Episode 24 - Five things change leaders need to consider with Kanika Selvan

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Pete and I are super pleased to be chatting to Kanika Salvan today. This episode has probably been about seven months in the making, so it is great to finally be here. Kanika, I normally do a bit of an intro into our guests and I like to hit our listeners up with your headlines, but I don't think I'm going to do it justice. So I'm going to let you describe what you've been up to after I've just done the tiny little bit.

So Kanika is the founder of Beatruit Consulting, which helps small to medium organizations with complex technical challenges and capability issues he was also a non-exec director and also an edi champion but as i said i'm not going to do any of this justice so before i hand over pete you're in catalonia it's 18 degrees it's not that over here it ranges from zero to nasty how are you good no storm here today thank you no red weather warnings for you very sunny

outside no although you know i'm not we do get extreme weather here now you do you do the changing climate is not restricted to the office clearly kanika i'm going to hand over to you after that awkward silence and i'll sleep in the idea we cut these bits out i mean i was like i also have thoughts about the weather.

Yes thank you thank you for inviting me to to the podcast i do feel like the seven months just means like we're all kind of we don't quite know what's going to happen here because it's all much more fun because was this a great idea seven months ago 100 i don't know it maybe i disagree with everything that we discussed seven months ago now because i feel like things change very quickly but yeah glad to be here and so i'm as i say so i'm founder of be root consulting.

But really i suppose what i do is is i i spent a long time working in change and in various different roles and usually breaking into various different parts of change and transformation by stealth so you know managed kind of developers for a long time worked in big transformational changes, setting up organizational change and readiness teams, benefits management portfolio stuff. I'd say I identify as like a kind of change person.

Like that's my thing. Usually with technology, I mean, people are fine, but it's so much more interesting when technology's there. And then I have a number of different avenues that I do change work.

So one of them is with them in the Northwest where we do stuff where we help organizations grow their own internal teams around setting up, you know, how they're going to do change, partly because I'm a big advocate for like, let's teach people actually how to fish instead of wandering around and delivering consultancy services and then charging them a huge day rate.

And it annoys me that I think SMEs don't always get great change capabilities and subsequently they can't go and do what they really want to do because the big boys get all the technology and they don't.

And then I think the other bit that I do is that I do work in kind of transformational changing in HE, which is how me and PPPs, ran across each other because that's a small intimate slash traumatized community of people.

I think you posted something about the gym and i and i messaged you about deadlifting and it went from there i was going to say i think that the the deadlifting was kind of the bonding glue to me first of all it was you know do we know each other from the same kind of change programs and then it was oh you lift i lift okay right well that's it i don't need to do anything more you know this connection well thank you for joining us today we've prepared

five things that change managers can do to help enable inclusive cultures and the first one that we talked about was around co-design and user-centric design so we talked about the overlap between products and change in terms of how you how you get people involved and help build and put together products and change so who wants to go first who wants to talk about that because i know you're both very interested in this. You go first, Chris, and then I'll disagree with you. It'll be fun.

Well, no, I do. I do think there's a massive overlap. And I've been kind of flirting with a kind of, you know, a strategy document that I think could be somewhat off the shelf if you were to walk into an organisation that wasn't quite clear on what its change approach was, wasn't quite clear how to perhaps, you know, drag users along into something that. They're perhaps not kind of wanting already for because they weren't engaged early enough.

So you were brought in to start and hit the reset button well what would you do how would you plan that so I started off with a plan on a page and I've just literally built that up into about a 31 page slide deck now that's starting to take each of the steps and show how would you blend some of the product methodology you know into some of the standard change management methodology because I you could listen to many of our podcast episodes and many of our guests say

yeah methodologies really in change do kind of box you in they don't give you enough freedom they don't give you the flex and they kind of you know lead the witness somewhat towards a path of where the project or the business case wants you to go it's not necessarily always the state to which the audience needs to respond to so i started putting these things in i was just taking some of the stuff i learned from being on a product owner course a few years ago reading up on places linkedin

reddit what have you about what people find useful and actually i took the view of looking at a change impact assessment and blending that with product impact mapping and saying that if you knew where your as is in your two b was your gap analysis is then used to impact map and you can actually demonstrate quite early on in a workshop or better still get your workshop attendees to impact map the journey they need to go on through your goals

through to you know essentially your epics and your stories and then use that to build your change plan you can use some of the methodologies around ad car to support the journey along the way but i've just kind of blended a couple of different things in there to see how it comes out so that was kind of my interest over the last couple of months and it's i am not put into practice i'm hoping to but it was an interesting thought.

