112. A Business Strategy - Inclusion in the Workplace

Jonathan: If we're talking about propaganda, the one I brought up is about unconscious bias training. People will tell you that you need unconscious bias training. They never tell you why. They just say, we have unconscious bias, doing this training helps you to understand this bias, but they don't say whether it works. They don't say how it works. Also, they don't say, if it doesn't work, we need to stop or we need to do something else. Brendan: Welcome to The Culture of Leadership. We have conversations that help you develop and become a more confident leader. What is inclusion? My next guest’s first and foremost is a business strategy. In today’s episode with Dr. Jonathan Ashong-Lamptey, you’ll know how confident leaders build inclusion by creating environments where everyone can perform, belong, and reach their potential. These are the pillars of an inclusion business strategy. Dr. J is the world authority on evidence based inclusion, featured in the Financial Times, Bloomberg, and the BBC. He’s the host of The Element of Inclusion podcast. According to Dr. J, this episode of The Culture of Leadership is a cultural artifact so don’t miss it. This is The Culture of Leadership podcast. I’m Brendan Rogers. Sit back and enjoy my conversation with Jonathan. Brendan: I have noticed in your language in the podcast being very specific about inclusion and saying you are the longest running inclusion podcast. You are very particular and strategic with your language. Is that something you feel you have to be for your audience and the content that you're talking about? Jonathan: I think it's just for the clarity as well. What does diversity mean? What does inclusion mean? We'll talk about what I mean when I say inclusion so that (1) if you disagree with me, that's fine, but you know what I'm talking about. (2) I try to be useful and particular so that you can do something, you can take action, you can take an insight, and most importantly you can make your own mind up. I want my audience to make their own mind up. We'll get into it in terms of confident leaders. I think confident leaders, one of the things they do is help people to make their own mind up. Brendan: It's a great point. You've segued nicely into this whole what is inclusion. What is Dr. J's definition of inclusion? Jonathan: Great question, Brendan. Diversity and inclusion, two of the most used and abused words out there. When I say inclusion, I'm talking about a strategic business strategy to ensure that everyone shares the same advantages and benefits. We can talk about what shares the same advantages and benefits mean. But overall, it means everyone can perform, everyone can belong, and everyone can reach their potential. Let me say that, again. Everyone can perform, everyone can belong, and everyone can reach their potential. That's what I mean when I say inclusion. That's different from when I'm talking about diversity. It's different. You'll notice, that's not the same as equality either. When we think of diversity, let's talk about that, once again, it's a management approach that recognizes that as individuals, we have differences, and there is value in those differences. I like to draw a distinction between those two things. When we start talking about diversity, I'm not saying that everyone's the same. I'm saying that we're different and that we value those differences. Inclusion is how a confident leader wants that to work in their organization, in their team. Brendan: Why was it important to you in having your own definition of inclusion specifically, versus what generic definitions are out there? Jonathan: Brendan, I think the truth is, there was a lot of confusion. When some people talk about diversity, inclusion, I actually don't know what they mean. Often, they don't know what they mean. Often, people are actually arguing for no reason. They'll say, oh, diversity is this, diversity is that. Some people, diversity means gender. Some people, diversity just means race. That's okay, but if I know that, I can understand that. When you use the term diversity, it's a broad, ambiguous term. Being really specific helps you to engage the people that you're trying to speak to, and they're trying to get them to understand, but also for your own perspective. I think it's very important to be particular. We're here at The Culture of Leadership. We're here talking about confident leaders. For me, it's crucial for any confident leader to want to create an environment where everyone can perform, everyone can belong, everyone can reach their potential. I would argue, that's probably natural. If you check any of the content that you've done, I imagine that members of your audience, that is an aspiration that they have. That's something they're trying to do for themselves and others. What I have said wouldn't be alien or unusual. Once again, I've explained it in a way that's easy to understand. Everyone else gets to decide what that means for them. Brendan: It is easy to understand. Let me just relate back to those three pillars specifically so that we can be super, super clear for people, inclusive around performance, belonging, and potential. What does each one of those three mean in the simplest language? Jonathan: This is why I say it's a business strategy because sometimes, people think of this as being airy fairy kumbaya. When we're talking about performance, we all would expect you to perform, to do something. I like to think of it as being productive, being useful, and also being creative. Something that didn't exist, now exists. We all have a role to play in our jobs, in our businesses, in our organizations. We need to create and do something, and we need to be given the opportunities, the access, the skills, the development, in order to do that and to get better at that. That's what I mean by performance. Are you able to do the thing that you thought you were going to do or aspire to do? When I say belong, once again, this is a word that gets thrown around. It's almost like we're all going to start hugging each other and kissing each other? That's not what I mean. It's probably more useful to think of it in terms of acceptance from the group. That's a useful way to think about belonging. Are you accepted within that unit, whether it's a team or an organization? What would it take for you to be accepted? If not, why not? If it's based on your demographic characteristics, then that's an issue. If it's based on the fact that you are a lazy person, you're an unpleasant person, you don't share the values of your team, then it's because we want to discriminate. Let's be clear, we want to discriminate about who is in our team based on things like values, competencies, characteristics. If someone's a thief, do you want them on your team? You have the right to say no. That kind of person doesn't belong. It's when we start to use these false proxies. This person's got this color skin, this person belongs to this faith, this person has a sexual orientation that I'm unfamiliar with, I don't know anyone like that. And we start to discriminate on those bases, that doesn't make sense, that's not inclusive, and it's certainly not in line with being a confident leader. The last thing is potential. To some extent, this is a value judgment as well. I come across so many leaders who are frankly just awesome. They're incredible. They're all trying to develop professionally within themselves. There's a whole industry out there continuing professional development. I think and inclusively, that an inclusive organization is allowing people to go as far as they want to within their careers. Should they choose to do that? If you don't want to, once again, there are spaces for people who don't want to go as far as they can. We need everything. This is part of diversity as well. We need people who want to go for the top to be the CEO. We also want people who are happy to be at an entry level, at this middle manager role, or to work part time, not the part time is a conflict with being the CEO or anything else, but I think you get my point. Brendan: Yeah, absolutely. It may seem like a silly question, but again, I love your point and through your podcast, how clear you are in just making things really, really specific in transparency and the level of clarity. The silly question may be, in everything you've explained, why should leaders care about creating an environment that includes these three pillars? Jonathan: I would argue you cannot claim to be a leader. This is a value judgment of mine. You can't claim to be a leader if you're not trying to get people to perform. You can't claim to be a leader if you're not trying to get people to belong, to create a sense of acceptance within your team. You can't claim to be a leader if you are not allowing yourself and other people to reach their potential. To me, it's so inherent in being a leader, that anyone who claims to be a leader would, in my experience, struggle to