what we would agree with. I think that's a really important point. I think diversity and inclusion get lumped together as if they're one thing and they're not. Diversity is a fact. Right. That's names, numbers, characteristics. Inclusion is a choice and a behaviour and an actual a deliberate intent. So I think it's a really useful distinction.

Beth Stallwood 00:28:53 - 00:29:33
And that is really helpful for me talking about it in that way, because diversity is something that we can't really change ourselves. It's what you are, it's where you come from and I think diversity is for me personally, diversity is really much broader than the protected characteristics by law, but those things are there and they are factors that we are not in choice charge of changing. Whereas if we decide we want to be really inclusive, diversity is one of the things that we can pull on to make sure we are more inclusive. And I do think there is sometimes an expectation that as long as I hear it a lot in the world of, as long as we get more diverse people into this organization, everything will be fine.

Catherine Garrod 00:29:34 - 00:30:22
Yeah and again that's naivety. So when I've seen organizations focus really hard on diversity first, you know, there's often been absolute good intentions behind that, but it's just a horrible experience because effectively, what happens is for years and years and years and years and years, this is the way we've done everything and it's not been a very diverse organization. So our culture exists. And then we work really, really, really, really hard on attracting diverse people into the organisation, but the culture doesn't really reflect that. So the subliminal message of that is it's okay for you to be different or look different or have different lived experiences, but when you get here, you need to be the same as everyone else.

Beth Stallwood 00:30:22 - 00:30:25
You need to fit this particular type because we're not ready for you.

Catherine Garrod 00:30:25 - 00:31:06
Yes so I'm very much, you need to address over representation, of course, and I talk very deliberately about addressing over representation rather than increasing diversity, because the over representation is the issue. That's why things do get designed without all people in mind. So, yes, you need to address over representation, but you've got to focus on culture. You've got to make it an environment where it's safe to say, actually this doesn't work for me, or I need something else, or this one size fits all process or system or whatever it is, needs updating.

Beth Stallwood 00:31:07 - 00:31:24
Yeah and I really love the way you talk about addressing over representation versus kind of building underrepresentation or dealing with that, because it sounds like that's the problem. People who are underrepresented represent the problem.

Catherine Garrod 00:31:24 - 00:31:25
Uh huh.

Beth Stallwood 00:31:25 - 00:31:26
The problem doesn't come from there.

Catherine Garrod 00:31:27 - 00:32:23
In part two of my book, I talk about the traps to avoid, and one of the traps is developing programs to fix, and I'm doing air quotes, fix the underrepresented. And so, you know, organisations will have women in leadership programmes or they might have, programmes for mixed ethnicities to develop their leadership skills. And I'm okay with that so long as alongside that, you're also equipping the over represented to create an environment where everyone can have a great career and thrive, and they're thinking about their recruitment and who's getting promoted and who's getting the recognition, but maybe not so much today. What you used to see was, oh, well, we'll just spend some money and we'll put some energy over there and that's being taken care of. Meanwhile, your over represented carry on doing what they've always done because they weren't being asked to do anything differently.

Beth Stallwood 00:32:23 - 00:33:05
I am in massive agreement, I think it's as well as not instead of. So as well as helping our leaders understand this more and, be better at succession planning with inclusion in mind, etc, we can support our people who maybe haven't had access to the leadership capability, building things that we have haven't done before. Great but not that thing on its own. So, yeah, I feel like as well as is the good thing to think about all these things, it's recruit diverse talent as well as building your culture. It is, give people better skills development work as well as building your culture. It's understand your diversity, demographics, as well as building a more inclusive culture.

Catherine Garrod 00:33:11 - 00:335
It’s no one thing. My book has got 99 decisions in it. You know that one decision at a time. There's 99 decisions in the book and who knows, you know, if I wrote it again, there might be more. And I say that in the book, come back to this in six months time or a year's time, and if you've discovered more things that need doing in your organizations that are specific to your workplace or products and services, add them in, you know, 99, isn't it. That's just what came out of my head.