I love it. And come and work with me, Chris, and we'll put it into practice. We'll do it. Don't you worry. Yeah. From this podcast. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I would very, I would very much agree, irritatingly, not much tension there. Interestingly, I think that because I've worked in really large organizations and now I work with small to medium sized organizations.

If you talk to people about, you know, at its core, to me, change is about how do you empower people to really get real kind of alignment and understanding about where they want to go and how they want to go there, you know, and an agreement. To me, the idea of kind of merging those specialisms isn't even a kind of conscious thought to me because actually, fundamentally, you always end up with a toolkit.

It and so because when you're working with an organization that goes I'm not going to build a massive product team and I'm not going to build a big massive change team I literally just know how to need to know how to do it how do I get these things to happen and so the idea of kind of mixed methodologies is really logical and it's really strange you're thinking about it if I think back to when I've worked in bigger organizations you know what I'm suggesting is a little bit like you know

sacrilege it's like swearing right but actually when you're working with organizations where they're just like but how do I get it done that combination of the of the methodologies and even the idea of a methodology that isn't entirely tailored to what does that organization mean need is wild and I think I realize in this conversation that I do it consistently but as well as that.

I think that it's really interesting because if the goal is to kind of empower organizations to get, you know, stuff done, often what you want to do is get them to go on a journey around exploring all the different ways they could do that. So the idea of getting them away from thinking, I need to argue with people when the change is already coming, it's a great idea and persuade them it is.

But marrying into kind of products, which is that idea of actually we need to kind of really think about getting really intentional about how this fits into our strategy and designing and empowering people to actually really do that properly and think about it holistically. It kind of pairs for me naturally. Do you think that a business case is generated based on probably one of three things, which is either regulatory idea or customer request?

What's the difference between using research, whether that's customer or user research to inform your business case, or you're just going to have a sponsor write a paper and then tell you what to do?

I don't get that i don't understand why you would not take that process of using your user research that you've probably got a stack of and do nothing with or you haven't started but you could do to inform the user experience whether that user is a customer or whether it's it's a staff member or it's a customer you know technologist to bring them into the creation of that business case based on the research that we already have to solve the problem which is like a regulatory customer

request or idea and then build out from there you know your your benefits realization, Benefits, again, people always hit you with. It's the financial. It's the green shoots of something that's coming through in the organization. But that might be for a business case for an investment, but it's not the only thing.

Because if you can tick off some of the problems which are coming out of your user research or your UX research or whatever else you've taken and put that into that business case and say, actually, we're hitting a lot of things here. Because your staff aren't really going to be too bombed by the bottom line, not unless they're promotion hunting or something, right?

They're going to want to make my life easier. I always think when someone says to me, I'm change fatigued, I don't necessarily always think they're change fatigued. I think they're convenience factor removal fatigued. The water cooler is not working. The parking space is there. My ID badge isn't working. And these things are layering up on me. I want to come do my job. You want me to change something? Yeah, that's fine. We can probably do that. As long as it's not making it harder for me.

So if I can deal with some of those smaller problems as well in the same process, right? That's kind of good co-creation of a business case in a business. I'm like, very excited. Yeah, I know. I know. First of all, the whole change fatigue narrative, I find actually really problematic. A really good friend of mine once said to me, who's kind of a director of transformation, she said, people are rarely change fatigue.

They're just really scared of really bad change. And that's mostly what they've experienced. So I'm always like, when someone goes, we're change fatigued, I'm like, let's unpack that.

Especially if they know what it looks like. Well, exactly. like you hate it because actually you've been unempowered and done to forever and you know what if it is something different i think to the bit around kind of the kind of merging of these different kind of not just artifacts things and processes i often think the reason why we don't logically do that is in part because of fear of change like if we admitted that really the business case

or the business strategy in the business cases really are very much the same process and should be completely interlinked. Not only does that mean a bunch of people have to do something different, but also a bunch of us who wander around going, I'm a product person, I'm a change person. Like, why do we all kind of exist? And I think there's a kind of tension around that. I mean, it's the same really for, you know, if the CEO isn't the one going,

here, I've got a great idea. And actually we force it to be data-led. People lose kind of power and control. But I mean, I think that just makes it all the more fun, right? Like you just wander around going, but what if, you know, because I always think I'm a change person just by nature, but fundamentally, like, I'll unpack every single specialism and wander around going, that's probably the same of that.

I mean, it's interesting talking to people who've done organisational business kind of change on a big level and a big size scale and introducing them to a business architect and watching them be like, wait, so you're one of them. It's actually just my one of them, and that's kind of the same thing, but your day rate's what?