question it. It's one thing to say, we want more black women, we want more people with disabilities, we want more people who are from the LGBT community in this organization. Those are different claims. But as a general principle, who do you want with you, and what do you want to encourage in the people that you're with? To me, it's got to be. By the way, this is what I see from the research that I do. When I ask people, what do you actually want, what do you care about—because even people who say they don't like diversity inclusion, when I say, what do you want, it tends to come down to these three things anyway. It's this mix of practical experience, what I think but obviously, what I've observed as well. Brendan: You've been focused on this area for some time. You've got an accountancy background, a little bit different to this journey you're on now. But again, I'm sure that it's very, very useful for the data driven problem solving you're focused on. What are some of these problems that you're seeing in this whole inclusion? Let's bring the DEI bucket together. What are you seeing out there that gets up your nose a bit? Jonathan: I'm glad you brought up that I'm an accountant, because it's hilarious to think of myself doing that role and then ended up over here. Brendan: It just means you're a great accountant. Jonathan: I know. No one no one talks about being an accountant. No one talks about it. A quick word for anyone out there. One day, if you go to parties, go to events, introduce yourself as an accountant, and see what happens. It has a profound social experience. Brendan: I don't know if this is the right thing to say given what we're talking about. Can I respectfully say, for those watching on YouTube, I wouldn't say you're the stereotypical looking accountant. Jonathan: Before I answer your question, I want to talk about this point about stereotypical accountants, because I did a PhD. In my PhD, it was about accountancy as a profession. This was part of it. This is interesting. Did you know that the stereotype of an accountant was something that was deliberately created by the accountancy profession? Brendan: No, I did not. Jonathan: Yeah, exactly. The fact that everyone thinks accountants are sad, boring, uninteresting, that is not an accident. The accountancy profession created that. The obvious thing is, why would they do that? If we go back 150 years, 200 years, the birth of what we would think of as corporations, limited companies, companies limited by liability, there was a lot of legislation that created these new entities, and you need accounting. You are required to provide records, accounting, and accountability about the performance of these organizations. This is quite an interesting thing to think of the Wild West that's happening now in the 21st century. You had all sorts of random people claiming to be accountants. You had bookkeepers. I did this in the research. You have people who are pub landlords, you have people who are barbers, just random members of society all claiming to be accountants. What happened was, it was very difficult for an average person who wants to be a merchant, who wants to start a small business, to have someone who they trusted just to do the basic accounts, which once again, is something that we all consider to be very boring and uninteresting. You describe it as cowboys. It was so random. But there was one group of people who recognized this, so they started to behave differently. Instead of being wild and out there, they started to be very reserved. They started to be very conservative. They started to dress in a particular way. They just started to conduct themselves in a particular way. These were the corporate ancestors of what you and I would now call the Big Four. They became so successful, and their mode was so good and useful that actually all these other random cowboys and random grifters didn't make it. The people who now dominate the accounting profession were there at the birth. It's typically people who are balding. I'm bald here. But bald, middle aged men who wear spectacles, that is a very deliberate archetype created by the accountancy profession itself in order to protect their careers, their profession, and their industry. Brendan: That is fascinating. The scary thing is that I can relate to two of those three, I've got spectacles in middle age that are not balding. But I did study accountancy at university as well, not all the way through, but it was certainly something I'm interested in. I love numbers. I'm fitting the stereotype that they've created for themselves. Jonathan: It worked so well. That's a random aside. The question that you're asking is, what are some of the problems that organizations, leaders experience around diversity, equity, and inclusion? What I found in my research, and what I found in my PhD, what I found in my work, is that broadly speaking, the problems are very predictable. Nearly, everything that you encounter comes under three key things. We call them the three biggest problems. I found it in the research. I found it when I'm speaking to people. I work with an organization. I'm having a conversation with them. They tell me the same things over and over again. We call them the three Ps, people, potential, and performance. The first one is people. Organizations struggle to engage the people that they want to include. Typically, you hear them talking about underrepresented groups, minority groups, people who are marginalized. That's typically what you hear when they want to engage them and they want to get more people. But what often people ignore is that it's the people from the majority, the people who aren't marginalized, you also need to engage them as well. Remember what I said at the beginning, inclusion is about making sure that everyone can reach their potential. Inclusion is for everyone. Inclusion isn't for some people. It's not for those people, it's for everyone. You need to be clear who those people are in your organization. How do you engage the people who actually seem to be doing okay and let them know that this is important, as well as the people who are underrepresented and marginalized? That's the first one, people. It constantly comes up. Brendan: Can I just say one thing on that? I just want to say now before I forget. This is why I like you so much and when we spoke some months ago. Very, very interesting continuing to learn about the inclusion space in detail. Exactly what you just said, it's not about focusing wholly and solely on minority groups, which is super important. Actually, the focus of my experience with this whole subject matter, and what I see through media outlets and all that sort of stuff, is there's so much focus on the minority. It's almost like, again, I'm a white, straight, cismale, whatever I'm supposed to be called, and I'm feeling marginalized because we're not focusing on the collective. Jonathan: We need to be clear about the specific context at any given time. If we're talking in general terms, what is inclusion, why does it matter, who cares, I think it's very important that it's for everyone. If it's not for everyone, then it's difficult to explain the importance to everyone. You can only explain it to the people who are apparently going to benefit. The claim is that there's a business case for diversity and all of these things. If that's the case, that benefit should be for everyone. If it's not, explain that. I find a lot of the so-called experts don't do a good enough job of explaining it. Brendan, sometimes they just don't know. Sometimes they themselves, they're what I call grifters. They're fake. They're three-book experts. For those who can't see, I've got a bookshelf behind me like most people do when they're doing a podcast. I actually read these books. Some people have only read three books. You could get a $200,000 job by reading three books and having no experience since 2020 in the DEI space. When I say DEI, I mean diversity, equity, inclusion, and all related things like that. You're absolutely right. Brendan: Sorry, Jonathan, I am stopping you a bit. There's so many things coming into my head. It's such an emotion driving topic, which I'm not trying to get taken away in. I have heard of an organization in particular, and this is real, that there was someone under the guise of DEI, the person leading the DEI space, which is clearly inexperienced, was 100% focused on making sure that everyone had milk choices for their coffee. What's your view on that? Just tell me what you first think when you hear that as a major focus for a DEI organization of about 600 people? Jonathan: We need more context for that. Does this organization sell milk? I don't know. Let's say we're talking about a service-based organization. Someone comes along and they say, yeah, it's really important that we focus on the milk and the milk choices, all other things being equal. To me, that doesn't superficially appear to be a priority, because that doesn't tell me enough