The Enduring Power of Winning Deep: WTC Takeover Episode with Nadia Nagamootoo, Dr. Pippa Grange, and Errol Amerasekera

This special takeover episode of the Will to Change features a conversation with Nadia Nagamootoo, Founder and CEO of Avenir, a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultancy, Dr. Pippa Grange, a highly sought-after sports psychologist and culture coach. and Errol Amerasekera, Director of Bluestone Edge, an organization providing consultancy in culture, ethics, performance psychology, and leadership. You'll hear about the idea of winning shallow vs. winning deep and why checking the box when it comes to DEI doesn't lead to transformational change. Discover some of the biggest struggles that leaders face when measuring progress around diversity, equity, and inclusion and why DEI work needs to be relational. Nadia, Dr. Grange, and Errol also discuss what it looks like for inclusive leaders to focus on winning deep and how to practice skills that move us beyond productivity and mechanization to a more whole psychological state.

You can also listen on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play.

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Dr. Pippa Grange:

So the idea of winning shallow is that it's winning to avoid something, it's winning to avoid losing, it is winning to avoid being found out as not good enough. It's coming really from a scarcity mindset, it tends to have the tone of urgency with it, the tone of deliverables, and ticking off, and getting things done, but in a quick and deadly sort of way. When we are thinking about winning shallow, it's really got a tone of don't hang around, don't get into the detail, let's not do the wishy-washy soft skills stuff. Just move on, we're in a race here, no finish line kind of mentality. And what happens with that, is that you might get a lot of things covered off, but you haven't actually created change because the objective is to keep moving faster in a linear upward way. But the experience doesn't change, it doesn't have a changed psychology in winning shallow.

Speaker 2:

The Will to Change is hosted by Jennifer Brown. Jennifer is an award-winning entrepreneur, dynamic speaker, best-selling author and leadership expert on how organizations must evolve their cultures towards a new, more inclusive workplace reality. She's a passionate inclusion and equity advocate, committed to helping leaders foster healthier and therefore more productive workplaces, ultimately driving innovation and business results. Informed by nearly two decades of consulting the Fortune 500 companies, she and her team advised top companies on building cultures of belonging in times of great upheaval and uncertainty. And now, onto the episode.

Nadia Nagamootoo:

My name is Nadia Nagamootoo, and I am absolutely delighted to do this takeover show of The Will to Change. I've been a huge fan of Jennifer and her work for many years now, reading her books, and of course listening to the show. And I've integrated so much of Jennifer's thought leadership in the work that we do at Avenir. So when I reached out to Jennifer on LinkedIn a few years ago, I was just humbled by her generosity in connecting. We connected of course and hit it off, and naturally I wanted her to join me on my podcast show, Why Care? And she's going to be kicking off season four in a month or two, so please do listen out for that episode. But equally came this idea that I should do this takeover show, and I was incredibly honored.

I immediately started looking for my ultimate guest, and not only did I stumble on one, but two. So I have this incredible conversation now with Dr. Pippa Grange and Errol Amerasekera, and I really hope that you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Hello, Pippa and Errol, I am absolutely delighted to welcome you to The Will to Change, thank you so much for joining me. I have heard and read so much about both of you, I'm absolutely thrilled to just spend this time with you. What would be great, because I know so much about you both, but of course listeners might not. So it would be wonderful just by way of introducing yourselves, if you could just say a little bit about your background, your career, and some of the work that you found yourself doing in diversity, equity and inclusion. Pippa, if you wouldn't mind starting.

Dr. Pippa Grange:

Sure thing. Well, thank you for having us Nadia, it's really nice to be with you. In terms of my background, I'm a performance psychologist over the last 25 years. And more recently have sort of taken a diversion down an ecological psychology path, which I'm sure we'll dive into a little bit later. But I have worked with predominantly elite sport over the last 20 plus years across English football, rugby, Olympic sports, netball, you name it, winter sports, I've been involved. Predominantly team sports, but also one-on-one with athletes. I started that work world in Australia in sort of the early 2000s, and started working in Australian rules football, which was a really great grounding. And I was working for an organization called the AFL Players Association, and that was all about psychological services for athletes and their families. And a lot of one-on-one work, a lot of workshop kind of endeavors, working with clubs to help them see the whole person, not just the performer.