Beth Stallwood 00:33:40 - 00:34:09
Yeah and I think there's something that you said earlier that I'd really love to just talk about for a minute, which is this idea that if you give people nudges when you're going through these big processes like your annual or quarterly reviews, whatever it is, and they feel slightly icky, the icky is telling them something, like the uncomfortableness is telling you something and you can either sit with that and do something about it or you can do what you've always done and that is a big individual responsibility to kind of understand that the ickiness is telling you something.

Catherine Garrod 00:34:10 - 00:35:01
I have to say, whenever organisations have done those things, it has been so powerful for them because they've just gone, oh, we've never done this before. Oh, hang on a minute. And if, let's say it's succession planning and you're thinking about building people's careers in the future, if you genuinely can't change the mix of who you're saying, then it's like, okay, what are we going to do between now and next year so that we've got some different names on the list to discuss. And that's the point of it. Right. It isn't to meet a quota or to, you know, tick the diversity box, it's to recognize when you've got an over representation issue and then to use that recognition to determine what the actions are that you don't continue to have an over representation issue.

Beth Stallwood 00:35:01 - 00:35:22
Yeah. So it's not about we must have this percentage of people. No, and it's not about you are a bad person if all of the people look like you when you're promoting. No, but it is a, should we do something about that? Yes, that's the thing, it's like what are we going to do about that? And then doing something about it.

Catherine Garrod 00:35:22 - 00:36:03
Yeah, and you can literally influence it because you're the leader or you're the group of leaders or you're the leadership team or you're the people that can solve this and be deliberate and conscious about it. Conscious again, conscious to be really conscious about who's getting access to the exciting projects or the career stretching opportunities or whose name's getting mentioned in rooms or who's being put forward to go and speak at an industry event or who you've identified in that type of conversation, actually it's the same kind of people getting the opportunities year on year. Be more deliberate and intentional about who gets those opportunities from here on in.

Beth Stallwood 00:36:03 - 00:36:38
It's just from this moment in time, just think about it for one more second and see what happens. It's not actually, I have to go away for three months and work on a project thing. It's just do I actually know what everyone in my team wants to do? Do I understand their ambition or have I made an assumption about their level of ambition? Do I know what they're really good at? And have I advocated for their strengths in a meeting where we're talking about performance and potential and it is that little tiny stuff every day, isn't it? That makes a massive difference.

Catherine Garrod 00:36:38 - 00:37:04
Absolutely. There's a visual I quite often share. There's two ladders and one's got rungs that are very, very close together and one's got rungs, not very many, that are huge. And there's two people and the person with the rungs where they're very, very close together is right the way at the top of the ladder because it's those small things repeatedly over and over. And the one on the right, the person can't even get onto the first rung because everything just looks too big.

Beth Stallwood 00:37:04 - 00:37:40
And overwhelming and too scary. And two, I think there is a challenge in the world at the moment, in the bigger picture of the world, in organisations and things about people who are in the over represented groups feeling threatened by this. And I kind of get that as well. It's like oh well if we do these, if we do quotas, if we have these forced things and all this stuff, it won't work. But actually my big thing is we're just widening the playing field, opening up for everybody to be part of it and if you're really, really good at your job, it won't matter.

Catherine Garrod 00:37:41 - 00:40:20
Yeah. So there's a few things on that. So if you're, let's say you're interviewing, you know, if you're going to interview four people, are you going to interview four white women? Doesn't feel right, does it? You know, you're going to interview four white men. Doesn't feel right, does it? So it's about, you're still going to interview the best white man or the best white woman, but you are also going to interview the best, you know, black man or whatever. You're just extending the process you're already doing so the best people will continue to get the interviews but you're not lowering the bar, you're widening the gate. Because the profile of what good looks like, what a good leader has looked like specifically, has been set a long time ago. And a lot of the research on what a good leader looks like, you know, the psychometrics and all of those things, if you've got over representation in your leadership team, then any research you've done on what makes the most successful leaders in this organisation is going to be heavily biased by the demographic profile that you've got. So therefore, the way that you're assessing people's skills and experiences is going to continue to fit that profile much better than other profiles. And I think the other thing I would just say on it is, you know, that I'm a bit worried this is going to leave me out and this is going to leave me behind, come back to, this is about remaining relevant in the future. If you're a leader that knows how to build diverse and inclusive teams and you then get the results of having a diverse and inclusive team because your team are having a better experience and also the products and services you're developing are working better for everyone, actually, you come back to, this isn't just the right thing to do, it literally makes you a better leader. And I do think on that point, leaders have been underserved in this stuff. If I look at the content of leadership programmes internally or externally in institutions, has inclusive leadership been core curriculum? No. So they are now expected in 2024 to know how to do this stuff and they haven't been equipped. And I think, you know, with the theme we're sort of coming back to on this discussion is there's a lot of blame, shame and judgment in the diversity and inclusion world.

