Carla Miller 00:00
Welcome to the influence and impact podcast for female leaders.

My name is Carla Miller, and I'm a leadership coach who helps female leaders to tackle self doubt, become brilliant at influencing and make more impact at work. I've created this podcast to help you to become a more inspiring and impactful leader. We'll be talking about all the different topics that affect you as a woman leading today. Think of it as personal development meets professional development. And I want to become the leadership BFF you didn't know you were missing until now.

Carla Miller 00:41
Welcome to this episode of the influence and impact podcast where I'm speaking to my guest, Marie Hemingway, founder of speak out revolution, about harassment and bullying. Something that many of the women I worked with have experienced at some point worked. I mean, I think it's almost impossible to find a culture where it doesn't exist at some level. And so it's really, really interesting to hear about speak out revolution data driven approach to this, I found I learned a lot from Marie and I've got a lot of admiration for what speak out revolution is doing.

So speak at revolution is a not for profit, founded in 2020 with a mission to cancel the culture of silence on harassment and bullying in our workplaces. They believe that everyone who's subjected to these behaviours at work should be empowered to speak out and have their complaints taken seriously addressed rapidly and resolved appropriately. And their mission is to cancel that culture of silence on harassment and bullying in workplaces in the UK. Now a little bit about my guest, Laurie.

So Maria is the founder and CTO, CIO, Chief Technology Officer of speak out revolution. She is a strategy consultant helping businesses transform their people processes and technology to drive positive business outcomes with expertise in strategic investment decision making digital transformation and organisational change. And she does that alongside her work at speakout revolution, where he is a board member for the women's infrastructure network focused on expanding the network outside of London, creating cross sector opportunities for women to network exchange ideas, and help shape the infrastructure agenda.

Marie leads on key technology and dashboard partnerships, speak out Academy and product development. And if you are looking for a data partner to drive insight driven change within your organisation, or want to learn more about what speakout offers the Marie is the person to talk to. I found this episode. super interesting. Like I said, I think you will do too. And I would really encourage you to go and check out the resources that Marie and the rest of the team at Speak Out revolution.

Carla Miller 03:04
Marie, welcome to the podcast. How you doing today?

Marie Hemingway 03:10
I thank you very much. I'm good. Thank you. I'm, I think a little bit sick from my three-year-old as I mentioned earlier, that I'm gonna try my best to fully commit to this.

Carla Miller 03:26
Excellent, yeah, Marie is actually in her bed. But she tells me she works regularly. So I didn't give her every chance to reschedule. But I'm super excited to have this conversation because it's a topic I am keen to learn more about. It obviously crosses over a lot with the work that I do. So do you want to start by telling us a little bit about speakout revolution and how what your personal mission is to do with that basically?

Marie Hemingway 03:49
Yeah, absolutely. So speak at revolution is an award winning, we went one award so I literally I milk it so badly, and award winning nonprofit on a mission to cancel the culture of silence on workplace harassment and bullying. And we have a really, I would say simplistic approach to that we host a global survey called the Speak Out survey, which anyone in the world can access to document their experience of workplace harassment and bullying, the actions that they took to resolve their situation and the outcomes that they achieved. We then gather the data from across the globe and present it open source so that people like me and you or people who have influenced within organisations like hey, HR professionals or EDNI professionals can really understand what are the challenges that exist within my sector. And therefore what programmes do I need to put in place to mitigate those incidences of non inclusive behaviours so that we can create truly inclusive workplaces? So that's a little bit about speak out revolution. I have It's not even recent. Now I've been in the role for quite a while. So, I'm one of the founders, along with Francis Holmes, my amazing colleague and friend, and I'm the Chief Technology Officer. So I'm responsible for, or what I like to be responsible for is our global insights, how we gather more insights and how we drive impact through those insights so that individuals and organisations can take action that will actually help people on the ground,

Carla Miller 05:26
You talked about cancelling this culture of silence. Tell us more about that. How do you know there's a culture of silence?

