Best Practice DEI with Nadya Powell – Part Two [PODCAST]

Phil Cross: Welcome to the podcast. Once again, my name is Phil Cross, founding partner here at Leaders for Good. And if you’re listening to this, you hopefully have already listened to part one of this conversation with Nadya Powell. If you haven’t listened to part one, I highly suggest you start there so you can find a link to that episode in the show notes if you are coming to this episode directly, or you can find it wherever you find podcasts. So we continue our conversation here on what does great look like from a DEI, so diversity, equity, inclusion perspective within organisations.

So we continue our deep dive into, certain topics such as leadership and the importance of employee voice in creating equitable organisations.

So without further ado, we continue this conversation with Nadya Powell.

Again, the resources. I, I think, I think this is, this is, this is an important point, to kind of loop back to one of the things we said at the start, which is the, about the resourcing and about when times get tough are, is, we might have been talking about this off mic actually, that, that funding, sorry, the conversations running together, but , funding and budget and resources and, people get pulled.

I, I think. A characteristic of an organisation where this is part of their philosophy, as you say, this is in their master set of values, and they take it really, really seriously. Is, does this work continue with the same fervor and rigor when the organisation is maybe not having the best time as a commercial business out there in the world, because I think that shows the real commitment to, or the real understanding of how it drives value too. Because I think when organisations dropped this, I think it’s because, oh, that was the nice to have thing we were doing over there and we could afford it when we were doing okay, but now that we’re not doing so well we don’t need that. As opposed to maybe doubling down on it because we, this is the time we need more psychological safety. We need more creativity. We need more innovation. We, we need more talent from diverse, from diverse backgrounds in our organisation. So I think for me, that’s a big signal, like the organisation, some of the organisations we work with who, you know, again, were, a lot of them are going through tumultuous economic times. The ones that have stayed the course with the, with, with the initiatives and the programs they’re building, are seeing the benefits.

Nadya Powell: I agree. And, you know, we are seeing some really interesting behaviours.

Like there isn’t a business out there that isn’t under pressure now. Like whether it’s pressure on your supply chain. So a lot of our FMCG clients are having so much pressure on their supply chain. They want to increase costs. The supermarkets won’t let them increase costs because the consumers can’t afford to therefore buy the goods.

Whether you are a technology business and you’re under threat from chat GBT, changes in tax laws changing in international laws. And so you are, you know, making huge redundancies. Whether I mean, I mean literally, I can’t think of any businesses which aren’t finding things challenging, whether it’s due to commercial, social, regulatory, pressures.

And the reactions of the businesses, like you say, is deeply telling. So we’re working with one business at the moment, which is a wonderful business. It’s quite small. It’s a gaming business and their budgets are under huge challenge. They’re doing really well. They’re a very successful business.

But because everything we discussed, their budgets on a huge challenge so recently, three departments pulled their budget to put it into the DEI budget, so they, they got rid of their own budget. They were like, you know what, we can probably do this ourselves, but in DEI, we need help. We need to have some budget.

So they pulled their budget and that’s when you just go, that’s a business that is absolutely determined to do the right thing. Then you’ll see massive global multinationals with EN reality is they have endless budget and they pull everything. And then you just go, okay, now we really, we really know what, what is important to you and what you’re focusing on.

So it, it really, really is telling, we are obviously a business which needs to survive, no matter what people’s, objectives are and what they’re focusing on. What we are finding is that, Sometimes the more straightforward DEI conversations are challenging for businesses right now . But going in, talking about, I know you’ve been doing some work in this space, talking about inclusive leadership, so getting your leadership future ready, talking about inclusive marketing, so ensuring your marketing work as inclusive as possible.

And also we’re doing a lot of work around leading through change. Because you may not want to invest in DEI from those point of view of coalface, but your people are struggling. And if they’re fatigued, if they aren’t able to perform. You, you’re screwed no matter what. So I think it’s about looking from my perspective, cuz I’m not gonna stop doing this work.

Like if a business says, oh, we’ve got no budget to talk about disability. I’m gonna, I’m still gonna go back in there and try and help their people in their organisation. I’m not gonna let them know, get in the way. I think there are different conversations we can have with businesses, which are still DEI but we’re just being open and receptive to some of the challenges that those businesses are facing right now.

