A Dog Called Diversity
A Dog Called Diversity
Bloke Coaching...with Iain Schmidt
In this episode, we sat down with Iain Schmidt, executive coach, speaker and facilitator who shared his transformative journey to redefine male allyship and inclusion. Iain opened up about his motivations, his desire to be a better role model for his children, and the societal stereotypes he aims to challenge for a more inclusive future.
Iain also went on to explain the complex emotions tied to male privilege, from being applauded for chores to the various stages of denial and anger men often experience. He introduces the grief model as a powerful tool for men to understand and process their privileges and biases. We also touch on systemic issues that allow toxic leaders to thrive and the lack of inspirational male role models, highlighting Iain's belief that true change requires a shift from mere behavioral guidelines to deep, genuine mindset changes.
Iain then shares insights from his own experiences, emphasizing the importance of continuous self-improvement and self-reflection. From challenging the low standards men often set for themselves to advocating for a mindset of abundance over scarcity, Iain’s journey offers valuable lessons for anyone committed to fostering gender equality. Tune in to hear this compelling story and actionable steps towards the fight for a more equitable world.
Iain's website links:
https://transformbylearning.com/about-us/
https://blokecoaching.com/
https://foralexandsam.com/
The Culture Ministry exists to create inclusive, accessible environments so that people and businesses can thrive.
Combining a big picture, balanced approach with real-world experience, we help organisations understand their diversity and inclusion shortcomings – and identify practical, measurable actions to move them forward.
Go to https://www.thecultureministry.com/ to learn more
If you enjoyed this episode and maybe learnt something please share with your friends on social media, give a 5 star rating on Apple podcasts and leave a comment. This makes it easier for others to find A Dog Called Diversity.
A Dog Called Diversity is proud to be featured on Feedspot's 20 Best Diversity And Inclusion Podcasts
Thanks for listening. Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.
Hello and welcome to A Dog Called Diversity. This week I have such a special guest that I kind of hunted down a bit on LinkedIn. His name is Ian Smith and I was going to introduce him as a male ally and then he told me that he really doesn't like that word and he has such good reasons for that. But we will talk about that soon. But welcome to the podcast, ian.
Speaker 2:Awesome, lisa, thanks. Thanks for having me. I really love doing things like this.
Speaker 1:Oh cool, Me too. Me too, Before we get to, why you don't want to be seen as a male ally or as a champion for women and other genders. Why don't you tell us a bit about yourself? So I'd like to know a bit about where you I guess where you're located now, and maybe about the work you do. And I know you have kind of a core business of work, but you also have some passion work. So yeah, introduce yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm an executive coach and a workshop facilitator by trade.
Speaker 2:I am a professional certified coach and have over a thousand hours of coaching experience.
Speaker 2:Through that very privileged role that you have as a coach and working with senior leaders on leadership development, I became aware of some issues with the system, issues with the types of leaders that reach senior leadership positions and, in particular, I became very, very passionate about helping male leaders in particular play a role in creating more inclusive workplaces, particularly around promoting gender equality.
Speaker 2:So that's where my passions led to a bit of a side hustle away from coaching and workshop facilitation in a more general leadership capacity to actually really home in on helping male leaders to take up this role. So an organisation that I founded is For Alex and Sam, which is really an invitation for men that do care about equality to take up that role, understand a little bit more about what's going on and to play their role. I very much believe that achieving equality requires equal effort from everybody and, speaking on behalf of my gender and also some compounding privileges that I have also being heterosexual, white, able-bodied and reasonably wealthy people like me are not doing their part in this conversation, and so for Alex and Sam is really about those people that do want to do good work, providing that pathway for well. This is what it looks like.
Speaker 1:Right, Alex and Sam someone special in your life.
Speaker 2:They are people. Yes, they're my two boys, so I have two sons. I also have a daughter, Lizzie, and why is the organization called for Alex and Sam? Well, I founded it before we had the daughter. But also it was a little bit of a observation that I made when I started doing work in this space that men often talk about. Well, now that I've had a daughter, I now start to understand some of these barriers. So I'm doing it for my daughter. I reflected on that and went actually, I don't have a daughter at the time that I started, but I went actually, I want to do it for my boys. I want to do it for these two men, future men that I have a key role in their development. Yeah, and ultimately, wanting them to be a better man than their dad was my motivation and going. Well, actually, if I can help to inspire them, create a better role model for them, then that's fantastic. Now, it was just a weird coincidence that Alex and Sam are gender neutral names.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they are Nice little branding activity Because it then lets us talk about, well, the alexas and sams, uh, in your life they can be men, they can be women, they can be non-binary.
Speaker 2:um it, it is recognizing that men and actually people, for that matter, that take up up more of a role in achieving equality are usually motivated by someone that's close to them, someone that they've had exposure to, someone that they've seen actually experience some of that marginalization that can happen as a result of the system or suffer actually considerably within the system. So it is helping people to identify who the Alex's, who the Sam's are in their lives, and that's where we start the conversation.
Speaker 1:I love that so much. So I have two boys as well. So mine are Aidan, and Charlie have two boys as well. So mine are Aidan and Charlie and for the last probably six years I've been doing dedicated work in diversity, equity and inclusion space. So they have seen me trying to make organisations, in particular more places to work, and will work, to be more accessible.