about—we were talking about the three biggest problems, the first people—who were the people in that organization, who may be underrepresented, or who are well represented, but need to become these confident leaders that you are inspiring people to be? I don't know anything about that, we're being told this issue about milk. It doesn't feel doesn't feel like the top thing for me. But as I said, I would need more context to understand it. I think the point you're really making is that more often than not, many of these organizations trivialize the authority they have. They focus on using their resources on things that don't actually help address the challenges that perhaps everybody can see. But instead, they're focusing on these trivial issues. One of the things that you hear people talk about—it's a phrase. It's not my phrase, but I use it a lot—is this idea of flags, food, and fun. When people think of diversity, we're going to have a parade, we're going to have a party, we're going to have a panel event. That's good, and people talk about raising awareness. Raising awareness is important, but I don't think that should be your primary exclusive strategy. Any of those things should be complementing the things that are actually helping to create an environment where everyone can perform, everyone can belong, everyone can reach their potential. A lot of people do rely on these calendar events. It does help to influence the culture of the organization. But if that's all you do, I don't think that's effective. There is nothing to suggest that that is effective. Once again, on its own, as part of a suite of tactics, strategies, it can work. I'm not a fan of that. I don't think it works. The photo opportunities. We're not going to get stock photos, put it on our website, pretend that we're all inclusive. I think all of this is disingenuous. It makes people think of the examples that you just brought up about talking about milk choices. It doesn't feel like a commercial or a relevant thing, which is why when I talk about inclusion, remember I use that word, business strategy. Not everyone agrees with that approach, but I'm talking about this in the confines of an organization. Remember my accounting background, I know and understand the private sector. Brendan: Yeah, absolutely. I'm definitely going to let you keep going in the business strategy, because it's so important what you've got to share. It just feels like to me in organizations I've come across work, we had conversations with various leaders. I don't feel I'm alone in this. It's almost like DEI falls into a negotiation strategy. When people want to get something in an organization, they somehow link it back to DEI. Some of these trivial matters then come up, as opposed to working with the real issues, being a business strategy where you come from, and the intellect attached to that. Jonathan: Yeah, absolutely. Let's pretend we're a non-profit making organization. Some people would say, well, you're talking about business and this is a nonprofit, we're not here to make money. Perhaps not, but you are there still to make efficient use of the resources that you have. You're not there to be wasteful. You're there to promote efficiency, productivity in achieving the goal that you have, the purpose for the organization. I want to throw that out there as well. Once again, my approach isn't always popular, it's not always welcome. One of the problems that I talked about before I've finished with these three pieces, I call it the rhetorical problem of diversity and inclusion. Brendan, I am sure you've encountered this. According to Greek tradition, if you want to have a persuasive argument with anyone about anything, you need three things. You need logos, ethos, pathos, which is you need a logical explanation. One plus one is two. We get that, that makes sense, I can see how that works. There's the ethos, which is the credibility of the person speaking. I'm here talking about inclusion. We're talking about leadership. I've told you about my PhD. I told you I'm an accountant. That whole story about the PhD sounds broadly feasible. Even if you didn't believe it, you could go and check for yourself. But it's different if I was a chef coming on here talking about accounting but not sure, so the credibility of the person. Sometimes that also means status. The third thing is an emotional play, the pathos. This is so powerful for human beings that in the DEI space, people will rely on the emotional play, ignoring the logic, ignoring the credibility of the person. Going back to your milk example as well, that didn't even make sense. That was probably presented. It didn't logically make sense, that's why we were questioning it. But perhaps it was presented with an emotional play. There's an emotional reason why that makes sense in that organization. I find over the past three, four, or five years, when people are talking about diversity, equity, inclusion, they lead with an emotional play in a business context, which I don't always think is the right thing. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, but it also needs to make sense. We need to believe the person has the credibility to tell us why. If not, it gets out of control. You don't know who to trust. This is one of the issues that I think we're having here. Brendan: I think where the emotional side, the pathos side, comes in relevant is like anything when you're raising awareness and trying to promote changes. There's a good level of storytelling and using emotion in stories in a good way to highlight this is not good, or highlight where a really good outcome comes in and bring that into the inclusion journey. That's where it becomes really useful in anything that you're trying to change. Jonathan: I completely agree, Brendan. I think the challenge is when it gets used in guilt, shaming people into these things as a form of manipulation, as part of the whole propaganda of all of this sometimes. I say that I am here, I believe in inclusion, but there's a lot of propaganda out there using these emotional manipulation tools to get people to do something. It works in the short term, not for the long term. I think that's the huge challenge. This is the second thing. The second P is about potential, creating a culture of inclusion where everyone can reach their potential. Everything I've just described does not help with that. It doesn't, and most people will argue. When we start talking about these diversity tactics or inclusion strategies, a large part of what people are trying to do, and it makes complete sense here for everyone on this podcast, is a large part of it is about changing the culture of the organization. Culture is a disputed term, but whatever that means to you in your organization, does everyone have an opportunity to make it? I think that's really important. Brendan: Yeah, absolutely. People, potential, performance, those three areas. Why is it that you say that they are the biggest problems that you come across and what the data says? What is it about these areas that make them problematic for organizations? Jonathan: Let me take a step back, because performance is about the business case for diversity. Just let me quickly explain that. Organizations, instead of inheriting a generic business case, they need to make their own business case. They need to understand why this shows up for them. When you say, why do I think that those are the issues, this is what I have observed. But if we're saying, why do organizations have difficulty engaging the people that they want to, it's because they're in the habit of engaging people who already do well. They've got an idea of success in their organization. They tend to try to role model that, and they're not focused on anything else that may be different. That's a huge challenge there. Why do people have problems creating a culture of inclusion where everyone reaches their potential? I think people think of culture as something that needs to be protected, maintained, and something that's static. But actually, when you think about this, and you'll appreciate this where you're based, I appreciate this here in the UK, when people think of culture, they think that this is a static stable thing. But the truth is, when one person from a different cultural group enters, it changes the whole culture. Culture is something that changes all of the time. That's known as acculturation. I don't think that organizations think about culture in a way that's aligned with how culture actually exists in real life. Because of that, they're often trying to maintain a culture that got them there, but isn't going to get them where they need to go into the future. The third thing about performance, to some extent, it's a little bit lazy. One thing I asked organizations, and it's a rhetorical question, I'll ask it to members of the audience, and you don't have to answer, but you've heard about the business case for diversity. Diversity is good for innovation, for productivity. These