Yeah, I mean it’s, it is, the proof is in the pudding when they pull it. And then my view is, okay, well what’s another way that we can help you support your people, that will enable you to still have these conversations?

Phil Cross: Completely agree. And, the, an example I’ll just share of a lot of the work we are doing with organisations, which is directly supporting people to have these conversations is, direct conversations training.

And you can call that, you know, courageous conversations or difficult conversations or, you know, the numerous monikers it has, but unless people can have. Compassionate discussions, around, issues of inclusion in their organisation. Then, you know, we’re unlike well, it’s creating a, way for people to be skilfully noisy.

Just to, just to bring it back to your point number one as well, because. Minds were never changed by shaming, blaming, and kind of pointing things in organisations. So equipping people with the tools to have direct conversations if they see stereotyping, if they see, you know, implicit or explicit, you know, racism or sexism or bias of any sorts.

Is really, really important, but it’s also a transferrable skill like that, you know, having a direct conversation around behavioural performance is something that’s just generally beneficial to businesses. So sometimes it’s finding ways to do, do things differently and, and frame things differently and, and so many things contribute to creating an an inclusive organisation that are just beyond the things that have inclusive leadership or bias in the name of the learning and development opportunity and,

Nadya Powell: A hundred percent.

Phil Cross: And sometimes, again, thinking of some of the, the, the organisations lower on the maturity spectrum or just starting their, their journey.

Sometimes it is just the starting with, starting with a, and, and this gets maligned in the, in the DEI space sometimes, you know, unconscious bias training is said as a dirty word.

Nadya Powell: Well, it is. I mean, I find a little bit of a dirty word. I’m just gonna be honest.

Phil Cross: Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. Our, you on that is, it depends how you do it. I, think you, you. So, you know, we, you know, I know in, in the work you do, you talk about bias and, and, and I think we have

Nadya Powell: Oh yeah, a hundred percent.

Phil Cross: We have to acknowledge it. And I think it’s the, the so what after that? So I, I think it’s bringing, and we poll people in our workshops.

You know, how, how much does bias affect your, your day-to-day decision making? We know people don’t have a good understanding of how bias actually works because in every organisation we do this in the vast majority of cases. A good portion of the room go, eh, maybe a little bit or No, it doesn’t. So, there is a need, there is a need for people to grok what bias is for them to go, oh, I right. Okay. There’s a bunch of stuff that’s influencing how I think and feel and act that, that I’m, I have no control over that. That’s, you know, been drip fed to me by the culture , I’ve, been, you know, a participant in, and, and that’s, you know, wow, I’m not actually, you know, the CEO of my own brain the way I, the way, the way I thought I was. And then, I think as long as it’s coupled with a concrete what to do about it. And I think as long as it’s then connected to a broader strategy and a broader approach. Cuz I agree doing a, a one-off unconscious bias training for an organisation to just go, yeah, we’ve ticked a box,

Nadya Powell: it’s a needle in the haystack, or a pin in the ocean. I mean, I think you’ve summed it up really well in that I think a lot of traditional or historical unconscious bias training was just telling people what bias was. That is obviously really important because to your point, if they don’t understand it, It, then they can’t move forward. But the critical thing that a lot of training doesn’t do is then tell them what to do about it.

Exactly. Because you know, there’s the interpersonal level on how you can manage bias. You can educate yourself. Well, there’s the personal level. You can educate yourself. There’s the interpersonal level. You can understand microaggressions and how it shows up. But the real way to get bias out of an organisation is system and process change.

Right. And that’s the bit which is so all too often, ignored. So you can, you know, train your hiring managers to spot bias, but if you don’t have panels in place, if you don’t change fundamentally the recruitment process, having people more aware of their bias is so surface level, it’ll make a 10, 20% change, but not the fundamental bottom of the iceberg 80%.

So for me, it’s, bias is really important. People definitely need to understand it, but it needs to be part of a really big program and the focus needs to be on how it shows up and what you do about it. Not the fact we have it. Because you’re right, bias is the fundamental problem. Like that is what is, causing all the challenges.