Speaker 1:So they're now 12 and 14 and I am continually surprised and horrified by the stereotypes that come out of their mouth. And you know, of course there is an influence as a parent on values and stereotypes, but the stuff they're seeing out in the world that's driven by patriarchal stereotypes and the systems that are keeping those in place are so strong. Yeah, for me it's quite horrifying. So I I love that we're thinking not just about our daughters but about how do we raise our sons to be better, to just be better. Now I wanted to ask you about why you didn't want me to call you a male ally, because I I met you through a post that you wrote around international women's day and it was about men how can you step up on International Women's Day and what you can do, and for me it was such a great example of public allyship, which I really appreciated. But you have really good reasons for not wanting to be called a male ally and not wanting to use that language. Tell me a bit about that.
Speaker 2:Yes, a male ally and not wanting to use that language, tell me a bit about that. Yes, and I guess I'll caveat that I do a lot of work with male ally groups. Right Groups of men that call themselves allies or champions is another popular term that gets thrown around.
Speaker 1:We have champions of change in Australia.
Speaker 2:Exactly right term that gets thrown around. We have champions of change in australia, exactly right. Um, my, my observation in working with groups of men that call themselves allies is there's a little bit of a plateauing of their efforts. Once you are regarded in that way, as an ally with it, you start to not see yourself as the problem anymore. You start to see people who aren't allies as the problem and that's not what's going to help us to achieve equality. We actually need to recognize. And to your observation about, like, just how insidious a lot of these inequalities are, like how, even with your best intentions, your kids are getting exposed to these types of gender stereotypes and feeding into it. It is a very, very complicated problem of which groups of people calling themselves allies, in my opinion, could be a controversial opinion, in my opinion, simplifies it. Simplifies it that well, this group of people they're helping People who aren't allies not helping. And, to my earlier point, around there's a plateauing of efforts. It's men that I start working with, where they actually come to terms with the fact that the thing that they've got the most control over is their own behavior, their own mindset, and, using a coaching approach, we delve deeper into what that is, and we uncover some uncomfortable stuff. There's plenty of well-intended men that understand unconscious bias is a thing, but we need to actually go down deep to uncover what those biases are. I also don't like the word unconscious bias. I think let's just call it bias, let's call it prejudice, call it for what it is, and we've got varying degrees of awareness of those prejudices and biases. The work that we're doing with let's call them allies, is to get them to appreciate actually, some of the biases that they have, some of the biases that they are still holding onto, and I can give some examples of those for people who are listening to.
Speaker 2:This. One that I've recognised only within the last six months is a lot of arguments that I was having with my wife around the cleanliness of the house are rooted in gender stereotypes that I have that my mother, my maternal grandmother, my paternal grandmother all were fantastic homemakers. They didn't work, they stayed at home, looked after the kids, supported their husbands. They played that role very, very well. I can't deny that that doesn't influence the marriage that I have with my own wife. My wife is a GP. She's very successful. She's great at what she does.
Speaker 2:Arguments that we had about the cleanliness of the house I own. It's because of some deep-rooted bias that I have towards this is women's work. Not proud of that bias that I have, but actually realising it helped me to go. Yeah, that's not fair and if I want a clean house, I have to recognize I'm actually the cleanest out of the two of us. I'm the one that needs to actually do it more than my wife does. Right, like you know, equal share of the household duties that's not achievable in our house. I need to pull a good 80 percent of of that workload. If that's something that is important to me, I can't expect my wife to do that yeah so that's an example of I'm not a bad person because I've got that bias.
Speaker 2:It's a product of my upbringing. But I wouldn't have uncovered that if I hadn't been talking with it, with groups of men, and actually been prepared to do that work. So I don't count myself as an ally. There is plenty of other biases and prejudices which I'm not aware of that I still need to uncover and work through. That's just an example of one of them. So don't give me a title that I'm a good guy, because I'm most certainly not.
Speaker 1:That's such a good example. I had a similar-ish experience when our first son was born and at the time my husband was doing lots of mountain bike racing and I can remember being at was doing lots of mountain bike racing and I can remember being at the end of a mountain bike race and you know he was tired and exhausted and, um, I said, would you like me to go get you some food? It was like a festival at the end of the race with food trucks, and so I left our baby son, who might have only been a couple of months all the time, with him, and then I went off and got some food for him, um, and came back and we had this really interesting conversation. He said, oh, aidan was crying, so I gave him a bottle or whatever it was. And and I said, great, and it was because we'd had a conversation a bit earlier on where he would always defer to me as to what we should do with the baby. And I had to say to him I wasn't born with an instruction manual.
Speaker 1:He certainly had a bias that, because I carried the baby and I birthed the baby, that I knew what I was doing. And I had to say to him I don't know what I'm doing. You work it out and kind of challenge his bias. Baby, that I knew what I was doing and I had to say to him I don't, I don't know what I'm doing. You work it out and kind of challenge his bias around that I would know everything. It also I had to challenge my biases around that I should know any everything and I should do everything because I'm the mother and and let go some of that stuff. So it was a, it was an interesting time for both of us going. Neither of us know and we both have to be able to work it out. Basically, yeah, it was hard.
Speaker 2:And that in itself provides a really nice analogy in terms of some of the obstacles that men encounter.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:Engaging in behaviours that are more of an equal split on the home front, as well as engaging in conversations about gender. There is this view that, on the topic of gender, let's defer to the women, because they're the ones that have understood the obstacles, they're the ones that see it more regularly. We need to listen to them. Yeah, that that's all good, right, like you know that, that that does sound reasonable. But it then means, well, tell me what to do and, yes, I'll give you a thumbs up and give you permission to do that. Like you know, just instruct me.
