Shownotes:

The core purpose of the partnership between The Purpose Room and The India Justice Report is about helping raise awareness and understanding of the Indian justice system and also getting ordinary citizens to understand, be aware and curious about the justice system. The aim of course is to discuss how the delivery of quality justice must be seen as a priority and become real in the lives of everyone. 

In the first episode Maja Daruwala, Chief Editor of the India Justice Report, and a barrister from Lincolns Inn and Valay Singh, Project Lead of the @India Justice Report spoke about the purpose behind India's first ever ranking of states on their capacity to deliver justice and what that means

Episode two with Surya Prakash B S DAKSH a civil society organisation working on judicial reforms and Radhika Jha, a lead researcher for the Status of Policing in India Report series from Common Cause focused on on budgeting in the justice system, the availability of funds, underutilisation, prioritisation or lack of it, access to justice, the quality of justice and more…

The third episode focuses on the status of women in policing in India. My guests Meeran Chadha Borwankar and Devika Prasad spoke about the systemic issues that hold women back, and what actions can be taken to reach the target numbers. 

In episode four Jacob Punnose ex-DGP and State Police Chief of Kerala and Jayanto Choudhury ex-DG NSG and ex-DGP Assam Police talk about the systemic issues that ail India policing - conditions of work; budgets; internal culture; accountability; public perception etc.

This week my guests Prof Murali karnam, a research scholar on Prison Reforms and Penology and Mr Somesh Goyal, Former dg Himachal Police and former Director General of (Prisons) speak about what can be done a) to make the administration of prisons stronger so that prisons are not places of violence and violation of rights b) what needs to be done to - to turn prison administration away from the warder-lockup-control-punishment mode to that of genuine reform and rehabilitation of prisoners.

Whether it is the UK or India it is important that all of us understand the contours of the system that governs us and not just for the sake of accountability!

Listen to this episode and catch up with previous episodes here👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾

Memorable passages from the podcast

👉🏾 Thank you. Mr. Goyal, Professor Karnam, Maya and Vallay for making time to be here today for the third in our series on prisons where today we are talking about strengthening prison administration. So thank you very much for making time today. And we'll get started with the questions right away. So, considering the background that we've spoken about, how are prisons in India regulated? Do states have their own prison manuals or is there a common manual for all states to follow? 

👉🏾 Well, so far as the regulation of prisons is concerned, I think there are several acts like the prison act, prisoners act, prisoners identification act, temporary release of prisoners act and so on.

👉🏾 But day to day functioning of the prisons is largely governed by the prison manuals, which are very old. And there is no common prison manual as such for the whole of the country. In 2016, one model prison manual has been suggested xxxxx, and prisons being a state subject, most of the states have their own prison manuals . Few states that have adopted the model prison manual, and tailored it to suit the local requirements. I think this manual is far too elaborate, one, and you know, one size fits all, it doesn't happen. So far as the governance or the management of the prisons is concerned, there are a number of things which need to be incorporated or deleted from the model prison manual. But the fact is that this model prison manual has not been adopted by large number of states.

👉🏾 Yes, most of the states have their own manuals, at least for the first 15 years, they've been changing from time to time, as and when the High courts or Supreme courts are specifically commenting on unacceptable aspects of prison manuals. But at the same time these manuals also contain lot of rules that are not being implemented, but they still remain colonial vintage, like a whipping have not been removed in most of the states.

👉🏾 They still indicate the colonial influence. But many states have tried to revamp these manuals at the state level, but the process is very slow. At least Andhra Pradesh I can tell you it was initiated in 2004 and it was not accepted. And again, second time, five years back, it was proposed, but still it remains with the law department. So as per as the revising prison manuals, as per model prison manual is concerned, the progress is very, very slow and they're not going anywhere. There are several reasons for completely revamping these manuals as per the, model prison manual.

👉🏾 I'll add, You know, Himachal Pradesh it took us five years to convince our home department that we are not taking away any of the powers of the district magistrate or bureaucracy, by implementing this model prison act. There was a huge suspicion, they didn't have any qualms about the clauses of the manual. Then I sat down with the home secretary I said, "You tell me, are you afraid that your power is being taken away" he smiled. I said, "okay, let's touch those things, let's amend wherever you think district magistrate needs to have his say, I'll do it, but I want the larger, good to prevail. This manual needs to be accepted". And after five years, we were able to do it. The second thing about the manual is, it brings so much of economic burden on the state that the Babu sitting in home department needs to know, at least far enough to know how many more crores are going to be pumped into the prison department without any return on investment. So this delays the whole implementation of the manual and no other reason I could see in the last five years struggle in getting it approved. 

👉🏾 Yes, actually, I completely agree with Mr. Goyal, you know, the prison manual specifies the standard of human resources and infrastructure for the management of prisons. So the departments requires to enhance human and financial resources to bring these standards for implementation. But at the same time, there are no planning and research wings within the prison departments, which can forecast the requirements of prison for future.

👉🏾 And as Mr Goyal said if we want to meet the standards of model prison manual, after adopting them into the state manuals, it requires a huge recruitment. It also requires a huge financial outlays for which, you know, governments are not ready. So therefore this is very, very important reason for not adopting the model prison manual.

👉🏾 And another trend is the states might adopt it, but they may not do anything, that also I've seen many changes are included in the prison manual. But the prisons are not overhauled or revamped as per the standards, because they will just remain as standards in the prison manual.

👉🏾 Well, it's not a lost case altogether. I can say that in four years, I was able to add 40% more staff in Himachal Pradesh. You have to convince people. Problem that I have seen is why new prisons were not getting made, why things were not moving is something to do with the prison leadership also. I mean if you take interest, if you meet people, put your points across, it happens. The pace may be slow not to your liking, but the change does take place. So I think with persistence things will move, things have moved. 

👉🏾 I completely agree, Mr. Goyal, that in Himachal Pradesh one advantage you had is that, you know, your number of prisoners is less, but at the same time, it is your leadership. Similarly, the leadership in Telangana also was very much convinced, especially Mr. VK Singh was very much convinced about what needs to be done. He has done everything within his power to convince the government. When government was not convinced he was able to generate resources for the department. But my own feeling is in majority of the states that the leaders of the prison department are just in charge while they have full-time job in police department. In the adversarial system of criminal justice system that we have, the police when they head the department, they look at the whole issue from the perspective of the victims and that completely colours, the quality of work.

👉🏾 Therefore, my view is that most of the prison leaders, prison DGPs were themselves were not convinced about the kind of quality of work required for the management of the huge mass of people that we incarcerate. For instance, for a year, we are incarcerating some 18 lakh people. I don't think even at the level of BPRND also we have a planning and a researching wing which actually forecast how much of human resources, how much of financial resources are required for the coming 10 years in order to meet the demands of the criminal justice system.

👉🏾 That's one issue, but I feel that since the 80% of prisoners are under trial prisoners, if that burden is not there on the prison department. Then I think within the existing resources also most of the prison management may be able to, give a quality of life for prisoners. But I think the large chunk of resource and the energies of the department is going towards management of the under trial prisoners for whom you can't take up any reformative activities. 

👉🏾 Well you see, to give an example of Himachal and North India, the recruitment and prisons is done at two levels. One is at the Warder level, equivalent to a Constable. and the other is at the level of assistant superintendent of jail. So that is the officer cadre. For Warders, you need 12 plus and for assistant superintendent of jail, the requirement is a degree. Even if we say that some qualifications are required, are there any universities training any graduates or undergrads in any programs in corrections, where people could get education and make informed decisions about joining a particular service. So that is where we are caught. And qualifications, it is the same militaristic standards of measurements, of physical measurements, physical fitness tests, and small written test, that's about it. The more important thing is, whatever human resource you induct, how you mould it, that is more important, I think we'll touch upon it later. 

👉🏾 Yes. In Andhra Pradesh, in Tamil Nadu, even in Kerala also I see that especially the officer are recruited as part of state civil service. And for most of the people who become, who enter into prison service at a deputy jailer, asst superintendent level prison service has never been a preferred service for them among. It’s not preferred among the revenue police and fire services.

👉🏾 At the same time at the lower level, the qualifications of the staff are also increasing over period of time. For instance, post to graduates are entering into even Warder level positions. Well, this is a very positive development that they will be able to manage prisoners better than the semi-literate warders of yester years. 

👉🏾 It also implies these lower level employees join the department only as a stop gap and results in heavy turnover in that department. Unless there is a clear cut opportunities for promotions and job satisfactions are spelt out well in advance then only they will be able to get people who are highly motivated and who will choose the prison service. But I agree with Mr Goyal that it's a failure of universities, which are not able to cater to the needs of this very important part of the criminal justice system that it presents that they're not clearly designing, barring one or two degrees 

👉🏾 Well promotions are natural.When they join the service, say Warder can superannuate as an officer.  Warder goes on to become head warder.

The promotion, career progression is provided in every service and it may not be as lucrative or as fast as in the police because the department strength is very less in the prisons. So the opportunities would also be lesser, but they are promoted while all the people who need to be promoted, under the non gazetted ranks is done by the DG Prisons himself.

👉🏾 And there is no delay there, unless there are some court cases. But when the nature of the rank changes from non-gazetted to gazetted then it goes to the state public service commission and the home department that is where delay of maybe six months or a year. Sometimes it takes place, but otherwise promotions in the cadre, in the departments are not an issue.At least I ensured in Himachal Pradesh that not even a single higher vacancy was left unfilled.

👉🏾 See, way back in 1980 Mulla committee report says that, there should be at least three promotions for every employee who joins the prison at a lower level. My own experience in two states here is at best they get one promotion. Many times they don't get even that. And in some states like, you know, west Bengal, wherever they care there is a direct recruitment for every level of cadre, the promotions are very hard to come by.

👉🏾 Because lower level cadre is directly recruited at deputy jailer level, deputy superintendent level, assistant superintendent level, jailer level, which actually forecloses the possibility of promotions for the people who enter at the lowest level. This is a very serious de-motivating factor. 

👉🏾 There is a high turnout especially among newly recruited with the higher qualifications in some states this needs to be changed. So unless we project clear way forward about their promotions and opportunities, it's difficult to motivate prison officers to commit themselves for the objectives of the prison. 

👉🏾 So far as the training is concerned, we can divide it into basic training and in-service training or the refresher training. Now for the basic training, it is generally from nine months to one year. We in Himachal don't have a training centre. We could not start it for want of land available. The most important thing is that people are sent to training academies, training institutions, wherever these are. One is who decides the training curriculum. I have serious issues with the training curriculum, that there is no research gone into devising a training curriculum for the correctional staff. All the Warders, they are trained like a police Constable. Well, some of the functions maybe similar, but largely a Warder is somebody who must be more empathetic than other people in uniform. 

👉🏾 What the job entails and what skillsets people need to have like listening, empathy,. These are completely missing from any syllabus devised by DPRND. And when I pointed it out to them, I said, why don't you see the training curriculum of some advanced countries? Learn from them, devise our own, curriculum, which is modern, which is in sync with the reform and rehabilitation ideas. But this is not happening, we are just churning out people in uniform who are insensitive, who are not motivated and looking for better job opportunities in the police or somewhere else.

👉🏾 Is anybody doing training of trainers for the prison staff? I haven't come across one. It may be for PT and drill, I'm not interested in that. I'm interested only in the correctional activities, how to run industry, how to run welfare programs, how to make these agitated people comfortable in the four walls of their barracks. Does anybody provide any training to them? No, there is no curriculum, and when I come to the refresher course, refresher training, most of the people go to ICAS or the the institute of correctional administration, we have three. Or CAPT in, Bhopal. If you look at their calendar of training programs, I think more than 80% of the training programs are on subjects other than prison subjects or the correctional subjects.

👉🏾 So the relevance of the correctional administration institutes is also questionable so far as I am concerned. I would like that, what a prison official needs to learn about his job, about the skills, that is what a refresher course should be able to give him. 

👉🏾 Yes. I completely agree with him because see, in most of the states the syllabus for training of the lower level cadre is no different from that of the police constables. So even for the higher level cadre, there is no distinct syllabus that marks them out as reformers. I mean, of course several states do not have even training centres of their own.

👉🏾 And I mean, in some states I can say that lower level cadre are being trained by the police academies because there are no prison academies. Even where they exist, there are no fully trained academicians or researchers to teach the syllabus that is related to objectives of the prison. And it is actually, retired prison officers, of course, who bring lot of practical, but very negative aspects of managing the prisons.

👉🏾 So by and large, after first training at the time of joining, many prison officers never go for refresher courses due to a shortage of staff or because relieving staff for this trainings itself is the biggest problem. So. Only BPRND is trying to, sponsor few trainings occasionally and for the past one year has taken up actual sponsoring preparation of training modules.

👉🏾 But again, this responsibility was given to only the prison officers. Of course, they should be involved there is no doubt about it,...

Shownotes

The language we use often reflects the widely accepted socio-cultural values, norms, and beliefs that society holds, including roles men/women and non binary people play. For as long as we know language has been used to undermine people making them seem less competent, confident and places an expectations on what people can aspire too. The constant use of such language reinforces assumptions.  

E.g. Assumptions that all members of a category (Director) share a gender or that all members of a gender share a characteristic (women prefer to look after children) 

E.g. Using gendered pronouns/nouns when you don’t know the gender or using he/him/man as the default 

However, language can also be used as powerful tool to help reshape culture and challenge stereotypes. In this episode of The Elephant in the Room podcast I spoke with Parijat Ghosh and Souparno Chatterjee from PRADAN on the journey and learnings from the past 10 months to building a more equitable and inclusive organisation. 

I am super proud to have been invited by PRADAN to support the organisations in unravelling the layers and discovering who they are as an organisation and the gap that exists with who they aspire to be. In the last 10 months, I have run numerous workshops, listening exercises, audits, and had people share 100s of examples on how our culture, upbringing, the books we read, the movies we see, our lived experiences colour our usage of language. 

We are nearly at the end of the discovery phase, the next phase will be about mindfulness, and putting all the learning into action - in how we use language to engage with our peer group, with teams, with people on the field, the communities we work with, donors, governments, in the manner in which we write our reports. The measure of success is not that everyone will suddenly be inclusive, but that most people are conscious of the impact of their words, are willing to learn and build an inclusive organisation. 

And most importantly it is important to remember that language is not static, it changes and evolves every single day; like it has done since the start of spoken language many moons ago. 

Want to know more about the why and what of the gender sensitive communications initiative at PRADAN - listen here 👇🏾👇🏾

Memorable passages from the transcript

👉🏾 Thank you so much Sudha for inviting us. 

👉🏾Good morning Sudha. And thanks for bringing us here and it's a great opportunity to speak with you on this initiative that we have started in the organisation. So looking forward to the conversation. 

👉🏾I am Parijat, presently I work with PRADANs research and advocacy team. And as far as my interest are is concerned, I am interested in Adivasi livelihood because we are working ound the questions related to Adivasi livelihood, I'm also interested in the subject of gender equality both within the community, with whom we work and also within the organisation.

👉🏾 I am also a member of the steering group that is integrating PRADANs initiative towards making the workplace better for women as of now and I'm hoping that it will talk more about inclusiveness. 

👉🏾 I joined as a development apprentice and after a brief stint, I joined the operations unit. And since 2013, I started working in communications and ever since I've been communicating about PRADAN. I love communicating about PRADAN. 

👉🏾 Let me first start with how PRADAN embarked on the journey, why PRADAN took up this whole initiative, not only the gender-sensitive communication but the whole initiative of making PRADAN a better place for women,. So the skewed percentage of women actually has been a concern in PRADAN for a very long time. So I joined in 2004, and since then in almost every annual retreat, this issue was highlighted. And finally in 2014, that then formally instituted a scoping study to understand the reasons for the same.

👉🏾 Why this ratio is so skewed? What are the struggles women go through, and what are the hindering factors for continuing in PRADAN, areas of gaps? So based on that understanding or findings some strategies were instituted. One is women caucus, for all the women in PRADAN. who act as a pressure group, as well as a support for each other. And a regular gender audit within the organisation in all work units, so that we understand the status, present status of the situation and find the gaps and plan according to that. And the third thing was we designed a curriculum for the newcomers, the newcomers are called development apprentice in PRADAN. For them, we designed a gender guide, which talks about gender equality within the organisation. 