Marie Hemingway 05:33
Well, that's a really good question. Speak Out revolution, we essentially started because I was doing lots of work to understand why there was no women in many of the rooms that I was working in, especially as I became more more senior within my roles and organisations. So my background is in STEM. So we have a systemic under representation of women anyhow. But as I was, I was doing more work to understand where all of the women were, I was having conversations through my board role with the women's infrastructure network and talking to women. And I was hearing quite consistently these official reasons for why women were leaving the sector or changing roles or taking a step back. But when you kind of really drilled into the unofficial reasons, there was always something around unfair treatment, non inclusive behaviour, harassment, bullying, discrimination. And, and I became interested in it and I started to write more about it. And I wrote, As I wrote more about it, more women spoke to me about it. And we essentially started to see this pattern of just this very hidden problem that exists when it comes to it's not even women, just everybody advancing in the workplace if you do not fit the majority culture.

And then I'm a scientist, Fran’s, a mathematician, we started to say, let's just gather data on it, which is essentially how the speak out survey was founded. And I guess the data that we've gathered, that really speaks to the site, the problem of silence, the culture of silence is, we see something like 66% of people who experience workplace harassment and bullying will never report to their organisations, so that the majority of the problem organisations are unaware of. So and there are legitimate reasons or warranted reasons why people will not come forward and say, hey, I've got a problem here. And then what we also see is when people do come forward, there is a misuse, in my opinion, and in many people's opinions, that it's a misuse of non disclosure agreements. So when people come forward and say, I've got a problem with workplace harassment and bullying, we're seeing something like one in four people who formally report that organisations will have their experiences silenced such that they can't talk about them after the fact.

Carla Miller 08:05
So those that are listening who don't know what an NDA is, can you explain how maybe how they were meant to be used originally and how they're being used now or overused now?

Marie Hemingway 08:17
Absolutely. So I'm gonna put a caveat on I am not a legal professional and I, I do not care much for the law. I think it's very complicated, and just basically keeps lawyers in jobs. So a nondisclosure agreement also, that it can also be referred to as a confidentiality clause or a disparagement agreement. There are various ways that you can refer to it, but the the goal of that thing is the same. They were originally intended to protect intellectual property of organisations.

So essentially, if I worked for Google, say, I can't go and work for another organisation and use the information that I've learned from that organisation to benefit another. What has come into common practice in the last 10 years is that those agreements or clauses are being used within disputes between individuals and organisations where workplace harassment and bullying which can include sexual harassment as well, has not been resolved well, and an individual is being forced for mental or physical health reasons to exit their job. And what typically happens is companies will say, that's fine, we will pay you a settlement in recognition of the fact that you've had a bad experience and that you're going to lose income, or whatever the surrounding reasons. But we're going to put a clause in there that says, You can't talk about this with anyone. And so an individual has the trauma of having a terrible experience trying to resolve it and it being badly handled, and then they are gagged such that they can't tell their next employer why they have a gap in employment. They can't talk about the experience with friends and so it's almost an additional layer of trauma. And that's what I hear from from men and women who have signed NDA is that I speak to, through my work at speak out.

Carla Miller 10:07
It's really interesting, because I don't know about now. But certainly, that 10 years ago, when I was managing and leading teams will be more than 10 years ago. When I'm thinking now that I was managing leading teams, but that an HR professional told me, this is what you should use, and it wasn't a bullying and harassment situation, but it was a how do you manage someone out of this organisation? situation? Yeah. And then, and it was recommended, and I did what was recommended. But it's really interesting to see that obviously, what it does is it stops you going through the more formal processes that are put in place to protect the employees. Yes, instead is a shortcut for employers, which is going to be misused and abused, isn't it?