Beth Stallwood 00:40:20 - 00:40:21
There is.

Catherine Garrod 00:40:21 - 00:40:54
And it's not helpful, you know, when people are willing and open and interested or even just curious and want to be a good leader, if you meet them with blame, shame and judgment, that's not going to inspire people, that's not going to equip people, that's not going to empower people. But if you meet people with, here's how to think about this, or you might not have considered that, or here's a reminder, when you're making that decision, or, yes, we all have bias, it's a part of being a human, you know, da da da da da. You're much more likely to get people who are receptive.

Beth Stallwood 00:40:54 - 00:41:07
Yeah, yeah. Like meeting people with blame, shame and judgment in any walk of anything that you ever want to get done is never going to get what you want done.

Catherine Garrod 00:41:07 - 00:41:07
No.

Beth Stallwood 00:41:07 - 00:41:08
Ever.

Catherine Garrod 00:41:08 - 00:41:09
No.

Beth Stallwood 00:41:09 - 00:41:11
Because it's going to make people retreat.

Catherine Garrod 00:41:11 - 00:41:12
Yeah.

Beth Stallwood 00:41:12 - 00:41:47
And when we retreat, we revert to type and we kind of put our safe things on and our safety might be with, like, affinity bias and all the people who are just like us. I'm just going to stay here where it feels safe, where I don't feel like I'm going to get blamed or judged, etc. And I do think that is a big challenge for everyone. And I do think that leadership development is often one of the, we talked at the beginning, we've come like full circle, HR teams and learning and development teams are often underfunded, understaffed, etc, and wanting all this big change to happen, but without the stuff behind it that will actually help make it happen.

Catherine Garrod 00:41:47 - 00:42:09
And those HR teams, you know that if you've got a team, depending on the size of the organization that is developing your leadership development programme, how diverse is that team? Yeah, you know, what, what have they consumed? What have they learned? So, you know, it's literally about equipping people. And I think, you know, if you do meet people with blame, shame and judgment, are they going to come to you for questions again?

Beth Stallwood 00:42:09 - 00:42:29
No, definitely, definitely not. Oh, I think we could continue this conversation for many, many more hours, but we would probably maybe get into some kind of rant territory and start being like, how can we change the entire world? And we want it to all be better. But what I'd love to do, if it's okay with you, is to ask you some quick fire questions.

Catherine Garrod 00:42:30 - 00:42:30
Of course.

Beth Stallwood 00:42:31 - 00:42:37
So, first question for you personally, what is always guaranteed to bring you a little bit of work joy?

Catherine Garrod 00:42:38 - 00:43:10
You know, it's the a-ha moment. It's when somebody goes, this isn't big and scary. I can literally apply this to my everyday work and decisions. And the reason that's an a-ha moment for me is I know they've got that lesson forever. So whatever job they do right now, whatever job they do in the future, if they stay in this organisation, they go to another organisation, they're involved in their community, they set up their own business. Just the ripple effect for me, once I see that. Oh, yeah, that is like fuel for me.

Beth Stallwood 00:43:11 - 00:43:24
Love that. And you know that that will forever. Whatever they're trying to do, they'll always have that in mind, won't they? It will be there. Amazing. It's like you could get your crystal ball out and see the future.

Catherine Garrod 00:43:24 - 00:43:48
Well, it's like change makers, you know, I meet. That's what I call people who are passionate and want to make change, but so often they haven't had the impact because they haven't quite been sure if they're doing the right things. And once I see that group of people as well, who already fully get it, care, understand, and are wanting to make an impact, but have perhaps been frustrated once they realize they've figured it out and they tried this stuff.