👉🏾 At some point in time, these were kind of all independent initiatives, there was a need to integrate all those so that all these initiatives, whether we're moving towards the desired direction or not. So In 2017 our steering group was formed and the role of the steering group was to kind of see the impact of all these initiatives, the points of integration etc... So based on the experience so far SG worked on developing a strategy. They came up with a strategy paper last year in 2020/21. And in this strategy, the importance of gender-sensitive communication came up as a very important area. Because all the time we work with human beings, both outside, inside with community, we talk and communicate all the time and that is our work. Therefore our communication actually says a lot about us - who are we, our gender biases, our gendered relationship with the organisation and community we work with colleagues, and our stance towards gender equality. And therefore we started work towards sensitising ourselves about this gender sensitive communication and inclusive language and we started taking help from you.

👉🏾 What Parijat said is absolutely, that's how it has been in PRADAN. But addition to what she said, I think that PRADAN has been working essentially for women empowerment. We found that when we reach out to the poorest of the poor, these marginalised sections, smallholder farmers, they have been put aside from the mainstream walks of development 

👉🏾 But if you look at the condition of the women irrespective of their age cycle, the life cycle, you see that they are at a more disadvantageous position in comparison to the men folk.

👉🏾 So there is poverty within poverty. But when you look at the people who are talking about these issues, who are identifying these issues, who are working with those women are men, mainly, majorly. if you look at the percentage that Parijat was referring to, that is heavily skewed towards men. And at the same time, it's not about just women empowerment, but you're talking about women's leadership in community-based organisations, how women will lead the process of change. who are talking about that, who are guiding that process of change, again set of men. 

👉🏾 And the organisation, which is talking about women empowerment day in and day out is led by men since its inception. The ED and various other key positions in the management have been heavily occupied by men. So what do you do to change this situation and adjust the situation, address this situation in terms of the gap of what is being preached and what is being actually practised. So we kind of realised that there is a gap and what is that gap and how do you address that gap. So that's how PRADAN thought of embarking on this journey of practising gender equality and thinking in terms of gender sensitivity inside the organisation, as well as outside the organisation.

👉🏾 Right. So, fortunately, as I shared earlier that in 2014, the leadership management unit, which is a top leadership node in PRADAN, that time it was called management committee, they decided to Institute this scoping study. So in the scoping study, they came up with a long report describing the reasons and also they came up with nine recommendations. the reasons were discussed, and then jointly we came up with these three-pronged strategies to initiate with, which shared earlier the caucus in a non formal space. Non-formal I'm saying because it is approved by the organisation, but it's not formal in that sense. So women are, I mean supposed to be encouraged at least in participating in caucus meetings and support each other and come up with issues and inform the organisation.

👉🏾 Similarly the gender audit in the formal space, formally to get feedback on what is the situation and orienting the newcomers from the beginning on the issue. So these three strategies were decided by the leadership. So in that sense, from the beginning officially we had a buy in that we are going to do this. 

👉🏾 But when we actually do something, then you can feel that resistance, for example, when women were going to the caucus meetings, so there will be comments like "So you are going to your complaint room.” “We are fearful so we cannot talk with you.”‘We cannot give you feedback because in caucus meetings you'll go and complain about that.”

👉🏾 But gradually we continued and probably the perception of PRADANites also that this is not about what we are thinking. I would not say that it is smooth yet but definitely the situation has improved a lot. They also contributed in identifying issues where policies need to be formulated. So in consultation we came up with new policies and all. So in that sense, it's a long process as I shared that the study was instituted in 2014 and now we are at 2022. So it has been quite a long journey and we can feel the gradual improvement, but obviously, we're not yet there.

👉🏾 I would say we have mixed kind of experience all of the options are applicable to our case, at some point in time or the other. There was a buy-in so there was a mandate from the organisation that we are going to do this. So in that sense, there was an official approval. But because we all are part of this society, which is patriarchal and hierarchical, so we have our inherent biases towards it and the way we respond that is also kind of, many of the time probably unconscious, but that creates a kind of culture. There were not really upfront pushback, but we had to put in a lot of energy and effort to do everything that is part of this gender-sensitive communication or in the overall initiatives. So probably that is one indicator that this is an indirect pushback. There is a group who will be very proactive and everything, but it is not true for the whole of the population.

👉🏾 Right. And I would say that the newcomers or the new generation is far more enlightened in this subject of inclusiveness and gender equality than those who are there for a long time and older, it is difficult for them to actually accept. I would say us, to actually accept that we to have too biases which makes sense biased or not so inclusive. 

👉🏾 So as there was kind of an organisational mandate that this has to happen. So there was no question of you know, official resistance towards that and I don't think anybody even think of doing that. People welcomed the first step, but as the various kinds of feedback that started pouring in after the gender audit process happened. After the women caucus started meeting on a regular basis, I don't think everyone was on the same plane or could take up the feedback and same spirit universally, across the organisation. 

👉🏾 Tacitly, you could always feel that there still exists some kind of a resistance or ridicule certain points that have come up or that people are trying to change certain aspects of behavioural manifestations. So for example, the toilets were not adequately clean earlier. And the women used to face a lot of issues So the women said that this is a problem, and we need to address this.

👉🏾 And nowadays, if you go to the field offices, you see toilets, which are remarkably clean with some notices"Don't waste water". And "Remember to flush the pot" after you use it, those kinds of very basic messages that you often get to see in public.

👉🏾 Now that they are maintaining it in a certain manner with some basic senses of hygiene and all they say"Have you visited the toilet? Have you seen how it is maintained these days? "Have you seen "how clean it is?" 

👉🏾 So that " is something which gives you a feeling that things are not done wholeheartedly. So, as Parijat said we are a product of patriarchy and that patriarchy unfortunately has been practised across generations, it has been practised not only by men, but women also have a major role to play, in ensuring that certain practices are sustained. We've kind of accepted these kinds of social behaviours or manifestations. And now when these also are getting challenged because of a woman caucus, because of gender audit. People are obviously a lot more uncomfortable to accept 

👉🏾 Which was hitherto being seen as a very normal life. And when that becomes a challenge that "no, this is actually not what you were supposed to do or the way you should be leading your life."

👉🏾 Then obviously there would be a pushback, but since again it is an organisation's decision that you have to introspect. You have to think through these basic things that people have started accepting So that there is a general sense of acceptance. 

👉🏾 Yeah. Sudha, underrepresented groups I mean in PRADAN we are not yet conscious about that. We have not started talking about that. As Souparno also shared that it is mostly around women and our binary understanding on gender, but not in terms of caste or class, or in terms of others who don't conform to this, binary understanding of gender. We are not openly talking about those sort of underrepresentation as of now, but I would share some of the examples of biases that women probably face.

👉🏾 For example one of the findings in the gender audit was that soft-spoken women are easily accepted within the organisation in comparison to those who are not so soft spoken. So then in meetings if the same point is shared by a woman colleague, that goes, unnoticed, but when the same thing is told by a man that gets attention.

👉🏾 Or if two colleagues, one of them was a man and one woman, the team up for, a particular work. Then there's a high possibility that most of the credit for the work would go to the man. And people will consult the man aback about the findings or outcome of the work, but not so much with the women and put in effort for that. I mean, almost all the women who are taking leadership roles, for example, team coordinators, They struggle a lot to get acceptance from their team. In both cases, if they are assertive, then they're told they are dominating. And if, if they're timid they're told to be not suitable for Leadership.

👉🏾 The situation is changing, but still if the themes like gender or SHG groups, nutrition, all those themes are mostly anchored by women. Whereas livelihood, FPOs these teams which are quote unquote masculine those are mostly anchored by men. Things are changing but more or less it is still like that. So there's a long list of such examples where you can actually sense that there are biases.

👉🏾There is a clear instance where this I think was shared in one of the gender audits that when they say about some ideas, when they share something in the larger group where there are men colleagues also, the possibility of getting heard and recognised and acknowledged for their viewpoints and basically taking them seriously has remained a struggle, a point of struggle for women colleagues.

👉🏾 When you are meeting some other stakeholder who is outside the organisation, external stakeholder, If that person is a man it is found that the person would speak to your other men colleague, rather than talking to you. Or for example if you were a team coordinator also, a woman team coordinator, they would prefer to listen to your male counterparts rather than listening to you or responding to them. PRADAN has taken up a very, very liberal stance and approach towards various lifecycle needs of a woman colleague. But despite that that’s a patriarchal expectation that being a woman or the mother, you are supposed to take care of the baby so it's the mother's responsibility. So that is an expectation she is having back home and at office, if she is trying to negotiate with her male colleagues that well I cannot do this job, or I cannot be available at this hour of the day, may I do this at some other time? Often leads to some kind of, either a confrontation or if not a confrontation, then those kinds of nuances come up that she's a woman so we can't expect her to do this. Therefore equality that you are expecting and you have got every right to expect at the workplace, often get jeopardised.

👉🏾 At the same time Sudha, let me tell you that there is also another side of the coin because over here we're talking about gender sensitivity, it's not about just women. Male colleagues also in the organisation and it is not only just for PRADAN, but outside, they are also having similar issues. It's your responsibility to run the family, or you are expected to take these many physical hardships, or you are expected to be good in finances and plan finance accordingly for the family. If you don't do that, if you are not being able to do that, what kind of man you are? You are not a man. 

👉🏾 So those kinds of notions exist in PRADAN also, but I'm not trying to equate but I'm just trying to bring it to people's notice that unconscious bias or these kinds of biases exist on both sides.

👉🏾I would say that this journey we embarked on an understanding gender sensitive communication that actually helped probably all of us those who were a part of the process. We have developed an appreciation and acceptance for the fact that all of us have our own unconscious biases and that impact our communication.

👉🏾 So none of us are actually fully kind of there. Creating that acceptance...

Shownotes: 

It is phenomenal to meet with women who refuse to conform to stereotypes, are not averse to risks and are very confident of the space they occupy (or seek to occupy). As a Black, Arab, female founder of an ESG Consultancy Communique. Gihan A.M Hyde جيهان هايد wants to use her skills to work on what she is passionate about, challenging stereotypes is not why she does what she does.

Was it necessary or important to mention her race/ethnicity instead of just talking about her expertise? Yes it is…..because people from diverse backgrounds are still not recognised for their capabilities but are more likely to be rejected for what they look like or sound like.

It is widely recognised that ‘racism’ is an ESG problem but the bigger problem is that there is very little diversity amongst the ESG fraternity - the people who advise on ESG (Technical or communications). So, It is great to see Gihan carve out her own space as an ESG communications expert.

As an advocate for equity and inclusion I like to celebrate every win (big or small) so it was great to discover our alignment on things that matter to us and how we can contribute to making a difference. In the episode of The Elephant in the Room podcast we spoke about Gihan A.M Hyde جيهان هايد's journey to ESG, what the 'S' in ESG stands for, the importance of ESG for business, why stakeholders should ask for it, triple top line, social impact, skills for communicators and the people who inspire her. 

#sdgs #ESG #esgreporting #inclusion #equityforall #TheElephantintheRoom

Memorable Passages from the Podcast: 

👉🏾 Thank you, Sudha for having me. What a pleasure. I've been such a fan of your podcast so it is surreal that I'm in it right now. So thank you.

👉🏾 So hi everyone, I'm Gihan and I'm originally from Sudan, however, I am based in the UK at the moment. If I am to introduce myself from a human point of view, I am known amongst my friends and peers to be very curious, very bold and very, how do I say it......? Courageous, if that makes sense. I am a risk taker by nature and I am not scared of trying new things. Other than known for these three traits, I am also the founder and CEO of a consultancy called CommUnique. We are an environmental, social and governance, in other words, ESG consultancy. We specialise in ESG communications and ESG business model reshaping.

👉🏾 Our job and our purpose, if you may, is to help you all, who wants to navigate the world of ESG, which is going to be the new reality to help you to do it in a very easy way, and a very simple way, but that would result in the most impactful way as well. 

👉🏾 Okay, before I say anything about the, why did I do that, I will tell you more about, when did I do that? How about that? Let's start with that. So yes you're absolutely correct. I do have 20 years under my belt when it comes to marketing and internal communications roles. In the majority of the roles, I was always the lead in the department in doing all of these change projects, whether it was with HSBC, Barclays, BP, for example, Phillip Morris, the WHO and the list goes on.

👉🏾 But then when the pandemic hit, I was angry I got really angry. Angry with myself, angry with my peers and angry with the society that I'm living in the UK and the employers as well. The reason I was angry is because… so as I said, I am from Sudan and I am married to someone whose job requires us to leave the UK every three years and then come back to it.

👉🏾 So it was extremely difficult to find roles when I came back to the UK, despite the fact that I've always worked in multi global organisations when I was abroad. But the UK employers just didn't see it as a positive move and instead they couldn't put me in a box, so I was never able to be placed in a box.

👉🏾 So when COVID hit, I faced the same problem. Employers wanted to put me in the box, but they didn't know how. I have a marketing background with PR work involved and internal communication. So they didn't know which box they should put me in. So that made me super angry. The other thing as well, is the beauty of the UK is that it has the most intelligent communication professionals you will find the world, it's a small community. And if you disappear from the community for a couple of years, you are forgotten by the community.

👉🏾 So every time I used to come back to the UK, I used to have to prove myself again and cement my expertise again and again, and again. I don't need to do that. I have nothing to prove. So that was the second reason I was angry. The third reason I was angry is because, if it wasn't for George Floyd incident, the sad incidents, and the Me too movement.

👉🏾I was always disregarded as a candidate, purely because of my name and my ethnicity, even though they wouldn't have a clue what my ethnicity is, you would not know who I am for my name. But I always felt that something was stopping me from getting these high roles and I couldn't put my finger on it.

👉🏾 So these are the three reasons why I was super angry during COVID. I mean I was always angry about it, but as I said to you before we recorded, I am not known to focus a lot on the negatives. I'm very optimistic. I'm an optimistic character,

👉🏾 I focus extremely on my work. I am as a Hawk when it comes to work, but when it comes to the social aspect, I'm extremely absent minded when it comes to these things. So COVID allowed me to sit back and think deeply about it. And this is when I decided to, you know what, enough is enough and I have to create a company. And what I didn't tell you in the introduction is that we're a team at the moment of nine And the majority of us are for underdeveloped countries and underrepresented communities. And the reason I chose to do that, so my business model is all about allowing my fellow communication professionals who are like me from underdeveloped countries to have a platform.

👉🏾 So they come in, they helped me develop the work for our client, but then they can actually use that as a case study towards their portfolios and CVs. So in other words, I do not judge them according to whoever background, whatever ethnicity they're from. Because even if you're a junior, even if you're still starting out, you're more than welcome to join CommUnique and I will train you and mentor you because that's my passion.

👉🏾 And I will prepare you as a communication professional to deal with the developed world, because the way the developed world operates and works, and the mindset is completely different than the Arab world, for example. So my job is to prep you as a communication professional. So that was why I created CommUnique.

👉🏾 Why did I decide on ESG? Basically, it's because I got introduced to it during my time in BP. Without realising that I had been communicating elements of the E the S and the G throughout my career, but I never realised it was called ESG. You know? So it made no sense for me to deviate from my passion and it made no sense to follow whatever everyone else is doing. So what I did is I looked into it. I up skilled myself, so I spent two years studying profusely and taking numerous certificates, so I can understand what it really entails. I don't want to be the technical expert.

👉🏾 I'm not the one who's going to physically calculate your carbon emission. I am the one who's going to ask you, why do you want to calculate your carbon emission and what is the benefit behind it when you do that? What are you planning to do with that? So this is why I decided to pivot and focus on ESG internal communications, but also when I got introduced to it properly and up-skilled, I also realised, gosh, I really need to play my part.

👉🏾 It's a threat, it's going to be a reality and I want to be ahead of the curve, I want to be ahead of my peers. I want to spot the gap and I want to do it. I'm sure you would relate to it as well, where our parents would instil the value of money in us, instil the value of thinking differently.

👉🏾 So that's what my parents have done to me is, rather than giving me a Barbie, I used to follow my father and shadow him in his board meetings, for example, So this is where the entrepreneurial mindset came along and this is why I said, you know, I'm going to take a risk and I'm going to create it.

👉🏾 But yeah, it opened new possibilities for me. It opened new passions. I didn't realise I was so passionate about the planet until I looked into it deeper. And this is why we decided to go and try our luck at becoming a B Corp certified. We're in our last process, we have got it. We're just waiting for the final approvals and if I'm not mistaken, I have been told that we are the first Arab - black female founded consultancy to be certified. So I'm really, really pleased with that really pleased with that.