Marie Hemingway 10:51
Absolutely. And I think as well, it's just like, you can see the drivers behind it, right? The people that sit in the legal departments of organisations, their role is to protect the organisation. So all they're doing is their job well, and really, it would take a lot for an organisation, but you know, to have to be an incredibly ethical organisation to say, hey, we're not going to do this anymore. I think change has to come at it legislate within legislation, from government to say, actually, as a country, if we want to create workplaces that have true equality, we can't just keep silencing people that have problems, because then we'll never understand what the problem looks like.

Carla Miller 11:32
My understanding is that it seems to be women of colour that are given or that sign NDAs more often, is that right?

Marie Hemingway 11:40
Yeah. So one thing that we're seeing in our data is that when we when we cut our data, by who is it that actually signs NDAs, and we compare genders ethnicities, a real stand out, insight that I talk about a lot is this big discrepancy between the percentage of black women who will end up signing NDAs. And I think we're seeing in our early insights, it's three times more likely that a black woman will sign an NDA versus an equivalent white counterpart, which is obviously incredibly concerning, and worrying because this is happening without anybody being aware of it. And so again, another reason why we want to change legislation on non disclosure agreements. I've

Carla Miller 12:29
just been reading the anti racist organisation by Shareen Daniels, which is a brilliant book. And one of the things I picked up from following her and others on LinkedIn, but also reading that book is just how often when racism is reported in the workplace, and microaggressions, or more blatant racism, then HR deny that it exists and provide another explanation and talk about good intentions and effective gaslighting very clearly gaslighting, and the fact that most HR managers are white women, there's just seems to be a real education piece needed there, in particular, because that HR is meant to be the safe space, isn't it? But if you're not educated as to the unconscious bias you might hold as an HR manager, then you can't provide that safe space.

Marie Hemingway 13:20
Yeah, so I think there's a few interesting things that jumped out to me while you're describing that, and maybe if I just linger on the, the textbook definition of bullying for a second. So you talked about how, when inappropriate behaviour is is reported, people talk about, you know, assume good intent, or or something around that topic, the intent of the person that perpetrates a behaviour that makes someone feel upset, embarrassed. Humiliated is irrelevant. It's when we when we think about bullying, and I think this is the biggest shift we need in mindset, we need to think about the impact on the target, because and I think a good example, actually is, you know, if somebody accidentally punches you in the face, it still hurts, right? Even if they do it, you know, so whether they do it intentionally, or whether they do it accidentally, it still hurts, you still have that impact. And I think that's what we need to focus on. And I think that's the biggest misunderstanding when it comes to bullying in the workplace. Often, it's not intentional, often it's not malicious, but the impact is still there. So we can't minimise the impact of the individual that is coming to us.

Carla Miller 14:35
Such an important point. And we were chatting earlier about how I think there's a lot of managers out there who would be horrified to realise that some of the people that work for them with them, feel they are bullies, because their intent was never like that, but actually their behaviour, has that impact.

Marie Hemingway 14:55
Absolutely. And actually, I was just thinking about, like one of the things Things that we when I read the report. So we have around 1000 experiences now and from the speakout survey in our database, and I try and keep an eye on all of the reports that come in to just get a sense of, of what's happening. And people often ask, you know, what's the Why do you think people bully people, and often, I'll say that it's, you know, unintentional, it's, the behaviours are very subtle, it's not like they're doing it to, you know, actually target an individual. And I often take from the reports that we received, that it's in the mode, in the majority of cases, an individual has been promoted into a role, or given responsibility, that involves other people that they are just not effective, or don't have the skill set for and instead of being able to inspire and motivate, and bring people together, what they actually do is harass, bully and insult people, because they're trying to achieve outcomes that they just don't have the skill set to achieve.

Carla Miller 16:02
And probably copying successful people within the organisation. In doing that, within particular organisations as well.
Marie Hemingway 16:10
Yes, absolutely.