Speaker 2:And like man, we can do better than that. We listen and then actually come up with our own ideas about what could work, consult, test it, get feedback around stuff. Like we don't have to let, we don't have to just stand by and let women do everything on this topic. Right, which is very much what tends to happen. Women come up with the ideas, men give approval or rejection. That's a whole nother topic around those obstacles, but it's women that are driving this and it doesn't need to be that way, right? That is an added burden that people who are marginalised shouldn't be shelving, that burden.
Speaker 2:They need help with the burdens that they've already got with the system. Why are we adding that they're the ones that have to change the system as well?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would also add to that what I call the do you want a medal?
Speaker 2:Do you want a title as an ally? Right? That feeds into why I hate it. Right, like you know, we're not doing it. It's not. Applause for chores is a nice little phrase that gets talked about, right, um, you know? Uh, we're not. You know those men that are parents.
Speaker 2:Like we're not babysitting, we're not, you know um we're we're being a dad, when we're looking after our kids and letting our wife head off and do something else, right, or, um, or our partners head off and do something else. So, um, yeah, it, do not give me a medal, please, and I think giving men medals in this arena is actually it. It then perpetuates that behaviors are just about the medals.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, I did a thing. It wasn't my job, so I want to be recognized. Yeah yeah, I wonder if you would talk through. I know you use the grief model with men to help them uncover and understand, I guess, their behaviors and their biases, and the way you use it is so clever, I think, and I haven't seen anyone else do it this way. So I wondered if you might talk through that and maybe give us some examples of, I guess, those aha moments that when you're coaching someone that you get and it helps move behavior change, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, before I guess thinking about grief as a process that men may go through on this particular topic, the work that I do first talks about privilege and first identifies male privilege, but then also some of the compounding privileges that people might have right, recognizing that actually there could be quite a lot going on for you of which the system, the way it's set up, really favors people like yourself. That's not to say you haven't worked hard for your successes. It's not to say that your life has not been a challenge. It is like life is freaking hard for everyone, right? Yeah, we, we recognize that, we appreciate that. But part of the aspects of privilege is you haven't had to deal in well, you haven't had to deal with, deal in well, you haven't had to deal with additional crap that the system throws at you. Right, you've just had to focus on those challenges, work through them and you can be successful.
Speaker 2:Asking yourself the question could you have replicated those results if something had changed or something had been different in your essentially demographic information is something that a lot of men struggle to come to terms with. Struggle to recognize. You have things like imposter syndrome. Start to talk very loudly for the person that. Yeah, you are a complete fraud. Yeah, um, if you were a woman um, for white men, if you're a black woman could you have actually achieved the same success? You think you're awesome, but are you actually that awesome to overcome some of that additional crap that is thrown up for people not like yourself? Yeah, so it's important to kind of have that conversation first, right In terms of helping people to understand that.
Speaker 1:And now Can I just ask? Because one of the things when you start talking about privilege, it can get people's backs up right you it. It can create a defensive situation where, well, it's not my fault I had these opportunities. It's not my fault, um, and now you're saying you want me to put me in the shoes of other people and give them opportunity. But what about me? There's those tensions.
Speaker 2:Like, how do you address those? Yeah, privilege is a triggering word for a lot of people. What it's not speaking to is that your life has been easy. Often, when we think about privilege, we think of really, really wealthy, ridiculously wealthy people that have everything served up for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, that's the image that conjures up for us when we use the term privilege. Wish there was a better term, but that's the meaning that a lot of people attach to the word privilege. And so we then translate that to, when we think about male privilege, as oh yeah, everything has just been served up for you, right, like that's not the case. Right, it is challenging. It's also a myth that patriarchy makes it easy for men. It actually doesn't right, like um it, it imposes things upon us as well. We can talk about that as well. Um, but with with this whole privilege discussion, when you, when you identify that actually you've possibly got quite a lot of privileges going on for you simultaneously, and then you're starting to think about what's going on for the other people, starting to think well, if I do play a role here in taking down the current system, making it genuinely a more equal playing field, do I stand to lose something here? Right, the imposter syndrome that's going on in a lot of men's minds tells them that actually, the successes that I have, do I stand to lose all of that? Even if it's just, you know, your own self-esteem like that can feel like a loss, and so that's why I've brought in the grief cycle as a way for men to start to understand the journey that we need to go on in order to properly take up our role. Now, I can't speak to each of those stages in the grief cycle because that is probably going to be useful for the people listening to this, because you will have, in terms of, like you know, men that are engaging in different degrees in this conversation.
Speaker 2:You probably identify that men are sitting at one of these five stages. A first stage is denial. It's where there's a complete rejection that there's a problem going on. We've probably heard that in the form of you know, I'm gender blind. I just treat everybody the same, or I treat everybody how I would like to be treated, not really appreciating that well, that's favouring people who are exactly like you rather than helping everyone to be successful. There's also a bit of a downplaying at this phase about oh, it's actually really not that bad, like you know. Hey, look at the stats. Look, they look pretty, even at this level. We don't really need to do any more work here, right, yeah?
Speaker 1:we fixed it.