👉🏾 You're absolutely right. I think Greta Thunberg has a lot to be thanked for when it comes to the E the E is very defined and it's clear, what's not clear about the E is, how would you get the data? So that's what's not clear yet and people were still trying out different ways. The G is definitely, absolutely defined because of the regulations and the regulators and the reporting side. So that's fine. The S is a bit unclear, purely because it was never at the forefront of organisation's mind. The only reason it's now becoming at the forefront again, it's because of the Me too movement and the Black Lives Matter movement.

👉🏾 So government has a lot to answer for in a positive way when it comes to the S. So what does the asking entail? The S is basically it's everything to deal with, how an organisation, handle its relationship with its stakeholders and shareholders. So think of it this way, any human interaction or human impact an organisation will have on its people, on its society, on its economy would be the S. So some elements will include employee wellbeing, gender pay gap for example. It will also include community work or charity work in the communities. It will include diversity, equity and inclusion within a workplace. So it's the human aspect of how we operate as an organisation and that's how the S really is defined.

👉🏾 Communication is very, very important for organisations because it's the mechanics that would help an organisation define and shout how they are implementing and saving people and planet. So the reason communication is key is because without communication a company will not be ahead of the curve from its competitors, it will not stand out for its customers and it will not be an investible business. And these are the three reasons why organisations focus a lot on communicating ESG. But the other reason is also the pressure that organisations are facing when it comes to ESG reporting and ESG embedding within their business model. So I'll give you some stats to show you why communication is super important. 

👉🏾 So for example 76% of consumers around the world said that they will not buy a product that does not showcase how it is sustainable. So 76% that's a huge number, okay? 53% of revenues, another one, this is my favourite one out of five companies who are small to medium organisations are using ESG as a standard. One in five okay? Three out of four are currently linking their purpose to their sustainability efforts. So great work is being done when it comes to ESG. So why not shout about it? And that's why communication is key. Communication helps you protect your reputation, it also helps you put yourself ahead of the curve. But be aware there's good communications and there bad communications.

👉🏾 For those of you who don't know what the story is (STUART KIRK, HSBC). This person is, if I'm not mistaken, he's the head of the ESG arm for HSBC or at least one of them. And in his speech that he was presenting, he said that there are a lot of nut cases. I E crazy people out there speaking about climate change. Automatically when he said that he got attacked because it's not about crazy people talking, it's the reality. We have data to prove that we all going to lose this world if we don't act fast. So he went under huge time and as a result, he lost his job. But again, there's also an attack against his comms team, because they're saying, why you as the communications team, you would have seen his deck. You would have read his notes. Why did you not stop it? Why did you not highlight that you are going to be using? And again, language plays a huge role when you're communicating ESG because ESG as a topic is a very technical topic, it's a very dry topic and not everyone can relate to it.

👉🏾 So if you're living, for example, let's say in England. You won't be affected as much with the climate change as much as you would be if you're in Madagascar, for example. And if you have been, you're oblivious to it because it's not something we're thinking about at the moment, because we're too busy from a civil war point of view.

👉🏾 So when you talk to Sudanese and you say, "oh yeah, the world is ending, climate change", they're going to look at you and say, what are you talking about? I don't care, I just want to survive, I don't even have water to drink in my country. So you have to be very careful when you are communicating, ESG to make it a localised communication and to make it relatable.

👉🏾 And this is why sometimes a lot of people do think it's a fad and it's just a trend. I personally don't think so. I can see the term ESG disappearing. I can see that. But I can't see the elements within each one of them disappearing, in my opinion, this is going to be our new reality.

👉🏾 And this is why I joke a lot when I try to pitch CommUnique I sometimes say, "oh yeah, we help you navigate your new reality". Because it is the new reality, whether we like it or not, it is coming our way and it's not going anywhere. 

👉🏾 Okay, so the podcast that you heard me speak in, it was by a Lithuanian incubator accelerator called Catalystaventures. And as a disclaimer, I'm one of their mentors. So what they do is they help technology companies, they help incubate them and accelerate them and help them go to market.

👉🏾 And I'm actually the only one who is mentoring them on ESG communications. Catalystaventures, the reason they're really big and well known in Lithuania is because they came up with a new concept called triple top line. So for those of you who are not aware of triple top line, I will tell you why should I ask this question.

👉🏾 So there is this triple bottom line. A triple bottom line is the well-known business model that helps businesses to not only focus on profit, but also focus mainly on people and planet along with profit. Because previously companies, they serve the shareholders. Their focus is completely shareholder focus and sales and growth focused. But then in the eighties, a new concept came up and that was mainly the focus on, no profit is important, but you won't get profit if you don't have the right people in place and if you don't focus on planet. So this is where the triple bottom line model came to life. Triple top-line is mainly, rather than just focusing on the operational side of a company and how they operate to focus on business and people and planet. It also looks at how do you manufacture your products as well to be sustainable?

👉🏾 So for example your company and all your operations. So from your workplaces, from your employee rights, from your governance; you're doing everything right according to according to the standards of becoming sustainable. The one part that a company never used to do is actually to look at the ingredients and the way they manufacture products to make it also sustainable. They would look at elements of the products, but they wouldn't tie it with the journey from the beginning to the end. Does that make sense Sudha? 

👉🏾 So this is what triple top-line comes in. It factories in the products and the services that an organisation provides as part of your sustainability journey as well. And this is where the triple top-line came into place. 

👉🏾 It's very interesting. So the idea is, we've already alluded to it when I spoke about ESG as a fad. But the idea is that if you talk sustainability or if you're spending too much time talking about ESG that you are going to be impacting or sacrificing the company's returns, you know, the business's profit. This is clearly not true like I think some of us who are already on board of this whole idea, we don't believe this to be true. But for comms professionals, how do you convince your leadership and C-suite that this is important to communicate, and this is not only important to communicate it is also important to embed within the organisation 

👉🏾 There's several ways you can do that. First of all, my optimistic mind is saying you don't need to convince them because they're already going to be pressured by the investors and the regulators to do that. But realistically, if you really want to convince your leadership team to focus on ESG, And focus on communicating it. You need data with you to support your argument. You can't go to a C-suite and say to them, "oh yeah, I have a feeling that the employees wants us to talk about ESG" that's not going to...

Shownotes

“Policing is a service to the citizen, when citizen needs the policemen, the policemen should be there at the police station. This is the responsibility of a democratically elected government, this is a guarantee given under the constitution to protect the life and property of every citizen.”

Maintaining law and order is a state subject in India. This means that each of India’s 28 states has the responsibility to ensure an effective and efficient police force that ensures the safety and security of all. Though all states have their own laws all of them are modelled on the Police Act of 1861. This was designed to: control a subject population; isolate the police from the public and obey the orders of the rulers of the day rather than protect the rule of law. 

The question is, is this the model we want to keep 75 years after independence and if not what can be done to change it.

√ Public perception of police is at an all time low

√ Police forces in India (both central and state) are short staffed

√ India, the second-most populous nation in the world, has amongst the lowest global police to population ratios at 158 for 100,000. This is inadequate when compared to UN recommendations on 222 personnel per lakh

√ Police personnel work long hours without weekly offs, heavy work load, inadequate training

√ Constables constitute 86% of the police forces and they are generally promoted only once in their career resulting in lack of motivation

There is a difference between the police that we have and the police we need. Experts are clear that policing has to change from merely maintaining law and order and preventing crime to being one that is a first responder in creating a public environment in which all can enjoy every right to the fullest within the framework of rule of law. 

In the 4th episode of the podcast Jacob Punnose ex-DGP and State Police Chief of Kerala and Jayanto Choudhury ex-DG NSG and ex-DGP Assam Police talk about the systemic issues that ail India policing - the conditions of work; budgets; internal culture; accountability; public perception ……..

Memorable passages from the podcast

👉🏾 Well that's a very interesting subject you brought up, and I think we'll take it one by one. And you have listed several questions, let us first start with working conditions. In most states, you have the armed police and you have the civil police. The armed police is over deployed and it's under equipped, they normally have to handle public order situations, and the civil police are understaffed and very thinly spread, in most states. There are some states like Tamil Nadu which have a very, very good spread of police stations, but most states and maybe Kerala as well, but most states, and I'm talking by my experience in the east, whether it's Bengal or whether it's a Assam, that is the situation.

👉🏾 Now hygiene factors are poor, the police to population ratio is inadequate and accommodation provided to police personnel again, there's a shortage and it's substandard. Now if you can improve these and ensure off duty time, you will actually reduce the stressors that impact on behaviour of individuals in the police force. Burnout and even post traumatic stress disorder, these are occupational hazards in field policing. 

👉🏾 You know a 14, 16 hour day without a weekly off, is quite normal, and working on festivals and holidays is a must. In terms of structure, I'm only now looking at civil police, because they are the people in the police stations, theres one civil police, for every 14 to 1500 of the population; that's against 1 is to 500 in the U S. And in India, the role of the police is far, far wider than what is expected from a police officer in western countries. In the US they spend about 350 USD, US dollars per capita on police. In India, we spend about US dollar one, and we still continue with the cheap model of a colonial policing. You must remember that when we were a colony, naturally, the rulers didn't want to spend too much on police, their interest was revenue, so they didn't spend much on the police and they expected the police by and large to live off the land.

👉🏾 Now, 80% of the police or more, are the constabulary, and they have a very basic entry level training in most states. Again, as I said India has many states, some states are better than others, but Mr Punnoose comes from a state that is way up there. I have served in states that are way down there. So I will go to the lowest common so to speak factor and he'll probably speak of the more advanced states. Now, most states have no career progression to speak of, the HR, human resource policies are quite outdated. And what's been happening in the past 40/50 years, is whenever there has been a problem of policing, the solution found is to expand and spend more resources on central armed police forces or central police organisations.

👉🏾 Perhaps the perception is that central forces and agencies are less subject to local pressures, that they are better organised and professionally more capable. But if citizens centric policing is indeed an objective, a pivot back to states policing is needed. And if you recall this was envisaged in the constitution. If there are weaknesses in the state policing, remedies must be explored and capabilities upgraded, with central support. 

👉🏾 Sudha I agree with whatever Jayanto has just now said. These are big problems for all the police forces in India. If you want to have good policing, the primary prerequisite is that policemen must be enabled to do good policing. Just calling a man a policeman, he cannot make a good policeman. You have to ensure that he's backed up with the necessary resources to do good policing.

👉🏾 Now, as Jayanto just now outlined, the primary problem is gross under-staffing of India's police stations. If I may share the figures, last year we had about. 2.2 million policemen in all the states put together, that's a fairly large number. But if you take the actual number working in police stations. For example the state of Delhi has got almost 75,000 policemen, but how many of them are working police station? if you just take the count, you will find that all over India, less than 5.5 lakh persons working in police stations. Most of the police personnel are working either in on the police units, or in special units, or with regard to VIP security or in crime branch or intelligence, something like that.

👉🏾 Now, basic policing, ensuring the security of the people, responding to the needs of the people or, all this are happening in the police station. And there, we are grossly understaffed. Even now, there are many police stations in India, where the strength in the police station is only 10 or 15. It is here that we need to increase our strength. In colonial priority was to ensure that the people do not rebel and therefore lot of stress was on that order policing. Policing is a service to the citizen, when citizen needs the policemen, the policemen should be there at the police station. This is the responsibility of a democratically elected government, this is a guarantee given under the constitution to protect the life and property of every citizen.

👉🏾 So when the citizens seeks the aid of a police station, for protecting his life, dignity or property, there must be policeman there. In this matter that we have sometimes not been up to the mark. So increasing the strength of the police station. I've experimented with this and we have been able to ensure that almost 50% of Kerala's total police person, are in police stations, that makes a lot of difference. For example, instead of keeping women police in the Mahila battalions. But if you put even half that number in police stations, that improves the quality of policing. So when women and children come to the police station, the presence of women in the police station makes a lot of difference, and to the culture of service that prevails in the police station. So this is very, very important. 

👉🏾 And the other things that Jayanto pointed out, very, very important. When you don't have enough number of policemen in the police station, you cannot give them the rest, they have to put in the 16 hours of duty, and often they are not given any weekly off for months together. They don't spend time with their family, their physical health, their mental health, all this is nobody's concern. You expect policemen to behave, well how can they behave if they're constantly under such stress, they have to attend to a variety of jobs. None of these matters gets enough attention or gets any priority in any dispensation. As Jayanto rightly pointed out, if you consider the expenditure on policing by the states of India as a fraction of the gross domestic product or the per capita income of a citizen, you will find it is so minuscule. If you compare it with any developed country and then compare the share that the citizen gives to the police out of his per capita income, it is just a small amount. When you buy the cheapest model, you get the worst tool. That's what is happening. You don't spend money on the police.

👉🏾 In fact, I recently calculated that even in Kerala where our budget it is a reasonably good, I have calculated and found that the total amount of money spent by the people of Kerala on subscribing to Kerala's newspapers in an year, are less than the money that the government spends on police. More money is spent on reading about the police rather than on giving the police the necessary resources with which they can work. So this is a distortion, this has to be seriously corrected. I'm very thankful to Jayanto for pointing out this huge gulf, which exists between our expectations from the police and our ability to xxxxxxxxxx resources and place it at the police station, so that the police can serve the citizens better.

👉🏾 About duty time, about leave, about their training, about their career advancement. This is a very important matter. So 95%, of this 24 Lakha police personnel, 75% of them are constables. Perhaps 20% better head constables, so the balance is 5%. In that 5%, the assistant sub inspector, they may come to about 3% or 4%.

👉🏾 And the top from the DGP to the DySP or or the assistant commissioner, as he's called, that portion will do only less than 1% of the total strength of Indias police force. Now, if you want to refer a charge sheet in court, if you want to investigate their case, if you want anything done, then some sub inspector has to do it.

👉🏾 And how many sub inspectors do we have? So therefore we are limiting our ability to investigate cases by limiting the number of sub inspectors that we have. I had a personal experience, when I joined as an assistant superintendent police in 1977 in Thalassery, after finishing my training, I had an assistant. That person had completed 37 years of service, he had joined the Malabar special police at the age of 17 1/2 or something, and when he was retiring after the 37 years of service, he was still a constable. 

👉🏾 That is the kind of career progression that we speak of in the police, the policeman has nothing to look forward to. So you are expecting much, you're looking forward to a policeman who personally has nothing to look forward. So how can you improve anything? So in Kerala, we have done several things to improve this now. Now every single policeman who gets into Kerala's police services can aspire to retire at least as a sub inspector. And if he has joined, rising to the rank of an inspector of police is a great thing for a person who has joined us. Now that keeps him motivated. If he is to rot in the department for 30 years as a constable, you can't teach him anything, he is not enthusiastic about learning anything, he's not committed to acquiring more skills or technology, nothing. Therefore another great reform that must happen is to ensure that the percentage of constabulary, that means the head constable and constable in India's police forces, are brought down 50%. The other 50% must be assistant sub inspectors, sub inspectors, inspectors and DGPs and all. So this is not happening. The minute we do this, we will have a motivated, police force which has got high degree of motivation to rise up in the ranks. 

👉🏾 The most important thing is the Supreme court....... everybody is improving the service condition, of the DGP, how he should be selected.......... but DGPs don't really matter. What matters is the constables and the head constables who deliver 95% of the services delivered by the police.

👉🏾 We have implemented most of the Supreme court directives, but I have my reservations about the effective Supreme court directives in improving police. Because Supreme court has not addressed the basic problem of who we bell the cat. So the cat is seen as the politician in government. Now as long as the cat is there and the cat has got the power, belling the cat is a difficult proposition. So political interference in the working of the police cannot be stopped by ensuring that the DGP has a tenure. Because now what is happening is that DGPs are selected so carefully that the most amiable, amenable and accommodating person gets the chance to serve in that particular office. This is uniformly happening all over India. 

👉🏾 If you look at the selection process of the DGPs in all the states, including all the stems, post-2006, particularly after 2014, after which the supreme court has been stricter in ensuring that the DGP selection is done in a very very systematic manner, you will find that the most amenable ones have been selected. It has not made any difference to the quality of policing. Because ultimately the problem is what I said earlier, what is happening at the police station level? The Supreme Court has forgotten about the police station. Improving the police station functioning, ensuring that that has better service delivery, insisting that better resources are placed for the police. These things are never looked into. 