all tend to be generic claims from the research, from a random report, or something on social media. Let's say we believe them, and let's say we think they're true, my next question would be, why is diversity and why is inclusion good in your organization? For you, in your team, it takes a bit of effort to answer that question. Most people can not, that's why it was a rhetorical question. If you put some time and effort into answering that question, that's going to tell you to a large extent, what you need to do to create a more inclusive organization. Why should we care specifically? Let's be really specific. I'll use the example of the BBC. Now, we've all got mixed feelings about the BBC. In the UK, the BBC is a national broadcaster. They are a public broadcaster. They're paid for by members of the public, but they are supposed to serve the public interest and a number of other things. What does diversity mean in the BBC? It would be quite easy to argue that the BBC is supposed to be the mouthpiece or speak to the nation. Whatever the nation looks like, perhaps the BBC should look like. That's a crude argument, but you could see how you could get behind that. That makes sense. For argument's sake, let's just say 70% of the population of the country are women. Perhaps, 70% of the population of the BBC should be women. Crude example, but you can see how that makes sense. Therefore, they would be able to say, that's why it matters to us. That's why we are trying to get more women, in this example, to work at the BBC because we've only got 30%. When we look at the senior leadership, we've only got 30%. These are hypothetical numbers, but you get the point. It's a crude example. I think organizations need to find their version of that for themselves. It doesn't have to be as crude as that. The whole point is, you know your organization better than I do, you know it better than any consultant or anybody else. Why does it matter to you? If you can't answer those things, that's why it's so difficult. Also Brendan, it takes time. This isn't going to be fixed in five minutes, contrary to what people would like you to believe. Brendan: I think what you're saying, Jonathan, and I'm bringing in some of your Twitter feed that I went through and had a look at, is that organizations generally are taking maybe what they're seeing as best practice. I know we can unpack whatever this best practice is. They're taking what they view as best practice in trying to cookie cutter that into their organization and then saying, we are a leading DEI organization. It's almost like a bomb, cookie cutter, bang, tick, let's move on. Jonathan: Absolutely. To a large extent, all of this stuff is considered to be a grudge purchase. It's like car insurance. You’ve got to do it, you've got to pay for it, you're going to be in trouble if you don't have it. I think some people think of it that way. It's not something that they want to put too much thought into for the reasons we've just described. What does it look like in your organization? What do we need to think about our culture? What do we need to believe to create the organization that we want? Sometimes some of the people who we need, we don't know where they are, we don't know how to meet them. Actually, they may challenge our existing beliefs, perhaps. None of that sounds comfortable, none of that sounds easy. Maybe it's easier to do what we did before. That's what so many organizations are doing. That idea of a grudge purchase becomes really important, and I think it's something that we need to move away from. But once again, it's the way that this has been presented. If you've been guilted or shamed into thinking that you've got no clue, you've got no idea, which maybe you don't, but if the guilt and the shame around it is how it's presented to you, it doesn't engage you in any of these topics. Perhaps for some of your audience, the way that we're talking about this now is very different to the way it's been presented to them in the past, and I think that's part of the point. Large part of what I want to do is to get people to think for themselves so that they can make these decisions for themselves, instead of just trusting some random expert who's throwing numbers and facts at them, but not actually inviting them to think critically about any of it. Brendan: It makes sense. Could you also argue, Jonathan, that when things are new, that bringing something into the organization as a cookie cutter approach is at least a good start, and then as you're starting to learn what this actually means in your organization, that you're starting to adapt and make changes? Is that a fair argument? If that's an argument, is that a good step? At least we're moving in some positive direction around all this stuff? Jonathan: I think some people make that argument. I'm, at times, hostile to this idea of cookie cutter approach. Let me give you an example. I think, remembering that we're in an organization, we have goals and strategies, and we're trying to achieve something, I think that can be harmful. Let me give you an example. The one I like to bring up is unconscious bias training. A lot of organizations will do it because they say, you know what, we need to do something, it is a nice cookie cutter solution, get everyone to do unconscious bias training. The problem is, (1) the research does not show that unconscious bias training is effective. (2) Most people, and actually, I've never encountered anyone who has done unconscious bias training, and actually tried to evaluate the success of the training themselves, they tend to rely on happy sheets. Did you like the training? Would you recommend it to other people? That's what they tend to do. This is a great example of the cookie cutter, let's do something, it's a step in the right direction. What if I told you that was all a waste of money? If you had spent a little bit of time investigating this, you wouldn't have wasted that time, wasted that money or resources that actually you could have used for something more useful that in an organization now, depending on what you believe about the economy is certainly tough times, those resources could be used elsewhere. I still favor people thinking clearly about this. We think of an evidence based inclusion approach. What does that mean? When you're making a decision, evidence based inclusion is about making better decisions about creating an inclusive organization. We've told you what inclusion is. Everyone can perform, everyone can belong, everyone can reach their potential. In order to make those decisions, it's useful to draw evidence from four key sources. (1) The research. You won't be surprised to hear that I love that. Right. By the way, this is a Google searcher way, Meta studies. There is research out there about the thing that you care about. (2) The organization. What evidence can we collect from our organization about this specific issue? Even if we don't have any evidence, that may itself be useful in understanding this challenge. (3) The stakeholders, the people who are affected by the thing we want to change, we want to influence. What impact is it going to have on them? Let's find out what they think and experience. (4) Your own professional expertise. I also like to rely on the expertise of others, which is why I read so many books. But if you collect evidence from these four areas, you will make better decisions. If you spent a little bit of time doing that before, you don't have to rely on these cookie cutter approaches. You're able to make your own mind up. Is any of that easy, Brendan? No. It's simple. It sounded straightforward. Is it easy? Absolutely not. Brendan: It's like a number of things, I think. There are really simple frameworks, but the application is where the challenge sits and getting to a level of knowledge, which is, again, why someone like you that has a level of expertise around this, is passionate, is researching, reading, learning, and all that sort of thing. Let's put this in practical terms. If I'm the CEO of a large business, a thousand people, and I reach out to you, engage. Dr. J, hey, I know that we can be better, I believe in this, I'm not just virtue signaling, I want to make positive change in our organization or advancements, where do we start? What would engagement look like with someone like yourself in this space? Jonathan: Great. The first thing I say, because I've got the podcast and all these resources, I'd say start there because that allows you to understand my own thoughts, opinions, views. You're able to come to this. You're not completely clueless, and you already know that the confident leaders that you encourage on this show behave like that anyway. They always do a little bit of homework. Brendan: Quick one, The Element of Inclusion podcast, fantastic. That is your podcast. Jonathan: That is, The Element of Inclusion. Thank you. Thanks, Brendan. The second thing is, I would focus on the three biggest problems. Make an attempt to