Beyond the Binary

By Christine Locher

Is it time to re-think the labels we use for gender identity? Coaching and leadership expert Christine Locher challenges traditional social stereotypes that she believes are over-generalised and outdated.

“So, have you decided yet?” I get this question a lot. There is nothing to decide. I remember my first gender identity conversation at the age of five in a Catholic Kindergarten in rural Southern Germany. That did not go well.

I got told to not “move like a boy” as I wasn’t one, and got put in my place. On the other side of the room, with the girls. None of this made any sense to me. Neither one nor the other. I was just being me. In a play room that was cut in half with the construction corner for the boys and the dolls’ corner for the girls, there was nowhere for me to go.

I’m over 40 now, and on occasion, this still happens although the play rooms have since got bigger and have tables and chairs. Gender comes in a variety of denominations, and that might make sense to you – or not. The discussion however remains largely binary, and data is usually inaccurate by not offering people safe or meaningful options to properly self-declare. This means, part of the picture is missing.

Two big options are neat, they make the world look more manageable. That is tempting. This also lends itself to pitching one group against the other. As we crave clarity, we resent the “misfits”, people that challenge our neat groupings, we take them personal.

So, let’s loosen up the binary a little bit. Imagine a square where option A (e.g. female) is in the bottom left corner. Option B (e.g. male) is in the top right. So far, so familiar. Now let’s imagine the top left corner represents “both”. And now imagine the bottom right corner to represent “neither”. And now imagine a spot outside that square that represents “something different entirely”.

With all these options: What might that feel like? What would you lose? What would you gain? What would that make possible? What challenges would that create, for the person and for their surroundings? What would a person there need?

You might want to stop and take a moment, walk yourself through these options and connect on an emotional level. Use this like a form of mental yoga, a stretch that might help you get “unstuck” and open up a whole new set of ideas and perspectives, and a deeper empathy with people different from you. As the saying goes, all frameworks are wrong. Some are useful. I’d hope this is one of the useful ones, it is called “Tetralemma”. Actual conversations will then help to bring that to life. In a world that is increasingly polarized, developing this kind of practice is the greatest gift – to yourself and to everyone else.

Christine works in coaching and leadership development and is a writer. She supports individuals and growing businesses to bring values to life, building a culture and on making better decisions. She recently launched the book “Values-based: Career and Life Decisions that make Sense”. Christine is a Fellow of the RSA and the Learning and Performance Institute. She identifies as nonbinary, somewhere between “both” and “neither”.

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Enquiring MBA minds want to know!

I recently spoke to a group of MBA students at Ashridge’s Hult Business School about Diversity and Inclusion.  I was struck by the students’ understanding of issues and endorsement of the premise. Here are some of the insightful questions I was asked about D&I as well as Voice At The Table:

  1. Your work seems quite varied. How do you decide when it’s a diversity-related challenge rather than a broader leadership or staff engagement issue?

The primary focus of my work is on inclusive behaviours. These are the skills and traits that make us appreciate, value and welcome different opinions and views. The common denominator to all these behaviours is highly developed Emotional Intelligence. Improved self-awareness helps us to better regulate our thoughts and behaviours and mitigate some of our biases. Understanding what motivates our thinking and actions helps us to empathise with others, recognise their needs and how they’re feeling.

So, whenever a challenge involves an opportunity to improve EQ, I never turn it down.

  1. How diverse is your own team?

One observant student challenged me on the diversity of my own team. I congratulated him on looking up the team on the website and on raising it. I then explained that, when I set up Voice At The Table, the focus of my work was primarily to support women’s career progression. This, naturally, attracted other like-minded individuals to my business, most of whom were white women with professional backgrounds and relatively established careers. When I recognised this myself, I actively started to look for more diverse team members. As a result, my team is now more diverse, although it’s not fully balanced yet. I recognise that the challenges I face in attracting and retaining a broader variety of colleagues are the same challenges that my clients face. This helps me relate to them. I know that they too are actively trying to address the imbalance. We are all work in progress.

  1. How do you address diversity more globally?

Diversity and Inclusion does not lend itself to a one-size-fits-all approach. In addition to cultural differences, some legal systems do not permit us to be as advanced with our thinking as we would like to be. For this reason, I believe it’s important to verbalise a D&I ambition for the whole company, but implement the strategy in a way that is most appropriate for each individual market. It’s not that different from our own jurisdiction: in the UK companies are on different parts of the diversity journey. I simply meet them wherever they are and help them to the next step. Similarly, on a larger scale, we define our overall diversity destination and then take the necessary steps towards that destination that are suitable for the specific market.

