Working with Diversity and Inclusion is simple, not easy. As always, it starts with us. Here are a couple of behaviours and reflections that may prove useful. The behaviours are often simple; for example – use reversability. If you say something about a woman and refer to her gender as part of what you say,…

As mentioned above, working with difference is simple but not easy. A very useful way of approaching our experience with difference is to apply the insights from another activity that is simple but not easy – mindfulness. Sharon Salzberg, one, of the preeminent Western teachers and writers in this space, suggests that this idea of…

First – the why. Why would someone in the dominant power structure want to change the system? As a leader, as a practitioner – anyone wanting to create more equitable and inclusive organisations – you need to be able to answer one question: what’s in it for me WIIFM)? If the business case was sufficient,…

How often when we hear about gender equity or gender diversity do we automatically think that gender = women? Recent and ongoing work for the 50/50 by 2030 Foundation found that while a majority agreed that gender [in]equality is still a problem, a majority of men agreed that “political correctness means I cannot openly say what I think…

Of course, we all have biases; what’s necessary is to Recognise and accept that we all have biases Sometimes an assumption is made that it’s only the majority, or the power elite, who are biased – so for example in places where white men dominate the power structures men are biased, white people are biased, etc.  In…

I recently had the privilege of attending a talk by Professor Iris Bohnet of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Her book What Works: Gender Equality by Design, published by Harvard University Press is a great resource to help close what she calls the Intention-Action gap. Useful reminders from her work include: The question is not “Do…