understand that yourself. Who are the people that we want to include? Who are the people who are doing really well, who just don't care about this stuff or completely oblivious to it? Get a sense of who they are. Maybe even start speaking to them. What do you think about this? How would you characterize your culture? A quick game I always play is, if this organization was a person, what are their characteristics? What are their traits? Would I be friends with them? It's very easy for the CEO leader to say, look, this is who we are, these are our values. Why don't you check out the exit interviews of people who have left? Check out the people who have done really well who got promoted. Check out the people who didn't, the people who have got a gripe with the organization. You're going to get a little bit more of a balanced view about the identity of your organization and the culture. That's going to tell you the type of people who do well and who don't. Also, there's a hero story. Every organization has one. In this organization of a thousand people, there is someone who is an archetype that gets celebrated. It could be, oh, that person, all they do is go on liquid lunches. They drink so much, they work so hard, they put in all the hours. Or it could be someone who's like, actually, we always change it. We wing everything. There's going to be a story of success that everybody tries to emulate. Sometimes it's informal, or sometimes it's formal. Understanding that is going to tell you about the culture of your organization. Once again, these are a couple of things that are useful for everyone to do. This is something that someone can do. The third one, which is the real big one, is, what does diversity mean? What does inclusion mean to you in your organization? It's not a test. It doesn't need to have this perfect definition. It feels like this. Just get an understanding. If you've done all of the other things that I've just said, you'll have a really clear idea. Why does it matter to us and what does it mean? What does it look like? What does diversity mean? If diversity means that in your organization means people, everyone lives on this side of town, diversity is the people who live on the other side of town. But we all went to the same school, we all look the same, we all sound the same. We just live in different areas, different postcodes. That tells you what diversity is. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, good or bad, but it helps you to understand. Just having a clear idea about that, one will put you ahead of everyone. You don't need to pay thousands of dollars to other people. But then, anyone who comes to me with that, it's very straightforward to start to help and support them. Most people will realize, actually, you're able to help and support yourself, but it makes it really, really straightforward. And then we're able to build some momentum. That's been my experience. This is why I try to share all of this stuff because Brendan, I say, I'm on a mission to help a million people to make their workplace inclusive. What I've just described means that some people will come and work with me. There are tens of thousands, hopefully millions eventually, who don't need to come to me because what I'm giving them or providing is helping them at scale and they can do things by themselves. Brendan: I really liked that. It reminds me of Six Sigma, any improvement type model, or even coaching model. What's the current state of play? Let's get some data on that, have some conversations, and maybe use HR to gather some data around things. Even then, identifying, what will our future state look like? What do we want to have it look like? And then a bit of a gap analysis. This is where someone with your expertise can really hone in on that. Okay, well, this is where we are, this is where we want to get to, where do we start? How do we make sense of this? In that process, it's so powerful, the learning journey, because you're really using real life stuff. Back to that cookie cutter approach, there's no cookie cutter attached to that. You're just learning, you're living, and breathing what's going to work for your environment, which makes it so much more meaningful. Jonathan: Completely. A useful analogy is, let's say someone wanted to be married and wanted to have a happy marriage. You can speak to everyone, and they're going to tell you ideas about what that looks like. The truth is, you need to have your own idea of what that is. If someone says to you, I want to be happy, I don't know what that means. I need more information before I can understand what happiness means to you. Sometimes it's doing things that actually, lots of other people don't care about, aren't interested, but for you, that makes you happy. That's really important, especially if you're taking advice from people who have a completely different idea about what happiness is. These are just a couple of examples that we can all relate to, maybe not the marriage one, but certainly the happiness one, or certainly the career one, leadership. Part of the reason you are here talking about confident leaders, everyone's got a different idea about what that means. People who are tuned into this show have a clearer idea about what you mean, Brendan, and you're encouraging them to think about what it means for them. I very much encourage people to think critically, to make up their own mind, and not to take everything for granted. We live in the 21st century. Someone is always trying to influence us at any given moment. But coming back to some of these basic principles, as you said, a gap analysis, where we are now, where we want to be, even something like a really basic performance management structure, plan, do, review. We're always going to come back to a version of that at some point. It's about understanding the nuances of what we're doing at any given time, but we don't always have to overbake everything. This has been one of my experiences. Brendan: Let's move on to propaganda. You mentioned that word earlier. What are the propaganda type tactics that in your view and experience are out there in this space? Jonathan: I think one of them is language. People will use words that you've heard before or you've got a particular understanding of, and they won't tell you what it means, or they'll use it in a different way. A great one is about race and racism. Someone will just accuse you of being racist, or they'll say this is racism, but they don't explain what that means. This is often a guilt and shaming tactic as well. People will say things like, well, you're racist. They won't explain why, drop the mic and say, you should know what that means. I don't find that to be helpful at all. Let's use this idea of racism for a second. When people think of racism, they think of discrimination and prejudice between individuals. That is broadly how I think mainstream society thinks about racism, discrimination or prejudice against an individual based on the racial group that they belong to. You may not believe that races exist, but we can accept that there are differences in people, and the mainstream media at least describes them as racist. It's not just about your skin color, but that's a large part of it. I told you I did a whole PhD around all of this stuff. It's useful to think of racism as a system of advantage based on people's races. This means there's a hierarchy. It doesn't matter if you believe it. This is a more academic theoretical way of explaining the persistence of racism. I'm not trying to convince anyone that this exists. I'm just trying to let you know that this is another way of thinking about it. Often, when people do those mic drops and say, you're racist, they're often speaking to this system. The problem is, you haven't been told that. You haven't had that explained to you. Some of the challenges, and it's probably less propaganda and more manipulation, is people don't speak clearly and make sure that the other person who they're communicating with understands the concepts and the principles that they're talking about. I find that to be very unhelpful. That's more manipulation, more than propaganda. If we're talking about propaganda, the one I brought up is about unconscious bias training. People will tell you that you need unconscious bias training. They never tell you why. They just say, we have unconscious bias, doing this training helps you to understand this bias, but they don't say whether it works. They don't say how it works. Also, they don't say, if it doesn't work, we need to stop or we need to do something else. It's this whole propaganda machine there. The other one that comes up a lot is the business case for diversity. You've been told that there is a business case for diversity, which means broadly speaking, diversity, however you want to describe that, leads to better profits, more productivity, innovation, and all of these things. There's research to show that. What they don't tell you is that that