Speaker 2:Pointing to positive examples like oh, you know, we've had a female prime minister. Like that proves that that's possible. There's no problem, right, that needs to be addressed, right. It's also like that narrative of it's a meritocracy, Like you just need to work hard and then everyone can be successful, thinking that everyone is running the same race, not recognising that there's actually hurdles in other people's lanes. You're running a hundred meters without any hurdles. Good on you. You still need to train, work hard to finish first. Other people are running the hurdles over the same distance. They are naturally going to be a little bit slower if they have those hurdles. Some of them may actually beat you, but that's not evidence that there was no hurdles there for them in the in the starting point. So this is what denial really looks like. Is is not really appreciating that there's a problem.
Speaker 2:Anger We've seen this play out. A lot More passive versions of anger is those thoughts of like this is reverse discrimination. What about the men? Oh, look, that's just woke. Um, you know, someone's just wanting a handout or an advantage here, that's you know they're undeserving of. In more extreme versions of anger, you can see trolling behaviour, real misogynistic. Like women hating. Like women are now feminists, are now the enemy right and need to be taken out. You can see that anger kind of play out in a few different spheres. Social media is actually, like you know, rife with examples there of men that are at that anger point in the grief cycle.
Speaker 2:The bargaining phase is where things get really interesting. Bargaining is essentially men that are at this stage have recognised yep, things are going in a certain direction. They may support that direction. They've come to realize there's certain things that I can say, certain things that I can't say, certain ways that I need to behave, certain ways that I can't behave. Yeah, right, now, all of that can be very good, right, it's not, like you know, I'm being a fraud, like I'm pretending to behave a certain way or say the right things. It can be actually very genuine, like you know, as in I'm working on improving myself. Here's the playbook. This is what we can say now, what we can't say, what we can do, all that type of thing. Yeah, so it can be well, like, usually, quite well intended that, like. Quite well intended that like.
Speaker 2:I'm becoming a better man right, I'm rejecting those toxic behaviours because those people get cancelled, and rightly so.
Speaker 1:I actually call this. It's kind of the underground phase in organisations, where you're right, they show up, they behave in the way they're expected to behave, they say the right things, but then I've seen some underground behaviors where a group of men will go out for drinks afterwards and then behave how they want to behave, or they'll have a whatsapp group just for a group, those kinds of things exactly right, so that.
Speaker 2:So that that's kind of, I guess you know some two, two face behaviors, like there's a little bit of a splitting of, like this is this is my public image, this is my private image, right, that can go on in this phase. But actually, like you know, if we just go for men that are genuinely trying their best, let's say that that's consistent. Like you know how I behave in a whatsapp group, how I behave out with a group of men, like you know, I'm the same way you still could be at this bargaining phase, right in that you've gone. Actually, you know, oh, that's not appropriate to say things like that and you're kind of, you know calling it oh, pat myself on the back, right, good, right, like a good ally. Yeah, I'm a good ally, so allyship sits at this bargaining face. Yeah, right, because even well-intended allies are. They know how they need to behave, they know what they need to do and guess what they get rewarded with a status of I'm now not part of the problem.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:It's the other guys. If I am part of the problem at any point, there's a good rationale in my mind. So the whole oh look, I had too many to drink. I'm not normally like that, or you know otherwise. Rationalizing that no, I'm still a good guy, right? There's just something else, right, let's blame something external for why a certain part of me came out right. A certain bias maybe influenced my behavior, so that's all about bargaining.
Speaker 2:Now, anyone that knows the grief cycle knows that's actually not where grief finishes, right? You've got depression after that. Now it unfortunately doesn't sell. This is what I do. I make men depressed, right? I'm not going to put that on any of my websites or anything like that, because it's just not going to work. But this is what is the work that is necessary. You need to feel bad about this. You need to actually sit with that feeling of I don't deserve my success. It's not a case of I've been handed something but things have been made harder for others, and I need to sit with that uncomfortableness that actually maybe I wasn't the best person for this role.
Speaker 1:Maybe, I.
Speaker 2:Maybe the reason why that pitch was successful wasn't because of me necessarily, but maybe because actually I looked just like the people I was pitching to and they got me. We had chemistry, we had understanding that someone that's not like me would have really struggled. It's also feeling bad about the fact that you're continuing to contribute to the problem. We make decisions every day which are about self-preservation Self-preservation for our status within a friendship group let's say, your WhatsApp group with a group of mates that we aren't the person that is going to call out every bias as we see it right, Challenge every bias that we come across. You know have zero tolerance to sexist comments or jokes and things like that. We don't.
Speaker 2:If it comes from our boss, we think about our job. If it comes from an investor, we think about actually, could that screw the deal? We don't do it. The rah, rah, rah of allyship and championship let's call it talks about oh, I'm always going to do this. You do not always do it. In fact, you possibly don't do it more frequently than you do do it. The times where you actually call out stuff are probably really convenient and where you're feeling really comfortable in your ability to do it.
Speaker 2:There was an example that one of the men that I was working with shared, and quite forlorn and ashamed of the fact that he did nothing. Ashamed, um, of the fact that he did nothing. Uh, he was at an event that was about you know, a few hundred people from the industry there. The mc of that event told a very, very sexist joke probably about 30 women in the in the audience, right, a reflection of where that industry is at. He stayed silent. He calls himself an ally. He stayed silent. He was like what, what on earth do I do here? And there was laughs. It was. It was taken as a joke by the audience but it was really inappropriate. He stayed silent.