Carla Miller 16:12
So there's definitely a piece there around the skills of managers, and leaders in understand leadership and management skills, and also understanding the impact that they have on others, presumably, absolutely. Interesting. Now, one of the things that I saw on your blog, which I was really fascinated to talk to you more about was a blog post was entitled, I'm calling, I'm gonna swear here. So mute if you've got a child listening, bullshit on the times, top 50 employers for women, so this is a list of the times where it lords, these employees, these employees that are paying various things in place to support women. So why why? Why are you calling bullshit? Tell us more?

Marie Hemingway 16:57
I am I calling bullshit? Well, I think that, you know, maybe it was a little unfair to focus on the one awarding body. However, probably a little bit personal for me as well, because I've worked for one of the times top 50 employers on the list, and I had what could only be described as the most horrific experience in that workplace, not related to harassment and bullying related to return to work and breastfeeding in the workplace, and, and basically just having no facilities available. And apparently, the organisation just been completely, completely unable to one comprehend the problem and then solve it. And yet, they are at times top 50, employer for women. And so, you know, we see time and time again, through the speakout survey, women having horrific experiences, sexual harassment, discrimination, you know, every day harassment and bullying that you might expect from these employers. And when you look at these awarding bodies, they're not really asking deep questions on that topic. They're not even asking employees, do you think that your organisation should be put forward for this award? And I think what I wanted to draw your attention to is the potential irresponsibility of awards that have that coverage where young women are looking and saying, Oh, that's a good employer, I'll go work for them.

But actually, what what really is happening is these organisations have got teams of marketing professionals with budgets, to write lots of things down on these templates that they have to fill in. And, and they're essentially paying for put being put on these lists to market themselves as an employer for talent acquisition. And so I think my annoyance, I would say is that they're just not credible. They're not credible at all. And it's interesting. I'm in a conversation right now with a journalist, and also another individual who sees behind the scenes on these awarding bodies and the things that they know and that they overlook, to put organisations on these lists. I think, I almost feel like it should be regulated. It's crazy that organisations can get on these lists, right? And actually, there's nothing really that sits beneath it, the more appropriate name for that list should be top 50 employers that had the resources to put a team together to talk about how they're aspiring to be a great place for women to work, but with no real evidence to back it up. That's not as catchy, of course.

Carla Miller 19:44
Not quite as catchy at all. I mean, awards, so I run my own business. And there's many many awards you can go for most of them you have to pay for and then pay for the table and actually you're buying an award I get some emails on my Instagram messages all the time like, you've been nominated for this blah, blah, and it's only got a question. You can just go away now please be right. Actually, the ones that would have value would be ones that were actually based on employee's genuine experience, and feedback. And I know that you've described what you do, somewhere in your website talks about being the glass door for workplace bullying and harassment. And I think that's, that's really interesting because Glassdoor is getting increasingly powerful now, isn't it in terms of people checking it before they go for roles?

Marie Hemingway 20:34
Yeah, so our it's just a point of clarification, when we set out once we got revolutions that our entire vision was, we want to drive radical transparency in this space. What we realised partway along. And our legal people told us also don't really know if you can link these two things with like Link harassment and bullying and specific organisations, because you're probably very quickly going to get sued. So we've never openly open source the data and linked it to individual organisations. And then I think the second layer of it is, we realise that actually, we can't just educate individuals, if we really want to drive change, we have to be partnering with organisations that want to get very, very progressive on this topic. And we can't do that, if they are scared that we're going to release information that would be reputational, damaging. So we've almost taken a step back from this idea of glass door, I mean, in the future. Yeah, I would love it. If if an organisation was like we are so committed, and we want to hold ourselves to account so badly that we want this, we want our information out there for everyone in the world to see, because we know we're great. And we know we solve these problems. Realistically, that will never happen. Because harassment and bullying is a societal problem. And it doesn't go away when we go to work. And I don't think we'll ever eradicate it fully in our workplaces. And so there's just no incentive for organisations to do

Carla Miller 22:08
That makes sense. And yeah, people are human. And then in the workplace, they're humans who have power over others power to decide whether you keep a job or not, which ultimately is a survival thing. So yeah, I can see how it will be more rife in the workplace than outside of work. And you don't have to watch the news much to see how rife it is in the human population. Yes, anyway. Okay, so completely understanding your point there about our story. Now I saw that you do work with organisations or an organisation can come to you, and how does that work?