And as part of that whole person work, obviously there was diversity work within that. But I became increasingly interested in the culture that holds us, and working on the culture rather than just with the individual, because I felt like a lot of the issues that we were dealing with were really sort of held in systems and culture as much as in terms of individual transformation. So I moved to what I now describe as working as a culture coach. And really I suppose what I've been doing over that last period for both businesses and elite sports, mostly organizational, has been helping people illuminate, really see how things are now, evaluate, review, revise how they might like it to look, and help provide some method for them to be able to step forward on that. I really am a Dot Joiner. Yeah, I'm a dot joiner.

Nadia Nagamootoo:

I think I'm a Dot Joiner too, I love that, that's great.

Dr. Pippa Grange:

Yeah, I think you might be.

Nadia Nagamootoo:

How wonderful. And of course if you wouldn't mind just saying a little bit... No, I am a huge fan of you, your work, and your book, Pippa, so if you wouldn't mind just saying a little bit about Fear Less. Which is a book that has... I know you're working on another book now, but if you wouldn't mind just drawing a little bit on the things that you talk about there.

Dr. Pippa Grange:

Yeah, I totally forgot to mention I'm an author as well, thank you. Three years ago I released a book called Fear Less: How to Win at Life Without Losing Yourself. And it's really an exploration of how fear gets in the way, particularly not good enough fear. There's two different types of fear, as I articulate in the book. There's that in the moment fear, which is very real, and necessary, and obvious. And then there's not good enough fear, which is a more pervasive, sort of chronic underbelly fear, that gets in the way of us doing what we know we might like to do or ought to do.

And so it's an exploration of how that plays out in our life, and how it disguises itself as things that don't obviously look like fear on the surface, such as jealousy, separation, aloofness, self-criticism, withdrawal, avoidance, lots of other ways that not good enough fear disguises itself. And it's relationship to shame, and then how we might start thinking about being less limited by it, by unpacking some different narratives and doing some different things I guess in a nutshell.

Nadia Nagamootoo:

Yeah, thank you so much. Well, we're going to go a lot more deeply into the content of your book in talking today about diversity, equity, and inclusion and how it relates to fear. So I'm going to pause there and just come over to Errol, because I would love to hear, Errol, your work, your background, the work that you do. And if you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit about the book that you're writing.

Errol Amerasekera.:

Hi Nadia, thanks for having us today, it's great to be with you both. I actually started professional life as a sports chiropractor, and I spent a lot of time working with elite athletes in a chiropractic sense. And then in about the early 2000s I started kind of figuring out that bodies have an emotional component to them, and our emotions affect our wellbeing. And also at the same time realized our environment affects our wellbeing and how we perform.

So I went off and did my master's in organizational psychology and conflict resolution, and then also trained as a psychotherapist. And then over the last 20 years I've gradually kind of transitioned out of chiropractic, and a bit like Pippa working mostly as a consultant facilitator coach in predominantly elite sporting organizations around culture, leadership, and high performance. The book is about 80% written, the first draft. The working title is The Anti-racist Organization. The subtitle is, A Practical Guide to Building an Inclusive, Connected, and High Performance Culture. And the premise really is that every organization has a commercial imperative, or a competitive edge they're trying to create, even nonprofits have a commercial imperative. And often we tend to see DEI work something off the side, we compartmentalize it, but actually how do we integrate DEI work into the competitive imperative organizations have?

Nadia Nagamootoo:

Wow, okay. Well I'm incredibly excited to read this book, so thank you very much for sharing both of you, Errol and Pippa, [inaudible 00:10:01] your backgrounds. So Pippa, I'm going to come to you first, because when I read your book what resonated with me... Well, a number of things resonated with me. But it was around what I see when I'm working with leaders around inclusive leadership, that fear that they experience around saying the wrong thing, or, "I don't get what this thing called inclusive leadership is, what exactly do you want me to be like, because what I know from leadership doesn't seem to tally with what you're telling me I need to be now?" It's not about being strong, and knowing, and having all this confidence, it's around showing my vulnerability and saying that I don't know. There's so much fear around diversity, equity, inclusion in general, so when I read your book there was this fear of not being good enough, and I wonder how that shows up in diversity, equity, inclusion work that you've been involved in.