Beth Stallwood 00:43:48 - 00:43:51
You know it's going to change, right?

Catherine Garrod 00:43:51 - 00:44:00
Yeah. Like, it's just that transitional feeling for them from frustration to, okay, I can see my impact now.

Beth Stallwood 00:44:00 - 00:44:09
Yeah. Love that you talked earlier about what are you reading? What are you listening to? What are you consuming? I'd love to know, what are you currently reading or listening to?

Catherine Garrod 00:44:10 - 00:44:49
So this is quite amusing, actually. It's called the Daily Stoic and there's 366, which I've just noticed, meditations on wisdom, perseverance and the art of living. So it takes a bit of philosophy and then gives you a modern day take on that. So I just read one thing every day on that and it’s funny, you know, if I've had a frustrating day or a bad day, somehow this book is magical. And it seems to serve me exactly the thing that I need to read that night. And you're like, oh, yeah, it's okay.

Beth Stallwood 00:44:49 - 00:45:11
I'm just looking for mine because I've read it now for, like, three years in a row and, yeah, every day. And I always recommend it. It's so funny, like, what you got? Because we were like, sometimes I read it on a morning and I'm like, oh, okay, whatever. And then, like, later in the day, a conversation, I'll be like, oh, how did you know? Yeah, how did you know that that was exactly what I was gonna need right now today?

Catherine Garrod 00:45:11 - 00:45:12
It's so interesting.

Beth Stallwood 00:45:12 - 00:45:17
And every, so I started the first year and I'm like, I write on books, which I know some people think is a no.

Catherine Garrod 00:45:17 - 00:45:19
I encourage it.

Beth Stallwood 00:45:19 - 00:45:32
I'm a writer. I'm a, like, I do stuff with things. And the first year I highlighted in, like, green. The second year, I highlighted the thing that was really meaning for me in, like, yellow. And this year, I'm on pink. And it's like, seeing the different things I'm taking on different years.

Catherine Garrod 00:45:32 - 00:45:34
Yeah, that's so interesting. I love that.

Beth Stallwood 00:45:34 - 00:45:40
I also love a book that has, it's usually less than half a page that you have to read, and you're like, okay, yeah, I'm done.

Catherine Garrod 00:45:40 - 00:45:43
Well, you know, you'll definitely have read one book by the end of the year.

Beth Stallwood 00:45:44 - 00:45:49
One book by the end of the year, every year. So I very much agree. Great book. Love it.

Catherine Garrod 00:45:49 - 00:45:50
Really good fun.

Beth Stallwood 00:45:51 - 00:45:57
What is one piece of advice that somebody has given you in your lifetime that you always find yourself coming back to?

Catherine Garrod 00:45:58 - 00:48:37
Oh, that's a hard question. But the bit that came to my head first, which has really served me for the work that I do and I think is useful for anyone listening is, done is better than perfect. So I worked for Sky before I set my business up. I was the person leading inclusion. There were 24,000 people in the UK and I was overwhelmed. You know, this is a few years ago now, you know, and I learned a lot at Sky and I learned a lot from a lot of people at Sky. I certainly wasn't the only person thinking about it and that cared about it, but I was the one that had it in my title and I was just so worried about not doing it justice, you know, not effectively doing things right. So I was, you know, I'd fallen into some procrastination traps. It's got to be perfect traps and, you know, kind of going over and over and over again, and actually, we used to do quite a lot of agile work in the HR team at Sky, so we'd iterate things, you know, what's version one, then version two, then version three, then version four. And my boss at the time, he's a great friend, just said, Catherine, done is better than perfect. And I was like, it just gave this permission to, instead of getting things to 100% before I asked anyone for feedback, what I now do, and I still do this today, I get my thinking to about 60%. And then I go to a bunch of different people. Usually the first ten names I can think of are a bit like me, so I have to work a bit harder and think about who else. I literally practice this. It's how I wrote my book. I think, who else can I get feedback from? Who's going to have a different perspective, who's had different career experiences to me, who's, you know, had different life experiences to me. And then I go and say, what do you think? Here's what I'm trying to do. And then I get that feedback and I'll get it to, you know, 80% and then I might go again. And if I'm delivering that to a bunch of teams across an organization, I'm like, you know what? You can fill in the last 20%. You are the experts, you know the context, you know, the environment, you know, your people make it right for you. And then if it's my work, obviously, you know, I need to get it to 100%, probably, but I'm not afraid to change it. You know, when I know better and I learn better and I do better, I will change things. And that just released something in me to be able to boost my confidence and know that I'm never going to have all the answers. And my way through this is collaboration and feedback.