Marie Hemingway 22:39
So I mean, there are lots of different ways that we support organisations, we have a lot of conversations that we had, we talked to a lot of organisations, the ones that we work with are probably the minority of that conversation set, because we have various ways in which we're willing to work with organisations, we want to drive material change, right. And so typically, the way that we start is we have a talk called embracing allyship at work, which is a, it's our keynote talk that kind of says, you know, we're, we're doing all of this work in this space, this is who we are, and this is why we're doing it. This is what harassment and bullying looks like. This is what the problem looks like. This is why we should care about it, both as individuals and as organisations. And here are everyday actions that we can all take to start to disrupt that now. And I think that is the like non offensive, non committal door opener for organisations to feel comfortable about bringing this topic, a very taboo topic that is wrapped with, you know, legal connotations bringing it into their organisations. And so that's really where we start. But we do offer and we are working with organisations to develop internal surveys to understand what's happening within this organisation in a way that is safe for our employees, because we are a third party, you know, generating Executive Reports, and saying things like, you know, based on what your employees are telling us, this is where you do really well compared to your sector, they, when we compare the data, here's where you're falling short. We know another sector that does this really well. So and here are the recommendations that that we would put forward if you wanted to change this within your organisation. So I think we really want to be at the insights and of this work, pulling in global insights, helping organisations invest in the right places with limited resources around EDNI, about where they drive the most impact.

Carla Miller 24:43
You talked about. You have a lot of conversations, not all of that turns into necessarily work I have seen on LinkedIn that you've had people come to you organisations come to you and say I'll work with you, but just don't mention harassment and bullying is that is that true?

Marie Hemingway 24:59
This is true. who aren't, you wouldn't believe how many conversations I have like this, that the post that you mentioned, I, as a joke with Fran call it my just no series. And I have honestly a list maybe 10 things long of just the ridiculous things that happen and come in to a nonprofit. But yes, the one that you mentioned, we and it's typically from a particular type of organisation. So it's an organisation that is usually small. Usually they've, it's very immature in the DNI space, maybe they've just formed a small voluntary team that would be considered like their employee resource group. And it's that kind of organisation that would come to us, they're not sufficiently empowered to make decisions. And they're doing it on the side of their jobs, and they don't have any real training in this space. And I kind of feel that the request about you know, oh, what you're doing is really good, come and work with us. But could you not mention harassment and bullying? I think it's really driven by the lack of empowerment, they are scared that they're going to invite us in and the senior leaders are going to say, we wanted to talk about all the nice stuff about EDI, could you not find an inspirational speaker, you know, that overcame racial harassment or something like this? Could we not do the nice bits that are good news stories that we can, you know, put on social media? And I think it's really driven by that the fear and again, you know, probably people that need to work with us more so than others. Just the lack of psychological safety and those setups that yes, I mean, we get so many things like this that come in, it's, I should record them. And my face when I hear it,

Carla Miller 26:46
you've got a wonderfully expressive face, and no one else can see. And I can see it's wonderfully expressive. So yeah, I hope some of those are phone calls.

Marie Hemingway 26:54
You know, I do go through these things on some calls, where I'm like, Is my face giving away? How just unimpressed I am with where we are at in this conversation.

Carla Miller 27:05
There's a parallel that with the posts I read from Cherie Daniels as well about anti racist work, which you'll have conversations and then organisations will come back and say that sounds great, we're not quite ready for that. So we're going to start with some general EDI stuff. And it's that desire for the softer stuff and the theory as it warms people up but it's actually just scared with the cost scared of the consequences of having those conversations and creating a space to have those conversations I imagined.