Dr. Pippa Grange:

I actually think it's a really great example of where not good enough fear shows up, because it's really about the gap between how we think we'd like to be, and what we think we're capable of that we're talking about. And in DEI work, as you've just alluded to, people don't want to get things wrong. And I think that that's very common, that the impression of ourselves that we want to show to the world doesn't necessarily tally up very well with the impression we have of ourselves internally, our internal world. And we think that there's a gap that's an unacceptable, or a not good enough gap, and we want to hide it. That's a predominant piece, we're not really willing to open our vulnerability up enough to say, "I don't get it, I don't know." There's a shame associated with that. And add to that, the fact that we don't really like our reflection very much.

We've got so mired in this idea that we ought to be better, we ought to be good enough on every level, and good enough actually means perfect for a lot of people when it comes to this. So we don't really want to show our reflection fully to other people, so we hide it, and when we want to hide or separate something, we become defensive, and that shows up in fear. That's a fear response showing up into the circumstance. And I think that's really sort of central in DEI work, but I also think the cultural way we've learnt to perform at work, as you allude to, doesn't give us much room to be flawed. It doesn't give us a lot of permission to not know, everything is reduced down to a deliverable or a KPI, and this work just cannot be that. It's not performance-based work, it's hard work, it's psychological work, and people are very anxious about being so exposed in that, which is why I really truly believe we start with the fear.

Nadia Nagamootoo:

It's not something that can be measured, we can't measure inclusion in a tangible way, and we can't measure how people are experiencing feeling in the organization and belonging in the organization. So I think that that's definitely one of the struggles that I see, how do I know that I've created a psychologically safe environment so that everyone can share with me their different experiences? And how will I know if I'm getting this right? I mean, can there be KPIs around this? I don't know, Errol, if you want to come in on any of what we're discussing here.

Errol Amerasekera:

I think it's an interesting question. Nadia, I think there are certain surveys you can do in organizations which measure cultural, and diversity, and psychological safety, so you can quantify to some extent. But I think the nuance of the work is that those experiences are very fluid. So you can go from feeling psychologically safe to not psychologically safe in 10 minutes, and vice versa. So we see them as fixed states. We are less able to, A, see them as fluid states, and then secondly, to track what are the things we do as an organization, as a team, which moves the dial in either direction to create more or less safety, to create more or less inclusion?

Nadia Nagamootoo:

I love that. Because you're so right, we love to see things very binary, don't we? Either we have it or we don't, it's in really concrete terms. And actually the stuff that we're talking can be quite fleeting in moments, like, "Oh, someone just said something and it made me feel..."

Errol Amerasekera:

We had it and then it was gone, or it was gone then we had it. And that's what I think Pippa's saying about to really track what moves the dial in those ways requires that slow in-depth psychological worker Pippa's talking about. Like, "Oh, what just changed? The vibe in the room changed, how come? We all just disengaged a bit, how come? We all reengaged, how come?"

Dr. Pippa Grange:

I was just going to say I think of it as sort of a dynamic harmony, rather than something that ever gets finished. When we say, "You'll never be done with this work." It's really depressing, it's like, "But we need to progress this work, we want to succeed with it, we want to feel success."

Nadia Nagamootoo:

That's the desperation, isn't it? Yeah.

Dr. Pippa Grange:

Right. And I do think there are many ways that you can track progress and have measures and goals, and they're super important. I guess the point that I'm pretty sure Errol would make as well, is that we need to also do the psychological work and realize that the outcome we're looking for is this dynamic harmony, because it moves all the time. And it's a feel, and you can't possibly know how it's going unless you ask, unless people are in a position where they can speak it and say, "You know what? I feel like it's actually improved a bit. I still don't quite feel right on X, Y, Z, but it's moving."

You have to be in that conversation, but to be in that conversation is slower work, which we're not very tolerant of. And it's also very vulnerable work, so the leader or the person asking how it's going has to also be in that psychological work. You can't do it to the organization, you can't deliver something for a group, you have to be in it with them if you want to create that transformational change, and because it's relational, DEI work is relationship work. And if we don't step into that as a team, if we don't reteam on that, it just won't go as far as it could. So there'll be things that you can tick off, and it might've improved, but the transformation that is possible cannot be accessed unless we're willing to go there.