Beth Stallwood 00:48:38 - 00:48:54
Yeah. I love it. In the work joy way of life, I always talk about, progress over perfection. Anything is moving you one step forward. It's way better than standing still just feels awful.

Catherine Garrod 00:48:54 - 00:49:37
So my logo for Compelling Culture has a wonky crown on the first c. And that's very deliberate because it is that progress over perfection. It's deliberately wonky. And when my graphic designer, good friend, when she was making my logo look a bit more professional for me a couple of years ago, she wanted to straighten it up because with design art, it fitted better in the rectangle and the space and the bit. And she gave me all the rules and the everything else and I was like, nope, nope. That needs to stay wonky. And once she heard my story, she was like, absolutely love that. Your crown should always be wonky. So if you ever see a crown on anything from me on LinkedIn, it's always wonky.

Beth Stallwood 00:49:37 - 00:49:52
And I think, as well, I think perfectionism is a one way route to feel gloomy. Yet so many of us are kind of built with it and it stops us doing good work.

Catherine Garrod 00:49:52 - 00:50:13
So can I tell? I finished reading another book yesterday and it's called Coach Yourself Confident by Julie Smith and she talked about, this was the bit I got my highlighter out on, good enough-ism is the antidote to perfectionism. And I was like, what a line.

Beth Stallwood 00:50:14 - 00:50:15
Good enough-ism.

Catherine Garrod 00:50:16 - 00:50:16
Is it good enough?

Beth Stallwood 00:50:16 - 00:50:35
Is it good enough? And I always love the idea as well, like you do, of get some opinions on stuff. Not when you've got a blank piece of paper, because people need your expertise. So a blank piece of paper is no good, but a completed thing is no good either. So somewhere like between 50 and 70% and then see where you get to from there.

Catherine Garrod 00:50:35 - 00:50:43
Absolute permission to tell you what's working and what's not. If you do that, you've got to 100%, people are going to be nervous about saying, I'm not sure.

Beth Stallwood 00:50:44 - 00:50:54
Yeah. I'm not sure. I don't know. They're going to be like, okay, yeah, it looks too shiny already. Too late to change it and it's not. You can always change something. Love it, love it, love, love it.

Catherine Garrod 00:50:54 - 00:50:55
I love that.

Beth Stallwood 00:50:55 - 00:51:11
Good enough isn't. Thank you, Julie, for helping us out. We'll shout out, Julie, we'll tag you in the socials on it. Right fourth question. What is one practical thing that our listeners could do today or tomorrow that you think might help bring them a little bit of work joy?

Catherine Garrod 00:51:11 - 00:52:16
I think you touched on it earlier, it's, you know, absolutely, we need to recognize difference and we might need to change things to better work for everybody. But go and look for all of the stuff that you have in common with people. You know, we talked about we've got so much in common and we all I think, as human beings, we're absolutely united on is we all want to feel valued, heard and involved. And so the more you can find that you've got in common with people, alongside understanding, there are some things that need changing and updating and adapting and evolving. You just build better relationships with people. And actually, the more we understand about each other, we feel better about ourselves and each other, actually, that just serves the whole community and everybody. So don't shy away from it. Get to know people, whether that's through your movies and your podcast and your everything else or the people that you're working with every day. Just recognize what you've got in common. Because we've got so much more in common.

Beth Stallwood 00:52:16 - 00:52:39
Yeah. I really, really, really feel like it's a fundamental belief of mine, believe that to be true. And even if you think we are so different, if you make the effort and have more conversations, you will always find something. It might be a movie or a podcast or food or music or something. And you say, oh, I love this song. And they're like, I love this song. Like, oh, we've now got some kind of connection.