Well, the majority of the challenges in the workplace, cuz it’s se it’s, what’s the word? Seeped into everything. Not just our brains, but everything.

Phil Cross: And the what to do about it as well. Our view is, is creating a, you know, creating a whole host of little disruptors or little, little troublemakers or change makers in the organisation through doing this, cuz the what to do about it so often as you, as you rightly pointed out, is, advocate for systems change.

So while, again, we do a lot of inclusive hiring work on, on process, but, and also, you know, work with hiring managers. If you’ve got those hiring managers that, Oh, oh, right. I understand now that there’s like so many points of bias in CVs and like a, you know, a CV blinding process, where we, you know, strip out superfluous names and photos and all of those other, all of those other, those points of bias would be really helpful if you get that hiring manager then to go and ring some bells with the hiring, with, you know, with the, with the people and culture team or whoever’s in charge of that. That’s how we sort of create those little change agents in, in the organisation as well.

So I, you know, I think again, the what to do about it includes what to do for me, what to do for my team, what to do for my organisation, and, and giving people some, some concrete, concrete ways to think about driving change. I, I think when we do that, that’s when unconscious bias training moves from, cuz again, it’s the dirty word cuz we’ve all had bad unconscious bias training.

I know. I’ve had, you know, again, it, it just, it just leaves, leaves you feeling deflated. Yeah.

Nadya Powell: I’ve had situations where, you know, a bunch of blokes over going, were you biased against, women? Yeah, I was. Yeah, we both are. And then they just go off back to their desk and you’re just like, well, What that’s just created more of a kind of a sense of team around having a bias, right?

Rather than trying to like unpick the actual bias. So for me that that’s always, yeah, the challenge with the training. But yeah, it’s one small part of the DEI, jigsaw, a very fundamental part of it. But yeah, one small part of it. It’s not the DEI jigsaw.

Phil Cross: Agreed. Agreed. Nadya, I’m mindful of time and, and I wanna make sure we sort of cover, so I, I I guess the question to you is what, what were some of the other like, I guess, big headline points that we didn’t, we haven’t touched on yet?

Was there anything else you wanted to, to sort of double click on and expand on as an example of, again, what great looks like in this space?

Nadya Powell: Yeah, I mean, I think a note on leadership is probably a really good thing, so, you know, you’ve got leaders who do nothing, which is, you know, fine, it’s their prerogative.

I would say they’re gonna really struggle to get non-executive positions and for their career to grow. You’ve got leaders who are allies and they don’t stop change and they probably enable change in their organisation. And then you have leaders who actually are doing the change. And that’s for me, what an inclusive leader is.

So, You know, I’ll often be in the conversations where a leader will say, well, you know, I’m the chair of the Pride ERG. And I’ll say, okay, so what do you do? Well, I meet with them quarterly to see how they’re getting on. Okay, so what do you do? And they sort of look at me and I’m just like, well, have you helped them change some policies?

Have you changed how hiring’s done? What have you actually done to mean that you are getting more diverse LGBTQ plus individuals into your organisation or accelerating the careers of LGBTQ plus individuals in the organisation? And they’re just like, Well, I’ve attended the quarterly meeting. And that’s not enough.

Like that’s not an inclusive leader, that’s just a nice leader. That’s just someone who’s kind of turning up to meetings on time. And let’s be honest, there are some leaders who don’t even do that. They might be the sponsor and they never show up. So showing up is good. We love you for showing up. So I think it’s just really helping leaders understand that an inclusive leader is someone who is sponsoring, driving change, moving things forward.

And that can be on what ever they feel most passionate or able to do. It can be you’re looking at financial re remuneration. So you sit in the finance team and that’s what you decide to do. It can be that you are looking at the policies, cause you sit in the legal department. It can be that you sit in HR and you can look at training and capability building.

It doesn’t have to be a massive thing. But it’s that you are actually active in changing something and so when you get to your year end, you can go, this happened because I really supported this team of people and I helped clear the way and make it happen. That for me is what I’d say is how leaders can, you know, look in the mirror and go, yes, I am an inclusive leader because they can see the difference and the impact that they’ve had. So that I think is the one thing I’d, I’d call out. Cause I think a lot of leaders think their job is to just support and to cheerlead and to wave and this stuff is really hard. If they don’t really lean into it, then no nothing, nothing is going to, nothing is going to change.