👉🏾 So Kerala has done much to improve policing at the police station level. So I would like to dissociate from the concept that the great good can result from getting out the Supreme court directives. Because those for example, one directive is with regard to separation of law and order from investigation. Now, separation of law and order from investigation, everybody will in principle agree, there's not a single soul in India who will oppose that. But if you want to implement that, in the field and the police station level, you have to at least double the strength of police available in the police station, then only that separation is possible. The Supreme court directives are silent on that, and there is no mechanism, no means by which this can be ensured. So, if you suggest something that this may be done is a good thing, but unless these things are supported with the means to do it, it will fail. Then again about tenure system. Because it does not answer the question, if there is a misdemeanour on the part of the sub inspector, if there's a misdemeanour on the part of the deputies from the police, what is the mechanism to be adopted? So the benefit of the Supreme court directives have not been actually received by the citizenry.

👉🏾 Most states have implemented it. Kerala also has implemented it. And another of them the experiment has been the state security commission. The state security commission there has been a coming together of the leader of opposition, by the chief minister, so many of the high court et cetera. 

👉🏾 But the attitude, the attitude about policing with regard to the state security commission is not a very positive one, this is what I have found. It is to be used constructively, that was the intention. When the state security commission was suggested that there will be a meeting of minds, that there will be a common purpose to attain excellence in policing. So generally the point is everybody's keen to point out the faults of policing particularly to make the ruling party appear in a bad light. And therefore there is aversion on the part of the ruling parties also to give a major role to the state security commission or to pack the state security commission with people favourable to them Now, the springboard, what is a sublingual directive and practically all the states have safe security commission now, but it is not functioning in a very desirable way. 

👉🏾 Because ultimately the problem is, resources for the police, conditions of service of the police and accountability of the police. This is the most important. You should have a strong mechanism for police inaction, overzealous police action and police and atrocities. These three activities of the police, they must be made accountable for that and such accountability mechanisms have to be been strengthened. And supreme court has given that directive also. Unfortunately, most of the states are not very strong on the accountability mechanisms and police department is also not very keen about accountability measures. 

👉🏾 Now, policing is actually contextual. If you look at Sir Robert Peel's Met in the UK, that was a need that was thrown up by the early sprawl that grew after the industrial revolution in England. Now, if you look at in the U S, in the 1920s August Vollmer's reforms that led to professional policing, these were triggered by the economic growth in the U S after the first world war, technological innovations, like the telephone, the wireless, the motorcar and the emergence of organised crime. Even the other eras of reform in the U S in the 1960s and in the 1990s, that increased support of the federal government for improving capabilities of local centric, law enforcement in the US is local centric, and the engagement of academia with policing practice. 

👉🏾 More recently, say in president Obama's time, there was a US president's task force on 21st century policing that called for a return to greater engagement with the community and a change for the trend of increasing militarisation of the police, after the 9/11 terror attacks, Now in the UK, the police reforms and social accountability act of 2011 gave authority to elected police and crime commissioners to get directions regarding priorities to the chief constables of counties and to hold them accountable for performance. Of course, the Home Office continues to identify strategic policing...

Shownotes

What makes a good leader? Who is a good leader? Are women better leaders? What or who shapes our leadership styles? Why do women continue to be underrepresented at the C-Suite level across the world? These are some of the questions I have been asking my guests on The Elephant in the Room podcast - in an attempt to demystify leadership and what it means because it means different things to different people. For the 68th episode of The Elephant in the Room podcast I spoke with Roma Balwani a strategic communications advisor, an Independent Board Director at John Cockerill and former President of Communications at the Vedanta Group. 

In 2021, in India just 4.7% of the CEOs are female (slight increase from 2018) and there has been a decline in the number of women board Chairs. The regulatory requirement for listed company’s to have women on boards, has definitely helped increase the number of women directors board numbers (2021 - 17.1% up from 9.4 in 2014). But, women leaders in India are decades away from any kind of parity in the C-Suite or at the Board level.

In this episode I spoke with Roma about her journey, the challenges, opportunities and mentors who helped her build and progress her career. We also spoke about leadership, women and their leadership styles; barriers to women in leadership in India; challenges facing leaders in an ever changing world; the skills aspiring women leaders should focus on; people who inspire her……….

Listen on any of your favourite podcast platforms.

Memorable passages from the podcast

👉🏾 Morning Sudha, I'm really delighted to be invited to share some of my personal stories of my checkered career in your podcast.

👉🏾 Sure. So I have been the President of the Vedanta Group for almost seven to eight years, and just recently moved into an advisory role as a communication specialist. I was looking after brand and communications at the Vedanta Group. Prior to that, I was also the EVP and Chief communications officer at the Mahindra Group for communications. So both these have been very large part of my career and of course, the career, as I said, is checkered because I've dabbled in many things which are to do with creativity. 

👉🏾 So I've been a creative consultant in the past. I have also lived in Norway and worked as a communication specialist there as well. My education has been largely in Mumbai. I've been an economics and political science graduate from a leading college in Mumbai, from Bombay University, as well as done my post-grad in Marketing from Bombay University. And then generally we have been very well exposed to executive education at the Harvard business school as the Michigan Ross school of management, so those have been very insightful leadership training that I have received. 

👉🏾 I have over more than three decades of experience as a communications specialist, but frankly, my career in PR started, it was a chance which I took on at the time when I was not a PR specialist. I was a marketing communications manager in a computer education company, which was a very small company at that time. It was just a 500 crore company led by Ganesh Natrajan, and he offered me that role. And I said, I don't think I'm really suited for it because I'm very candid, outspoken, and he said, you know, Roma, that is your speciality and that will hold you in good stead in this profile as well. I said, well, I'm willing to try, but I'm not sure whether I'm a perfect fit for it, but frankly, I think he felt that I could do it more than I could, and I don't think I've looked back since then. And I guess he was right. 

👉🏾 Honestly though back then they were only stereotype roles for women. So I started my career and grew in a company called Larsen & Turbo, it is one of the largest manufacturing company, you must be have heard of them. And I actually joined them when I was studying and I was in my college and I grew from the ranks over there. And it was a time I think where I think I learned a lot of things which have helped me in footsteps now. I used to wake up early in the morning, do my classes, rush to work. Even in my post graduation days, I used to do a full day's job and then go to evening classes. You know wait at the bus stop, very tired after that a long lecture. But I think that really was the starting point of my career, where the deal with my father was, that I will not give up education and that's when he allowed me to start my career very young, I think I was only 19 at that time. 

👉🏾 Yes Sudha, I think I could say yes and no because every challenge I saw was an opportunity to excel. I remember when I first was given the supervisory role in Larsen & Tubro. I was made to now become the executive assistant to the general manager, which at that time was quite a senior role and a very, very important role working with the then general manager of the company. I was just 22 years old, as I remember, and I just finished my post graduation, got my diploma and I applied for the job. Now somewhere you see in manufacturing companies, the mindset is that they want people who are engineers and who have done their MBA, and I was really not suited with that kind of an education qualification.

👉🏾 And the general manager told me that if you succeed in the next six months, you will be evaluated or you will be pushed back into your old role. And I took up that challenge, maybe I was foolhardy at that time, but when I was given those six months. I know from then on, I had to earn my stripes, each time and I didn't want it any other way. So I think that was the starting point. And then of course, every woman faces some kind of glass ceiling as you grow in your career, but I didn't let that deter me because I had many, many bosses who really supported me and I'm very thankful for that. 

👉🏾 My case, it was slightly different, because I had possibly come from a time when leadership or your values start at home. And I was brought up in a home which was a place where the family members are treated equally, whether you were a girl or a boy, and possibly that shaped my independent attitude. And having both educated parents who had moved from Pakistan to Mumbai, and they were both doing well in the way they shaped my career. So I think if I look at that part of my life that possibly developed my leadership style unconsciously. So starting as a shy backbencher in school, I tried to see what is life going to give me. And my father used to drop me to school every day, and every time I tried to match his strides, and I must say those strides were very difficult to achieve, and you can understand what I mean by that. And he helped me gain that confidence that there is more in life that I can do, and from that shy back bencher, I became a person of my own right. Even very young, which is why I started working at a very young age. And then you become a poised and confident leader of tomorrow and I must say my family helped me in that.

👉🏾 But today, if you want to take effective leadership, I think both leadership and communication are intertwined. The best leaders are skilled communicators; we all demonstrate empathy, we demonstrate integrity, confidence along with humility and above all I think we are committed to the work that we do, the organisation that we belong to and we are accountable. I think for me, the buck stops with me; bouquets are welcomed for my teams, but the brickbats are welcome only to me. I think these are traits which you have to develop if you want to be seen as an effective leader.

👉🏾 Oh, absolutely. I mean, leadership styles keep evolving and we have the ability to demonstrate emotional intelligence and we are more self-aware. I think we are decisive, yet flexible and bring to the high table a sense of balance and an equitable mindset. 

👉🏾 I completely agree with you as I said earlier, that yes, our leadership styles evolve. And for me, it's important today to see how over a period of time I have delegated, have empowered people to grow as young leaders and that has made them succeed. So I think in the early days, you have to keep proving yourself as a capable leader, you're being direct, then you learn to coach people, then you're supportive and then you learn to delegate to empower. I think I have gone through those stages in my career, and today I am very happy that I'm at stage when I can mentor young professionals and they are potential leaders in the making. And also provide them appropriate platforms to really grow.

👉🏾 So I think this way I have changed my leadership style. I can give you an example when I was called back to Vedanta by Chairman, Anil Agarwal’s daughter, Priya. She did tell me that I need you to mentor me so that I can segue into the organisation more seamlessly because I'm want to do that. And I must say these three years working with her, today she is so confident she has grown to be a poised and humane leader. She's also leading the top management, which is the group management board and leading it to build a purpose driven organisation, which I think in itself is a challenge. But she's taken it up very well, and she's leveraging sustainable development which she saw was my forte to drive the net zero commitment of reducing the carbon footprint by 2050 for the group. Now that is a tall order for a young leader like her, but she has that power of persuasion and not just by the role that she plays as the daughter of the chairman, but as a leader herself. 

👉🏾 Sudha I have been very fortunate with this legislation. I was also at an independent director for a company, which is the Indian subsidiary of a Belgian company called John Cockerill. And I've been there with them for almost seven years now in my second stint with them and being a professional. I realised that what I bring to the table as a woman leader, as a woman independent director, really balances the boardroom discussions and makes it much more enriched. And you've seen that data also says that when are women directors on the board, the organisation itself evolves into discussions at the board level, balanced towards CSR, towards sustainability, risk management, which probably is not only dealing with numbers and business, right? 

👉🏾 This has helped many boards to really get the right kind of professionals, but at the same time, we are still grappling with the fact that many Indian companies have women directors who are there by virtue of they being the wives of the owners or by actually owning part of that organisation. But what I've seen in the recent times is that they have realised that they have to better equip themselves, so that they can be part of the board deliberations and not just be a figure present because they have to do the numbers right.

👉🏾 So that difference, I'm seeing with many younger women leaders who are coming into the boards, but they're adding value to the boards. Now those are the difference I see in the board compositions and their acumen to be much more useful to the board deliberations, than what it was, let's say a few years back.

👉🏾 So it's not an issue of lack of talent, I think the way opportunities are being created now is far more easier than what it was earlier for people like us. There were few opportunities at that point in time, but for women themselves, they have to develop this self-belief and in their power to lead. If they have that confidence, to take charge, be accountable; then many forward looking organisations will definitely want them on their boards or want them as CEOs in their organisation.

👉🏾 Now take a manufacturing company like Mahindras, they have so many women leaders, leading absolutely male dominated profiles of work. And the women leaders who feel that they are confident to take on these responsibilities, they should grab that opportunity, they should not hesitate. And I notice that many of these women do hesitate and they think that they may not be able to do justice, both to their homes and to their workplace. I think that is a myth that we need to address and make it possible for women to have that flexibility at work where they can still be leading the teams and be able to manage their workplace. And look at it today Sudha, in today's context, we are in a virtual world, flexibilities are being offered to everybody and why not seize the opportunity.

👉🏾 So I think as far as the PR industry is concerned, we surely are in a sweet spot in the sector, right? There are many, many women who are leading many verticals and they're doing very well. There are many CEOs of many global PR firms who are doing well, and I don't see women not taking the lead in the PR field because they feel that they can add more value to a client and create a purpose-driven strategy for them as compared to men who would not possibly think in that direction.

👉🏾 So you will see many women PR professionals, wanting to join this profession, now then earlier when PR was not structured. PR was not a structured function. I must say that about 20 years back when I was trying to put that structure in place, I was then labelled to say that, she managed to bring strategic communication to the high table. But I also was given the opportunity by a very forward looking chairman, like Anand Mahindra. So we have to create those opportunities for ourselves, for the profile of work that we do, that we are not somebody who just writes a press release, once your business proposition is in place. You are part of the business cycle and your function actually adds the dimension right when you start the process of creating a business goal which is what I think what I think is important to understand, and women can do that equally well, or even better than men. 

👉🏾 You're right, I think leaders today have to battle and survive in a VUCA world. The pandemic has really shown us a mirror of reality, which was earlier unknown to the world at large. Now you have to adapt to the virtual world because that is reality for you now, and to be able to do that, you have to be able to see disaster coming so that you protect your business. You're seeing that the youth today have a lot of mental health as a problem, which today leaders have to understand, empathise and face it, and also resolve it and manage the young generation when they are trying to grow in this VUCA world. 

👉🏾 So I think the whole change which we have to bring in is to be more adaptable, be more flexible to the environment. And then as I always give this classic example, is to pivot effectively, you have to now unlearn your old ways, grow from those failures that you had earlier, start celebrating the small successes that you have now managed in the last two years. Relearn from those experiences and then move forward with much more confidence and new insights; which now will be the key attributes I would expect from any aspiring woman leader. Create your own personal brand, when you associate with a bigger cause than you, people stop looking up to you as a woman leader, who has been resilient who has managed, the kind of adversity that we faced in the last two years and adapted to it, pivoted and still succeeded. 

👉🏾 Like I said earlier, women lack their self-belief, they have to get their self-belief absolutely, in the forefront, because if they don't think that they can achieve and succeed. And they can take charge and lead teams. Take for example recently Anand Mahindra complimented a young lady on the shop floor, who's leading a team of 700 people in the Nasik manufacturing unit, and she's leading 700 men right? So I think if you can get that kind of mindset cultivated and you are able to lead in that context, then there are many opportunities that you will get. And I always said that you have to communicate effectively, articulate your vision with clarity, with purpose, make people stand up and listen to you and be guided by you. I think that is also very important.

👉🏾 And then of course, as I said, the adaptability and flexibility to pivot. That is my favourite example of dolphins, actually, you've seen them dance and they dance in rhythm, and why do they do that? Because their leader, their conductor, sends clear instructions, which they follow, else there'll be chaos, right, in any organisation. If you can do that effectively and be articulate enough and give that a sense of confidence to your teams, I think there is no chance they will not succeed. 

👉🏾 You know strangely all my role models have been my bosses, right from when I was a 19-year-old and he was a 50-year-old and I would look up to and say, oh my God, he's quite an old gentlemen. He's the one who actually taught the ropes to my corporate career, he taught me what the pitfalls are, how to manage those pitfalls. I think I'm really indebted to him. His name is Mr. B I Bhambhani, he’s passed away, may his soul rest in heaven. He was my best teacher to start with. Then as I moved and evolved into my career, I had the opportunity to work with a very passionate leader called Ganesh Natarajan, who was the one who changed my career path, and I went from marketing to PR and who really had that belief in me that I could deliver and succeed; so he was my second role model. The third one I remember very clearly and I still remember a small little incident, which made me feel so special by him, was Ronnie Screwvala. And I happened to join UTV and wanted to pursue my creative career, and I became one of his senior members, and every birthday, he would bring a cake onto your table, sing happy birthday for you and the whole team would join in. You know, these are small little things, but they seem etched in your memory and did that with every team member. He wouldn’t call you to his room, he would bring that cake to your table and he would sing that song for you. And those are touching moments, right? Those are leadership traits, which you don't find in everybody. 

👉🏾 He actually developed my global mindset, he sent me to Tampa, he wanted me to learn a new kind of business proposition, which is selling on television, which was home shopping. It was an unheard of at that point in time. And I learned, and I was exposed to that kind of global mindset to go and see how people work in the US, at a time when nobody thought of it. And then of course, coming to my stint in Norway, I was vey fortunate to meet a Finnish lady, her name was Tuija, and she was the MD of an Indian company called E-Bookers, an e-commerce portal for tourism. 

👉🏾 Came back, luckily Anand Mahindra wanted somebody with a corporate background and a global mindset; and I think I fitted the bill and I got that opportunity. And he was the one who empowered me to create the magic of the...