  1. What is the most important diversity that a company should try to attract and retain?

If we simplify matters and look at the world as split by men and women, then we’re looking at a 50-50 gender population. One half of that equation is much better represented in businesses than the other. I would (and have) therefore start with gender, bearing in mind (1) that covers a host of other minority streams and (2) efforts to address gender balance will likely also address other diversity imbalances.

  1. Can you have Diversity without Inclusion and vice versa?

The simple answer is yes, you can, but as a business, you’re unlikely to benefit from diversity of thought if you don’t have both.

 

My interaction with these MBA students (who asked many more questions) indicates to me that the seeds we’re all sowing are starting to sprout saplings. Realising that is enormously satisfying.

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Active Voice: Bridging the Generation Gap in the Office

Our current workforce comprises at least three generations of people; how do we best accommodate them? Linked to our virtual seminar event at the end of March, we offer tips on how to bridge the generational divide in the workplace.

Here is a breakdown of the different generations in the workplace and the years of birth that define them:

  • Baby Boomers (1946 – 1964)
  • Generation X (1965 – 1979)
  • Generation Y or Millennials (1980 – 1995)
  • Generation Z (1996 – present)
  1. Management is key to reconciling different generations in the workplace. The first rule of successful management is to empower employees to do things their own way and promote a culture of learning. Instead of prescribing, managers should encourage employees to use their creativity and rethink the way they execute tasks to keep improving processes.
  2. Avoid pigeon-holing people and making assumptions like “Boomers are dinosaurs who are stuck in their ways” or “Millennials are lazy and entitled”. Managers and colleagues alike must strive to move beyond labels. We need to get to know our team members as individuals worthy of our respect, without any preconceived notions. Managers must work hard to create an environment in which this can happen.
  3. Understand and deploy motivators for each generation. It’s a great idea to ask each team member directly how they want to be recognised and rewarded, either by an online survey or a paper form.
  4. Individual differences are strengths. Members of each generation have something of unique value to offer. Encourage employees of each generation to not only leverage these skills for the company’s benefit, but to help their team members develop these skills.
  5. Implement cross-generational training to encourage team members to confront the strengths and weaknesses of their own individual approach versus others.
  6. Create mentoring opportunities – experienced workers can pass on useful skills to their younger colleagues; this empowers older workers while also promoting collaboration.

We are running an expert interview on bridging the generational divides in your work place. Please join us.

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Are Women Born Unequal?

By Melissa Jackson

“No matter where in the world you are born, your life will be harder if you are born a girl”, according to Melinda Gates. In the month that we celebrate International Women’s Day, I thought it timely to consider the magnitude of this lamentable predicament.

It’s 20 years since Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda set up their charitable foundation. It was born out of the belief that every life has equal value and works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it has focused on improving people’s wellbeing and giving them the chance to escape from hunger and extreme poverty.

Melinda, who ran the organisation by herself for the first six years, has raised awareness of “time poverty” – the idea that hours of unpaid work like household chores rob women of their potential – and is a significant reason why girls in many countries fall behind in their education.

What she and Bill didn’t fully appreciate, in the foundation’s embryonic years, was that to make progress on global health—and everything else they cared about—they needed to focus on addressing gender inequality.

On her global travels, Melinda became aware that women in poorer countries were disadvantaged from a young age; with girls spending less time in school than boys and marrying early (by the age of 18) “trapping them on the wrong side of a power imbalance within their own home”.

Even in developed countries, she found evidence that “men are 70% more likely to be executives than women of the same age. These numbers are even worse for women of colour, who are doubly marginalised by the combined forces of sexism and racism”.

She describes the progress on gender equality as “glacial”. It’s a chilling reminder that her work and that of activists and feminist movements in every country needs greater recognition and support.

Why does gender inequality still exist? In Melinda’s words, “The world has refused to make gender equality a priority. Global leaders simply have not yet made the political and financial commitments necessary to drive real change.”

According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), nowhere on earth do women have the same opportunities as men. Its latest Gender Gap Report (2015) suggests it could take as many as 81 years to close the worldwide gender gap.