research is limited. What they don't tell you is that there's research to show that there's also challenges in particular points with diversity. It can lead to misunderstandings, it can lead to conflict in teams, it can lead to tension. It does not mean that there is no business case for diversity. Does it mean it's a good thing or a bad thing? No, it doesn't, because what I've just described describes nearly all research about anything. This style of leadership is good. Okay, this study shows that that same style of leadership has negative outcomes. The propaganda around diversity that it's this entirely pure, good, that by magic is going to help your organization, is a fallacy. It's propagated. People use that, and people will try and beat you up if you question it in public. A lot of what I've just said here is unpopular. You won't hear many people talking about it, because it conflicts with the propaganda that we just need more diversity and we need to do it. As I said, I'm here talking about inclusion, but I'm asking everybody to think for themselves. Instead of relying on this generic business case, come up with your own. Think about why it's important to you. Why would you care or bother? This is one of the first things you asked me here, Brendan, because you're a confident leader. That's why this matters. If you're not sure, then maybe you need to rethink what being a confident leader means. This is my version of what a confident leader is. I'm inviting everybody here to think about what their version is. Is that aligned with being inclusive? Brendan: Do you sometimes feel like when people really want to solve a problem, they're committed to it, they'll do anything, they'll research, they'll uncover, they'll do all sorts of things, they'll work crazy hours, all sorts of challenging timelines to solve the problem? As humans, we're pretty resilient when it comes to that, whether it's individually or teams. I don't like the word being in the case of this propaganda comes in, or like that word propaganda. Does it feel like to you that people organizations are using it as a bit of a smokescreen? They're not genuinely interested in solving the problem for the organization, whatever the problem looks like and how they unpack that, which we started talking about before, but it's almost this propaganda screen of nothing to see here, we've got it covered. But then when you dig underneath the surface, it's far from covered. Does it feel like that to you? You're playing in the mud in this space. Jonathan: What you've described makes complete sense, and I agree. I studied economics at school. They taught us. One of the very first things was that economics is infinite ones with limited resources. The second thing they said was, people respond to incentives. People have strong responses to strong incentives. You heard me say this phrase as well, all other things being equal, ceteris paribus. I learned this at school. Also, all other things aren't equal and very rarely equal, but it's a useful way for us to model. Human beings tend to respond to incentives. Like you were saying about, they're not genuinely interested. In 2020, organizations felt that they had strong incentives to take diversity and inclusion very seriously. Following the murder of George Floyd specifically, lots of other people were killed, murdered that year, but the murder of George Floyd really gave it global attention. Organizations felt obligated to respond. For the majority of us, we're all at home. The majority of us were looking at these black mirrors, blooking at all of these screens. It was an unusual experience by any standard. I feel now that that heightened sense of awareness and that heightened incentive has dissipated. The incentives aren't as strong as they were before. To some extent, organizations, going back to the idea of the grudge purchase, realized, actually, remember what's on my car insurance, I don't need this as much. The punishments for me not taking this seriously aren't as heavy as they were previously. I agree with you that some organizations think, maybe let's leave it. We're not going to completely ignore it, but we're not going to give it the attention that we previously said. The other thing that you said, Brendan, is people just want to move on to the next thing. I agree that is happening. I think that's a challenge. Once again, the fundamental principles—this is why I say an inclusive organization—I think are relevant to leadership, is relevant to having a culture in an organization that's going to get you what you want. I don't think those things are mutually exclusive. However, I think the way that it was presented to people, the way that these topics, these issues are often presented to people, means that, as I said, they didn't really want to do it. If the incentives disappear, they're not going to need to continue to do it. At the time of us recording this, in the US, they've had a Supreme Court decision. I think they've undone or rolled back affirmative action. I don't want to speak too much about this, because I haven't done enough homework on it. But I do know that in higher education, there are affirmative action, programs, and initiatives that are no longer going to exist in the future. This is going to have an impact at the very least on the perception of the importance of promoting diversity in education. There's an expectation that that's going to affect what that means in other parts of society. The US tends to lead in a lot of these ways. We can see the idea of a grudge purchase becoming less and less relevant and important. Brendan: It smells like fashion. The fashion was there. It was really high fashion for a while. The fashion is not quite as popular now, but it's still there. You'll see the occasional jacket that used to be fashionable a couple of years back. Do you think that's going to change with the generations? The younger people have grown up in an era where these things are being talked about a lot more and rightly so. We're asking people to critically think about it, as you say, and find out what's right for the organization. Is it a generational change thing that will move us into a more positive direction? Jonathan: I think a lot of the struggles that we hear about now are completely taken for granted by people who are in much younger generations. They're not struggling to tackle the idea about why this is important, why should we care. It's completely normal. These are people who maybe grew up in environments where there's greater diversity, greater inclusion, or inclusion becomes necessary because of the diversity that perhaps maybe their parents or their guardians didn't have. I think that's really important and a great point to raise. Also, we're in a global economy, global society. The world is a lot smaller than it was 20-40 years ago. There are people who are playing games, having regular contact with people who not only speak different languages or are based in different countries, and that's a regular part of their day. The idea of having meaningful contact with someone who's from a different culture, who's got a different identity, different beliefs, but we're participating on a particular project activity, for some people, that's a complete norm. This is the thing as well. They may not even speak to each other as in the way that you and I are speaking. Maybe they're tapping all of this out on the computer. Maybe they're using a translator. The idea of being a bit more flexible in order to get something done that serves our shared interests, whether that's a project, whether it's a game, whether it's any other activity, it's something we really need to consider. A lot of them, they're not putting too much effort into thinking about it because they already live it. To a large extent, maybe we need to catch up with them. Brendan: It makes sense. We use the term and I think you used it earlier, best practice. You said something on your Twitter feed, I think, not long ago as well around best practice. I'm pretty sure you made a comment about you've got some issues with whatever best practice means, something along those lines. Can you tell me more about that? Jonathan: It's the lazy cookie cutter best practices that I've got problems with. It's the things that you don't know why they work. You're copying other people. We talk about the seven common mistakes organizations make on their inclusion journey. I won't go into all of them now because that could take a while. Brendan: You have written about it though, so we can put that into the show notes. Jonathan: Yeah, put it all in the show notes. I've got a million of these things. Brendan: We certainly will, buddy. You're a prolific writer. Jonathan: It's always there. The real issue is that people think that they can copy and paste what other people are doing, and that is going to work for them. For so many of the reasons that we've discussed, that's not really effective. It's not. When I say it's not effective, this is what I've