Phil Cross: If you like what you’ve heard so far in the podcast and are looking for new ways to bring diversity, equity, and inclusion to life in your organisation, why not reach out for a chat? At Leaders for Good we offer a range of solutions from diversity, equity, inclusion, strategy, sprints through to inclusive leadership workshops to DEI training for your whole organisation.

So if that sounds good, drop us an email at [email protected].

Point right there I’d like to, again draw a line on that you made that I think is really important , and I think a way for leaders to think about how they’re, how they’re contributing to, to this work in their organisation is leveraging their particular specialist skillset in a way that’s most effective.

It’s, again, to draw the analogy of charity work. If, if I want to do good in the world, am I best going and digging a well somewhere, you know, and using my hands to dig a well or am I better? Running a organisation focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion and giving a big chunk of our profits to various causes.

It’s obviously the latter cuz that uses my skillsets as a you know, as a facilitator, as a coach, as a strategist and all the rest of it. And I think. One of the, one of the things we’ve, we’ve actually encouraged a lot of organisations to do is move away from this default expectation of creating these DEI working groups, because so often no one does any work, especially if they’re top heavy.

So you get a bunch of well-meaning people turning up to them, and again, they turn up to the monthly meeting, but in between, They’re not actually driving any change. And, and people are picking up, projects which actually aren’t in their specialist skill and wheelhouse to, to do anything about. And, therefore, they either, they either are ineffectively, implemented, they languish and we’re talking about leaders in organisations.

They’re very often, most of the time they’re not sat around twiddling their thumbs, looking for things to do. They’re, you know, they’re, they’re often a working. You know, more hours than they, than they should be to, to begin with. So I think being intentional and clear about, okay, where are we acting as champions and advocates and, and, and, and amplifying messages and amplifying and, you know, putting a voice behind work that’s happening elsewhere in the organisation.

And where are we picking up a shovel and getting our hands dirty as leaders? And I think doing, it’s a both and for leaders. But what’s your particular shovel to pick up as an inclusive leader? You know, be beyond the base level of, okay, how do I, how do I operate my team and, and, and how do I operate inclusively as an individual, but, but the actual work here, what’s my particular shovel?

And also how am I, how am I being a, an amplifier and an advocate for the work or the people are doing? I think just to. To sort of put that in a few buckets.

Nadya Powell: Yeah, I mean the, the classic example is if you are the VP of marketing, then look at your marketing exactly like that is where you should be focusing, because I can guarantee your marketing has got, exclusion baked into it.

So you understand marketing, you know what makes brilliant marketing, but you may not know what makes brilliant inclusive marketing. So sit down with your marketing team, have a discussion and sort it out.

If you’re the VP of sales, Well again, have a look at your product development. Is inclusion baked into your, how you are developing your products, who you are pitching to, how you’re sourcing your leads?

I mean, I couldn’t agree more. I think often, you know, the head of marketing will go, I’ll sort out recruitment and it’s just like, but, no. Like that’s me trying to do my own plumbing in my house. It’s gonna go badly, right? Focus on what you know and be a brilliant ally for what you know. And then if you have a lived experience where you want to bring your expertise, maybe you’ve had some mental health challenges, maybe your from the non-dominant gender, from the organisation, maybe your LGBTQ plus. Then bring your lived experience to support those communities and minorities in your organisation. But use your skills and what you, what your skills are brilliant for, and that, again, will drive just so much more change.

So yeah, I couldn’t agree more with that. I think it’s a really important point.

Yeah. Yeah. I

Phil Cross: love it. And again, it’s, it’s helping leaders get clear on what an inclusive leader is as well. Cuz people hear the two words together and they think, okay, inclusive leader, I kind of get that. And it doesn’t just mean that I’m not overtly racist, sexist, prejudice kind of thing.

That that’s just called being a being a decent person.