Marie Hemingway 27:33
You know, a little bit of my professional background is in is in change management. And so when I when I'm typically talking to organisations, what they are kind of doing as a transformation programme, you know, they have any EDNI strategy, they've put some sort of structure within their organisation to do that they have senior leaders talking about the importance of the EDNI, so I can kind of see that building this change programme for EDNI. So it's, you know, when they say, Oh, we're not quite ready for this thing, I kind of think, well, maybe, you know, you are you're just not willing to do it. Right. And, and so I just, I don't have much time for that. I'm just like, Okay, go find someone else. And that, but the thing is, there's lots of organisations, kind of like the how typically, not nonprofits, you know, typically generating revenue, that are willing to sell awards, and, you know, help organisations get on the bus, go in and do this nonsense talks about unconscious bias and things like this. There are plenty of those out there. And, and typically, we say, you know, go work with one of those, because you are not ready for as yet. But, you know, are they driving the impact? Probably not, but they are reasonably successful in terms of generating income?

Carla Miller 28:47
Well, you do offer unconscious bias training as well, don't you or some kind of talk along those lines.

Marie Hemingway 28:53
We do not do anything on unconscious bias. And when people ask me, I'm like, no, go away.

Carla Miller 29:01
Why? Tell me why.

Marie Hemingway 29:02
So if you I mean, there's a pretty big article, I think that most people might have seen from Harvard Business Review, unconscious bias training, they say, based on studies, is only has positive impact for around one to two days afterwards for individuals. And I think one thing that I see in organisations is typically because they're paying for this training, they make it mandatory. You either get people that really care about this topic showing up and seeing benefit for one to two days, or you get people that aren't on board having to show up. And then what the training does is reinforce all of the negative associations where the EDNI so actually, it works against the outcomes you want to achieve. And studies have shown and there's a HBR article about it. Studies have shown that actually, when they looked at organisations that implemented unconscious bias training for years after the work for was actually became less diverse when they were looking at particular metrics around gender and ethnicity.
So, I mean, if I was to sum it up, unconscious bias training does not work, it is not a long term productive investment of money for an organisation that wants to achieve positive change when it comes to EDNI and I, it is a very good thing to buy to look like you're doing something without actually having to do something. It's really interesting.

Carla Miller 30:26
And where's the line between unconscious bias and Ally ship, like training on ally ship?

Marie Hemingway 30:31
Of course, I'm interpreting this in the context of like what we talked about when we talk about ally ship. So I think, you know, unconscious bias is the mechanism by which things happen. And so for those, we don't talk about that, but we do talk about ally ship. So we're very focused on unconscious bias exists in everyone. Yeah, this is what it actually looks like, though, in our everyday lives, when we show up to work. gender bias looks like somebody's asking me in a meeting whether or not I'm taking the meeting minutes, you know, I don't need to understand how unconscious bias works to know that that is an event, you know, an eventuality, that's the thing that drives the negative impact. And so we focus on, this is what it actually looks like, this is how it looks for different people and intersections. This is why it's important. And then here are specific actions that you can take. And so I think the difference for me is, you talk about unconscious bias all day. But it doesn't change what people do in an organisation. It doesn't change the culture, it doesn't change how people think, act and interact, just makes them aware that unconscious bias exists. Whereas what we want to do is say, Let's get very practical, because this is a practical problem that needs a practical solution. These are things that we can do to change it. And someone else can do unconscious bias training, because we're not interested.

Carla Miller 31:52
Interesting, yeah, because I do I do male ally ship talks and workshops, and they are getting there on that. This is what it looks like in the workplace. And these are the micro actions you can take. But it does talk. I think for me, what has been useful about the unconscious bias side is laying the foundation for the conversation so that men are not feeling like you're saying everything you do is wrong. And I think that's so for me, I've kind of used it as a way in there, but then primarily talked about the ally ship. But yeah, it's really interesting to hear what you say.