observed. This is what I've seen in the research. When I actually speak to people, this is my evidence based approach. I look at the research, I actually speak to people, I look at my own experience and others. I've contacted organizations. These so-called best practices they don't work. There's a book here called Diversity, Inc. It says that inclusion is a $9 billion industry, and it still hasn't produced the results that we want. The best practices that people have been arguing about are not effective, so let's come up with something more useful. That shouldn't be a profound idea. The thing we're doing isn't working, let's find something else. Best practice is useful when it works all the time. All other things being equal, this is the way to do it. That's what we should do. If it doesn't work, we need to leave it and find something that is. Brendan: My takeaway from that, Jonathan, is that best practice is really such a unique thing per organization. Again, there are great models. Some of the stuff you've shared today are really, really good, simple to understand. But again, the best practice is in your application of that model that works for your organization. You can almost say that for so many things. This is a key part of what culture and behavior is in your organization. It's less about the model. It's understanding the model or models and then using that in the organization related to the context, the personality, which is what you referred to earlier, of your organization. If you understand the personality of your organization, then you've got a much better chance of making a unique best practice for your organization. Jonathan: I agree. My claim would be that the best practice should be evidence based inclusion and evidence based approach in the way that I described. That allows you to do what I think everybody should be doing, is making your own decisions that are specific to your organization in the context of the circumstances that you personally have. It's a meta approach that allows you to systematically make better decisions. Think about that. That could apply to so many different things in the way that you've described. It doesn't conflict with things that we all know are our best practice like performance management. Plan, do, review, that's the best practice. Everybody grasps that. You're going to come across a framework or a model. You have so many people who come on here. But to a large extent, we can agree, if you, in your day or life, use a plan, do, review, you are going to make consistent progress over time. That's the best practice. This links with that and so many others that are out there. I suppose one of the things, and this is something that's just come to me now, is why not collect the practices that support and encourage other best practices that have been tried and tested? That would be useful. Brendan, have you heard of the Lindy effect? Brendan: The Lindy effect? No. Jonathan: The Lindy effect. Okay, you'll like this. Apparently, in New York, there was a deli called Lindsay's. Comedians used to come there after their shows. They would all share jokes, and everything is shared material. They were finding that there was some material that stood the test of time that lasted. The Lindy effect refers to things that basically stand the test of time, advice, books. For example, I read a lot of books, I do my 60-second book reviews all of the time. This is a great example. There are books that, in a hundred years, will still be considered to be useful. Those books benefit from the Lindy effect. We suggest that things that have stood the test of time, if it's been around for a long time, chances are, it's going to still be around. I read a lot of books that I already know are not going to benefit from the Lindy effect. They're not going to be useful in 5 years, 10 years. Whereas there are books that we know are going to be useful in 100 years. Bringing this back to this idea of best practices, I'm asking everyone to consider this. There are practices that have been around for hundreds of years that we want to get rid of. Let's be clear. But if there are beneficial generative practices that we think are useful and have been around for a while, maybe we could consider leveraging them if it suits our purposes, instead of coming up with new things all the time. Brendan: I have to say that, from what I'm learning today from you, I would say that your definition of inclusiveness, the performance of belonging and the potential, that feels like it's going to have some Lindy effect. The people, the potential performance, again, simple. When is that never important, particularly in relation to what we're talking about? Maybe if we’d hit some goal in many, many years to come when you and I are no longer with us, that this episode must have the Lindy effect. Let's hope. Jonathan: Let's hope that. This is a funny thing. Do you know what I think we're doing here as well? I think this is profound, Brendan. We call these podcasts now. But in a hundred years, let's pretend this still exists, let's pretend the Lindy effect, this may have a different name. We call it a podcast now, but what we are doing may have a different name. You could consider this to be a cultural artifact for the people in the future. You're here trying to do something that's good for the world. You show up consistently, you bring value, you share your own values, and you draw attention and insights from people like myself, which I very much appreciate. This didn't exist in the format better that it did a hundred years ago, 200 years ago. Who knows what it's going to look like in the future? But you could consider this to be a cultural artifact, which I hope will experience the Lindy effect. It may go on to inspire other art forms, forms of development, forms of expression, that we haven't even considered yet. I want to thank you and congratulate you for everything that you're doing here. Brendan: It's an absolute pleasure again. It's Friday evening our time in Sydney. I know it's Friday morning in the UK. As I said before, even when we started recording, I couldn't think of anything more pleasing to end the week. It's been a frustrating week for me for a few different reasons. But talking to a top man, it didn't matter if it's female or man, but just having a great conversation, to be honest. I couldn't think of anything better. I think you've almost given me a new intro to the show. I'm going to have to start referring to us as a cultural—what were the words you used? Jonathan: A cultural artifact. Brendan: Absolutely. This episode is another cultural artifact of The Culture of Leadership. Thank you very much. Don't trademark that. I want to use it without paying. I'll definitely be using it in my top and tail somewhere on the show. The Element of Inclusion again, really, I'm not just saying this because you're here, but i’m impressed with your podcasts. It is one of the ones that I listened to very, very consistently. I like the short sharpness. I love how you're speaking to the listener or the viewer. You're very deliberate about you, you, you, saying you all the time. This Element of Inclusion podcasts and impacting one million people, what does impact mean? Tell us about it. Jonathan: That's a great question that I'm coming to take a lot more seriously. This is one podcast to speak into another that has a million downloads, does that mean I've helped a million people? Not if someone listens to every single one. A million impressions on social media, does that mean I've helped a million people? Maybe. It's a little bit ambiguous for a person who likes to be clear. One of the things I'm coming to do is to create some courses, some actual resources, that I am hoping a million people will get. For example, we spoke about the three biggest problems. Maybe by the time in the future, in a hundred years, when this cultural artifact is being examined, I will have the three biggest problems of course. I want to create a course that is easy, individuals can use it, they can use it to understand a lot of the key concepts that we've discussed today, and they will be assessed on it. Right now, to be perfectly frank, it does not exist. I am working on it. I'm hoping, maybe even by the time we publish this, but certainly in a hundred years, it will be out there. That is one thing that I want to do. If I've created a course that I think sharpens people's thinking, give them insights and tools, what if I make this free or close to free but it's accredited? If a million people do that, I am certain I've helped a million people. I'm thinking of things like that. I want to make it a little bit more clear, transformational. You're in a situation where you didn't know this and now you do. I want to do that a little bit more. It's very possible that I've helped a million people. I don't think I have, but that's my aspiration. Something like courses, something like taking what I'm already doing and making it punchy. I've even been thinking