Nadya Powell: Yeah, and if you look at the frameworks of allyship now, they’re really clear. Doing nothing means you’re an aggressor. So, you know, silence is violence. And that’s one of the things where we see eyes kind of go like that. They’re just like, oh, and we’re just like, it doesn’t matter that you’re sitting there and thinking, oh God, what John said was a bit bad, or, Well, I’m fine because I know it was bad. You’ve gotta say something about what John said you’ve got to intervene in what John said. And I think making it really clear that it’s not good enough to be nice.

You wouldn’t sort of sit there and think, oh, this marketing plan’s not working. Oh, well, John’s doing his best. I’ll just let this marketing plan continue to go really, really badly. No, you’d intervene. Because you’d see there was a problem in marketing and it’s gonna cripple the business. It’s exactly the same as leaders.

It’s taking action. That’s what defines a leader, is you’re taking action when you need to take it. So I think it’s, yeah, if you’re, if you’re not taking action, then you are actually, yeah, you are as you are as bad as the people who are actually, who are doing the, the damaging work. Sounds harsh, but it’s true.

Sorry, everybody listening who’s a leader.

Phil Cross: And, and the lead and, and, and the leadership shadow is real. What leaders do matters in an organisation, whether, you know, whether we like that or not. The what, what’s permitted, what’s, what’s let. I think you use, use the example of just behavior in general, but I think that’s amplified when a leader does or does not do something and everybody in the org it’s more visible.

And, and also that person typically has more formal power.

Nadya Powell: When it sets the norm, it makes people think it’s the norm. So if a leader says nothing and does nothing, everybody thinks that it’s okay to say nothing and do nothing. So you are setting, yeah, you are setting a norm if you don’t speak out when you hear something or see something.

Then you’re establishing that it’s perfectly acceptable for everyone to not speak out when they hear something or see something. So yeah, it’s absolutely critical. So if, if that would be the thing I’d pull out is just leaders really, taking action, taking action.

Phil Cross: Yeah, I would agree with that. Nadya, anything else before we move on to our few, I wanna ask you a few getting to know you quickfire questions to round out the conversation. Cause I’m sure people are deeply curious about you as an individual. We, I think we’ve covered loads, so I think we’re kind Yeah, I think we’ve covered loads and loads. So, yeah, let’s go onto the quick fire round.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and this conversation could go on for another two hours and we wouldn’t get to the bottom of the barrel.

Nadya Powell: Then it would be midnight for me. So that would be bad,

Phil Cross: that that would be bad. And then I would miss a bunch of meetings I have, we’d both get in trouble in different ways.

Maybe we’ll do a round two at some point in the future if we get the, I’m, I’m assuming we will get a good positive response to this episode. It’s been, been a fascinating conversation, but outside of thinking about, thinking about DEI and, and and the work you do at Utopia, what do you, what do you obsess about or what do you, what do you enjoy doing and evenings and weekends besides obviously this evening doing a podcast?

Nadya Powell: I saw that question and I was like, God, that’s such a good question. What do I obsess about? I probably, I’m gonna give, oh, I’m gonna give very quick round three rounds. So I do obsess about how awful the world is becoming at the moment. I think we all do, it adds to the general pressure we are feeling, but when I, when I was reading yesterday about the seventh black trans woman being murdered in the us, when I hear about all the DEI individuals who are losing their jobs and their roles, I do obsess with oh my God. Like, is this the future we want to leave to our children? Is is the future we want to create? And it does cause me to work harder. Now that’s obviously potentially very unhealthy. So I have to try and balance that obsession with another thing, which is I am obsessed and for those of you listening in Australia, you’re gonna find this, especially amusing with cold water swimming.

Now, when I say cold water swimming in the uk, I mean cold.

Phil Cross: So, hey, jumping in the serpentine in in winter, is that what’s

Nadya Powell: Well, I swim, in quite a few places, but I’m very fortunate to have a lido, does Lido translate in Australia where people know what a Lido is? No, I, I know what you mean obviously, but, okay.

So a Lido is embedded by the Victorians. A lot of them are around a hundred plus years old. They are open water unheated swimming pools. So I have a 50 meter open , swimming pool, just literally 10 minutes down the road from me called Brockwell Lido. Do check it out, some lovely photos and that will regularly go down over the winter to two degrees, three degrees, four degrees, and I will get in.