Nadia Nagamootoo:

That resonates with me so much in terms of the work that I've seen, and often I'm talking to maybe even the HR person, maybe not even a senior leader in the organization, but someone who's driving the work that's not necessarily at the top. Who's saying, "We really want to encourage conversations in the organization around diversity, equity, inclusion, can you work with our managers and their teams?" And I'm like, "Well, what is the work that the board is doing? What is the work the executive team is doing and the senior leaders?"

And the general response, in an awkward kind of way is, "Well, they're okay. I don't know whether we can really do the work with them, I don't don't know if they'll be particularly open to it, let's start with the line managers." And actually that's my point of saying, "Well look, I'm going to step away from this one because I need the senior leaders." There's no point almost. I mean, there's always point in having conversations and different conversations, but unless the senior leaders are willing to do that work and step into the space, where's the impact? Where's the actual change in the culture?

Dr. Pippa Grange:

And Nadia, this is where I feel our not good enough fear radar needs to be really high. Because if you ask yourself the question, "Why won't those senior execs do the work?" Or, "Why is the HR person feeling some resistance?" It's full of it, it's full of fear. And we can make kind of judgements about that of, "Oh, they've got other imperatives, it's a profit motive only, they just want to get on." But there's going to be some not good enough fear there. And so the tenacity that we can bring to sort of say, "How can I address this in a value aligned way, and to start pulling the threads of that psychological work with the executive team?" If you can't get in front of them, you can't do that, granted. But I think that there's sort of recognition of it as deep success, transformational change, value alignment, and personal growth work with an executive team, then that cascades.

Because if they don't have some shift in either their unconscious resistance, or their sense of priority, or their feeling that they can let go of something, or even especially actually that they have permission to do that work. Because when you're in the senior position, when you're in the executive position, everybody's looking for you for the answers. Everybody's looking up at you to have everything right, and very quick to blame and shame. And that leaves that person in a state where they're not particularly willing to go more vulnerable. And so we have to take the same tone to the executive, and be... This is why it's such intense work for the culture coach or for the DEI professional facilitator, and this is why that sort of sense of really anchoring back to what you're doing and why is so critical I think.

Nadia Nagamootoo:

And it's tough to hold that space as a DEI professional. I mean, maybe it's worth just going there for a minute, in terms of, what are the challenges when you're trying to get senior leaders to work in organizations to get this deep work done? That it's not just about telling people what to do, it's supporting people to be a different way. And so it's exactly what you're saying, Pippa, there around it's personal, you're not just teaching me competencies of being an inclusive leader. I actually need to be something different, see the world differently, live in a different way almost, which is huge. But it has an impact on the work that we're doing as DEI professionals, how we need to show up. And I don't know, Errol, if you can kind of come in here.

Errol Amerasekera:

Yeah. Nadia, it's a great discussion by the way. And I think [inaudible 00:21:34] complexity of working with leaders, is I always think the first steps to meet them where they're at. And yes, it's personal, but also seeing they're part of a system too. So where is the systemic and the cultural conditioning that creates the barriers? Which they can't be vulnerable, they can't make a mistake, they feel not good enough. So the projections they wear about having to be invincible, and have all the answers, and know everything, and they wear all those as leaders. And so unless we can almost empathize and acknowledge that's where they're at in this moment, and meet them where they're at, then it's hard to shift. Then we're just butting heads against our way and your way.

And that's something with your question, I think that's such a challenging thing as a coach facilitator, DEI professional, and as a leader. I feel like for me, for obvious reasons, working with race is challenging, because as soon as the topic of racism comes up part of me feels one down by it. I feel like I'm in a low power spot. And then the challenge is, how do I acknowledge that and simultaneously also access my power as a facilitator, and my awareness as a coach and leader, and have both those simultaneously? I think so often leaders, especially leaders with marginalized identities around social stuff. So if it's around race, or gender, or sexuality, they identify with only where they are oppressed, and it's more challenging to acknowledge and honor the oppression experience. But at the same time also identify with where you have got the power and the influence, and how do you do both in the same breath? And if you're a leader, or a facilitator, or a coach, I think that's one of the profound challenges of our work, and of leadership too.