Shownotes

The third episode of The Elephant in the Room podcast in partnership with the India Justice Report focuses on the status of women in policing in India. Despite the target set by the Indian Home Ministry in 2009 to achieve 33% women in the police force - representation has increased by a mere 5% in a decade. While many states have mandated 10% to 33% reservation for women in the police, not one of these States has met its goal. With one woman in every four police officials, the state of Bihar has emerged as the unlikely champion and the best performing state across India. With just 215000 women, just over 10% of Indian police is female. The share of women among the higher ranks is even lower at 8.7%. 

A significant share of policewomen suffer due to patriarchal prejudices, strong masculine work culture and are considered unfit for on-field tasks. Women personnel are usually limited to in-house tasks such as maintaining registers/data, filing FIRs and other complaints, whereas male police officers are engaged in more field-based tasks such as investigation, patrolling, law and order duties, etc. Most stations also lack basic infrastructure such as separate toilets , creche, changing rooms for women.

In this fascinating and eye-opening conversation my guests Meeran Chadha Borwankar and Device Prasad talk about the systemic issues that hold women back, and what actions can be taken to reach the target numbers. 

👉🏾 What can be done to help creating a more inclusive culture where women can thrive

👉🏾 Reasons why women in police are clustered at the bottom, and what can be done to promote their rise through the ranks

👉🏾 What states can do to attract and retain women and meet the target 33%

👉🏾 The politics of it

In a recent article Meeran Borwankar slammed the demand for all women police stations as a panacea to pervasive challenges. 

“An officer commented that they “compartmentalise women officers rather than give them the independence of work”. It is “a step in the reverse direction” because women officers are interested in all kinds of police work, not just in women-related matters.” 

Memorable Passages from the episode

👉🏾 Thanks for having me here Sudha. 

👉🏾Thank you Sudha. 

👉🏾 Sudha that the current ratio I would say is around 10% plus of the women in police, so we are gradually moving towards achievable target of 33%. But instead of having exclusive recruitment for women, every year, most of the states earmark 33% quota. So that is the reason why the upward movement is slow, but certain states like Bihar went in for exclusive recruitment for women in police. And Bihar, it may surprise most of our listeners, today has about 25% of women. So I don't see a reluctance on part of the women to join police anymore, it was there in eighties and nineties, this century the department has opened its arms for women and they have accepted it. So if we don't have exclusive recruitments, this would be a slow process but if like Bihar, even Himachal today has 19% women, if more than the 30% are recruited every year, then we will reach this target earlier. 

👉🏾 Yeah, so just taking from what Meeran ma'am says, the startling rise of Bihar was actually, it went from 7% to 25% women in a space of five years - 2015 to 2019. So I think studying that experience, breaking it down, finding out how did the department do it, what were the ground measures taken, what were the policy measures on recruitment taken? That in itself would be a big eye-opening exercise to understand practically how a police department raised its numbers in recruitment so sharply. So I think it's a good example and it's really encouraging that there are examples like this. Himachal also has seen a rise over this five-year period, Gujarat also jumped from 4% to 12% in the space of five years. So in fact, I think we are seeing increased recruitment of women into the police and so again this question that women are not joining is perhaps not correct. But I'm sure we'll have more conversation about how that is just the beginning of a woman's journey also within a police force, of joining it, getting there. What happens once you're there, that's again a whole another set of issues and challenges which have to be addressed. 

👉🏾 I would just say that in 2010 Bihar had only 2% women in police, and in less than 20 years it has managed to take this up to 25.3%. How did it do this, as Devika said, I mean, it's worth a very close study so that we can identify some good practices. But what I would say is that there are only six states, all right, six large states which have women’s share police in double digits. And most of the large states are obviously under 10, and when you look at states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, states known for registering high number of crimes against women, in those states, the share of women police is still quite abysmal.

👉🏾 One thing I would say is that I think the question of crimes against women or crimes based on gender, we can treat those a little bit separately from crimes against minorities and then, if we look at that, then there'll be crimes against Dalits, crimes against Adivasis. So people on the margins in India and the effect of crime on them, or police misconduct on them, all of these are issues on their own and need to be unpacked in that way. 

👉🏾 I agree that in a democracy, the police should at least look like and try to represent the society, which it serves. In a country like India that's a very difficult thing to do because of our sheer diversity. So that's something which then a department, the leadership has to consciously keep working at - increased representation of underrepresented groups in the police. And that again is I think a sort of long haul issue just like increased representation for women. It's something which is going to take a long time and it needs a commitment which is not just in the moment or when something happens or is sort of fashionable, but it's a deep-rooted commitment, which then as police leadership changes that commitment shouldn't change. So the institutional commitment to this kind of representation is also something which really needs deep commitment over a long term. But I mean on the question also of how to address crimes, it's a question which needs many answers and there's so many factors at play, so I'll just limit it to this question of representation and I do feel, certainly of underrepresented groups in the police, that is something which perhaps would help.

👉🏾 So while I agree with Devika on all the points, I would take it further and say that police leadership has to first accept the need for broader representation, talk about it, and then go in for policy changes. Devika has highlighted that individual changes are erased once an officer goes out, posted out, is transferred out; so institutional policy changes to give more representation to gender, to minorities is the way out. And for that we have to first admit that we do not have adequate representation of various sectors of society. I know that every year, at least in Maharashtra where I worked, we would not be able to fill the vacancies for scheduled tribes. So even with our best efforts, we could not fill the vacancies and the vacancies would be taken over for the next year. But for gender now we have both 33% reservation and willing young girls, and for that I feel, special the recruitment is what would reduce this gap. From say, one decade which it would take routine, to four to five years as a Bihar they have shown. But to face the reality and to take institutional policy decision is the way I see forward. 

👉🏾 So in 2015-16, we conducted a research in Maharashtra because in Maharashtra we started having reservation for women in 1993, and it was more than two decades. So we wanted to see the satisfaction level of women in police and we had a sample of constables and of sub-inspectors, working at the police station level. We did not cover the women working in special units, like control room, traffic or computer sections. And we found that about 20% of women constables, sub-inspectors were extremely unhappy with the environment and with the cooperation given to them by the male staff. So the study highlighted that about 50% of the women are not happy and about 20% of them out of this 50 were extremely unhappy. And they flagged two-three issues, one was that they needed special training, especially because they said they're ambitious and they would like to have leadership trainings. Then they talked of the need for experience sharing workshops. They wanted to know how others among them are coping with night rounds, with small children, with pregnancy and the kind of atmosphere at the field level at the police station, and then this Issue which they flag that they do not get adequate cooperation from their male colleagues. 

👉🏾So these three things, I thought if we start working on that instead of confining them to special units. We have them in police stations, we give them the training that they need, we support them during the sensitive periods like a pregnancy, like monthly periods or like post-pregnancy having small children; they would love to work in the field as meaningful contributors to the police station. And it would not only be the gain of the police department or the police stations, but citizens would immensely gain with a healthy, positive and a sensitive, empathetic women at the field level. 

👉🏾 I think the crux of the point is this feeling that in CHRIs work and interactions with women police officers, I think this notion that we are not seen as equals by our male colleagues and we're certainly not seen as fit to be police officers by our male colleagues. I think that's perhaps the biggest challenge that women face and everything kind of stems from there. Both at the field in an operational situation, but also in terms of leadership and decision-making et cetera. So until that fundamental inequality, and then also that sense of inequality is fixed. I mean you can recruit many women into the police, but if they are at very junior ranks, at only at the ranks of constable, they are not getting into leadership positions, et cetera, they're not heading operational units like police stations and districts; then there'll always be an imbalance and women will always be marginalised within the police, so that marginalisation is what needs to be addressed and it is still very much there. 

👉🏾 So Sudha see we cannot talk about of women and police as a broad category, being one unit. The question you have posed is responded to, handled differently by say women who are in leadership position like women belonging to Indian police service or women who are recruited direct as Dy S.Ps

👉🏾 They I think are able to assert and they are able to handle where they're not getting proper response from their juniors, seniors, or colleagues. And to a great extent, they are able to set these kinds of wrong responses into the correct ones, because they by the very nature of their entry levels, their basic qualities; they are in much better position to respond to and handle an atmosphere which may not be very conducive to their presence. 

👉🏾 But even the study which I quoted earlier, the sample was of sub-inspectors and constables, when we asked about the satisfaction level, so dissatisfaction of women constables was much higher than men of constables, which shows that women constables are finding the atmosphere more hostile, or maybe they are not able to correct, align or modify that hostile atmosphere. Women sub-inspectors again, it's a leadership position, field-level leaders, they are able to correct that and ensure that even if it's not very cordial, it comes to cooperative or acceptance levels. So I would say that we can broadly divide the response of the women at the constable level at middle-level leadership, which is sub-inspectors and Dy S.P and at top-level leadership, which is direct IPS.

👉🏾 So Indian police servicewomen face much lesser difficulties than constables, who are also not able to respond the way they would like to. Middle level, I think may not have police stations very accepting, very cooperative, but I must say in Maharashtra they are able to assert. So the constable level needs maximum support training and a positive atmosphere or positive messages from not only their male colleagues, even from female leaders. So that's the way I would like to think that there are three broad levels; field levels, middle leadership, and top leadership and I see maximum difficulties at the police station level at the field level women constables facing.

👉🏾 So I agree that there are different sets of challenges and certainly more acute challenges for women at the junior and certainly at the field ranks and for constables. But I do wonder if there are certain thing which all women have to traverse and face. IPS women might just like mam said, it just might be easier for them, they might be more prepared for those conversations. So the notion that, one that physical strength is such an important part of policing and then tied to that that men are physically stronger than women. And even if that's the case, but there may be other aspects of physicality, which, I mean, it may not be that every single man is stronger than every single women and there may be other aspects which women may be, they may be more agile in other ways, et cetera, there may be things that even in physicality, women will be able to show. But this notion that one, of physical strength and the prioritising of physical strength, and then the other thing of pregnancy and of course monthly periods, it's not something which is just taken on board naturally that when a woman enters your organisation, these are things you have to prepare for.

👉🏾I think women still...... it's almost like facing a stigma, especially in an organisation like the police, where there's a feeling that here is either an officer or woman constable who for nine months may be out of commission this is something that we have to navigate around and it's something which may disadvantage us. So I wonder if some of these attitudes are still running through the police organisation, across the hierarchy and which I think they are also discriminatory and discriminatory based on gender, very specifically, and attributes and experiences that only women go through. So I think that some of that is probably also at play and in some way it will affect everybody. But I mean of course that some, will be able to navigate that much better than others. 

👉🏾 I was wondering what Meeran ma'am thinks, why is it important to have a as balanced as possible police force. I mean I think maybe it's important to kind of revisit the fundamental question, a lot of tokenism is going on within the police force that they have to have some women so let's have them at the constable level, let's make it difficult for them. But why is it important to have women in the police?

👉🏾 Because Valay when we think of police we only think of crime. But mind you about 30% to 40% of time is gone in dealing with non-cognisable cases, which means, neighbour dispute, complaints about too much noise, dispute about water; we have so many women coming to police stations, harassment by the family, drunkard husbands beating their wives.

👉🏾So it's not a token if we sit in a police station, I would say women accused involved in crime are less, women victim and women coming to the police stations for non-cognisable cases, is very high. So I would definitely champion that our police station should represent or cater to the citizens as per of the profile of the citizens, since my feeling is that about 40% to 50% of the complainants we catered to, are either women as complainants or as victims. So we must have a much higher number of the women, than the present 10% that the country has.

👉🏾 Okay. Sudha retention is not an issue. The whole country wants government jobs because of the security which they provide. So once inducted, keeping them within the department is not an issue, keeping them motivated, aligned with the purpose for which they have been brought in and to enable them to perform to the best of their abilities; that is an issue which I would say needs more attention, more training, more special training for women.

👉🏾 So, in terms of some very practical measures also that can be taken, like ma'am was saying that recruitment drives helped very much. So how much at the district level are targeted recruitment drives going on so that a police department can really ensure that it's doing everything it can to meet it's a reservation quota. So pre-recruitment, you can't wait for the time of recruitment to suddenly start advertising and you think that women will come. If it is something to be really imbibed, then it has to be a continuous process. So targeted district-wise recruitment drives in states. And if the quota for women for instance stay unfulfilled to carry those forward and ensure that they're only filled by women, even if that takes a little bit more time, rather than by men.

👉🏾 And I think police departments already do it, but conducting yearly baseline assessments of rank wise strength of women, before recruiting, just to see what is the gap and how much has to be filled. So almost like a day to day work, I think would be something which would help. One positive thing, which at least in urban settings, is that for instance, in Delhi, I don’t know if it is still the case, but certainly at the very beginning of the year in January, every district head of a police district in Delhi was a woman. Now I don't know if to April 2022, if that continues because of transfers, et cetera. But I mean, it's really great that that has happened. And I think in Bangalore too, again which is an urban police commissioner, again at the district levels women are coming to leadership positions. So these are some small signs of hope which are leading somewhere, it's not always just lip service, but these are still few and far between. 

👉🏾 So annual assessment report, confidential report and they are institutionalised from constable up to the senior-most officer. We write about them and then it's not one person's view, whatever you write your superior has to agree and superior to that has to accept. So that issue of assessing their performance is as good or as bad as of male counterparts. So why women don't leave, I'll give you one example, once I was visiting police lines in Pune, and I found two...

Shownotes: 

CBE, Founder of Socially Mobile, Future Proof and several other initiatives to build a better industry. Sarah Waddington, CBE had the foresight to launch her purpose driven management consultancy a decade before others started talking about Purpose. In this episode I spoke to her about journey 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾

👉🏾 The importance of shared values for great results and purpose being a commercial imperative in today’s world

👉🏾 What PR practitioners can do to remaining relevant as advisers to the C-suite in a world of flux

👉🏾 #FutureProof and the three things we need to plan for to FutureProof the industry

👉🏾 What good leadership looks like, how women lead

👉🏾 Addressing the the gender/ethnicity gap in leadership in the industry

👉🏾 The vision behind ‘Socially Mobile’ and her aspiration for it

And last but not the least what the Elephant in the Room is for her

“From a leadership perspective the elephant in the room is when people won't recognise or acknowledge their own weaknesses. I'm a flawed leader, I think we all are, there's very few people that I would look at and go they're the full 360 thing. But I know I've made mistakes and I'm human, my intention, I like to think is always right. I always want to learn and I think that's the other elephant in the room, just sometimes knowing you don't know the full picture and back to what you said earlier, when we need to listen better, all of us need to listen better.”

What is the Elephant in the Room for you? 

Listen more here….

Memorable Passages from the podcast:

👉🏾 Thank you so much for inviting me, I'm so delighted to be speaking to you today. 

👉🏾 Thank you for the lovely congratulations. I actually have my investiture in July, so I've got something very exciting to look forward to. And, you say since that news and being able to use that to launch Socially Mobile been quite a special time for me so I'm very grateful for all of that that's been happening. Where to start in terms of starting my own consultancy, well I did a French and media degree, loved it. And in my final year, I was lucky to do an internship and I went to a PR company and the rest is history shall we say. Came back to the Northeast, went into PR agency, then wanted to widen my expertise and went to PR marketing agency, developed my marketing knowledge through an MA and kept my CPD up. And ultimately I got to a stage in my career where I was running three offices for a group up in the north.

👉🏾 And the recession hits, this was about 13 years ago, and I suddenly sensed an opportunity, I was doing less of the day-to-day stuff and I was missing it. And then I had clients who wanted to work with me and weren't getting me but also didn't want or couldn't afford anymore to have agencies with big operational costs, they wanted the consultancy direct. So that's when I actually set up my own company and didn't really look back. And I was really fortunate that back at that time, I did something which was quite innovative in terms of business model, I actually set ourselves up as a remote working agency. And that seems very commonplace now because of the pandemic. But pretty much the first of my kind and I could only do that really because a lot of the private sector and blue-chip companies that I'd worked with, were doing the same and it just became much more acceptable. 

👉🏾 So I started there and then as we grew I started to be really interested in the idea of a purpose and social capital. And that's what we started to build the agency around. We wanted to only be working with organisations that were doing good in their local communities. And so that became a key strategy for us in terms of we wanted to do good and therefore the organisations we were working with had to do the same. Through that, as we were advising on purpose, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx there's was an opportunity in terms of the management consultancy. And at the same time, I was working with the CIPR and pushing very much the message that if we were to be a strategic management function, we needed to have that business acumen and the skills that go with it. And so I developed my own and that of the team, and that's how we've kind of got hybrid agency, which is management consultancy with tactical implementation skills in terms of PR and marketing so they compliment each other really really well. 