I, I do wear a wetsuit cuz I like to swim for a reasonable a long time. I like to do a kilometer every time I swim. So I will get in with gloves, socks, wetsuit, hat, and say in that water for as long as I possibly can. And the combination of moving my body, with an exercise and being in absolutely freezing cold water really helps take the pain away of some of the things that are happening in the world that I find so challenging and upsetting at the moment.

Phil Cross: I love it. Like cold, freezing. Yeah, there’s very little opportunity to do that here in Australia. But, Yeah, I love it. And so many benefits to that. I will refrain from nerding out on cold thermogenesis and things of that nature. But, but yes. Love it. You said there was a third thing as well.

Nadya Powell: Yeah. The third thing is I try not to buy anything new. So, I’ve refurbished a house. The wallpaper you can see behind you is original seventies wallpaper. All the art in my house is old. My clothes, this jacket I’m wearing is vintage. I try not to wherever possible. Buy anything new, and it’s actually very, very easy for a lot of things apart from toilets.

That’s very hard to buy a secondhand. I tried to do that. So yeah, that’s probably the third thing. Trying to really keep my footprint on the new things down, is really, really important to me.

Phil Cross: That’s something I need to get better at, especially on the, especially on the front of technology. I’m a sucker for for gadgets, but, apart from that, I, yeah, aspire to be more like you on that front.

That’s a , that’s a no noble goal.

Anything you’ve changed your mind about recently? And it can be work related or non-work related. This is a, this is a, this is often a toughie for people, but anything you’ve changed your mind on?

Nadya Powell: Yeah, I just, I saw that question and I had, a big think about it and I’m sort of, my answer is probably quite hard to articulate.

So, I don’t think I’ve changed my mind. I’d say I’ve opened my eyes. That’s the phrase I’m gonna use. So, I am a white, straight, cis female, age 48. And growing up I was very, I very much identified with being from a marginalized group. So I’m working class, like I said, a lot of trauma in the background, female, when there were very few females in digital and marketing and technology.

And so I very, very strongly identify with being from, you know, the, the minority group, a marginalized group. About three or four years ago, I had to give myself a little bit of a talking to, and it was partly inspired by some of the horrific behavior I saw in women like me. So, which I will get onto in a minute, when I had to accept that in the western world, so in the uk, in Australia, in America, in Europe, white, straight, cis women are the second most privileged group of people.

So yes, I have faced discrimination throughout my career, but it’s nothing compared to what I would’ve faced if I was a woman of color, if I was an LGBTQ customer or if I was a woman with a disability. And I’ve had to really reassess the privilege that I have had, and I now have. I’ve obviously worked very hard for some of my economic privilege, but I also don’t have to carry the burden or tax, invisible tax or some of the other marginalized identities out there. Which means it’s as much as it is my job to use my lived experience to drive change, it’s also my job to make space for people whose voices have historically been heard at lesser volume than mine. And I’ve had to really.

Challenge myself not to center myself in discussions of marginalization or prejudice or discrimination because I come from the second most privileged identity. And the reason why I think that’s so important is one of the things we often talk about is the violence of white women. So white women will often use their history of marginalization as an excuse when they are vial to other marginalized groups, absolutely vial.

So one of the things, women of color will often talk about is how it’s not the white men who are vial towards them. It’s the white women. Because the women think, well, I understand privilege discrimination and all this kind of thing, so I can’t be biased. I can’t be behaving badly to people, but of course as a, as a white straight system, I have loads of bias.

I have oodles of bias and I have to watch my behavior all the time. But a lot of women like me don’t watch their behavior all the time because they feel that they get it and they really don’t. So I would say I’ve had to really reappraise my, how I self-identify and you know, look back and go, okay, well I was in part of a business, I was given some equity.

If I’d been a woman of color, I wouldn’t have got that equity. I know I wouldn’t because of the leaders. They weren’t bad people, but they had so much bias, I probably wouldn’t have even got the job. And I have to look at that and go, you’ve been really fucking lucky, Nadia. And some of your success is not cuz you’re brilliant, it’s because you’re white, straight and without a disability and you have had so much privilege in your life.

And just like you tell the men, You need to do that too. So I’d say that’s what my eyes have been opened to. So it’s kind of a changing of the mind, but it’s kind of like a big light bulb mo moment for me.