Beth Stallwood 00:52:40 - 00:52:49
Yeah. So true. Love that. Final question for me is tell us more about where people can find out more about you and your work and what you do.

Catherine Garrod 00:52:50 - 00:54:31
So my website is compellingculture.co.uk and actually, on that, you might like the newsletter. I get asked all of the time, you know, which organisations can we learn from who's doing inclusion well. So I publish a newsletter about once a month, less, not more, I promise, and it's called crown jewels and whoopsy daisy. So crown jewels are three good examples that I've seen that month of organisations doing stuff and why it's good. And it's a couple of sentences. It's not a big read. The whoopsie daisy is one thing where something went wrong. People didn't get it right. There was a negative impact. It's usually made its way in suppressor media. But I focus on what we can learn from it because actually those moments can be quite transformational when they happen. So I always pick three things we can learn from it. It's a mini case study. I'm told people scroll straight to the whoopsie daisy. For anyone listening, where you don't know what whoopsie daisy means, let me explain. It's a bit of a British silly oh dear, uh oh, never mind, brush it off and keep going. And actually, I talk about quite serious stuff in the whoopsy daisy, but it was a play on my branding and, you know, let's learn from these things when they go wrong. So my website is great for that LinkedIn Catherine Garrod, I tend to post practical stuff once or twice a week on there just to nudge you as you're scrolling. And then my book's available in paperback, Kindle, audio on all your favourite platforms and it's called Conscious Inclusion: How to do EDI one decision at a time.

Beth Stallwood 00:54:32 - 00:54:58
Amazing and thank you so much. We will post links in the show notes so that people can click on through. And I love the idea of the whoopsie daisy. It brings me the to the, we all like a little bit of dark humour, don't we? And seeing things that haven't worked well, but then focusing on actually any of us could be in a whoopsie daisy moment at any time because we're not aiming for perfection. We're going to get stuff wrong. What can we do to avoid it or to deal with it when it has happened?

Catherine Garrod 00:54:58 - 00:55:10
Yeah, I posted my own whoopsie daisy on LinkedIn probably a month ago, and it was one of the most read posts because people are like, oh, she's human, she gets things wrong, too. And I do, I do. I promise I do.

Beth Stallwood 00:55:10 - 00:55:21
And that's the thing, once you own that and we're not perfect, it opens up a whole different conversation, doesn't it? So I love that idea. Catherine, thank you so much for being a guest on the work joy tab.

Catherine Garrod 00:55:21 - 00:55:24
My absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Beth Stallwood 00:55:30 - 00:55:32
A huge thank you to Catherine Garrod for joining me there to to talk all about conscious inclusion, to talk about how culture is so important and there are so many little things you can hear me rattling probably my notes, as I scribbled, scribbled, scribbled, scribbled, lots of notes through here. I think this idea that when people feel valued, when they feel heard, when they feel involved, everything becomes better. We build better relationships and we build better organisations. How tiny things can create a ripple effect, and how we need to move away from things like blame and shame and judgment around these, and are more around enabling and supporting and nudging and adapting what we do already, and using our individual expertise and specialisms to fill in the gaps and to move from that 90% thinking, which is led by our biases and our own lived experience, to consider that other 10%. What are the things we don't know? How can we get some data on these? How can we understand what's really happening in our organisation and in our businesses to enable these things to be done in a different way, to adapt them slightly, that make them more inclusive, to get our thinking into a different angle. And I love the idea that we should be looking at, what is it that we're consuming? What information? What's our learning? What are the podcasts? What are the books? Who are we listening to? Have we set ourselves up a little chamber of people who think like us, or are we broadening our own perspective? Thank you, Catherine, it was great to talk to you. We will put all the links into the show notes for everybody. Remember, you can follow us on socials @createworkjoy and do send me a message hello@createworkjoy.com if there's anything that you wanted to follow up on, to note or to ask questions about. And one thing I always like to suggest to you is, what's the one thing you're going to take away? Is there an action, is there a thought, is there a consideration of this conversation and how it might support you in the future? Thanks and have a great day.