Marie Hemingway 32:25
I can totally appreciate that. And I guess my, the thing that jumps to mind is this. So I've never read the book white fragility, but I can understand what it means. Now this making things be comfortable for the majority because we want to get them on the boat. Like that's how I interpret it, if that makes sense.

Carla Miller 32:47
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's not about I think it's about how do you get people to listen? I don't think it's about making them comfortable. But I think it's about how do you make sure they don't put their barriers up straight away so that they don't listen. So I got bought in by a company who had an unconscious bias talk and everyone had gone? Well, we just got booked for an hour and a half and bored by lots of slides. But but they said, Well, we still need the men in the organisation to understand how they can be effective allies. So the women, I was like, okay, I can do that. But I had to specifically at the beginning. So this isn't about making you wrong. But there are many things you're doing, which are not helpful. And it's useful to know what they are. But yeah, I think it's interesting, evolving on that journey. So it's really interesting to hear your viewpoint on it. So the only other thing that and I know you're struggling from your beds, talk to me. Sorry, I appreciate it. The other thing I wanted to talk to you about is you mentioned something called hashtag manuals. And I thought that was a really interesting, I have not heard that hashtag before. Did you make that up? Or did you find it somewhere?

Marie Hemingway 33:54
I would love to take credit for that hashtag. No, I, I can't remember what I think it's a pretty well established Twitter handle, man, also all male panels. So you know, when you have a panel that is fully male model. I really like it, too.

Carla Miller 34:13
It's great. And I think it's, it's so important in terms of visibility for women to have to be able to see role models up there on the stage, but also for people to see that we can contribute just as well. And there are actually women out there. It's just they're not being asked. So do you sit on many panels?

Marie Hemingway 34:33
So I personally, I've only, you know, I don't think so I think I've done maybe one or two panels. In my time. I think the article that I wrote was really triggered by a panel or an event that I was really interested in attending. And I saw that it was just four white men talking. And I just remember thinking this is going to be a super super Super boring, non innovative conversation, they've just got wrapped like they literally have a person replicated over and over again. And so so that's really where it started. But I would say off the back of writing the article, I was recently asked to join a panel, which unfortunately, I decided not to support. But one of the questions I asked now is, is your panel, tell me how diverse your panel is the panel that I'm joining, how diverse is it? Because I think it's really important, not only from a representation perspective, in addition to representation, I think we have to be challenging how the quality of the conversation and therefore the innovation that comes out of those events?

Carla Miller 35:44
Absolutely. And one of the points I read, I don't know if it's in your article, or one that is then linked to, because like, there needs to be at least one woman on the panel, excluding the chair. And I thought that was interesting. Is there something there about how the chairs not considered an expert, they therefore they don't count, because I've chaired lots more than I've been on panels. So I'm like.

Marie Hemingway 36:02
Ah. This is interesting. Well, so I don't, I think this came from a guy, I can't remember his name. Now. I referenced him in the article. So this originally came from a pledge that he wrote, and he specifically put that the chair is not a position. Or you can't count the chair, as someone involved in the conversation is interesting that you say this, though, because I think that women are more likely to be asked to be the chair to make up the numbers without actually being intimately linked in the conversation and having that platform of, you know, talking about their expertise and being involved in the conversation. So I think it's I don't know that there any studies behind it. But just based on what you said, I'm like, yes, maybe people are more willing to ask women to cheer, because it's kind of an admin role, right? Chairing?

