Inclusion Bites

Stereotyping occurs across all generations, and all involve myths, such as someone being ‘being past your sell by date', or younger people ‘having no experience'. The challenge with myths is that we all have them and need to work to quell them and instead learn more about each other and accept and celebrate differences and variations.

Khakan felt, even from a young age that he did not really fit in. He felt different but was not able to label it. He felt that he wasn't masculine enough to fit in with boys and stood out for liking to play with dolls and what were perceived as typically feminine games. He also didn't fit in with girls as at school as they didn't like to mix with boys.

Status quo about what being welcome and valued should be, inclusion is a feeling that comes from within, so if we don't feel included it is because what society or a specific organisation/business are doing does not help us feel included. They should be creating an environment that is open to everyone – to Esi it should feel like a breath of fresh air, rather than for her, as a wheelchair user having to mitigate all of the barriers she is confronted with

Andrew, in a former marriage, was a long-term victim of domestic abuse. He is now a passionate campaigner on the topic and takes a non-gender stance to it.

Hung as a “triple migrant” believes when you are from an ethnic background that is not native to a country you end up living in, although you learn to follow the social rules and obey cultural values, you may never fully feel part of that group, without caveat. He remembers from his childhood trying to work out how he could belong better so that he didn't stand out, even trying to wash his face for longer to make it appear whiter, after taunts that he looked dirty. This need to fit in can go in the wrong direction, with built up bitterness at not feeling including leading to either the person trying to over correct, becoming hyper assimilated, or going the other way and rejecting the culture that rejected you, and risking becoming permanently marginalised. Hung wants everyone to understand that it is OK to not feel like you belong.

Michelle always thought she understood human behaviour but began to question this after she was caught in the 2004 boxing day tsunami in Sri Lanka. It was during the aftermath she learnt she didn't know as much as she thought, as she witnessed people, she knew acting in ways she didn't expect or recognise, driven by something she wasn't aware of, their core subconscious driving forces.

Iain is a 54-year-old heterosexual white male whose wish is for everyone to just be able to be themselves. He is aware that these characteristics put him in a privileged position, so he was worked hard to raise his own awareness on the topic of diversity and inclusion.

Rachel is a dual national who sees her home as Australia, despite being born and now residing in the UK. She lives in the North and is proud to possess a unique mix of accents. She now works as a broadcaster after a career in nursing, a talent she says she has always had but that needed the right set of circumstances to come out.

Many organisations say that they treat equality, diversity & inclusion as a ‘must have', yet often it is an area where budget is not prioritised, raising the question as to whether this is now a ‘tick box' exercise designed to merely avoid scrutiny

Greg believes we reuse the same lingo and terminology, i.e. ‘bringing your authentic self to work', used as well-meaning terms, but without unpicking both what they mean to us and the people we are using it on. He believes people get caught up on the ‘lingo' rather than the motivation behind the statement.

Marcus believes we very rarely self-reflect because we are busy and fixated on carrying on doing things the way they have always been done, holding lots of attachment to received wisdom. He thinks that any important process should be reviewed every 3 months to consider; why did we start doing it this way, why are we still doing it this way, and does it serve our purpose and if it doesn't, is there a better way? If you want better answers, you have to ask better questions.

Growing up Andi never quite felt as though she fitted in, despite as she says, ‘playing the game' and following expectations by going to university and then starting her career in the corporate world. Throughout this time, she felt she was hiding who she was, her intrinsic self.

As a woman of colour living in Wisconsin, Briana feels a constant pressure to act a certain way, look a certain way or respond in a certain manner making her feel as though what she is doing is wrong and in fear of being labelled ignorant or too aggressive. Her dream is for everyone to not be defined by any one thing and be able to be themselves, unapologetically.

Lulu used to be a criminal defence lawyer, fighting for people's freedom from incarceration. She is now a coach and uses the word ‘rebel' and all ‘rebels want freedom' in her branding, especially the term ‘she rebel' those who don't just want freedom for themselves, but for everybody. Lulu believes as a society we are on a tipping point of exploring what this looks like and how much women have to contribute to this narrative.

Mandy joined the Royal Air force in 1994 aged 21 and became part of the first group of women allowed to fly fast jets and only the second woman to fly the Tornado GR4 on the front line. She never struggled being a woman in a man's world during the training or felt that she stuck out as the whole group banded together. She did however start to notice this more when she joined her squadron as the first woman pilot within that group.