Speaker 2:His fellow allies that he was, you know, know, in a group with, they stayed silent at the event. They did a little bit of texting to each other, right, acknowledging that it was wrong, but they just stayed silent. And I'm not saying that necessarily. Oh, you need to be the person that stands up and you know voices on behalf of you know, the 30% of women that's in the audience that that's not appropriate, as well as the men that are genuinely offended by that comment as well. That's not what you necessarily need to do, but it's recognising actually you're not the Superman that you're making yourself out to in that bargaining phase right, and coming to terms with the fact that you're making decisions every day about what you choose to, what battles you choose to fight, where you choose to be a little bit selfish and hold on to the little bit of privilege that you might have and go.
Speaker 2:I need this yeah, so it's, it's recognizing those instances, feeling actually quite bad about the fact that you did nothing, and even if you had your time again, you probably would do nothing as well. Right that it would take you. You just don't simply have it in you to be that person that stands up and take someone down like that, um, that that has that kind of power. Do you feel bad, lisa? This is where people go. Oh my gosh, like you know what on earth do.
Speaker 1:I do. Well, I mean, I think, being human, you don't. You don't want people to feel that way, right, you don't want them to be depressed, you don't want them to realize they're not a perfect human being. But I think if you don't go through that period of your inner voice telling you that actually maybe you're not that good and um, and you are a bit broken and you know you're not, you know, worthy of where you are and what you're doing, if you, if you don't go through that, then how do you make change?
Speaker 2:exactly because?
Speaker 1:because I think that I think you're so right about if you see yourself as an ally and you do a few things and it's all good, but you don't realize all the things that you're not understanding and you're not doing, then then how do you change that? Like, how do you yeah, I don't want men to feel that way, but women need change. Mean, at the moment in Australia, women are being killed by men. I mean that is the extreme end of the spectrum, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know how do we stop that if we don't start dealing with some of this stuff?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the bargaining phase, sometimes the benchmarks that men set and they're setting other people aren't setting it for what a good guy looks like is. Yeah, I haven't killed any women. I haven't raped any women.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm a good guy.
Speaker 2:Right, that's a very, very low benchmark to be setting ourselves, right? Um, let's aim a little bit higher than that. Let's aim actually almost aspirational with that benchmark to go. Actually I'm not making the cut at the moment. That's okay. That motivates my efforts to try harder. Rather than with bargaining conveniently, the benchmark's always kind of set below what you're already doing, yeah, and really just justifies in your own mind I'm a good guy, I'm not part of the problem anymore yeah it's those misogynists out there that are all the problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so so there is a stage after depression, though thank goodness right, yes, right, but that, like it's, it's a necessary part of dealing with this potential loss that you are grappling with. Right, like you know that. What does this mean for my own self image, my status? What does this mean for maybe, future opportunities? Like, are they going to? Like, are they going to be harder for me in a cynical playing field? Right, am I still going to be able to achieve my dreams and my goals and that kind of thing? Right, all of that really happening in that depression phase.
Speaker 2:Acceptance looks like this. It looks like, okay, I can't actually do anything to change the past. I'm fighting against 5,000 years of patriarchy, right, which has been embedded, reinforced. Yep, we really only started to fight this actively within the last 100 years, right, but to think that this is something that can be undone so quickly? Right, it's going to set us for disappointment. Right, like, it is very, very challenging.
Speaker 2:So it's recognized, I can't do anything to change that past, but I can actually play a role in the future, right, choosing to not try and fight the system, choosing to not try as hard as you can, means that, basically, you've accepted this for another generation or, as long as you're alive, that this is the way things will always be. So it's about recognizing that, look, if I do my best, everybody does their best. That gives us some hope that we could change the system. Yeah, it's also recognising that, look, you know, once you start looking for it, you can't unsee it. Once you start looking for these obstacles, adopting you know what's often called a gender lens to certain things, you start to go, yeah, right, okay, this is bigger than I thought it was. It's appreciating that, look, I'm still getting it wrong, but that's okay, because if I can genuinely answer the question am I better today than I was yesterday? I'm making progress, and that's what acceptance looks like that. Just try a little bit harder each day.
Speaker 1:You may have an off day, you may have an off moment, but keep trying, keep going, because that's how we will ultimately achieve progress yeah, do you find when you're working with people within this model I mean, a lot of models are not linear you don't always move from one to the next in a very clean way. How? What do you find happens with people when they come in and out of the different stages of the model?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm really glad you asked that question, because this cycle, whilst I've presented it as linear, most definitely isn't. Anyone that has dealt with grief knows just when you thought you're at acceptance, you pop back to anger, just like just when you thought. Like you know, I was like shock and denial is something that I left behind. You're back there again, right, You're going to be jumping behind. You're back there again, right, you're going to be jumping around this cycle at various different points, right? So to think that, well, once I've dealt with those depressive feelings, yep, I'm at acceptance and it's just smooth sailing from here? No, it's not right, you're going to be back right and that's okay.