You know what I mean? hilarious so funny the next topic was what is the importance of leadership culture and modeling culture and behavior change and what's that kind of balance between grassroots up and leadership down in terms of change in your experience in my i mean i think leadership culture and leadership culture and change are fascinating and and i'm saying them all separately I suppose almost deliberately because I think often I work with organisations

where they want to talk to you about.

Change and often the conversation is focused on we can't get those people to do this they're a bit difficult which I suppose you know if you are a changed person that's always an energizing conversation because you always are like oh so what's actually going on there you know you've got to be a person who's quite curious to dig into all of that but I think that the the bit around leadership for me is I think that often leaders bring you in to help them with change But fundamentally,

you always end up tracing back to usually kind of what are the kind of leadership behaviours. You know, ways of working and how much have they in some ways driven the culture or openness to change. And that could even be from the perspective of, you know, how a decision's made, you know, is it quite hierarchical or is it quite flat? Is it quite siloed as an organization? How clear is the strategy?

You know, how does all of the kind of reason or purpose of the organization existing, which very much sits in the hands of leadership teams, then shape what that organization feels like, is like, and where it's going?

And I think, you know, if I was to be kind of really honest about the most challenging engagements I've had around delivering change, it's usually when there's that real disconnect between the leadership team not really recognising their part to play in enabling good change more than anything else.

I love it when they've put on a job spec and says culture change someone to come in and help us adjust and change our culture and the first question is who needs to change whose whose culture is it that needs to change do you really think it's the you know the shop floor or do you think it's a religion or do you sometimes just think it's right at the top that you've just got a little look at yourselves in the mirror before we all come in and start thinking

that we're going to upset and turn over an entire call center and you know paint the walls blue put some plants in you know make the coffee available for free on a wednesday that's pizza pizza and bowling that's not a culture change is it the culture change if you think of it like in a small shop and you may have like a shop owner and they have four or five members of staff how easy is it to have a great culture. And that can change quite quickly. Just literally change the manager.

The manager's no good. You put another manager in for a week. You see your staff behave differently, right? Because that's the way that goes. You take a big organization or medium, say a thousand people, the staff, bad morale.

We need to change something. Let's give them free coffee. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let's go right back up. When did you first notice it? And what was happening around that time? And what did you say or do to make them feel the way?

It's not the bottom. it's never the bottom never the bottom it's never the bottom because there's such a churn in that space anyway right people come and people go but the people at the top seem to be around a lot longer so if you think there's a culture change issue so it's slightly uh slightly more interesting to dive into the topic of when did you notice it i think the bit around getting people to go when did you notice it especially

from a leadership perspective really to me talks to this thing where my new obsession is you know emotional intelligence right and in the sense of talking about where it is and where it is not and how critical it is for so many roles that we don't really acknowledge. We're like, we want someone who's really strategic and gets stuff done, blah, blah, blah.

And then what we don't, what we then do is kind of really underestimate or devalue the ability for people to lead with emotional intelligence and an ability to reflect, an ability to grow, you know, humility in their leadership. And, you know, the ability to do really brave things requires a growth mindset and an ability to hear that kind of challenge you've just suggested, the reality of it is, is that fundamentally someone has to be able to go, you know, when did I first notice that?

Was that, you know, their capacity to do that relies on that, that skill. And we don't always recruit for that skill in leadership. So when did you first notice it? Or when the survey said? There you go. There you go. When my million pound program failed, because everyone just went, nah, you know what I mean? When that's when I noticed it. And I realized those people were a problem. So our next topic is very similar. What do you think the important characteristics are for leaders to demonstrate?

So clearly, when we made this agenda, we were obviously flowing in a very similar way because we naturally went into it. So we haven't changed in seven months. That's good. Because we've already said humility. Do you know what I've reflected on recently is the importance of watching what you say and how, as a leader, you can be undone in something just by one phrase, one word. Suddenly, it's fascinating how people just change the way they work. So, Pete, take that then.

I don't know if you're into football. I'm going to talk about Manchester United. 100% not. And I believe that this is an uninclusive space if you talk about it for more than a minute. I was born in Old Trafford, so I'll allow it. But you've got 90 seconds. So on the purpose of Pete saying it's about something they say. So the new guy at Manchester United comes out and says, this is the worst team we've ever had.

As a leader, he's been in there a couple of months, Pete, and he can undo everything. How is it different for what he's saying then to someone in a workplace, which is a bit more traditional, like an office environment or a call center? Not going to motivate you, is it? I don't know. Is it because the motivational factors are different to someone who earns 300 grand a week to someone who earns, you know, 35 grand a year?

I don't know. It's an interest. It's only when you said that, it triggered me to say, how does someone who works and has, you know, a wedge of money, he's got a short lifespan as that leader, can come out and say, this is the worst thing that this has ever been.