Mindy believes there is broad recognition that we don't have a level playing field in many sectors/pockets of society and she believes things can be different. She looks to inspiration; working with people that want to inspire others, but says they too need to feel inspired. They need to feel that they are going to be given a chance for their voice to be heard and she works to create opportunities to allow this. It is easier to speak out since the introduction of the internet, but it is about what happens after, it is about gaining traction, having an audience, and seeing your words make a difference. We cannot control how our message will land, or how people will react to us, but Mindy says if we do our best, with the right intentions then it will land. She often sees people getting upset when they don't get traction, but says perseverance is key.

We all accumulate a vast amount of knowledge during out lifetime but how do we download this, and what happens to it all, especially specialist knowledge that has the power to make a real difference?

Antoinette works with women in leadership to help further their careers, as they often contact her after experiencing imposter syndrome, confidence issues or feeling as though they were holding themselves back.

Tony helps people to make habits automatic. This started when he began to immerse himself in all aspects of health, he found he was easily able to impart his knowledge to others, but this didn't translate into them being able to implement what they had learnt into their lives. . It was only when he read the book ‘tiny habits' that everything clicked in to place and he realised that by starting small, scaling up gradually over time, you're more likely to succeed in whatever behaviour you are trying to automate. If you set yourself an unachievable mission, you will often not enjoy it and feel deflated if you are not able to achieve it.

When soldiers were returning from the trenches after World War I, the government launched an initiative called ‘homes for heroes' and Mushtaq thinks that this is just as important today as we face multiple housing crises. He believes we need to, as a society build homes that are suitable for today's need and to help people live and thrive. This crisis has been going on for last 30-40 years fuelled by the governments push on home ownership as the tenure of choice, houses being sold off through homes to buy resulting in being priced out of housing market as cities become unaffordable, and people spending a higher percentage of their income on their housing.

Diksha has been a practising therapist for 23 years and offers integrated wellbeing services for women helping them manage stress, anxiety and pain. She uses pain as a generic term to include physical, emotional, mental, societal and spiritual pain. Through her therapy she enables women to find their own strengths, embracing pain they may have experienced so they can work through it and begin to live their true potential, without societal pressures.

Penny started her career as a Project & Programme Manager, working to ensure every programme was as good as it could possibly be and quickly realised that in order to achieve this she needed to focus on the attendees. She was just getting into her stride with managing in-person programmes when September 11th 2001 shifted her ways of working and forcing her to be an early adopter of virtual working. She was subsequently able to operate as a consultant to advise others on how to do this successfully and at short notice when COVID hit.

Inclusion is more than a buzz word in 2021, it is a critical business priority. The main message Neil shares with the Business leaders he works with is ‘don’t leave it to your HR Director’. Inclusion needs to be companywide and often a fundamental shift to ensure that employees feel comfortable within the environment you have created and can therefore perform to the best of their ability.

Until we are free of the discrimination that comes from not looking like or being like someone else then none of us are safe and none of us are really free. The same is true for inclusion, if the world that you are in does not include everyone then it isn’t the full world, it’s a bit of the world that isn’t fully representative or a safe, happy and fair environment for everyone.

Tom was naturally artistic, something that was encouraged by his mother and led to him becoming a vocal harmony facilitator. He had chosen this career path, in part due to a belief that this would finally see him be part of a group and feel included – standing in the middle of the circle with everyone looking at him. But it was during this time he realised that he could not engineer being in a group, this would naturally happen and only by being his authentic self.

There has been a lot of legislation to ensure that we are treating everyone as equals, but this has made some people believe D&I has happened, or that we don’t need to do any more. If we take that stance, to let things run as they are, change will still happen but too slowly.

Politics in a social sense is distribution of services, who gets what, who counts, whose experience is promoted and whose is vilified. Our own personal experiences are a political point and are what count, what happens to us is a reflection of how and where we live. The statement ‘Personal is political’ comes from a book that Laura first read when she was 7, called Women’s Room. Re-reading the story aged 17, she realised her own experiences, especially around inclusion, feeling left out and not being given an equal chance are what politics are about.

At the end of ‘live’ Conferences, Pam gives each attendee a gold star, as a reminder that they are a star – someone truly amazing, with the ‘r’ standing for, yes really. These sessions are designed to help people realise what they bring to the world, to identify and stop denying it, to celebrate it.

Whilst working as an accountant, Mark kept his love of magic a secret from his clients, worried that it would adversely affect his professional credibility. It was only after being made redundant that he decided to focus on his passion for speaking, writing, and mentoring and is now happy to reveal his passion for magic, believing that you need to reveal parts of yourself and be your authentic self.

How many hats do you wear and if we change hats for labels, which labels do we apply to ourselves or do others apply to us and how interchangeable are they? When does one label become more dominant? Individuals are multi-faceted, and our leading labels will vary, depending on the context at the time.