However, clinging to a small glimmer of hope, the report suggests that four out of the five Scandinavian countries and Ireland have closed more than 80% of it.

Surprisingly, the UK ranks 18th in the WEF analysis, below countries like Rwanda, the Philippines and Namibia. Unsurprisingly, Pakistan, Syria and Yemen are the worst places to be born female, based on markers including educational attainment, health and survival and political empowerment.

It’s 25 years since the UN World Conference on Women, in Beijing, where Hillary Clinton famously declared that, “Human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights.”

Melinda hopes that when the world comes together this year to mark the 25th anniversary of Beijing, it will focus energy and attention on gender equality, “But this time, we need to ensure that that energy and attention is converted into action.”

Click here and here for more information on Beijing+25

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Where on the diversity journey is your organisation?

I’m often asked by companies to help them prioritise what they should do next when it comes to diversity and inclusion. This depends on where they are on their diversity journey. To help identify how far they have come, I have developed a seven-step Diversity Journey Roadmap(S). Here are the first four steps:

  1. Don’t Get It

This step is rare nowadays. It describes organisations that really don’t see the benefit of diversity and inclusion and think there’s nothing wrong with their homogenous approach to business. If you ask me, those who find themselves at this stage have a limited shelf life. The world is changing too much to fully ignore the need for diversity and inclusion.

  1. Window Dressing

Organisations that understand the need to be seen as supportive of diversity and inclusion will find themselves here. This step is evidenced by spending resources on awards and recognition, on benchmarking exercises in order to be seen as committed, for the benefit of clients and employees – current and future. Organisations at this stage don’t believe there’s much to be gained from a diverse and inclusive culture and aren’t interested in investing in a framework that will ultimately lead there.

  1. Let’s Fix It!

At this stage of the roadmap, an organisation has identified a problem: lack of diversity. It doesn’t entirely believe that there’s much to be gained from it but it has recognised that diversity is important to its workforce and clients and genuinely wants to fix the problem. The challenge, however, is that when we view diversity as a problem to be solved, we apply temporary solutions that don’t permeate culture. An example of this might be to ‘project-manage’ the solution by giving responsibility for it to one person (often one of the few senior women, irrespective of how she might feel about it) with an allocated budget, but no real resources or powers to do what’s necessary.

  1. See Diversity as an Opportunity

This is the step at which organisations finally begin to understand that diversity and inclusion is a business prerogative – not a “nice to have” project or an isolated problem. This is when they start approaching it in the same way as they would any business opportunity by embedding it into the entire business – from business strategy, to marketing, to business development, to training, talent management, recruitment and onboarding. It is only when diversity and inclusion permeate every aspect of business – when it begins to form part of the organisational fabric – that it also starts producing the accompanying benefits. These begin with employees feeling that they belong: they are encouraged to voice their different perspectives without fear of creating a bit of friction; they are not afraid to respectfully disagree with other views and ideas and are genuinely engaged and motivated to contribute fully and authentically. At this stage, the full benefits of diversity and inclusion can be harnessed. This is when an organisation becomes enabled to tap into the needs of its stakeholders and create new products, services and processes that respond to those needs. This is when a culture of diversity and inclusion can give an organisation a competitive edge.

At which step is your organisation? Most find themselves between stage two (if they are honest with themselves) and four. Take a look at the full roadmap here.

If you would like to find out what steps to take to move to the next stage, we can help. Email us to speak to us about your diversity and inclusion aspirations.

An Equal World is an Enabled World

By Melissa Jackson

“The story of women’s struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organisation but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights,” according to Gloria Steinem, world-renowned feminist, journalist and activist. It’s a philosophy that should resonate with men and women around the world and one that lies at the heart of International Women’s Day.

IWD is a global celebration of the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women’s equality.

Women have been very patient in this mission. It feels like we still have a long road, with speed bumps, to negotiate before we reach our ultimate goal.

Apologies for my pessimism, but a baby born today will be drawing her pension before she sees equal numbers of men and women in Parliament, according to the former Labour MP Gloria de Piero. But, far from being a reason to despair, facts like these should intensify the fire in our bellies to torch the boundaries that hinder gender parity. Collectively, each one of us can help create a gender-equal world. We can all actively choose to challenge stereotypes, fight bias, broaden perceptions, improve situations and celebrate women’s achievements.

The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day (on 8th March) is “An equal world is an enabled world” – underpinned by an associated #EachforEqual campaign.