And you expect them to come in motivated. And then what does the culture do? That's what we're talking about. So that's curious as to what you thought.

Nikki, what do you think? still like I'm already I'm like I'm not talking about I'm not talking about football and now I'm like yeah but I do have a thought it's really interesting because I think it comes back to that thing about what is the individual driver for those people right I always think it's really interesting I used to work in a you know as we've all done a million jobs I used to work in a call center and it was it was commission-based and it was really interesting because

you then delve into like well how do I inspire people I worked in performance how do I inspire people to do more.

And you know when doing kind of that study and a bunch of research I mean the realization was is actually you could inspire people to to earn more money and to kind of inspire them to progress and do well air quotation marks with about about a certain amount of encouragement maybe at times negative you know what if this didn't happen inspired by fear and then it kind of like plateaued because there's a point where people just go well actually I'm other things and

I've got other drivers and there's stuff I want that's not just the money like a nice work environment or da da da so then it kind of plateaued and became like demotivating but i think it's interesting in the assessment of what drives that football team of players and whether that negativity is in some way inspiring to a degree and then when it has to stop because if that leader's just turned up right they've got a there's also for them in my view

are they trying to inspire people or are they trying to set a foundation of where they think they are at so that anything that comes after this is viewed as an improvement. There's narrative management, right? Well, I like that. I really do like that. And I think there's something in there. I think you're right to say this is...

From now that perceived to be any sports team will be football but this is perceived to be our worst moment so we will not accept anything lower this ever again and it now has to gradually build up to become back to the point of being elite again. And maybe the driver for elite sports people is.

To be the absolute best they can be and never to be you're a footballer you're earning you know hundreds of thousands of pounds you don't want to be perceived to be lower key because your next big move might not come because you've been as you said you know your narrative has been put to be you're not worth it and actually so your drivers say actually i don't i want to get into the national teams i want to win these trophies i can't do

that in a bad teams if i don't perform i'm never going to get there again it's an interesting it's really interesting different drivers the the um that i i think probably and this is new this is new thinking between when we talked about this seven minutes ago i think i think i've realized more and more the power of kind of narratives in organizations and in making people do stuff is like wild like you know coming out and being able to kind of

persuade everybody you know without you don't have to do anything you just have to persuade everybody that this is the kind of reality it doesn't take much because work's boring right you know oh well such a person's a bit difficult or oh well we're this type of organization oh well we're this type of team or we're at this kind of level and then the ability to kind of shape that into then you know meaning it drives people to do weird behavior things you know

be it inspire them to work hard or be it inspire them to go or be it inspire them to deliver I don't know you know I think you know it's it's like don't write it on the strategy paper but really we should all be wandering around going you know it's like the key messages but actually they're kind of manipulative there's a thing where people assume that businesses and organizations are logical things that follow rational reasons to. Make more profit to deliver whatever customer satisfaction.

And so on but I think it's like proven that actually businesses are not really any different than people because obviously they are people and they will follow trends because it may not apparently make sense to and you know ceos will do things because they think it's the right thing to do and not necessarily follow the data the next topic we were going to talk about is very interesting because when we decided this seven years ago at seven years,

seven months ago and i don't think we foresaw political events but so we we agreed that it It was only a good idea to do EDI or DEI or DEIA or DEIA, I assume. Yeah, there's belonging now. We've added that being in.

Whatever as if there's any good idea to do it if you truly believe in it agree agree agree is that the end of the topic that's it there we go it's not it's not but it is right though half-hearted attempts at putting it in make everything so far worse for so many people if you're not if you're not doing it because it's the the right thing to do and the thing you know that will go back to culture change that builds your culture then actually you'll end up with my opinion

is you end up with greater divisions and then if you go back to the bread and butter of what we do any type of change that we try and land will always be hindered based on the abilities of people's perception of your organization what do we mean by this i mean are we saying don't because i've a lot of stuff i've read in the news recently i think is just focused on it from a hiring perspective this is wild so in my view if equality diversity and inclusion is the kind of

vision for where we're trying to get to, or even equity and belonging. So if we're going, that's the kind of vision for the end state. And within that context, the work of kind of EDI is to achieve that end state.

I would say that it's, and I say this is a change professional, I suppose I would agree with you, Chris, I think that the delivery of that thing to get to that end state is a delivery of a change and subsequently my logic would be that you know having clarity of what that end state purpose is then critical to be able to deliver appropriate change and that's really kind of clinical. I suppose I'd say. I go into organisations and I'm frustrated by how disconnected the idea of EDI

is from change management. I agree.

One naturally maps with the other because actually putting it into this separate department feels a bit weird for me. I think if we're actually saying it's the delivery of a change, it should be something that is delivered to the management.

