Making Business Human

For the finale of Season 1 of the Making Business Human podcast., Anna talks with Sereena Abbassi, an equity, inclusion & diversity consultant, researcher, facilitator, trainer & keynote speaker. Taking activism into the corporate space, Sereena Abbassi is committed to creating organisational transformation that is grounded in a deep-seated belief that all our liberations are tied to each other.

 

Sereena tells Anna of the power of asking personal questions at work to bring a human aspect to the professional setting. They discuss the need for better internal organisational communication; emphasis is often placed on client communication leaving managers ill-equipped with the tools to talk with their team effectively. 

 

With the recent shift in remote working, and through her research, Sereena observes how employees now see more benefits in working from home and believes businesses will have to carefully navigate the potential return to the office and engage their workforce in doing so. She also suggests organisations should approach diversity issues by creating safe spaces for brave conversations where individuals can share the oppressions they have felt and, in turn, educate each other.

Shari Medini, along with her work partner Karissa Tunis, is the co-author of 'Parenting while Working from Home' and co-owner of the popular parenting website: AdoreThemParenting.com. Shari has years of experience in juggling a busy home life with a career in writing, marketing, coaching and working in the family mental health field. 

 

Anna spoke with Shari in March to hear her insight and top tips on balancing working from home with the demands of parenting. After growing tired of the negative press around parenting, Shari & Karissa started their website to provide families with strategies and coping mechanisms that enhance the enjoyment of childrearing. Shari shares some of these tactics with Anna; she discusses managing your own energy and adapting your communication to your work environment, setting boundaries with your children during work hours and creative ways to meet your children’s needs whilst remaining productive and professional at work. 

We invited Therese Huston to the Making Business Human podcast to hear her views on the importance of feedback at work. In episode 8, Anna and Therese discuss how feedback enables growth and how, despite being hungry for it, data shows employees are not receiving it which can impact negatively on confidence and development. 

Therese shares her top tips for providing feedback that is constructive, valuable and able to be understood. She raises the gender and racial imbalances in workplace feedback and the gap with managers vs. employees, emphasised even more during Covid where we have lost face-to-face contact.

 

Therese Huston, Ph.D., is the author of the new book, Let’s Talk:  Make Effective Feedback Your Superpower.She received her MS and PhD in Cognitive Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University, and she’s currently doing post-graduate work in Organizational Leadership at the Saïd Business School at Oxford University.  Huston was the founding director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Seattle University, and she gives talks and consults on how to give and solicit better feedback at work.  This is her third book. Find her at https://www.theresehuston.com/

For episode 7, we are revisiting a great conversation from July 2020 when Anna talked with Kieran Moore, who had just left WPP AUNZ after 17 years, most recently as CEO. 

Kieran explained how she thought the corporate world had become robotic and no longer celebrated the human aspects of individuality, diversity, empathy, compassion and inclusion. Kieran told Anna of her three most important principles in the workplace – encouraging leader empathy, the art of talking in a digital age and sticking to your own personal values. 

Anna and Kieran discussed the importance of inclusion at work which had led to her involvement with topics such as changing parental leave, the marriage equality debate in Australia, and in starting an indigenous internship programme for the younger indigenous generation. 

Our guest for episode 6, of the Making Business Human podcast, is Sue Unerman. Sue is the Chief Transformation Officer at MediaCom and is a well-respected voice within the media and advertising industry. Sue is also the author of two books on gender diversity and belonging within the workplace.

 

Sue explains to Anna that the leadership role needs to be reframed to include vulnerability and believes every individual in the organisation should be responsible for its culture and taking ownership for making the corporate world a kinder environment. She describes how MediaCom have invested heavily in workplace training in allyship and focusing on how to stick up for each other. Sue believes in the importance of a culture of belonging and says the big motivation behind writing both of her books was to ensure nobody’s talent is held back by unfairness or bias.

 

We are delighted to offer our listeners a 25% discount for purchasing Sue’s book, Belonging. To gain this discount, visit www.bloomsbury.com/belonging and use the discount code SHINE25 at checkout. Offer ends 30th April 2021.

In episode 5, Anna welcomes Eva McLellan, Head of Business Strategy, Transformation and Innovation on the Roche executive leadership team in Belgium. Eva believes employees should be related to as people rather than job descriptions and tells Anna how Roche has adapted as an employer during Covid and of the redesign of the business model to put the person at the centre (and Roche in service of that). Eva discusses reframing the role of leaders - to let go of control and nurture their people, aligning their missions and values with those of the organisation – and she bravely admits she needs to flex her courage muscle more! Tune in for another inspiring and motivating conversation.

For episode 4, Anna spoke with Rachel Forde, CEO of media agency, UM UK. Rachel is an inclusive leader and collaborator who believes in empowering people to be their best selves and to bring their whole selves to work. We hear about her mission to move beyond diversity to build a truly inclusive and better world, starting with her own family, her colleagues and peers, and how a focus on making business more human has been a transformative step to futureproof UM. This episode was recorded back in July 2020 during the first UK lockdown.

In this week’s episode, number 3 on the Making Business Human podcast, we hear from Nancy Rowe, the European lead of I&D at Publicis Sapient. Nancy talks to Anna about how her own experience of juggling motherhood with a professional career was the driving force behind her quest to make the busines world more accommodating for people who require a flexible approach to work. Nancy describes how she carved her current I&D role from her desire for equality, how organisations need to be adaptable to the everchanging political and cultural landscape, how technology tools can aid this work and why we should be taking a more individual-based approach rather than a ‘one size fits all’. 

Episode 2 of Making Business Human is here! Our guest is Deborah Richards, Diversity & Inclusion Leader at IBM, who talks with Anna about the innovative ways IBM are responding to the Covid crisis and the new reality of remote working. They discuss the importance of bringing a human touch to their employees despite the distance between us all. IBM are recognised for their forward-thinking approach to diversity and inclusion and Deborah is one of the passionate and experienced driving forces behind these initiatives. It was a pleasure to hear her share her valuable insight into this important topic.

In episode 1 of Making Business Human Anna welcomes Becky Chidester, CEO of Wunderman Thompson Health. Throughout her career in politics, marketing, digital and healthcare Becky has focused on empowering women (and says Shine has been instrumental to this!). Becky talks of the impact Covid has had on women as they continue to navigate the work-life balance; she explains how empathy has been a motivator during her career and stresses it is more important than ever for organisations to show compassion for their people. Becky says there is still work to be done from leadership to improve corporate equity but hopes to use her experience to influence this change.