Carla Miller 36:54
Could be an admin role. It's also leading the conversation. I feel it is. Yeah. Is it? Is it among the homework, like we talk to people talk about their homework in the office, don't they? Is it amongst that? Or is it a leadership role? It's interesting. I mean, it links in with something I was talking to Marianne Sieghart, about who wrote the of the authority gap, which is a excellent book about conversational mansplaining, and how men just like to take up all the space. If you haven't got a woman trying to get a word in edgeways, then, yeah, I can see how maybe the woman is there going, Okay, let's just edit this down and make this work for the audience. Whilst the speakers can just be unedited and say whatever they want, until someone eventually tells them to be quiet. Interesting. Brilliant. Well, I know you've got lots of resources on your website. If people want to get involved or support your work or get their employer involved, what's the best thing for them to do?

Marie Hemingway 37:54
Yeah, absolutely. So I think there's a couple of calls to action for involvement with our work, we are very interested in anyone who has experienced non inclusive behaviours, harassment and bullying in their workplaces, to anonymously share their story with us. And they can do that via our website by completing the speakout survey, and we're using those collective insights to support other organisations that are changing legislation. We're writing articles, we're raising awareness, we're doing lots of work with that information to try and make it better for other people. I'd also be really very desperately keen to invite any HR professionals or EDNI professionals that are developing their programmes, with limited resources to take a look at the speakout dashboard and really understand within their sector, what the challenges look like for people because if they're relying just on what they hear from within their own organisations, they're not seeing the big picture. And, and what they are seeing isn't representative. So we see things like it's far less likely that women and in experiencing unfair treatment in pregnancy and maternity, for example, far, far less likely than that they will report anything to their organisation than other demographics. So if they want to take action that is going to create an inclusive workplace, the speaker dashboard is a really good place to understand what that looks like when fundamentally and then the third thing is we are very interested in working with any organisation that dares to make a difference in this space. And they can reach out to us via our website or drop me an email Maria speak@revolution.co.uk to talk about how we can support their existing programmes or help them develop new programmes to make sure that their workplace is truly inclusive.

Carla Miller 39:48
I mean, I think this data driven approach is such a sensible one such a powerful one. And I hope lots of the leaders that are listening are in HR or on senior management leadership teams will go and think about this to hopefully get in touch with you but have a conversation first about right? Oh, are we willing to talk about harassment and bullying? And are we willing to do something about it? It's that thing of like lifting up the stone and looking up looking at what's underneath. It's such a brave thing to do as a leader, because you're open to a lot of criticism, but it's such a vital thing. I think we need leaders to be more courageous. Now, in order to change things.

Marie Hemingway 40:33
Yes, absolutely. And I would say there are organisations out there they are organisations that are very progressive or more mature in this space. But of course, our we are always happy to speak to anyone unless they're going to ask us to work with it without mentioning the West harassment and bullying and then please go elsewhere.

Carla Miller 40:52
Absolutely, I will send to people your way. But I will double check on that point. It's been a pleasure talking to you really interesting. I certainly got some food for thought, as well. Looking forward to sharing this with the listeners. And thank you so much a for your time, but also for the work that you're doing. It's really important work and important data to be collecting. And I'm really glad you're doing it.

Marie Hemingway 41:15
Thank you so much. And thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure to chat to you.

Carla Miller 41:26
If you've listened to the podcast, and you want to know more about how we can work together, here are a few places you can look.

First of all, I've got a couple more freebies, I've got a free PDF on increasing your leadership impact at work, and I've also got a free masterclass on becoming a more influential leader without letting self doubt hold you back. So head on over to the website to book yourself a place on the masterclass or to download that PDF.

There are my open programmes influence and impact for women at management and leadership level and be bolder a four week live assertiveness and confidence course for women at any level. You can preorder my book closing the influence gap, a practical guide for women leaders who want to be heard.

You can also work with me one to one particularly if you're a senior leader, and you can hire me to work in house to do talks for awareness weeks, one of workshops, a series of workshops or to run my influence and impact programme or be bolder programme in house as a women's leadership or women's empowerment offering.

If you want to talk about any of those on my website, you can drop me an email or you can also book a quick 15 minute chat so we can talk about what you need and how I might be able to help you or your organisation so I look forward to chatting to you. Take care