Speaker 2:Right, it's just kind of recognizing that, look, that is part of the uncomfortableness that you're taking on by choosing to be more active in this, by choosing to do more rather than just sit back and go. Well, I'm comfortable and I'll give a thumbs up to support other people taking the hit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of the things that often comes up and we've touched on a little bit and I've had male leaders say to me you know, lisa, I don't feel like I can have a career in this organisation anymore because we're so focused on women. Of course, the reality in that particular organisation is we had less than 20% women. It was, you know, kind of dire. Really. How do you deal with this mindset that I'm going to have to give up something to give someone else a go, versus, if I do this work, there's more than enough for everyone? So, taking, instead of a mindset around scarcity, a mindset around there's enough for all of us, how do you navigate that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that particular individual, they could be at differing stages of that cycle that I've described. It sounds like a little bit of that, you know. Oh, this is reverse discrimination, right.
Speaker 2:Like you know, as in this, is the pendulum swinging too far, yeah, and you know that comments around it's like oh well, I don't think I have a future here. That that speaks of something that we haven't spoken about, which is entitlement. Yes, so if you're not dealing with a sense of loss, you're hanging on to entitlement, you're actually going well if, for example, let's say, your hypothesis is correct, that women now get an advantage you're now going to cry that's not fair, Even though it's possibly been that way and helped you to get your successes, and you haven't cried that it's unfair.
Speaker 2:you're now choosing to go. Well, that's unfair for me, and now we need to care about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Now we need to care about that. Yeah, so that comes from a place of entitlement, that actually it's people like you that deserve the success and that if the pendulum switch, like you know, happens to move in the opposite direction, that's bad for everyone. Right, like, actually it may not be the case. Let's assume by investing in this we get the best leaders, male or female, in those roles, rather than just giving it blindly to people that look a certain way and behave a certain way. If we actually create a more level playing field, maybe we'll get the best leaders in those positions that can actually help us tackle some of the big problems that either our organisation is facing or our society is facing right.
Speaker 2:When dealing with these types of individuals, I often ask them to think about some really and pardon the language here arsehole leaders that they've worked with, people that they think actually, how on earth did you get into that position?
Speaker 2:You treat everyone horribly. You're not good at your job. You're just there because of who knows something has helped you to get to that position. Now, as you think about those people that you've worked with, that you go, either I hate working with you or I'm really glad that I don't have to work with you anymore, or even people that you don't work directly with and you just see in the media and you go, gosh, they're a horrible person, right, and have those kind of judgments. A lot of those examples will tend to be men. Yeah, and that's evidence that actually the system is allowing bad leaders into senior leadership positions and it's favoring the bad male leaders. Yeah, creating a level playing field means that we actually get rid of those bad male leaders or we make it harder for those bad male leaders to get a free pass to those senior leadership positions.
Speaker 2:That's not a bad thing only for the arsehole leader well, it's a bad thing for the arsehole leader, in which case this particular individual that's fighting against the system needs to make that decision. Actually, do I want the system that helps asshole leaders to elevate, because that's probably only going to work for me. If I am an asshole leader, or if I'm actually a good leader, I should have nothing to worry about? Yeah, because I'll still be identified as effective. I'll still be identified as having the necessary leadership traits to be promoted. I may just have more female ears at that level as a result as well, but I should be okay. It's the entitlement speaking that actually I need this special privilege. I need this privilege to be maintained and I'm going to fight against any efforts to, in my mind, flip it the other way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, I love that. I haven't had anyone explain it that way. I think that's brilliant. So, building on that when we had our pre-chat, so for anyone who listens to my podcast for a while, I always speak to my guests before we record for a while. I always speak to my guests before we record.
Speaker 1:And one of the things you said to me was about the inspirational leader. That when and I think when we spoke, it was around International Women's Day and we were talking about, you know, on International Women's Day and we were talking about, you know, on International Women's Day, organizations bring out their inspirational women leaders to kind of show the way for other women. We look to public female leaders as inspirational and like, how wonderful is that? And I think you asked the question can you think of any male inspirational leaders? And I have been thinking about that question ever since we spoke a few months ago. I've been like, like really thinking about it, I've been talking to my husband about it who would be inspirational?
Speaker 1:And the people that we came up with when you and I spoke and when my husband and I spoke and I spoke, and when my husband and I spoke, there were so few and they were often male leaders who had another identity. That meant that they were discriminated against you know judged. So I wondered if you would talk a bit about that, because I think your insights were so good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I do a lot of thinking of this now.
Speaker 2:I do too. Thank you, because, like you know, I want, I want to have you know some examples that I believe in. Um, a lot of my examples tend to be people that don't have notoriety or celebrity, right Like they're not well known. The men that I have the privilege of coming in contact with, there's a lot of really great, inspirational people there. So we are there.
Speaker 2:Part of the legacies of the system is that we're a little bit further down on the notches of the hierarchy of patriarchy, right in terms of what is often a stereotype of a male leader that needs to be out. There is, you know, very competitive as opposed to collaborative, very much ego-driven and I'm amazing, I'm the shit as opposed to being humble and helping to elevate others. So the inspirational male leaders tend to be a few rungs down on the patriarchy pyramid. So that's why they're not in the headlines, that's why they're not, you know, on our TVs that much Um, uh don't have great role models, male role models, to look up to at the moment, the role models that are out there are potentially perpetuating, either, like a more toxic masculine trait as well.
Speaker 2:Actually, if you want to be successful, you got to be an asshole, right, you've got to take down the other people that are trying to be as good as you, right, like, uh, you don't get to be successful by not being aggressive, by not actually taking down women, taking down other men, um, in order to get that prize of success, um, so they're either doing that or they're in other. The other thing that those role models that are out there could be doing is perpetuating a stereotype that is unachievable for men. Right, and hey, this sounds a lot like, you know, women have had in the past, right, and still have around the men that you see in the magazines, the men that you see be successful. You know they have a certain body type. You've just got to take the Marvel movies as an example.