My view, I mean, it's interesting because I think that some of the things about EDI, especially considering the news as we've seen it now, is as I think that the EDI conversation not being thought about within a kind of normal organizational culture change context, that actually it's positioned in a way, and I would say systemically and deliberately, so that we're talking about kind of almost diversity stuff, which I always find really boring.

Like how many people can I recruit in? Do they have these identity markers? Whereas actually to me, that's a distraction because actually I didn't think about if we thought that diversity in the sense of the number of people with protected characteristics or diverse identities is one of the goals. The whole goal is that we can create a space that people feel like they can work and there's different people there and different people with different ideas and lived experiences.

If that's the end goal, that's just like one data point, the diversity stuff. And I just think, you know, the idea of kind of the narratives being about tokenism is really interesting because it really, it's a distraction away from, because we all want to go, well, that's not fair. But the other side of that is, And I did this talk at Women in Tech around this concept called Pet to Threat. Have you heard of that? Say that again. Pet to Threat. To Threat. Yeah. So let me tell you,

this is going to be fun. Taking my glasses off and everything. So pets are threatened. You have to see this. You have to visualize this. I like to do this when people are driving or listening to us. Can you go out? So you've just taken your glasses off. You've put your hair back. You've leant forward. The sleeves are rolled up. And you go, this is going to be fun. It's going to be great. It's going to be great. And on the background, on the wall, it says, I was not born to be subtle.

So just as a picture for people here, just depict what they're listening to us. My entire office is full of things that say, you know, rebel, rebel. I'm speaking. Drink water. Don't be racist. Like, it's intentional.

Mad intentional. I've surrounded myself with this. signal for you signal for myself the bit around pets are threatened so there's there's a whole bunch of research which is around the experience of usually kind of racially minoritized so black women in the workplace and there's this really interesting piece of research that basically says that there's this common experience of particularly black women where they are brought into an organization with the view that they are like sponsored

and like a pet that's the idea so you're going to come in and do stuff that's going to be different we're really excited to have you You know, it's maybe our first kind of leadership role of, you know, and they love your identity markers. You know, they put you on the front of all the brochures. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And then what happens is, is that actually that person does what they were asked to do, which is they go and do leadership a bit different.

They probably challenge some of the status quo. And actually, they show ambition and all these kind of things. And it challenges a whole load of people's way of doing leadership, right? Because suddenly this person who was a bit of a pet and was incredible and they were all so happy about the idea of them turning up becomes a bit of a threat because it undermines the systems and organizational kind of leadership power stuff in an organization.

And then what they talk about is that these women then really commonly experience this idea of them being a threat. So then they become a problem. And there's a really interesting piece around then how that relationship breaks down and then they leave. And I was talking about this research at the conference. And what was really interesting was, is I was like, God, I think I've experienced that in places, right? And then someone said to me, yeah, it's tokenism. And I realized that.

That, interestingly, I very rarely think about tokenism in relation to diversity because I just think, well, there's a big campaign around EDI and we all need to do the change stuff and it just needs to get done. And sometimes the lack of equity means that people get jobs and blah, blah, blah. And I don't worry about fairness because I think the world's not fair and I don't experience it as fair.

Whereas when I heard Pet to Threat, I realized that the opposite side of that experience was is when people view that pet-to-threat journey, it's viewed to be tokenism. Whereas I go, oh my God, that organization's failed that person. You know, so interesting. All the different ways and the angles.

But yeah, I think we veered off. But to me, I think it has to be embedded because our ability to do it well requires us to be able to unpick some of those different perspectives and narratives with EDI.

Yeah, I was just thinking it's different, But in the same way as we were talking about things like product and user-centric design, if you're not going to do anything on the basis of what you go and ask people or what people tell you or what impact then comes out of what you may assess, then don't in the first place. It's walking into an organization and you see they've got 20 product managers but no services, right?

It's the same principle. You've done it because you see that other places are doing it. You want to make sure that you want some of the good people and you want to talk the talk. but realistically you quite like the fact that that 1980s mainframe isn't broken it's kind of a bit like that I think and you're just quite happy just to date a churn I also think it's that thing about. You know, being protective of kind of specialisms. I'm like, let's break it all open.

It's all the same. It's all very merged and we can do different tools and similar approaches for the same things. You know, the idea of going, you know, EDI and change should just be married together.