👉🏾 And I think you have the right tools in place, tech is wonderful for that and it's helped democratise things for people, I think. But I have missed the face-to-face meetings because what we've always done is gone to work in our client organisations. We can have meetings, then say can we remote work from here or we take them out for lunch and we have the meeting at lunch. So it's always been very social and very much about the relationship building and useful as it is, you can't quite get that from teams or zoom or whatever your tech have choice is. 

👉🏾 Really good question, I'm going to try and break that down at a little bit. I think purpose is really, really important, I think everybody recognises and it's right that it's at the forefront of everybody's minds right now, because of a crisis, a global crisis. We've seen that with the pandemic, we've now got the war in Ukraine, but not just that the climate crisis is the most pressing. And ultimately it needs a collective response, so that means for us individually as people, but also the organisations we work for, combined with policymakers. It's not just down to governments now, it needs everybody to respond, so I think purpose has to be top of the agenda for the C-suite and it has to be something that PR practitioners are advising on and have a really good handle on.

👉🏾 And for me you asked the question, is it important for PR practitioners to have their own purpose or just allowing the client's purpose? My view would be that the great results come when you have shared values when you're both pushing in the same direction and that, you're looking at, for example, the UN sustainable development goals, there may be some that particularly resonate with you. So I think the best results come when you find organisations or an employer that has a very similar focus and I think that's when sweet things happen. The other thing I would say is, what does purpose mean for business at large? It has to be an imperative because, a) we've got an imperative to save the welfare of future generations, and that sounds very dramatic, but ultimately that's what the mission is right now. But secondly, there's a commercial imperative because it's what the public is now demanding. If you look at the Edelman Trust Barometer and the special reports they brought out and there's a number of other industry data points that say the same, but it's not just that. So there's the impetus from public, and what's really interesting now is there's also the impetus from people like venture capitalists, who are saying, we are not going to provide the finance unless you can demonstrate to us that you're doing better within your communities. And I think that's really interesting because change only really happens when there's that push-pull effect, and there is that squeeze now, businesses can't ignore it, they can't just focus on the bottom line, they're being forced to address it because of the stakeholders around them and I think that's really, really important for the business community to recognise if they haven't already.

👉🏾 I really really hope so. Every bit of the optimist in me says that but then you look at the energy strategy that the UK government put forward. And it just, for me feels catastrophic at times, but you have to kind of put it in perspective and then use your influence in the best way you can. 

👉🏾 I think you kind of nailed it in a question. I think the world's changing every single day, every single week and its small changes, it's things that are really changing the way we work, we live, we think. And I think for practitioners the opportunity is to help make sense of change for organisations, to understand what's happening, to do that kind of forecasting of what's coming next and what organisations need in order to evolve alongside, or even leapfrog some of it. I think that's very much been the case, if you look at the pandemic. Take the NHS is a great example how that has very quickly adopted new technologies in order to maintain a health care service to the public. And it was change that was already coming, but obviously it's had to happen really, really quickly. And I guess it's a case of, I don't think we're done with that change yet. So there's an element consolidation, but looking forward and helping organisations navigate it in the best, most ethical way they can while making sustainable choices that might not feel comfortable because we've all had lots of change, lots of difficulty trading over the last two or three years, so there might not be surplus left. So making just commercial decisions that might cost a lot upfront but be better for the long term, they're really hard to do right now. So it's helping navigate all of that, I would suggest.

👉🏾 This is a just a great question and I love that you asked me this and I'm going to grab my very first Future Proof book. Now you'll know that there's six books, five crowdsourced, two of which are NHS related. But the very first one is dedicated to Dr. John White, who I respect hugely and his writing has covered this, and I'm going to quote, as I did from the book, from a paper that Dr. John White presented to the Swiss Public Relations Society in 1999. Now he talked about what the opportunity was for PR people in the industry. And he talked about success being dependent on practitioners and I'm going to read verbatim "Recognising the opportunity presented by the environment and management needs, taking steps to educate and train themselves and make full use of communication technology to provide reliable, if not indispensable, services to managers; I say seek to deal with complexity and manage successful businesses”. 

👉🏾 I genuinely don't think much has changed, it's a bit like the answer I gave before, it's managing complexity, understanding business, understanding technology and making sure that you're taking relevant information back to the board. And helping them make decisions on the back of that, even if you're not a member of the board yourself, you can still influence and I just love that quote. When you look at, what's the opportunity right now? How do we maintain the strategic position we were given thanks to the pandemic when businesses suddenly realised how much they need the communications, and that tells you in a nutshell there, I just think that it will always hold true for me. 

👉🏾 This is a really great question and for me, a great leader is empathetic above everything. I think they're in touch with society, the wider political landscape and they're forward-thinking and bring all that knowledge to the role. But ultimately they're value-driven and authentic and they're prepared to make difficult decisions, quite quickly, but obviously will take their communities on that journey with them. So for me, it's all about good leaders build social capital and I mean by that two different things one, they look at their audiences, including their internal audiences can be forgotten at times and they influence those and they bring them on the journey and they also build social capital by doing good in their communities. And I think that for me defines a good leader, they know their strengths and they know their weaknesses and they build a team around them that can thrive and that as a collective can take the organisation forward. 

👉🏾 I think this is a very interesting question. And I think the normal answer would be, oh it's about soft skills. I just think we have a different approach, a different perspective on things that might approach things very differently. I think women leaders tend to surround themselves by a real diversity of thought and people which I think really helps when you're making decisions. They will look at their backgrounds and the skillsets of the people around them and draw that in, I'm not saying that male leaders don't do that, but I see it much more within my community.

👉🏾 The thriving communities that I'm surrounded with are often led by women and they deliberately take a community approach, and I love that. I think that's really, really important. And I've always had an issue, slightly off question, but I've always had an issue with people saying, oh, we need to do more assertiveness training for women, or they need more confidence. That's not what they need, they need more support and they need more training and they need more opportunities, it needs to be more of a level playing field. Soft skills are really important in the workplace and to suggest that you need to be able to shout louder to be heard better is completely wrong, you need to actually listen more carefully if that's the case. 

👉🏾 100%. I think this is about, firstly finding a workplace that shares your values, I really do think that's really important. If you're going to thrive in a workplace, it needs to be somewhere that you can fit in or that you believe in their mission and they believe in you. And so there's a natural relationship between the two of you, but I think you have to be very specific about the goals that you want and build allies around that, so it's not just about you, it's about actually what you want to achieve on behalf of the organisation and making sure that you use your connections in a powerful way. And I would say, if it's not working for you in an organisation, you've tried different routes, I always say, and it's a hard decision, it's a tough decision, but ship in and ship out. Get out because if they're not going to give you the opportunity, there is something structurally wrong with that organisation. Whatever that might be, whether it's bias or structural racism, I don't know if there's something holding you back and you've tried a whole heap of different ways, don't waste your energy, find somewhere that will value you for what you can bring. 

👉🏾 Yeah, once you believe you'll often expend wasted energy wanting to change the place cause you believe in them. 

👉🏾 There's two things here for me, and I'm going to talk about the wider issue first, there's a big issue in terms of, we don't have diversity on teams because we don't take a long-term strategic view to it. And there's lots of reasons for that. So, we don't take a thoughtful approach to talent hire. For example, we don't think about school leavers who might not have the right qualifications, people have not had the access to the relevant training. And to try and get those people we need to be in their communities, making our industry an appealing choice and providing the training and education that's appropriate for them. And if you're an employer, obviously there's a cost attached to that. So there's this first thing about actually recruiting diverse talent, which we don't do well because employers are scared to put diverse teams in front of certain clients, or they just like to hire in their image, and we know there's bias in that regard, so we need to break that. So this first thing is about actually how we recruit people, then the second one is actually progression, we're not good at progressing for whatever reason, diverse talents, and if you look at the industry data, we can all clap ourselves on the back and say, well done, we're getting more like black, asian and ethnic minority colleagues into the industry, but actually they're not getting into managerial director-level roles, and we have to ask ourselves a very hard question as to why that is. And they get to a certain point and they leave and that's whether they don't see people in their own image or whether there just isn't progression for them. That's something we very much need to address and that's kind of where we landed with Socially Mobile in terms of an intervention that we specifically brought in to kind of deal with this. 

👉🏾 Thank you, it's been a long time in the making. So in 2015, I think it was, when I established Future-Proof and that's because I really was frustrated by the approach to public relations, which seem to very much see it as a tactical function and responsive rather than something where we actually take control and are proper advisors to organisations. So like I said it's about reinforcing the value of public relations to business and to show how it works as a strategic management function when it's done effectively. And and then through my work with the CIPR, I was seeing lots of industry data and I was just really frustrated by the fact that we were becoming a closed shop to people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and people from diverse backgrounds and I found it really frustrating, and every single year I tip up and there'll be a conference or there'll be speaking thing, we all knew this is terrible, we need to do something about it and nothing was being done. And eventually there's only so much you can start by beefing away at the sidelines and I thought you know what, I want to do something that addresses this. 

👉🏾 Initially I tried to register Socially Mobile as a charity. It took ages and the charity commission is swamped, and they're way behind where they should be. But the long and short of it is they came back and said they didn't feel that the charitable objectives were right, because the public relations industry was a fairly affluent one. Which completely missed the point of the audiences that we were trying to reach. So what we did is we changed it and we decided we're going to do a community interest company, which we've now done and which would give us a bit more flexibility in terms of the offer, and then the pandemic hit, and we had to pause because we were trying to manage businesses, lives. But it was brilliant because it gave us time to think. And in my head, what I'd wanted to do was fundraise and then connect people who would like funding to find the course that they couldn't afford and do it. That has been the original concept, but it was going to be quite problematic and I realised it was going to be harder again, to try and fundraise the amounts that we would need bearing in mind, lots of businesses had been through a very challenging time and the forecast was still going to be turbulent. 

👉🏾 So ultimately it was good because it gave us time to think and I was working with a professional fundraiser when she said, oh, you should look at this fantastic company in Cumbria, they work with ex-offenders and they provide training in order to be...

LinkedIn

How often have you complained about the homogeneity of panels at conferences; teams at client pitches; leadership teams in organisations? My personal experiences over the past decade have strengthened my belief that it is not just important to have representation, equally important is visibility. Visibility that can help to create recognition about diverse leadership and make it the norm rather than the exception. So, I committed to spotlighting and showcasing women leaders from across geographies, leaders who transcend barriers of race, ethnicity, religion, socio-economic, disability, neurodiversity on The Elephant in the Room podcast. And also explore the evolving definition and what it means to different people. 

Sophie Standke, International Diversity & Inclusion Lead, Beam Suntory is one such leader, passionate about helping create a more inclusive and equitable organisation. In this episode we spoke about 

👉🏾 About being stuck, lack of progress and the realisation that not everyone had access to the same opportunities

👉🏾 Recognition that there are different realities, being heard and being taken seriously

👉🏾 Strategies to dealing with the imposter syndrome, fitting in and the importance of values match

👉🏾 Passion and purpose, leadership mindset, changing the leadership paradigm 

👉🏾 Leading in a post pandemic world with flexibility and empathy

👉🏾 The importance of acknowledging the systemic barriers and meeting people where they are, rather than a one size fits all solution

👉🏾 Building an inclusive culture where everyone can thrive

“I think being genuinely valued and respected involves more than just being included or feel like you're fitting in. It really involves the power to help set the agenda to help make decisions on how and what work is being done and to have your interests being taken into account. And then in the end, being recognised, for your contributions and being given opportunities to advance. And that's when you see you're actually welcomed in an organisation.”

Who are the leaders you admire and would like to spotlight?

Shownotes

Memorable passages from the episode

👉🏾 Thank you so much. Thank you for inviting me Sudha, it's my pleasure and I'm very excited to be speaking with you today. 

👉🏾 Well, I grew up in Germany and in East Berlin. So growing up, I always felt a sense of division actually in my own country and even felt that after the wall came down. I always was curious though about what was happening outside of Germany, what was happening in the world. Because I never felt a true sense of belonging, I always felt a bit different.

👉🏾 For example, I don't really identify myself or limit myself to just one country; instead, I'm more curious about what can I learn from other cultures. So for me, it was very clear actually at a very early age that I wanted to have a deeper experience and enjoy the complexities of life that you get from other countries and other cultures. And I had the opportunity to attend an international school in Germany, where classes were taught in English and where I met many students from around the world. And then right after school, right after I passed my A-levels, I actually spent seven months in France where I worked at the bar and I learned French and it was the first time I worked and lived and surrounded by a different language. And I really had one of my most enriching moments there, I have to say. I then came back to Germany and I went on to study languages and business administration, not really knowing what I wanted to do, but I was always guided by my curiosity to experience different cultures.

👉🏾 So what I did, I applied for many different jobs all over the world, and I finally got the opportunity to go to London, where I then started my career in FMCG marketing. And then five years ago, I joined in London, also Beam Suntory, which is a global premium spirits company. I joined them in the marketing department, and then three years ago, I moved to Madrid with Beam Suntory to the European head office. So yeah, that is pretty much my journey so far. 

👉🏾 Exactly. Now I'm leading Diversity, Equity & Inclusion for Beam Suntory international and well I have to tell you, I've never planned to become a DE & I professional. In fact, when I started my career, I didn't even know that it was a job and I also didn't even know that one day I would care so deeply about it, right? So what happened was that three years ago, Beam Suntory was looking for D&I volunteers, to really build out the foundations of their D&I journey. And also first of all create awareness for their D&I efforts and their ambitions. And at the time I was sort of not really knowing a lot about D&I, but it really resonated with me because I was at the point in my career where I was sort of stuck. I didn't really progress and at the same time I noticed that not everyone had the same opportunities, but that certain people clearly benefited differently from resources, promotion opportunities or development opportunities, while others really didn't in the same way and I wasn't really sure why I didn't know why. So I put my hand up for leading the first women in leadership employee group and I started to speak and connect with many women in the business and it turned out that we all had a very similar experience and that we all faced very similar feelings in terms of the barriers that we faced.

👉🏾 So I started to run a really in-depth gender assessment to make those challenges that women faced real and to put almost an insight on it versus just a feeling, if that makes sense. And that's when I again quickly realised that there are systemic barriers in place in organisations that affect any minority group, not just women. So I really wanted to contribute my time to help with an equitable organisation on all levels beyond gender and that's really the point when I decided that I wanted to change my career from marketing to become a full-time D&I professional. And it has been, not easy I have to say, now when I talk about it, it sounds like an easy journey. But it took a lot of reflection, a lot of speaking to a lot of different people, but in the end, I'm very lucky that Beam career transition, so to speak, happen for me and that they gave me the opportunity to lead D&I internationally. So that's how it came about. 

👉🏾 Great question. Well, so first of all Sudha, I have to say, I guess I'm a bit of a work in progress and I do still face many challenges, right? As well as opportunities to learn and progress from, obviously. But one of the barriers I faced was the barrier to progress really, which showed up in a way that the path to progression was not transparent to me and that opportunities for progression were also not shared with everybody. So again, that's when I realised that there are people that are favoured over others and that there are different rules and resources for different people and that there are also unsaid rules that not everybody learns. And so many of us might agree that all humans are equal and should have the same opportunities, yet we can't, or we don't see the obstacles that others face because it doesn't really happen to everyone. Which leads me to another challenge that I faced, which is to speak up openly about those challenges that I faced, but also to give a voice to the barriers that other employees faced, which is now part of the role I am in now. 

👉🏾 And here actually the challenge was not to speak up, but the challenge was to be heard, to be understood and to be taken seriously by people of privilege, that don't even understand because they benefit from the way things are done. And the way things are done, is normal or it's seen as normal. So realities are very different for people, and I guess what I'm trying to say is that organisations need to be ready to hear different realities and people who speak up, like this example, like for me. I was always very open and I probably burned a few bridges here and there, and the people who speak up also need to be mindful of when they craft their message, where is the organisations at, because it can backfire, and that is definitely something that also happened to me. So I guess now part of my D&I journey and also part of my job obviously, is to make sure that we set the rules and conditions that work for everybody, not only for a few. But also to make sure that the systemic barriers are visible, that they are seen as real problems to overcome versus isolated incidences. 