Speaker 2:Like, there's no dad bods in those movies, right, and even though, like you know, you would say some of some of those men actors are, like, quite nice guys as well. Like you know, the Hemsworths, I'm sure, are quite nice. Hugh Jackman often gets talked about in terms of like you know how amazing he is. Like their body type's quite unachievable for most men and young boys as well. So it doesn't exactly give hope to the average guy there that is just trying to be better than he was yesterday. Yeah, does that answer your question there?
Speaker 1:yes, yes it, yes. Um, I I think it's such a good point and I think, in some ways, there's a vac where there's a vacuum vacuum for inspirational men. We're seeing some role models emerge for boys that that are representing toxic masculinity, are representing the absolute worst of the patriarchal culture and, yeah, because we don't have these great role models. Yeah, but I hadn't thought about it until you put it in my head and you said who's an inspirational man? And I'm like Obama, but your point was, yeah, but he's had to deal with lots of challenges and things in his way to get where he is. I was like, yes, and then it was really hard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my go-to example, and it's an Australian example, I think Hamish Blake ticks a lot of boxes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, and it's great that he's out there and visible um.
Speaker 2:My kids love lego masters, and I love that he's the host yeah, um, I love that brick man alongside him cries when the contestants leave, right, I think. I think it's actually a really nice show. I mean, my kids love it because they love Lego, but it's nice to have them exposed to those two men, um, as hosts, because they're very different hosts to, uh, you know, hosts that I grew up with, right, which are more of the yeah, perfect, perfect looking, um, and unachievable standards, uh, and often quite I don't know macho in terms of, um, uh, their hosting style.
Speaker 2:So it's nice to kind of see Hamish Blake out there being so visible, and I think he's got the elements that I think appeal to like across generations of men, that help us to understand well, these are the best bits of masculinity across generations. It's not just you know, hey, the 1950s man, you were horrible, but actually there's some nice bits. Yeah, you like to have a laugh, you like to not take things seriously. You care about your kids. If you've got kids, right, you know you support and help to elevate other people right, like that existed in my dad and my grandfathers, right? So it's about pulling those positive traits of masculinity and helping them to be more visible in some of those role models.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the things that I see in Hamish. You know he speaks publicly about being a dad and that journey For his podcast, yes, and I think he also exists beside a very successful wife, right, and he demonstrates how it's not one or the other. You can still have an incredibly successful partner and still be your own person and be successful yourself. And I think you know there are some messages that you possibly can't do, that you know if your wife's really successful, you know how is the man going to feel. You know they coexist in that space, which I think is such a good role model.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't know Hamish, apart from how everyone would know him. Yeah, I would guess that's not easy. It's not as easy as he makes it look um and uh. It requires, I would think, considerable effort to strike that balance and for us all, looking from the outside in, to go he's got his shit together.
Speaker 2:Um, I don't think that's necessarily the case no, no, none of us have it together yeah, yeah, well, and like it's hard fought is probably what I'm saying like, yeah, that's not something that's just going to happen easily. Him and his, his family, are fighting the system, just like all of us are yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Another thing that is hard fought is writing a book, and I think people who write books are the cleverest people, and it's one of my goals to write a book when I work out what I actually want to say. But I heard a rumor that you are writing a book Almost finished.
Speaker 2:a book almost finished. A book Almost finished a book. So yeah, Tell us about it. A little bit further along than just a dream. Yeah, it's freaking hard to write a book. Very vulnerable as well, because the book that I'm writing is really exposing my own journey on this topic, and doing that to inspire similarly motivated men. So the book is called For Alex and Sam, and Lizzie Too, oh, nice.
Speaker 2:And it's the book for men that care about gender equality, um, so it's there as well. We'll be there, hopefully. Let's hope I finish it, um, when it is finished, uh, I want it to be a tool that helps the man that's just trying his best to get through this to play more of a role, to educate themselves on what the issues are, so that they feel a little bit more comfortable to be an active participant in conversation, rather than feeling like they've got nothing to contribute and then breaking it down into the behaviors that they can demonstrate from a self-leadership lens, as well as leading a team, and then, for more senior people, how you can lead an organization and culture more effectively. So, um, so I'm really my hopes for the book are that, uh, my learnings, my exploration of this topic, uh, my privilege of being able to talk with men through this journey, can help to inspire and motivate a broader range of men.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sounds exactly what's needed. I was talking to a client yesterday that I'm doing some inclusive leadership work with, and not just this client, but other clients. Leaders want concrete actions, and in some ways, I think that's a very male thing. Just tell me what to do and I'll do it that kind of thing, but sometimes we need help with that. Stuff like what could, though, and some of the things you were talking about that you are writing in the book, I think, would help many leaders understand okay, well, what are like, what other are the concrete things, but hopefully also what's the underlying stuff that you need to understand about yourself first, yeah, before you can do those things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that that phrase is tell me what to do. Hashtag bargaining right To set some expectations. The book isn't going to help you with your bargaining to have a well now I just need to do the things that Ian says in the book and we're fine. It's not that type of book. It is about taking a more coaching approach to this, around prompting the reader to really reflect on some things that might make them feel quite uncomfortable, and then my hope is what they do with that insight can then be to create their own playbook. There's some suggested actions that they can take, but by all means it's not a do this and then you can consider yourself an ally and one of the good guys.