You know, if we're going to put this new system in and we're going to use a user-centered approach to do that, you would just go and work out all the different types of users, especially those who maybe are less likely to, you know, speak up and have a different experience and you need to unlock some of that like that means you're doing edi so i'm like same same and similarly to that point chris if you don't really know

what that vision end state is which includes how do i do stuff with all those different types of people you're probably in a tie into nothing you know i mean so it's the same thing i think people quite like the idea of you know the pet but they hadn't really worked out what it meant they kind of took a couple of steps and then freaked out even if you haven't got vision don't do it you know and that's because we kind of love you because of your opinions and listening

to you and what have you so with you watching the news and you're seeing a lot of these big global companies rolling back you know edi or dei depending on which part of the world you're from is that an admission that they weren't doing it right and they just felt they should do it or going in here chris are we. I don't know, I'm really interested in the topic because it's just a bit different, isn't it? Because it's almost reversing a trend that's been, you know.

Something that we've all been part of for the last 10, 15 years. And then suddenly it pops up on the news and it goes, I don't know which companies and I don't want to be sued. So I can't even say company X anymore. It did that on purpose, I'm sure. There you go. I don't know. A 99 company has decided that it's going to roll back its EDI policies, but then it gives no explanation why.

And the next thing you know the rh motor company is doing the same thing and and you go well why i don't buy the wokeism thing so what is it why why is the what's is it because you just think it's actually we're reaching a state where we've met a vision as you describe it or picture faces people or is it is it because we're not doing it right and we need to rethink and do it better or is it because it's been a project has now reached its time and we now need to kind of just be a

little bit more agnostic and organic about it. So I was interested that actually Apple's board voted against doing that. And I'm curious why they did that. I think it goes for me back again a bit to what I was saying earlier about businesses following social trends. The types of companies you see doing it maybe stand to benefit something from the political environment as well, maybe.

I don't sound too conspiracy theorist with it, but... I mean, if COVID taught us anything, it's that there's systems of power and they impact us all, right? You know, I'm like, what's the like in that in a conspiracy theory? I'm like, or is that just reading the news? I would agree with you, Pete, in the sense of I think that there is something about... Sorry about the dog. I love it. We will remove that. I mean, it's driving me mad because I'm worried

about your podcast. Do you know what I mean? No, I asked Pete to put sound effects in all the time. And finally, we've got a very natural, organic sound effect occurring. It makes a change from my pen on my chair. So Pete is delighted of a new noise to pick out of the recording. Yeah, well, if you want to just pick that noise out, you could send it to me, Pete, if you want, because I find it highly irritating. So, you know, I'm sure the AI will fix it in the edit.

I think we need a picture of said dog, though, to go on the socials as a feature. Yeah, yeah. I'll wave him in the camera and then send you a nice picture. Oh, I'm lost. What were you going to say? Yeah, I know. I was really excited about it as well. I'm so sorry I do this. No, it's fine. I've got ADHD, so you're in good company. That's not what I was saying.

The bit around narratives, I do think you're really right. I think there's something interesting about the narrative we hear is everyone's rolling back. I would question whether that's true. I don't think that everyone is. I think that some organisations are. And I think that there's real power in that kind of corporate PR, which was very much, I think, that there was this whole phase in 2020 when Black Lives Matter and all the kind of reckoning with race where it was not commercial.

That's where I get to. It was not commercial to not be talking about and prioritising EDIs. And then I think the organizations who probably did it for those reasons may well be rolling back. But, you know, you also, if you looked at, if you were following along some of the stats around, and I've got a couple of friends who are kind of EDI practitioners. You know, everyone's watching, like, what level did the EDI go in at? What role did they put it on? People are tracking, like, oh,

that's come back up on the market. And then everyone talks to everybody. And what you already know in the background is which organizations take it seriously. I think that now people rolling it back, maybe because the political environment means that now commercially it's better to go, we're not doing that. But I think if you believed in the vision, then actually, you know, you're still doing it. So like, you know, I think Costco, now their PR, interestingly,

they said that they weren't going to roll it back. And there was this whole PR piece about, you know, is it true or not? I don't know about, you know, shareholders saying X, Y, Z and the board saying, no, we're really committed to this. And then, you know, there's some woman on TikTok going just off to buy 90, you know, toilet rolls because they're my kind of organization.

But I mean I do think I'd agree with you Chris there's probably a bunch of organizations that do things performatively but how many organizations are wandering around saying we're doing scrum same same do you know what I mean as far as I'm concerned I'm like that's a lie in it you get in there you meet like I actually am basically our tester and I deliver in waterfall but we're all scrum and isn't it lovely that we're all so flat

and non-hierarchical yeah yeah we're doing four weeks of waterfall and calling it a scrum yeah exactly but I put it all into into into pre-prod and then wait for the actual time that I want to roll it out. Yeah, yeah, all right, babes. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

We're going to run out of time in a second. And I kind of, I had a couple of questions I wanted to ask that weren't on the script, so. Yeah, sure. They're very easy. Yeah, they're good. I reckon you can explain. What is, what are you reading at the moment? Nothing, you don't read. I listen to Audible. So you know when you reference a TV show? Yeah. Nobody can do that. I'm happy with it. So I don't, I listen to Audible's and I don't even have a TV.