The race is on for the gender equal boardroom, a gender equal government, gender equal media coverage, gender equal workplaces, gender equal sports coverage, more gender equality in health and wealth.

We should also use IWD to remind ourselves of the many women in the world who don’t have a voice, who are denied an education, whose thoughts and opinions are irrelevant.

We need to mark IWD because of FGM, child marriages, female infanticide, prostitution, slavery, rape, denial of education, domestic violence. We are half the human race and should be equal and free to do what we choose not what men decide for us.

In so many industries, women are still undervalued and underestimated. IWD is about shouting about our achievements and taking the credit we deserve.

To quote the MP Stella Creasy, IWD is vital, “Because the fight for equality is only just beginning – whether in the workplace, the home or on the streets, women face barriers to realising their potential that mean we all miss out on what they can offer our society. IWD helps remind people what we need to work on changing the other 364 days a year.”

The 2020 #EachforEqual campaign doesn’t end on International Women’s Day, it provides a unified direction to guide and galvanise continuous collective action throughout the year.

For more inspiration and ideas on how to celebrate IWD visit the official website.

Active Voice: Women of the World unite for IWD

Spread the word; we offer you a handful of ideas on how to promote and celebrate International Women’s Day on 8th March 2020.

  1. Join in a local Women’s Day event near you. There are so many fantastic opportunities to support the cause, with events running in towns and cities across the country, including a walking tour in Manchester to celebrate its “heroic” women, a “sketchathon” in Edinburgh, a “girl-power” silent disco in London and a “winning women” workshop in Southampton. To find an event near you visit Eventbrite.
  2. Although IWD falls on a Sunday this year, in the week ahead, why not organise a series of lunch-time speed-mentoring sessions with women across the business? Spend 15-minutes talking to a woman from another department and see what you can learn from their experiences.
  3. Send a complimentary email to a fellow female colleague or friend telling them why you think they’re a superwoman. Being each other’s cheerleaders and collaboratively singing each other’s praises matters every day, but why not make an extra big deal this IWD?
  4. We never make enough time for ourselves, so maybe switch off your phone, laptop etc. and dive into a book by a feminist or inspirational female author? Literature is studded with spectacular works of fiction, theory, and criticism. Be inspired by modern-day feminist heroes, or witness how far we’ve come (and how far we have to go).
  5. Profile some of your organisation’s amazing women on your website – it will show your commitment to them, boost their self- esteem and give them the confidence to push ahead with their career.
  6. And finally, why not book a session with one of our associates from Voice At The Table to help promote gender diversity in your workplace? We can advise you how to implement policies to fight gender discrimination and encourage diversity in your business.

Team Talk: Introducing Joyce Osei

Joyce is our resident expert on Client Insights. Having started her career in media sales at The Independent newspaper, she has since worked in client-facing roles for over 10 years and specifically in the Diversity and Inclusion arena for over five years.

Joyce’s career has spanned roles in global publishing companies such as Incisive Media and UBM as well as working with clients across a wide range of industry sectors such as Banking & Financial Services, E-commerce, Technology, Legal, Professional Services, Insurance, etc. Outside work, Joyce is currently writing a series of children’s stories inspired by her Ghanaian and Barbadian heritage, the first of which is due to be published in 2020.

One of her greatest achievements was born out of a trip to Australia in her early twenties. She said, “After travelling around Australia for three months when I was 24, I handed-in my notice after working in a role for more than two years which wasn’t working for me due to the late-night finishes and working at weekends. Although I didn’t know it at the time, that trip helped me to connect with my values and also gave me clarity around what I didn’t want in my future career. I experience the impact of that adventure in my professional and personal life to this day e.g. using the ability to connect with people from different backgrounds and cultures in a very short space of time.”

Joyce is an ambassador for D&I and says that if there was one thing she could change it would be to increase the under-representation of women in senior leadership roles in the workplace.

She believes that, “Existing company cultures are not as inclusive as they could be, which is why being part of the team at Voice At The Table and helping companies to be more inclusive so that women can thrive and feel empowered to progress their careers on their terms is very important to me.“

Aside from her corporate skills, Joyce is a published co-author, having recently contributed her personal story to the Voices of Hope anthology.

She loves cooking and creating new desserts. Her signature dish is plantain and banana crumble which is inspired by her Ghanaian and Barbadian background.