about blockchain technology. What if I could prove that you've listened to all these shows, or you've shared it with all of these people? Once again, in the future, this is all going to seem really obvious. Yeah, we have to read that now. But for me, I knew this is a real novel idea. I want to be able to track the impact that I'm having in the hope that I hit this million. To answer your question, something very clear and definite like a course, like a program that's short, punchy, and can be shared easily, is the type of thing that I'm coming to create. I'm taking this as a call to action to do it so that it doesn't take 50 years, maybe a lot less so that maybe we stick that in the show notes at some point in the future, so people can do that. That would be great. Brendan: You've shared it with the world. I'm very good apparently according to my clients and accountability partners. I will gladly put my hand up and say, you have an accountability partner. I'll keep you to that. Jonathan: Thank you so much, Brendan. I really appreciate that. Brendan: There is a word you used in that explanation, which really resonated with this transformation. Courses are great, obviously, but people don't buy the course, they buy the transformation of what something like a course can give. Have you thought about what one person of that million, what a transformation would look like? You're sitting there being proud, happy, and satisfied that that's had the impact, therefore the transformation. Have you thought about that? Jonathan: Let's bring it into the context of your audience. A transformation I would be proud of would be if a member of your audience, even with this show, some values that they already had have been articulated in a way that makes something that they've heard about, maybe weren't that engaged in, but it wasn't very clear, and now they've got clarity on something about inclusion. It now feels relevant to them and also, it's given them an opportunity. They've almost got a little list of the three biggest problems for them to now go out and write these things down, which could take 10 minutes. It could take half an hour, Let's pretend it's not an onerous task. For me, that would be a transformation. Even though I would never know directly that they did that, the people around them would. The people around them would think, not only is this person a confident leader, they've made me a confident leader, and I am more prepared to go and do this thing and pass it on. Also, as you said, speaking about it in a way that makes sense, not guilting or shaming people. Just being really clear and honest about what it means to us and why, and why it's aligned with our purpose. That transformation would be remarkable for me. That is something that I would be proud of. As I said, my challenge is it's difficult for me to measure that. But I hope that someday, someone says something like that to you. If one person said that to you about this episode, that would be something to be proud of. I'd be amazed with that. Brendan: Dr. J, our final question of the podcasts that we like to end with is, what's this one thing that has helped you become a more confident leader? Jonathan: This is an interesting one for me. Remember, I said I did a PhD. When you do a PhD, it's all your best ideas, all your best thoughts, years of work. It's in a document. When I finished my PhD, that is published out there for the world for everyone. This really matters because anyone who's got their own business, their own consultancy, or is claiming to be able to help people, a 20th century approach is to keep all your ideas. You keep it all here, and you'll drip feed it, and then people get more later. I was in a situation, where all my best ideas were out there for the world and in excruciating detail that you could do it. It's not just like, oh, three biggest problems. It's pages and pages of explaining absolutely everything that I knew, my best thinking at that time. I was humbled. What made me a more confident and better leader was the fact that it wasn't just about the knowledge, it wasn't just about what was written down. In the 21st century, information is cheap. It's out there. You can find the answers to most of the questions that you want, but it's actually the implementation. It's the transformation that we discussed. People often want help with that. This gave me a greater sense of value for myself, because I was able to help everybody. This is what inspired the podcast and everything else. I'm already helping people. Even if you don't want to engage with me, that's one thing. I'm giving out to the universe, out to the world, out to the market. I sensed that my value wasn't just in the information. It's how I could help motivate and support you to get that transformation itself. That made me more confident in my own ability and to nurture and develop that ability. That's what led to the podcast. That's what leads to my prolific writing. That's what leads to my book clubs and all these other things. It's me giving in that way, but it allows me—for those who want to come closer and come closer, I can help you a little bit more. It's a weird way of thinking about it, but I found it to be profound. Imagine if everyone knew what you knew, Brendan. Everyone knows exactly what you know. Not only that, you're telling them exactly what you know. It makes you ask yourself, what is my purpose? I would encourage that to everyone, but it also makes you more confident, because it means you're not afraid of being around people who are smarter than you, more accomplished than you. On a particular topic X that you're challenging, you're addressing. You're happy to be around someone who knows 20 times more than you, because you're not scared about the information. It's about actually how you implement it, and it means that we all have something to offer. That experience is what made me a more confident leader. Brendan: I love it. If I'm following that correctly, it's almost like the freedom has been provided because you've got this stuff out there, you've got these innermost thoughts, and it's out for the world to see. It's like a release, like, hey, I don't have to worry about this. It's all there for the world to see, to challenge, to have conversations, and ultimately, to help create the impact that you're wanting to create. Is that fair to say? Jonathan: Exactly. It's like a cultural artifact, Brendan. Brendan: I love it. That sounds like a great place to finish. You are a consummate professional. You used the word giving at the end there. For everybody's sake, for the world's sake, and for the people that all of us need to continue to learn around inclusion as a business strategy and data-driven, inclusion strategy solving, then let's hope you keep giving to the world. Thank you for giving to our audience, for giving to me tonight or morning your side, and giving to The Culture of Leadership podcast. I really appreciate you coming on, buddy. Jonathan: Thank you so much, Brendan. It's been a pleasure to be here. I wish everyone the best on their inclusion journey. Brendan: Thank you, mate. As a leader, the most important thing you can do for inclusion is make it a part of your business strategy. Don’t go for the cookie cutter approach. Determine how it should look, feel, and work in your organization. These are my three key takeaways from my conversation with Jonathan. My first key takeaway, confident leaders create an environment where everyone can perform. By fostering a culture of inclusion, leaders empower individuals to perform well. The goal is to ensure everyone’s unique abilities are maximized for the good of the team and organization. If your employees could do what they thought they could do or aspire to do then you’re creating an environment where everyone can perform at their best. My second key takeaway, confident leaders create an environment where everyone can belong. Ultimately, this means a person feels acceptance within the group. Although being embraced by a team or organization is dependent on individual alignment with core values and performance standards. If the alignment isn’t there then it’s important to address this appropriately. My third key takeaway, confident leaders create an environment where everyone can reach their potential. The best leaders and employees are always focused on improving and developing professionally. If you’re allowing all of your employees to go as far as they want to within their careers, then you’re creating an inclusive environment for people to reach their potential. In summary, my three key takeaways were confident leaders create an environment where everyone can perform, confident leaders create an environment where everyone can belong, and confident leaders create an environment where everyone can reach their potential. Let me know your key takeaway on YouTube or at thecultureofleadership.com. Thanks for joining me and remember, the best outcome is on the other side of a genuine conversation.