Nadia Nagamootoo:

That's spot on. It's so right, because we're holding our own experiences of marginalization and discrimination, things that have happened to us because of who we are. So we're holding the space for others to explore, whilst also noticing any things that are triggering us. Also noticing how because of who we are and because of the space that we're facilitating, yes, we're leading the discussion in many ways, how our diversity characteristics influences the conversation. So that's really complex. And Pippa, I can see you nodding here.

Dr. Pippa Grange:

And of oftentimes as well when we're working with those leaders, I always find this especially in organizations where somebody is on an executive, or on a committee, or in a working group, or in a leadership position, but they have some sort of feeling that they're there as the diversity pick. So that person has been added to that executive, whether it's the one woman in among six men, as I've been so often in my professional career. And there is a paradox and attention that you have to hold with that, still bring your skill, still drive change, but know that you're actually dealing with your own psychology and your own cultural experiences in among. So sometimes you're actually still getting irritated personally by the very things that you're looking to change, and that's tough. And that's why Errol and I, I think we're both so firmly entrenched in this belief that you really must work together wherever you can. And that individual, especially if it is one individual, or it's two individuals in a leadership group who are diverse from the majority, than they are feeling this too.

And so to work together, and to know that there has to be a sense of community, and that community isn't, "Oh, those guys just don't get it." Those community is, "Where is everybody at?" That community is helping you see, where is everybody at? And what's going on for you? And that's why it is complex work, and it's slow and intense, it's not going to be fixed tomorrow, it's dynamic in its orientation rather than something we're going to finish. And we have to do it kindred, together, in friendship, in community.

And that's where that sense of belonging is actually going to come from, because the human condition's pretty messy. Full of potential, but pretty messy. And we actually have to do this as a collective of human beings, not as people who know stuff and people who don't get it. Because I know when I'm irritated about being treated in a particular way as that one woman in a group of men who might have a whole heap of blind spots, I'm getting irritated. That's not helpful, it's real, and I need to process it. Errol on speed dial. And for me then that is, I have to work out where I'm at to be able to help, and it's so important that we can do that.

Nadia Nagamootoo:

Yeah. And I love that phrase there, it's slow and intense work. And that juxtaposition of those two words, we don't often experience slow and intense, so this is why it's so challenging. Now, this is something I want to move into here, which is this concepts in your book, or what you call winning shallow and winning deep, and bringing that into our conversation here. So if you wouldn't mind just unpacking for those people who might not know what we're meaning by this. If you could just unpack that, and then we'll go into a conversation maybe around how winning shallow shows up in DEI work for leaders and for professionals, but also how we might be able to win deep.

Dr. Pippa Grange:

Yeah. So the idea of winning shallow is that it's winning to avoid something, it's winning to avoid losing, it's winning to avoid being found out as not good enough. It's coming really from a scarcity mindset, it tends to have the tone of urgency with it, the tone of deliverables, and ticking off, and getting things done, but in a quick and deadly sort of way. When we're thinking about winning shallow, it's really got a tone of don't hang around, don't get into the detail. Let's not do the wishy-washy soft skills stuff, just move on. We're in a race here, no finish line kind of mentality. And what happens with that is that you might get a lot of things covered off but you haven't actually created change, because the objective is to keep moving faster in a linear upward way that the experience doesn't change, it doesn't have a changed psychology in winning shallow. Whereas winning deep is about psychological change, and that means a changed experience of your wins.

You might achieve the same thing, but the experience is very changed in winning deep. So there's an investment impossibility, there's a running towards, there is a sense of it being most deeply aligned with what you care about most rather than getting through and ticking off. And it really means that people have to not cling to the old, they have to step into possibility if you're going to win deep. And it's got all the blood, sweat and tears in both that you might expect, both are as hard, but the psychological experience of winning deep is entirely different. And I've worked with winners my whole career, and for me I've met very many leaders and elite athletes, high performers, who have been winning shallow. And the end result is emptiness, it's a sense of almost loneliness, or dissatisfaction, disenfranchisement at the end of the day, and it's just not what they thought it would be. However long the resume is, or the deliverables, or however big the bank account is, because it wasn't deeply aligned. And that's the difference between winning shallow and winning deep.