Speaker 2:That's not the intention of the book. It is about doing the work that is necessary to help men with the mindset that they need to bring, and the work that I've done proves that when you put the effort into that piece, the actions actually come quite organically. You start to go. Actually, I don't need someone to tell me what to do here. I don't need to ask for permission. I can just go ahead and do it, because I see a problem and I fix it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're so right. I actually said to the client so you want me to deliver a two-hour session with your leaders, but I'm worried that we can't. Necessarily. We're not going to impact a lot of change in two hours, right?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So if that's what you're expecting, if you're expecting behavior change at the end of two hours, well, that may not happen. So you know, tell me about what you're thinking around that. And she had a really good answer that this organization has been on a long journey and I've been doing lots of things. So I felt a bit better about that. But yeah, you're right, I think in many organisations we are still in that phase of just tell me what to do and I'll do it, and yeah, and then we're not actually getting meaningful change because you don't have that underlying. You know, we haven't gone through some depression to understand I think.
Speaker 2:Well, to overlay a model to that grief cycle organisations that are working on controlling people's behaviours is really only taking people up to that bargaining phase.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And organisations see the denials, they see the anger come out as a result of their efforts to control people's behaviour, to address policies. I'm not saying this work's not necessary it most definitely is but the approach is really about if we are better with our definition of people's behaviours, we'll be better. The issue with that is I don't think any organisations have actually seen that be successful. It becomes a challenge of well, we need to tighten the behaviors more. Right, because our previous efforts haven't been successful and that's because there's the.
Speaker 2:There's the mindset piece that is either too hard or people have become so jaded working in this area that they go well, I can't actually shift someone's mindset. The best thing that I can do is just try and control their behaviors. So I I'm not as jaded yet I've seen enough examples that give me hope that actually you can shift people's mindsets. And when you shift people's mindsets, it takes the pressure off those policies that govern people's behaviors. You stop having to tell people it's an expectation that you're inclusive, and here's our definition of inclusive behaviors. People are able to actually just do that quite organically, um, and that, in my opinion, leads to much better and more sustainable outcomes yeah, I couldn't.
Speaker 1:I couldn't agree more. I was reflecting on very early in my HR career being part of some training around anti-harassment and bullying with stevedores so kind of blokey, bulky men working on a port, and I can remember my manager saying to me, because I wanted to change their mindset, I was having conversations with these men who were much older than me at the time, saying but don't you, don't you want to have a workplace where women are treated equally? You don't? You have daughters that you want to be treated well where they're, when they're in the workplace. And my manager saying you know, basically that doesn't matter, it's their behavior that matters, and their behavior in the workplace. So I guess, just trying to solve the problem when you're in our walls, you will behave this way and we will control you, because if you don't behave then you'll be punished. But not, yeah, not thinking about well, how can we help people understand the issues and change how they think about them? Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 2:I guess I don't want to play into the poor man narrative no, you know that often gets thrown up there, but very genuinely, I don't write off any man. I don't write off that any man doesn't want things to be different and maybe that's the coach in me that you know. I have to keep that open mind. I don't know whether that's just you know, really ingrained in me, but I've seen it. I've seen that actually, when you approach even the angry trolling man on social media, when you approach them in a different way that is, actually asking questions, getting them to reflect rather than judging them and telling them that what they think is wrong or how their behavior is wrong, you can actually see progress.
Speaker 2:And one of the things that I do on LinkedIn and I do just because it's a passion of mine is I coach the trolls that come to some of my posts, uh, that I see posting other on other people's posts, um, I reach out to them and it's usually just via exchanging messages.
Speaker 2:I have a bit of a coaching conversation with them, um, within the privacy of the messaging function, not publicly, because you know that's not safe for them, but actually asking them the questions that reflect on how they've formed a certain viewpoint. You know what might be necessary for them to shift that mindset, like what would they need to see? Or like see evidence of, or what do they need to understand in order to shift that mindset, and that can be then the start of progress. Now I'm not professing that I'm a magician here, that I shouldn't turn a troll into a prince. I'm not professing that I'm a magician here, that you know, turn a troll into a prince. I do genuinely believe that that person can come good, can start to understand it as well. Right, and I I get hope from the conversations that I have that actually it might take still a number of months, years for that person, but they will get there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but what you're connecting into is our human need to all be seen and heard.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And to be understood. Yeah, how can people work with you?
Speaker 2:So I'm good for chat with anyone that's like-minded. So they don't have to work with me necessarily, they can actually just reach out to me. Best way to do that is the foralexandsamcom website. Reach out to me through that website and I'm good for a chat If we need to do work together or if there is a piece of work there. I do one-on-one coaching for senior executives and senior leaders. I also do group coaching for cohorts of leaders, either across an industry or just within an organisation. I also do workshops, both for male-only audiences and also mixed audiences as well, because, as I say, we all have a role to play in this. And, yeah, women aren't off the hook yet in terms of there's still some work for them to do as well.
Speaker 2:So it actually like a mixed audience makes for a really productive conversation where we all kind of come together and realize this is a shared problem that we can work on together.
Speaker 1:Awesome, ian. It's been so amazing learning from you today, and I will put all your links in the show notes so that people can find you easily, because I just know there'll be listeners who want to work with you. So thank you so much for today.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Thanks for having me, Lisa.