👉🏾 Yes, of course, I have, as you say I think it's a very human emotion, I think everybody has probably felt this at some point in their lives. This feeling of...... like we're not good enough or we lack confidence and I think it's a very common feeling first of all, in men and women. And imposter also can show up in different intensity levels, from feeling almost incapable or feeling like a fraud in your job to just feeling a lack of confidence in certain situations. And I definitely had experiences of not feeling good enough, for example, when I moved into D&I without any background of HR. So that said, I think it's important to always reflect and understand why do those feelings occur and then replace them with a motivating or positive thought so I always approach this with a growth mindset and also with my individual journey, because everybody has their own individual journey and we're never perfect.

👉🏾 And it doesn't make sense to also compare yourself to others. So I also always go by the mantra, feel the fear or feel the emotion, but do it anyway and continuously expose yourself to those situations that you might feel uncomfortable about. Because for me, that has been the only way to really learn and grow and also learn to understand that I can do it.

👉🏾 So this feeling of, oh maybe I can't, turns into something I can. So I think imposter is probably something that everybody has, and it's not just one thing. It probably happens over course of life, it comes up in different phases and it's easier said than done to navigate this. But I think I see it as a daily practice, I do really take care of what do I think, what are my thoughts and what do I choose to think daily, and how do I let emotions affect me. So, it’s like a daily practice to manage this, but I think it becomes a problem if imposter hinders your progression. 

👉🏾 Yeah well I have to say no, I didn't feel pressure to fit in and the reason is pretty much because I'm very comfortable and confident about who I am and the value I bring. However, I do feel or sense when I don't fit in, obviously. It's a very uncomfortable feeling. And I also think that fitting in again, is a spectrum from feeling slightly different or excluded and again maybe certain moments, or in situations where you feel like you're truly excluded, you're like constantly feeling a mismatch with your values. And in my view, it becomes a challenge when there's no room for difference, when there is no room to show up in the way we want to show up and to be welcomed in this way. 

👉🏾 So I think organisations that adopt an attitude of learning and openness and willingness to consider and implement the ideas of others, or just take on board the way they are. And this will really enable them and enable their workforce, but also retain their workforce and just make them more happier and more engaged and that is what research shows. And I think being genuinely valued and respected involves more than just being included or feel like you're fitting in. It really involves the power to help set the agenda to help make decisions on how and what work is being done and to have your interests being taken into account. And then in the end, being recognised, for your contributions and being given opportunities to advance. And that's when you see you're actually welcomed in an organisation. So I think those moments of not fitting in do exist, like the moments of imposter. But if it becomes really a permanent feeling that affects your wellbeing, then I think everybody needs to think about whether they're in your right space. 

👉🏾 Yes, I did. I think I probably had many mistakes because I'm also very critical of myself. I think I alluded to this in my earlier response in terms of speaking up. So I consider myself to be the voice of the employees and I feel very okay speaking up about things that people perceive and be a voice for them. And what happened is that I probably chose times, when I spoke up, but not in a right way, using the right words, bringing people properly on the journey, knowing the people I talk to, right? Knowing your audience. So I think that goes back to the learning around, first of all, building your relationships and thinking about how, if you have a crucial conversation, or if you have things that you want to talk about, that are not easy, that might create contradiction or conflict, you need to prepare. And I think I was a bit, maybe naive, rushing in there, believing in good intent, believing, oh, everybody will just feel like I did or I do. So that was probably one of my biggest learnings. I think it was good mistakes, cause you only learn through that. 

👉🏾 Yes, I do. I really think the beauty of humanity lies in the complexity and diversity of all of us and I do believe that everybody has their own personal path in this world and with that a unique purpose to fulfil. In my experience, a personal purpose cannot always be identified intellectually necessarily, it really comes from the heart and it's something that we deeply care about, which is intertwined with our values. So for example, I found my personal purpose really with the D&I work but it started as a passion project until I realised it is linked to my values. And until I realised I really deeply care about it and I want to build up expertise, and that I also really enjoyed the work and its challenges, obviously. We just spoke about a few of them. But that said not every passion for example is our purpose, that's why we need to differentiate, and passions sometimes can be a good indication as to where does your energy lead you, but we have many passions, but not everything is our purpose. 

👉🏾 Leadership to me is, first and foremost, a mindset, which is then reflected in our daily behaviours and which then also has an impact, a meaningful impact, ideally on the people around you and the businesses. I think about leadership by asking myself three questions, maybe to help; so first of all, do we create opportunities or do we wait for direction? Are we part of the solution or are we part of the problem? Do we have a growth mindset to continuously learn, reflect, and most importantly, support others in the way they want to be supported and include everybody? Do we create safe spaces, or do we lead by fear? And I think great leadership, if those questions are answered in the right way, can be really an engine for doing great things, for unlocking opportunities and potential in people, in businesses. And really can be a force for good that can steer and motivate teams towards like a common goal and this can be big or small, and everybody can be a leader because it's a mindset, it is not a role, it's a mindset. And I think the final thing there, I want to say because we're also having a D&I conversation is that, great leaders come in different shapes and forms. They come from different backgrounds and organisations can move from homogeneous leadership to more diverse leadership, which will take time and preparation and safe spaces. But leadership really shows up and comes in all shapes and forms. 

👉🏾 Great question, in my personal view right now, I think the two main ingredients are flexibility and empathy. Flexibility in terms of how we lead people across all levels. So leading across geography really requires a great deal of empathy, understanding and awareness of how different cultures and teams prefer to interact.

👉🏾 So for example, Erin Myer's book which is called a Cultural Map, I don't know if you know this, is a great read to really educate yourself about the very different nuances and preferences. So leaders can really learn to flex their styles and lean into the situation and lean into the teams they're working with. And to me this is similar when it comes to hybrid working. So especially in the current pandemic and people coming back to work, research shows that men are more likely to return to their office, compared to women, obviously, because of their caregiving responsibilities mainly, so they prefer to work from home. And the other insight, which is interesting there, is that 64% of managers believe that office workers are higher performers than remote workers, which leads me to a very common bias, which is called proximity bias, right? Which is the idea, that employees with close physical proximity to their team or company leaders, would be perceived again, as better workers, as better performers, and this can lead to favouritism. So going back to flexibility, I really do believe that everybody, especially women, should be given the flexibility to work in a way that helps them to do their job the best possible way. And going back to flexibility, but also empathy, I think what is important is that managers have conversations with their teams, with their individual employees, and really try to understand what is it that they need, like ask and listen. Don't assume, what is it that they need in their work environment, in their personal life, what is going on for them, and then be really flexible to accommodate their needs.

👉🏾 And the insight here again is that organisations that offer employees this full-time flexibility over when, where, and how much they work. They actually see 55% of their workforce is high performers. So it's really moving to enablement, empowering people because every person knows best, what works best for them and having the trust. 

👉🏾 Yes. Well that's probably one of my favourite questions Sudha but I think going back to what we mentioned in the beginning, I think the first step to really enable women is to acknowledge that the barriers that women face are real. It's not isolated incidences; there is systemic bias, there is systemic barriers and research shows that those gender bias shows up in those critical moments, be it in promotion or hiring decisions, be it in talent reviews or those daily micro-moments. For example, who is being heard in meetings, whose contribution matters, who gets opportunities versus who doesn't. So that is really the most important step and...

Shownotes

It is the holy month of Ramadan (Ramazan) for millions of muslims across the world - a time of fasting, prayer and reflection. My memories of Ramadan(from India) are all about food (Iftar) and sweet sewai. Earlier this week I caught up Uzma Lodhi to hear her thoughts on Ramadan, what it means to her and how important it is for her personal identity, We also spoke about…..

👉🏾 Childhood memories of waking up for sehri with her siblings

👉🏾 The tendency to generalise, to treat communities as monoliths because it is easier to stereotype than not. 

👉🏾 Supportive managers and organisations

👉🏾 What organisations can do to support employees

👉🏾 What you should not be doing to create discomfort for your muslim colleagues

👉🏾 Some advise for those fasting for the first time at work

👉🏾 We also briefly touched on navigating Ramadan in a multi-faith household. 

For Uzma, Ramadan is an uplifting, joyous time about achieving her inner zen, reflection, gratitude, and clarity. Thank you Uzma for the conversation. 

What does Ramadan mean to you and what are your memories of it?  

Memorable passages from the episode: 

👉🏾 Very excited to be here. I'm director of internal comms that APCO worldwide, I've been here for three and a half years with a focus on employer brand strategy and we're at the beginning of Ramadan, so this is a great time to have this conversation. 

👉🏾 What does it mean to me? What does it mean to religion first? First of all, why do Muslims fast? They do it because it is one of the five pillars that Muslims follow. So within that, it's one of the five core pillars and it’s core to the identity of being a Muslim.

👉🏾 Why do I do it? I think I've been doing it since I was a child, but that's not the reason why I do it now. I do it now because it helps me achieve kind of mental clarity and practice humility on an everyday basis. This is a month where I push myself to have a moment of Zen and tranquillity and think about what's important and I think about how grateful I am for everything that I have, that I've achieved and how to help others at this time. Normally I'm very chatty and very loud but it actually for Ramadan it is a moment to kind of take a moment to stop and breathe and that's why I do it. It's a peaceful month and I look forward to it to help me achieve that level of peace I need. 

👉🏾 Absolutely, I have these great childhood memories and we could spend an entire kind of two-hour podcast just talking about childhood memories and how amazing Ramadan is. All of us waking up and all of us going down the stairs in our pyjamas at 3:00 AM at that point in the year when we were children doing the fasting. All of us there, my mom cooking breakfast for us and just all arguing, being tired with each other, but doing it because we know we're going to do it, you know, and then eating together when it's Iftar and it's just the most amazing.......... Which is what I aspire to, which is what I want our kids to have those kind of memories. And it's also kind of a form team building as kids, you go through it together. I loved it, it's such an amazing time. And even now at my age, I wake up and there's a group chat with our family and it's the only group chat you're going to have that's completely going full-on at 4:30 in the morning because they're the only people awake, they're the only people that know what you do eating breakfast and, it's perfect yeah I really enjoy it.

👉🏾 No, so experience in working organisations in the UK and in Belgium and I think I've been quite fortunate. I will say that I think I've been quite fortunate in the organisations I've worked in, where they've all shown quite a lot of respect and awareness. And if they haven't shown awareness it's because they purely don't know. So I've had to go in there and educate them and inform them of this has when Iftar is, this has when sehri is. I might be a bit tired in the mornings, but I'm fully committed to doing my role. I might not join a lunch meeting here or there, but that's okay.

👉🏾 And they've all been very supportive. I've been very lucky to have kind of managers I've had over the last 15, 18 years, doing what I do. So I don't have any complaints and I think in the role that I'm in right now and the company I'm in right now, where some of the offices have the room, like a space for you, a quiet space if a person needs it to go and say namaz, that's quite nice. And that's something we should be heading towards absolutely for all organisations, for there to be a safe space for any employee, for whatever reason for them to use it. I'm looking forward to how this evolves for all organisations and all businesses because Ramadan is one month, but there are other reasons why employers should have a safe space and a quiet room for employees to have that moment for themselves if they need it. 

👉🏾 I've got memories...... that may be just down to my personality, but I've got memories of me printing off the Ramadan time timetable and leaving it at my boss's desk going. This is what you need to know, I've highlighted these columns, this is when there'll be prayers. But I mean, that was 10, 12 years ago and I was a much younger person then. Yes, I personally do think I have a role in telling people this is what's happening, not just for myself, but for junior colleagues in the organisation as well, where you've said that they will probably not want to say anything for fear of upsetting that balance, it's that perception of, maybe they think I can't do my job if I'm fasting. They can absolutely do their job when they are fasting, it's a great time. 

👉🏾 You get clarity on you need to do and not worried about food or what's for lunch. I sometimes find it's even easier to work when I'm fasting, because I have a clear action and I become more focused. It's different for everyone, the whole thing about religion and fasting is very nuanced and your point in education, I know something we've done in our organisation this year, we sent out a one-pager on how to support colleagues, how to respect colleagues during Ramadan. Be aware of when Iftar is, when sehri is, if they've got prayers if your colleagues are observing prayers because it's nuanced some colleagues won't be saying all the prayers during the day, and how to support them. 

👉🏾 Do you know where the prayer room is or does your meeting clash with when they've got a personal appointment to do that? When they need to observe a particular ritual, have an awareness, it comes down to that and we've put together this guide that we've shared with leaders this last week to make sure they can help inform how they work with their colleagues and clients and partners. It's a one-step but it's the part of a process right, you have to educate and inform people so they can begin to make informed and educated choices. 

👉🏾 No, the term monolith is really interesting. Absolutely not, absolutely not. I don't think you could do it with any religion, as there have always been nuances in everybody's religion and how they interpret it. And, you know this is has really been driven by culture, tradition, family, who you surround yourself with; that might not be either cultural family, and what gets passed down to you. I got asked a few years ago, funny anecdote perhaps, I got asked during an interview process a few years ago, what is the Asian view on Brexit? And I just thought, how do you answer that? There are so many nuances to that that you could become flummoxed with just trying to think about how to layout the answer to that in a verbal conversation. 

👉🏾 So monolith religion, no absolutely not. I mean, this is a podcast, but I don't wear a hijab, but I do say my prayers during Ramadan, I do fast I take it seriously. I do take a moment to find, for want of a better word, my inner Zen to remind myself of how grateful I am and how thankful I am for everything that I have. I think there's a scale, right? And you just have to respect that everybody's on their own path when they do Ramadan when they follow a religion. I say there's definitely not textbook, there is a textbook and it is the Quran but people have to read it and see how it works for them in their everyday society as well. 

👉🏾 Absolutely, and it's also shaped by their own memories of how they interpret religion, how they interpret Ramadan. You know, I can talk about it from a personal perspective where you grow up and as a kid, you begin how we did it, we began with half-day fasting. It’s all about Eid the end of Ramadan and how you celebrate Eid and the gifts that you gave each other, and you get dressed in your....... I have a Pakistani background, so you dressed up in your Shalwar Kameez, and you go to the Mosque and you see your friends and family, and you have Indian sweets in the morning when you go for prayers. So it's whole thing, there's a whole social event that kids grow up getting excited about. 

👉🏾 And as you get older, you understand the spiritual element of it and you do it for the full day and you understand what it brings you. So there's like a learning culture, so I have learned it definitely as to, if somebody else had joined the religion halfway through their life, they've taken it very literally. So no monolith, absolutely not. They're doing for the same reasons, but how they interpret it, the nuances about whether they say prayers, how they celebrate it, how they eat, that can be very different. 

👉🏾 Yeah, it's a good question. I think it really comes down to there being two things; there being an awareness and there being a level of respect about the whole month. Awareness about what times your colleagues might be praying or might need to take some time out, even just for rest, it doesn't have to be a religious ritual they need to do. They might need to take time to rest because it is a long day in some of the markets that you might work with. On the other side, if you're doing kind of face-to-face meetings, try to stay clear of having a food component to it, or making sure they're involved in the non-food component part of it to make sure you respect what they're going through at that time. If you're working with colleagues in different times zones, make sure you remember what time they're Sehri and Ifthaar times are, so Sehri is the time they stop eating in the morning and Iftar is the time that they break fast in the evening. Have an awareness of what those times are, so you can give them space on either side of that time to prepare their food and to eat it and say prayers, and around those times. 

👉🏾 In terms of what not to do. Don't ignore it, it's a big part of your colleagues, if they invest their time into this, don't ignore it. I think that's the level of disrespect, I mean you can do lots of horrible things. But actually don't ignore it be aware that it's happening, show respect, and ask if they are okay, ask if they need something to be changed within their own working schedule. If you manage people, be aware that Eid is going to happen at the end of the month and we'll get a couple of people taking time off. And also be aware that the day of Eid is never really confirmed until maybe the day before.

👉🏾 So if you always find, oh why is my colleague taking time off and I didn't even know about it until now? It's because we don't know, we know the day before because we have a lunar calendar and our times are adjusted and we find out when it's the right time based on the moon. That's what I think as the dos and don'ts. Be aware, show respect, show awareness, learn, inform yourself, educate yourself.

👉🏾 Well, it's been a while since I first started fasting at work, but I would say if it's the first time don't push yourself, absolutely schedule time for yourself, you have your own calendar, scheduled time for when you need time just to sit down and breathe, close your eyes for 10,15 minutes somewhere. I think power naps if it's your first time and you're in a work environment. Talk to your boss, explain that this is the first time, and I don't know how my body's going to react while working full time. Have the open dialogue, don't be afraid to have open dialogue with your bosses, and say I'm going through this and I want to do the best job I possibly can, help me get there, help me get to that goal and while respecting my process of how I'm doing things. Absolutely make it a two way conversation and don't be afraid to. The first few days of the hardest, so take that into account and look after yourself when you do it. And enjoy it, also enjoy it, I forgot to say that because I do have fun doing this. Have fun doing it, but look after yourself. 