So you reference a TV. You're not. I don't own a sofa, mate. My days. Because I've got rid of it. And you're using a standing desk at the moment. Exactly. So do you own any seating at all? I do own. Like, I own a sofa bed. Please see below. For guests. I'm blown away. Yeah. Yeah. I knew I should have asked this question at the beginning. Yeah. I mean, only because I realised I'd built the entire house around what did I think should be in a house. Yeah.

Yeah. And then, no, but I thought, well, I'll have to have a sofa. I've been living room full of this sofa. And I was like, what have I got? Yeah, well, now I just use it to pace mostly and do gym workouts. I'd deadlift in there. That's what I'm looking for. My word. I've never heard of such a thing. I tell you what's my big recommendation stuff and everyone should read though, which is fantastic on Audible because you can hear the real voices.

And it kind of links to what we're talking about around EDI. So the first book that I ever read, which was actually about a black female experience, was this incredible book called Slay in Your Lane. So if you read books, you know, some of this EDI stuff, mostly what you hear about is kind of American stuff. Whereas this was a book that's actually full of stories on all different topics.

So some of the ideas about things like, you know, did you know that, you know, basically black and brown women spend something like six times more financially on hair products and cosmetics than white women? But actually the view is that because these products are so specialist. Fundamentally the view from the organisations is that there's no money in it. So it's completely a complete myth and untrue and a completely live narrative.

So go and read that book because honestly it's not written it's written with the view that actually it's fascinating to suddenly see this different experience it's not like mine and i read it and i was like wow that is what happens that's was it like that book invisible women oh that's fantastic that book that's my second one on the list pete love that book sorry it's no i mean i didn't have a list it was just in my head the list so fantastic book that seatbelts snow snow and

snow clearing so good so good yeah i don't actually know if i and i don't don't take this the wrong way but i don't know if i finished it because i felt it was one of those books where about two-thirds of the way through you're kind of like i get it and it's really bad yeah it's really depressing isn't it yeah slaying your lane is less depressing to be fair because it's much more like varied and you can hear the stories of the people It took me months to read,

you know, the gender page, the gender, I'll find the words in a minute, what's it called again? The Gender Gap. Gender Day Gap. Yeah. Yeah, the Day Gap. You have to cut that bit. It took me ages to listen to it because it's quite dense in it. It's quite like, here's a whole load of information. It's a bit overwhelming.

But if I listen to it on Audible, so I have this really vivid memory of being sat in the McDonald's car park in Rochdale with that book blaring at me, going, yeah, I'm almost through. Do you know what I mean? Because I really wanted to listen to it, but also like... There's an image. So is that going to be your next question? favourite McDonald's. Come on, we have ambitions. But this was years ago, by the way, just to caveat that, that wasn't recently. Book's been out a while.

My other question was going to be about, I'm interested in who people follow on LinkedIn because I think there's some really great people on there that are really interesting to follow. And we've been lucky enough to meet a lot of them on the pod and I've done so again today. And I just was curious as to who some of the most interesting people you follow on LinkedIn are. It was going to be, what's your favourite TV show? Was it? I do watch serial killer documentaries a lot, if that helps.

But they're gripping, right? I know, it's fascinating. My problem is that I've run through them all now, and so when a new one arrives, I'm like, ah. I know, I've done the same. I've literally emptied Netflix out of their true crime documentaries. I think that's on them. I think we only start giving them feedback that they're not really delivering to the timeline that we can consume this information. We need more serial killers Netflix.

They need to commit more crime. Can you go and commission a few? Well, just go and record it. I'm like, you know what I was thinking? Maybe we have rinsed through the real crime stories. And then I was like, wait a minute. Just land in America. Surely there is enough content here. Someone just needs to go and capture it. We've all heard their stuff. I mean, maybe not in the UK because we're just, you know, I don't know. That's a lie. I mean, I was listening to, I was watching, this is awful.

I'm now talking about serial killer stuff. My Love and My Killer. Awful. Oh, I know. I saw, I haven't seen it yet. I have not seen it, but it's on my playlist.

Oh, well, Chris, wait till you get there. because I remember in COVID everyone being like the domestic violence, domestic abuse stats will have gone up and everyone was like but not only do we not know what COVID is we also can't see them and everyone went we'll see them in the future because the ramifications of people being closed in in their homes in probably unsafe environments and not being able to get out or get access to people.