It was only after leaving her job due to suffering with low self-esteem, palpitations, anxiety and memory loss that Lauren discovered from her GP that all of the symptoms she was accrediting to onset dementia was actually due to going through the early menopause. This prompted her to start working on raising awareness and understanding of the menopause - something that is just a natural life stage and stop any other woman going through the same thing she did.

Susan from an early age has been an introvert. Through her own life experience and client work she is aware that introverts tend to be underestimated and not as visible as they could be so can miss out on opportunities and be overlooked for promotions. In corporate culture it is not always the person that works the hardest that gets rewarded, it may be the person that is most vocal and seen.

Derek believes we implement so many rules that people begin to look for loopholes and they lose their power. Derek argues we should change our approach, starting with pupils at school and stop worrying about what they are learning, instead teach them how to learn. Once they have that skill, they can learn anything that they wish, which will carry them through life. It should not matter who we meet in our lives, we should be able to rely on our listening and communication skills.

Fear and anxiety are universal and unless we manage to conquer them, they can hold us back from performing our best and reaching our potential. Despite the richness of our society there are still too many people that are discriminated against, mistreated, bullied, or ignored. Mark works on empowering these people and offering techniques on how to deal with this effectively and appropriately to ensure they can reach their full potential.

Amy believes who you are, what you do and what you have is all within your control and what you want to have determines what you become and what you do. She is a strong advocate for switching from just existing to living. Like the Henry Ford quote, ‘whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.’ You must put the effort in to get results.

Growing up in Ukraine, Ryals lived through the revolution, a time of suppression where he did not feel comfortable to come out as gay. It was only through moving to the US and finally coming out that he found acceptance and was able to let go off the anger he had held onto for so many years. He is now using his lyrics to empower people because, as he says, “we are all the same at the core and all need acceptance and love.”

A white male seems to become the default norm that we benchmark others upon, and we want to assimilate everyone to the same standards. The western world has built its economy on power, wealth and control and we want to compete and be better than others, and we assume everyone feels the same way. We still do not see other cultures as on a level playing field to us – it still matters where you come from and we fear the unknown. To become anti-racist needs not only a fundamental change on an individual level, but also as a culture and how do we take the first steps to achieve this? But if we were to embrace our differences would we all have more enriched lives?

Sarah is passionate about creating a culture that raises others up to allow the creation of a level playing field. We discuss how she has overcome her own fears and now uses her voice to challenge our systemic and historical inequalities. We live in an unequal world and need to recognise what we can do to empower others and ourselves to change this. By creating an open dialogue, we can begin to make our workforces more agile and as a result more inclusive. The recent pandemic has highlighted the importance of inclusive practices and acted as an accelerator for change, but how do we ensure that this continues?

Join Laurie as they give a no-hold bared view of how their are so many misconceptions of Autistic People, the language, terminology and tropes that propagate many myths. Laurie is themselves an autistic person and is also the parent of autistic children. They share some insights of the challenges they face parenting and in the world of other parents and society. Laurie is a trainer and speaker on the topic of autistic and neurodiversity inclusion to make the workplace accessible.

As an Internet of Things (IoT) innovator she not only creates the future but she also shapes it. Jacqui talks about the challenges that she is advising the UN and governments from around the world on creating technology and online systems that are inclusive for all, and when she says for all, she means all people from every country. Jacqui has spoken at Davos and met with the father of the modern internet, Tim Berners-Lee. We explore how the world has changed over the last 20 to 30 years due to the birth and growth of the internet, but we must also recognise that we must remain vigilant of Bad Actors and the Dark Web. How this technology develops as the norm for Gen-Alpha and Gen-Beta will shape the world for the future. How can we now ensure that the Boomers and Gen-Xers are not left behind? Listen in to this fascinating conversation with someone right at the heart of this evolution.

Disabled people face a real challenge when using public transport. If we focus on the social model of disability then it is the environment that leads a person to be restricted or denied service due to the disability. Andy talks about the work he does with transport companies, especially one particular rail franchise's approach to Inclusive design for services, that takes into account the necessary adjustments to ensure people of any disability can find that they are being considered. He also talks about his experience as a Paralympian and how his life changed for ever during a sporting event in his youth. There is plenty here for organisations to take away in terms of steering their own thinking around accessibility for all.

