#116 Transforming stereotypes : creating safe & inclusive workplaces with Jodie Jarvis

"The more cognitive diversity we have in the workplace, the better we will be as organisations if we can manage it effectively"Jodie and I discuss the shifts that need to happen to create safer and more inlcusive workplaces. Leaders play a pivotal role in nurturing a culture of empathy, understanding, and genuine care. Over and above all, leaders need to know their people and reflect on their behaviours and what they are enabling and hindering in the workplace. Understanding the challenges and opportunities faced by neurodivergent individuals in the workplace, as well as coming from a place of curiosity and care is necessary to cultivate environments where everyone feels safe and valued. Inclusivity isn’t just a moral imperative—it’s a catalyst for creativity, performance and innovation. When organisations embrace diverse ways of thinking, and interact with the reality of the 5 generations who work in there, they can unlock new levels of performance and problem-solving capabilities. It is important to clearly define cultural narratives and what behaviours are required, to own our mistakes and fix them to restore relationships, and to call out bad behaviour. If you are looking for simple and actionable things that you can do to encourage and create the conditions for a safer and more inclusive workplace, listen to this episode as Jodie generously shares her perspectives, stories and thoughts on this important topic.The main insights you'll get from this episode are : -A culture of safety and inclusion are essential for performance: from aneurodiversity perspective, improvements made for neurodivergent peoplebenefit everyone, e.g. clearer communication and more flexibility.- Diversity too improves organisational performance, but people are oftenoverwhelmed by the subject so that no real action is taken. Unfortunately,direction, guidance and outcomes tend to supersede interpersonalconnections.- Conscious conversations are required to delve into what people need, andthen resource the skills required to react and respond to needs: ‘fix, deliver,advise’ should give way to space to listen, be heard and be comfortable withdiscomfort.- The post-covid backlash against the dialogue around mental health leaves usasking how we equip people to talk about it - this is based on empathy as wellas cultures of care, which mean different things to different people.- Leaders must know their people in order to support them and help themthrive; they must reflect, have an adaptable mindset for inclusivity and rolemodel a different approach, connecting with people 1:1 and building arelationship.- Team away days provide the opportunity to talk about something other thanwork, build trust on an individual level and thereby create more psychologicalsafety at a team level.- Flexible working (post-covid) reinforces the narrative that women can have/doit all – yet nothing can increase the amount of time available and only a strongsupport network can facilitate this.- The only option to flexible working is often not working at all, and people willseek out flexibility because getting the right balance at home has an impacton professional relationships too (ripple/cascade effect).- Five generations in the workplace now is very beneficial in terms of cognitivediversity, cross-mentoring, etc. - progress depends on a growth mindset and awillingness to see others’ point of view.- Humble leaders with strong people skills who are up to date with the latestthinking, work on their own unconscious bias and build a strong foundation ofunderstanding the well-being of their people can be transformational.- Trying to get people to ‘fit in’ is better replaced by a recruitment strategy thatis aligned around