Anyway I feel like I've been waiting a number of years for someone to confirm that that was correct and then i watched the most recent season of my lover my killer and every single one of them is like and then this person was trapped in the house with this person during 2020 2020 in covid and then crisis struck and i was like well you know yes we were correct then that was a problem probably not for the podcast but you know interesting who

do i who do i listen to who do i watch on thingy who do i love it's interesting because someone said to me oh who do you really like on LinkedIn and follow? And I realized I don't really like any change people on LinkedIn. I think they're boring. Obviously, apart from everyone on the board. I know, awkward. But I really like some of the people who do stuff where, so you know, there's these really interesting kind of activists, so like Caroline A.

Wanga. So basically like CEO of like Essence in the US and has these really, really incredible kind of really brave things to say. And I find those people really fascinating in a professional context Because I think people who wander around, you know, with really kind of big statements to say about, you know, what's the point of working if, you know, it doesn't kind of live to your values and kind of says that in a big stage with their entire personality.

That's the kind of energy where I'm like, I'll follow your LinkedIn posts all the time. Whereas people who are like, here's some interesting thought leadership, like I post that for myself. I mean, it's mildly interesting, but not fascinating. But as well as that, I follow a lot of people because I'm from Manchester who are in the Manchester tech community.

So I love to see probably my friends and kind of colleagues in that space who also run businesses post stuff because I realize I'll be posting stuff about my most recent hyper focus, like what could a matriarchal business structure be because it's got principles but no framework. And then I'll have a chat with my mate, you know, Clara Parada, who runs Purple Bonsai, and she'll be like, oh, I was pondering that too.

She'll have seven conversations and it'll land on LinkedIn as a post and I'll be like, she's taking the conversation further. So there's probably less of a there's probably people i kind of admire and then there's people where i'm like i love to see your thoughts on a page because it bounces off mine you know.

Yeah i do get that so with one is a pretty given laser shout outs for sharon connolly before i just love the stuff she does and they've stolen quite a few of her powerpoint bits and pieces but then on the other hand the stuff i don't like is people posting politics or like stuff that's, i'm very maybe i'm very conservative in my like linkedin usage but i'm gonna pick a different word is it like reserve small c conservative yeah are you yeah traditional traditional yeah yeah because i was

like conservative because you just said politics so i was like now it sounds like you're saying your actual politics but you mean like no yeah no i'm not definitely not but and i just find it weird when i go on linkedin which i perceive as like a quite professional, extension of the internet and then you see like people doing whatever elon musk's up to these days i've got a post being scheduled today by elon musk so you can dislike that one i think i think it depends on

your worldview doesn't it i always think linkedin's made for like what does this mean for a professional context but it's not for i didn't like this because i'm like yeah yeah so i actually struggle a bit with it because i'm like i do think it's important to be your authentic self and so on. But in a space where you presumably are there because you want employment now and for the future, I can't.

I can't see that sharing politics does anything other than turn off people that don't agree with you unless you're very like vanilla.

I mean I think I think the idea of we bring our entire self as if we're all one static thing into every scenario is wild because that's just not human nature right everyone who goes I brought my full authentic self no you should bring your work self or you should bring your home self and that should all feel like it's you being honest about who you are within that context right i always think the idea that we have one function and then we apply it in all spaces what

i hate about myers-briggs tests you know exactly yeah i'm like who i am when i'm playing the sax on stage is very different to who i am in the office i also think is interesting because i suppose i have the view a bit like so i i see a lot of these things as merging in my head like the recognition of politics and how it impacts economies to how it impacts businesses to how it impacts cultures like within organizations I think the thread through of

that is it in times important to acknowledge within I suppose a professional context because if I think about it from the perspective of you know so why did we put a post out why do we have a post at drop club today oh it's just gone about Elon Musk we were talking about actually and we're doing a campaign that's about non-executive directors and it's about power dynamics.

And the cross-check of the stuff in the US really overlays into some of that in a way that feels quite important in a LinkedIn space. But I think people have different barometers on it, don't they, depending on how they view the world. Because I think everything's merged, but I also don't think I should be like, you know, vote green. Do you know what I mean? That's not, that's not, that's not for LinkedIn, you know.

Taking us well off topic of Chris's intended question there so and as well as that i've got to go because not to be rude it's a storm and i've got to get to the salon over the pennines so it's the best reason yeah i clearly am not going to a salon this afternoon but thank you for your time thank you so much we'll let pete do his editorial magic get rid of the dog i'll send you a picture of the dog maybe it's the front cover just

to be clear he does well he does well yeah that was super thank you so much it's been great to meet you properly thank you. Music.