Do you know the difference between stress and pressure? Ruth talks about the difference and how illnesses can aggravated by everyday stress that is allowed to build and escalate unchecked. By using techniques we can learn to reduce our stress levels, organisations can also promote good health by removing some of the causes of stress in the workplace. Each person can have their own triggers, often something in their personal life, a lived experience or even some childhood memory that doesn't get left behind. Negative experiences can build and compound and we just aren't able to offload without tackling our stress as an illness. With Health and Wellness being promoted in many organisation it is important that learning to overcome stress is part of their Good Mental Health programmes and to remove the sigma of talking about their stress.

Many women face challenges when trying to progress their career, often organisation don't put enough support in place to help women plan their careers. Gillian talks about some of the factors that can often hinder women, some of them structural and some that are down to their own life choices and desires. We talk on the topics of Debiased Recruitment practices and the whole topic of Meritocracy in hiring and progression that often discriminates against those with less typical characteristics. Gillian also talks about her lockdown project of writing and publishing a book that was her daily journal from the past 6 months, including some topic observations and ironies from this COVID-19 shared experience we've all endured.

Jackie talks about her views on how organisations can develop their diversity and inclusion programmes by expanding on the baseline of unconscious bias training to look more intersectionally with a focus on the power imbalance and privileges that exist in the workplace. Jackie feel that that only by using a collaborate strategy that involves everyone and being proactive in our ally-ship is the only way we, as a society and our organisation can truly more a shift change in attitudes on inclusion. All to often diversity is focused on without looking at the underlying culture issues that need to be overcome first.

Madeline shares how she overcame her own shame and stigma of being the victim of a gang rape at the age of 13. She is now an activist for speaking out for other victims of rape to challenge how these victims who are most often women are treated by both the system and society. Through her own strength, that took many years to find, she is a storyteller with the Forgiveness Project that works to shares stories of forgiveness in order to build hope, empathy and understanding. Madeline is also a patron of “SAY Women” and “Justice is Now”. At this time of lockdown with COVID-19 we have to recognise the increased level of domestic abuse and be able to actively support those victims to speak out and be heard.

We are all living in an online world, connected 24x7 without much chance to switch off and recharge. When I caught up with Ling we discussed the impact of living in this connected world on our mental health. We explored the additional pressures that have been introduced by COVID-19 through travel restrictions, wearing masks and the impact on our daily lives. Ling is a former Mental Health nurse of Chinese decent and has foundered a social enterprise where she works with people to help them rediscover acceptance, love and respect to connect back with themselves and society.

In this episode Joanne talks to Hend Halim, a Muslim woman who was born in Egypt and now lives in the UK with her husband and young child. Hend talks about how she was raised in a society that was intolerant of LGBTQ+ identities and how she found the UK and Western Culture around inclusion alien to her at first. She talks about how she has invested her own time to learn and embrace an open culture where there is freedom of expression. Hend also talks about her surprise at the levels of intolerance in the UK culture when it comes to LGBTQ+ and Trans people in the UK and is herself a passionate ally and dedicating her career in the D&I arena.

We are in the midst of a world dealing with the effects of COVID-19 and in the middle of this the shocking images and videos of George Floyd hit our screens. A man, a black man murdered by Police Officers in the US has now reignited the global #blacklivesmatter movement. Gamal doesn't speak for any one but himself, and we talk about the world we are in now, the impact of Grenfell Tower, Windrush and now this, together with about how White people need to understand what it means to be white and how they can help push the bolder up the hill to help take the strain of racism. Please join in the conversation and leave your comments below.

In this episode Joe talks about his career and times spent in the pursuit of LGBTQ+ visibility as a journalist, editor of gay times and most recently as the co-founder of Queer Britain, which is the first fixed location museum of Queer History based in London. Joe also talks about the onslaught that trans people are facing at the moment and the struggle that some queer people are having during lock down. We are even joined at one point by Joe's mum who interrupts us with a "hello son" phone call - the joys of bringing out whole family to work with out remote working environment. Please join in the conversation and leave your comments below.

Nic is a statistician, a trained therapist, TED Speaker (without the X) and the founder of Friday Pulse, who specialise in measuring and improving team morale. Nic says that his super power is being able to see the patterns between things, and then being able to communicate that simply without being simplistic. In this episode Nic talks about his TED Talk experience and how his organisation is working with companies to measure the impact of people focused initiatives.

Michael describes himself as a Transformational Life Coach who's super power is being an active listener that is full of compassion. Through his coaching he helps people find a way to achieve what has been holding them back. During his journey he has also had to face his own challenges of coming out as Bisexual and confronting misunderstandings from many. Michael talks in this episode about the work he did managing stages at Bi Pride in London in 2019 and the value he gives back to the LGBTQ+ community through his coaching and support as The Rainbow Coach. Please join in the conversation and leave your comments below.