Phil Cross: Thank you for sharing. And, I suspect a couple of light bulbs might have gone off in the audience as well. Listening to that. And, yeah, like I, one thing, one thing I love about you and in all the conversations I’ve had is your willingness to be so self-reflective and so open about your experience and your views on it. So yeah, really, really appreciate that and I’m, I’m sure people listening to it as well.

Last question. The worst leadership advice you’ve ever received.

Nadya Powell: I mean, that one’s really easy. And it’s so interesting. It shows how times have, changed. Now. I can’t even remember the name of the book. Cheryl Sandberg’s book that was published in like 2010.

Phil Cross: Lean in.

Nadya Powell: Yeah, lean in. Ah, so this, I mean, this is kind of like an example of, I think again, what I was talking about with the violence of white women. A lot of the, leadership advice I was getting, the early tens was acts like a man. Do like, they would literally, you’d be trained on how to dominate a room. What, what?

There is nothing good with dominating a room. No one ever should be dominating room. If you’re dominating a room, then you’re silencing all the other voices and all the creativity and innovation in the room. But in the early tens, it was all about. Make your own table. Make space to table, dominate a room, be assertive.

And I used to sit there going, this feels really weird to me. And then one day, probably about a year later, 2013, 2014, and I was like, I hate the men who dominate a room. Right. Why would I wanna dominate a room? I want to change how rooms are managed. I don’t wanna dominate a room, I want to make space in room.

I want there to be really fruitful, amazing discussions in rooms. So a lot of that kind of early tens gender movement, for me was just deeply, deeply toxic cuz it was trying to get women to behave. Take on all the characteristics that some men have, which are problematic. There’s a great Disney cartoon called Pearl, which it’s very cute, but it sums it up brilliantly where she’s this lovely, lovely ball of wool.

And then she goes into this male environment and she becomes a suit and becomes really, really nasty until another lovely ball of wool joins. And then she’s like, what am I doing? Why have I adopted all these behaviors? That was. Undoubtedly, the pressure that I had in my thirties and forties was to adopt all these toxic behaviors.

So, now when anyone is trying to enforce a dominant culture on someone else, I’m just like, no. The dominant culture needs to change to make space for everybody. Not everyone needs to assimilate the dominant culture. So yeah, that was the worst. So lean in. No, go away. Lean out and be yourself.

Phil Cross: I’m, I’m giving you a virtual high five across the, across the, across the oceans there.

Now I couldn’t agree more. I couldn’t agree more with that. Obviously not, speaking at that from a place of having that lived experience, but just recognizing objectively, that’s terrible advice.

Nadya Powell: No, offense to her. And it was a product of its time. But Oh, it was so damaging in hindsight. It was so, so damaging.

Phil Cross: Nadya, thank you so much for the, for the conversation. It’s been, it’s been fascinating. And, and any, any, final thoughts, any asks of the audience? Any, any pearls of wisdom you wanna, you wanna leave people with before we close out?

Nadya Powell: Yeah, I think the thing I would probably say is the world is changing.

The ethnic makeup of the world is changing the plurality of how people identify as changing, and the world is only getting more complex. So, AI can will go in swells like the sea. You know, sometimes it’ll be higher up the agenda and sometimes it’ll be lower up the agenda, but every time you put it lower down the agenda, you are removing the ability for your organisation to be future ready and to be able to face into the upcoming complexities of the world.

So no matter what the commercial pressures, please, please see DEI as fundamental to your business success and your business survival, not just something that you should do when it’s hitting the headlines. Would be my final words.

Phil Cross: Love it. Well, thank you so much again. I will put links in the show notes to you and Utopia and some of the things we discussed in the podcast.

Should, should people wanna, wanna find those and reach out and, and learn more. And final thank you to you, the listener. For staying with us for this, for this conversation, and we’ll see you again next time.

Nadya Powell: Thanks everybody. Lovely to chat soon.

Phil Cross: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Leaders for Good podcast. If you got value from this conversation, you can leave a rating or a comment in iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can share it with a friend or a colleague. In fact, that’s the most effective and meaningful way.

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Thank you so much for listening. Have a great rest of your day.