👉🏾 Don't be weird about it. Do we ask them a question? Yes, you can ask them the question. The question is advice from non-fasting colleagues, if you don't know, ask, but like check the comfort levels of your colleagues, does this interrupt anything you're doing, when is your Iftar? If you don't know when, your colleague’s Iftar is you have to ask, because you know, you're gonna sit there and be awkward as well and it's going to be an awkward conversation until you have it. It's different for every office, is different for every, I say office because it's where I work, but it's different in every market, in every country, the timings are a bit different. So don't be weird, do just five minutes of research, that's what's there, that's what Google is there for. And get involved, in the office, I work in at the end of the month, we'll have like an Eid lunch to bring everybody back in and see colleagues and have amazing food that's quite nice. Think about how you can help celebrate the end of the month, think about how you can help support your colleagues when they have Ifthaar in the evening, they like to talk about it, they go through a lot, it's worth connecting with them.

👉🏾 Absolutely, have the conversation, that's my one tip, always be open in your communication talk to them. If you want to learn about it, learn about it, absolutely. 

👉🏾 Yeah, that's a good question. So I'm Pakistani Muslim, for myself and my partner is agnostic, but he has a Hindu heritage, and we have many conversations. I think, at the beginning of our relationship about how do we find our own path. And it's really about open communication about what are we comfortable with? Where's the middle point? And it's open communication about finding the right path, I mean I fast every day and I have a prayer mat and everything in the house. And you know, for the first Iftar of this month for this year, his parents made food for Iftar, and it was quite lovely because we're bringing together different culture’s food, it was really lovely. I'm not saying it always works, because we will have moments of, oh, wait a minute is that.....? Oh, you're doing that, okay, I don't believe that. And there are those odd moments, but we always made a promise that we'll talk to each other and just see what the comfort levels are and how far we go with things. 

👉🏾 I will say it's really interesting to learn about different culture and now it's being integrated into my life. Balancing a mixed culture, mixed ethnicity, both cultures are very family driven, very family orientated and we always focus on what is the same in both, and that's what drives us forward. For the elements that are different, it's a conversation, it's always an open conversation to find our way forward.

👉🏾 Absolute pleasure. Thank you for asking.

Important Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/uzmalodhi/?originalSubdomain=uk

Twitter: @nandosgirl

https://bmeprpros.co.uk/the-xec-tutors/uzma-lodhi-senior-associate-director-global-internal-communications-european-marketing-lead-apco-worldwide/

https://bmeprpros.co.uk/the-xec-tutors/

Shownotes:

Becky Cho, Head of Corporate Affairs at VFC, APAC is my guest on of The Elephant in the Room podcast this week. Becky has lived and worked across countries and continents and did not take the traditional route into PR. Interestingly she was an art agent before moving to Leo Burnett and then taking on her first role in corporate affairs at Philip Morris in Taiwan. 

In the episode Becky speaks about her own journey, cross cultural influences, transferable skills, the barriers she faced while navigating her career, being a disruptor and good trouble maker, leadership, role models, transformational trends for our industry, employee engagement and skills for the future. 

We also spoke about the importance of work life balance, micromanagement, over communications and the importance taking charge to craft your own path, being fearless and not being afraid to fail.

As Becky said, ‘we are not brought up to fight, we are brought up to share, to comply and follow the rules. So, figure out a way to accept yourself so that you are not constantly exhausted from trying to be everything. As leaders we need to take the liberty to do basic things for ourselves, like just turning off your phone for the day. Sometimes the most mundane things but hard to do.’ 

Memorable Passages from the podcast: 

👉🏾 Thank you, it's really a pleasure to meet you again. It's been a long time and with the COVID world. I cannot tell you what a great surprise when I hear you reaching out because in the corporate world, we really have to do that. Otherwise we don't really get an opportunity to meet each other and it brings us closer if we can meet virtually. So thank you for the opportunity.

👉🏾 Yes, of course. So I have a really interesting, I would say cross-cultural background, so if I'm changing geography, as I'm speaking and making reference to location, please bear with me. I was born in Hong Kong, I left Hong Kong as a teenager and moved to Canada where I continued my education and do my college and university, and actually subsequently I immigrated to Canada.

👉🏾 So I think from an educational point of view, I am raised as a Hong Kong student, British education, I read and write Chinese, completely bilingual. So that gave me a really solid background on culture of my own nationality. But Canada really opened my eyes, I think the East and West was a really good mix for me and it really also opened up a perspective for me later in my career. I wouldn't say skill because I think we all can do and learn skills from different parts of the world, and especially with inclusion, diversity, being such a key focus these days for corporations, I couldn't say more about the mix of Eastern Western in my early education.

👉🏾 Sometimes when are talking about inclusion and diversity, that I would participate in like say the Western part of the world, I feel that having that background, that culture really provide the foundation for a lot of the discussion that's not otherwise available to my Western colleagues. 

👉🏾 Yeah, so I think long story short is, I did stumble into many different areas before I come into public relations. I'm not your traditional business school, studying communication, become a journalist and then turn it into PR. That's not the traditional journey. I took a completely unconventional one.

👉🏾 Early in my career, I was actually an art agent, so I guess half of my career is in the arts. And when you in the arts, one very common phenomenon is, you're dealing with a lot of starving artists. And the arts are always fundraising because art itself, it's an industry that needs a lot of support, public sector and, in the private sector, it's so competitive. By nature, I love the arts, so that's a passion I have, I met a whole bunch of artists in my life and I felt like, okay, I can do some PR around it. So that's where I started and in fact, my own sister is an artist herself.

👉🏾 She graduated from college, she had alot of really great painting and I looked at it and I said, well I'm going to market them. So I was very entrepreneurial in my first couple of years in my career and then as I become an agent, I met a lot of advertising people, because they are always looking for art pieces. And so with advertising then I built an agency background where I know about corporations, building reputations through creative elements as well as, quote and unquote, public relations. So I become more of a storyteller at that point using the art language quite a bit, so I also write commentary on photography. So that's how I kind of sharpened my pencil on the public relations skills earlier in my career, but not in a traditional way. So I become a photographer, I was writing for photo journals and then I was also promoting the arts with advertising agency. So all of that was my early career.

👉🏾 And then one day I got a call from one of my client in advertising and that's Phillip Morris. So I was working for Leo Burnett at the time, so Phillip Morris is a long-term client for Leo Burnett. And so what happened is that they said, look I worked with you, I saw your skills, we have an opening in the corporate affairs department and I think you might be suitable for the job.

👉🏾 And so they opened the door for me, out of completely trusting on skills that are transferable, which I think later on, we can definitely talk about it. Having someone who has that vision and believing in me and just inviting me to the job and I got the job, so that's how I stepped into corporate affairs and public relations on the corporate side.

👉🏾 No, it's already my fourth year, so how time flies, right? Yeah, the project we worked on was three years ago and this is my fourth year in VF. So VF corporations have headquarters in Denver, and we own about 12 brands and some of them names that you would be familiar with, the Northface, Timberland.

👉🏾 So they've never really had an Asia Pacific corporate affairs function before I joined. So I was invited to join them. I was working for Adidas at the time, same function, same position and they were looking for someone who had apparel industry experience, but could kind of lead the function in Asia. So I took the job at and joined them in Hong Kong and since then our headquarters for the region have also moved to Singapore and Shanghai. So I'm currently based in Shanghai. 

👉🏾 Yeah, for a period of time when I was working for Leo Burnett, I was in Chicago. I was raising a son, he was two years old, I was a young mother. Advertising is always long hours as well, but when I go to the US I felt like, wow, what an eye-opener, I can shut down my laptop and be home by 5:00 PM.

👉🏾 And whereas, throughout my early career in advertising, it's like, you don't get a break. I mean, you're always switched on, you have pre-production meeting at midnight with some producer in Melbourne, like those crazy hours that we work in. So I know where your question comes from but I think things have changed. Things have changed because I think lifestyle requirement and the societal expectation has improved. I have to say that more empathy about young mother, about situations where when you have an elderly person at home that you need to attend to, if you do voice that out, if you do actually announce it, among your team, whether it's to your superior or to the peers, people understand. I do feel that Asia has stepped up to that kind of empathy.

👉🏾 However, what Asia hasn't stepped up is that always drive for performance right? So you have one side, more humane, more understanding requirement to your associates or your colleague's wellbeing, but on the other hand, the hours are still long and it's never switched off. I mean, the crazy thing, Sudha I wanted to share with you in China that I completely try to avoid is that we set up these Wechat, which is similar to your WhatsApp as well. But then these Wechat group in China are famous, famous for setting up one for maybe this project, that one for other projects. But in fact, those projects also overlap so just like the old days when you're getting 10 emails on the same thing, but now it's not just on the email, it's also on your phone, which you know, is like ding ding ding constantly.

👉🏾 So I have to say I do not and I despise behaviour that are over management, over communication and micromanagement. I think those are definitely toxic and not effective, in fact they are the most ineffective way to communicate. As a communicator, I think we should do better. Maybe our peers might not be experts in communicating, then we have to tell them.

👉🏾 So in my career, when you asked me, how do I balance the agenda when the work-life balance is so off, but then I'm also a mother I also have family to take care of. I have been quite vocal about encouraging both my team member, myself and anybody that I work with, to take the driver seats and take care of your own wellbeing first. So how that scenario, and that metaphor that when you go on an airplane, the safety video always says to you, put on your own oxygen mask before you help another person. That's the learning I've always had about work-life balance, is that if you did not have that oxygen mask, you're never going to be an effective employee or be able to help another person.

👉🏾 So I hope that's shared some insight, I just feel that you just have to seek every opportunity to voice the well-being concern, not just for yourself, sometimes it's on behalf of somebody else that you learn about. I'm a nosy person, I'm very disruptive, so probably causing me more trouble than I should, but I also look at it as a way to help myself out. 

👉🏾 Yeah. I think those data and also those analytics, I'm also involved in the women council for APAC. I often have to participate in those discussions, so I'm very close, to those data. And as I said in the PR world inclusion and diversity, such a big part. Remember in the old days, there's probably several buckets; one bucket is probably purpose, which is how do you contribute to the community, work on that, another bucket is your performance, right? Which is leading the business and then another bucket is probably green sustainability, doing good for the planet. But now I have a fourth bucket, which we called inclusion and diversity in culture. 

👉🏾 So going back to your point about, leadership proportion between gender, I've looked at a lot of data, but the data actually tells me that those balance, whether it's proportional or in proportional, varies. I think I've been very, very fortunate to be in a lot of industries that have a really good balance, in fact at VF our APAC women leadership is 50% so it's like really, really high but that doesn't mean the world is the same. So I think your question is more towards, in every sort of sector or in society that we work in, how do we advance women inclusion in diversity? 

👉🏾 I think the most successful women that I know craft their own path. Well, first of all you have to have that fearlessness to be not afraid to fail, and to have friends who are in your corner and walk through open doors and then help you to create that personal space. And back to taking the driver's seats, being on the agenda; now it's easier said and done when you are higher up in the hierarchy than lower down. But I've also seen examples of managers just mid-level positions, but they are empowering other women and they are setting up examples of what I was referring to. Crafting your own path is probably something you have to remember, even if the win is very small. So if there's lower hanging fruit that you can grab onto try those because it's a muscle you have to flex and you always have to remember.

👉🏾 The biggest challenge in my career ironically, has nothing to do with convincing and influencing stakeholders of the organisation or the industry or the geography, that are new to my background. So for instance, I hop on a flight and move my family to Chicago and I have to be managing a team there. And I wasn't in the states, I mean I have education in Canada, but United States is new to me, so I took the challenge and I did that with no prior background. So it has not been challenging because of that. The challenge often comes from my own environment actually. So I remember I moved to Chicago and then I moved back to Taipei and then subsequently to Hong Kong.

👉🏾 And that's when people who are kind of nearest to you and your culture have a kind of preconceived bias or conventional thinking that is hard to break in. I think those are toxic. Someone who is not willing to offer an open door for new thoughts to come in, I've always been a believer of disruption. I want to be a disruptor, but it may not happen too often in your career that you can do that, it might not be available to you, even if you want. So my mantra has always been that, it is our obligation as a leader, or parents sometimes, you know, parenthood, leadership, same thing. I think we should make trouble, the type of trouble that leaves your kids better, that leaves the room that we are in, elevated and the types that let us be proud of ourselves. 

👉🏾 I'm going to turn a little philosophical if you don't mind, it's not going to be something that's about skills. So I think leadership, is to understand that power is only positional, but influence is personal. So in my career, I exercise a lot of weather trying to build influence within the community that I work with or help other build influence. So you either have to encourage someone and feed into that influence journey or you build your own influence that you could talk to others and other listen to you. Take, for example, a new CEO, right? There's particular power a CEO gaining when she move and pass on into whatever place she take. But influence on the other hand has a lot more to do with who we are than what our role and title is.

👉🏾 So I was referring to when you're more senior in the hierarchy, it's easier to influence. That's probably not the influence I'm referring to. I'm referring to the everyday influence, no matter how big or small, to build that and to arm yourself with that influence.

👉🏾 You have to, and this minority that we're talking about is not just women or gender, this minority we're talking about can be racial. This minority we're talking about can be societal classes, caste structure. So you just are hit in many different ways and you just have to be firm. If you are excluded, insulted, forgotten, or ignored by the people you give your time to you don't do yourself a favour by continuing to offer your energy in your life.

👉🏾 The truth is that we are not for everyone and not everyone is for you. So I think a lot of the times we have to think about these self-help strategy. When you're in a position that you're stuck, you feel that you are ignored, insulted. If it's available to you, be selective, right? I know sometimes society it's not even available to you, you're stuck. If available to you, be selective, protect your mind, protect your soul and seek your allies, right? So Sudha would be somebody I talk to and she would understand me, I'll give you a call and maybe seek your advice. So those self-help are so important, but you have to realise though, there are millions of people on this planet, and many of them will meet you at your own level and interest and commitment.

👉🏾 Yeah, it's a comfort zone, it's a fear factor, it is how we were brought up. We don't brought up to fight, we're brought up to say, we share, we comply, we follow the rules. But you know self-care is often a very beautiful thing too, like you need to sweat through another workout, that's not what you like to do, but it is self-care, right? And tell a toxic friend that I don't want to see you anymore, that's hard, or figure out a way to accept yourself so that you are not constantly exhausted from trying to be everything. So we as achiever as leaders, in our job; we always want to do that and all the time needing to take the liberty to do the basic things, like even turn off your phone for the day. Those things we need to kind of constantly remind ourselves, but they are not beautiful. They sometimes are the most mundane and maybe even hard to do. 

👉🏾 Yeah, role model is a very interesting phenomenon and I have exercised either as beneficior or as someone telling me that, Hey I love to learn from you. So I'm currently a mentor for a couple of women in the organisation and it's a free matching. It wasn't really a requirement, but I love to do it and I would continue to do it as long as there was a need. But throughout my career, especially when I was a younger self, I often seek those mentorship experience as much as I can. So you asked me whether I have a role model, so like many of us, I get inspiration from great leaders of all time, you often see inspirational speeches such as Maya Angelou, such as Martin Luther King, such as Judge Ginsberg. So you do hear and inspired by these great leaders, but what really have been my true role model throughout my career are really ordinary people.

👉🏾 These are just managers I happened to bump into, mothers that I met at schools, grandmother's, students, or maybe just caretaker that I happen to meet. They inspire me, I love to learn from their simple but powerful attitude. So usually these role model possess, a very powerful attitude and often victories, big or small, that everyday life role model may win, that victory could be just getting this old lady into the building herself without walking sticks or wheelchair because we want to encourage her to use her muscles. Something like that, when I watch it, when I see it, they have real inspiration for me because they're so humble 

👉🏾 Because they are more approachable and they relate to your everyday life more. So then the learning becomes more real. Of course, I admire my big leaders and historical politicians and philosophers and whatnot, but I still feel that being simple, being, the daily powerful examples, they are really my role models. 

👉🏾 Well yeah, I thought about this question. It's a big topic and I don't want to go into too much details on the specific on the technology side of it, I wanted to go into sort of more the holistic strategy. The greatest transformation is very basic. It's basically, I think the way we communicate, right? The 21st century of communication is completely different from how we were used to and how we were brought up. It's faster, it's...