Nadia Nagamootoo:

Thank you. So I just love hearing you articulate that, because whilst you're explaining it I can think of all the times that I have won shallow. I mean, because actually it's... And we're not going to go into the educational system here, necessarily deep into politics. But it does feel like that's what's drilled in here, "Just keep going." GCSE's, A-levels, I'm in the UK system obviously, but keep going for all of those accolades. And then I got my bachelor's, and then I got my master's, and then I got my chartered status as a psychologist, and then I did an MBA. And I'm just kind of winning and successful, but actually I don't know if I enjoyed that journey as fully as I might have done if I was really wanting to experience the journey of learning. Errol, is this making sense to you? Do you also resonate with this?

Errol Amerasekera:

Totally. So I feel like the fundamental premise of structural discrimination, it says that your experience is not important. So if it's around gender, or around race, or sexuality, or gender identity, or class, or able-bodiedness, it's saying, "Your experience is not as important." And so when that's around then what you and Pippa just mentioned becomes all the more prevalent, because while we're winning shallow it's easier to marginalize our experience. The moment we go, "What's my deep experience of winning?" I think two things happen. We start to move one step towards winning deep, as Pippa talks about. But also as we centralize our experience in that moment, it's a moment of activism, or rebelliousness, or pushing back against an oppressive system both internally and externally, because we internalize those narratives. We all internalize if it's sexism, or racism, or homophobia, or transphobia, we internalize them so they live within us. So we also decentralize our experience or our emotions. So I think as we centralize our experience, it's part of the winning deep Pippa talks about.

Nadia Nagamootoo:

It's hard, what you're talking about.

Errol Amerasekera:

Especially when we conditioned not to. Especially when we've been conditioned by the structures to put the heterosexual, or the White, or the Christian, or the male perspective, voice, opinion ahead of ours. To make their opinions more important and more valuable, their feelings and experience more important and valuable. And that's about the system we're living in, systems of oppression, as opposed to the individuals in the system.

So I think that's that deep and slow work Pippa's talking about, where it's about, how do we sit in our own experience? I think my favorite saying, which I might have borrowed from Pippa is, culture is a muscle. [inaudible 00:34:44] elite sport too long. And so like any muscle, to get better you have to be uncomfortable. And so athletes talk about this thing, it's called time under tension in the gym, and keeping your muscle under tension for longer periods gets better results. So it's psychologically, how do we increase our time under tension? It's your book as well, how do we sit in that discomfort for long enough to grow capability in those areas? I think it never becomes comfortable, because then we just put more weights on the bar and increase the workout.

Nadia Nagamootoo:

And it just keeps going, and we keep discovering more, and we keep learning about ourselves and others, and unpacking it all. Okay, so Pippa, bringing this concept of winning deep, from your perspective, what are we talking about when, what we're asking inclusive leaders to be? What does that look like for them? What do they need to do? What's the work that needs to happen?

Dr. Pippa Grange:

I think of it in sort of a process. I think the first thing is to ground, to literally come into now, and to ground, and to review and acknowledge how you feel about the way it is. Because most of us will immediately go to an intellectual place, and talk about the things that we've done, and why they were right or wrong, we can stay in that intellectual place fairly comfortably. But to ground into the moment and actually say, "How do you feel about the fact that you didn't celebrate all of those wins you had, Nadia, on that journey?" Let's actually review what that's like for you from a heart head perspective, instead of just a head perspective. And so starting there. And it doesn't have to be uber vulnerable to start with, but to ground people into what their actual experience is I think is very, very important.

And then to sort of say, "Well, let's go back and have a look at your deepest values." And really get people to articulate, let me start there. Articulate what they say they care about most, and explore that in depth, not a superficial one-liner, but explore it in depth. What does that look like? Where do you have obstacles with that? What's the opposite of that? Where is your tension with it? Where does that flourish for you in your life? Really explore it deeply, and then look at the alignment between how today is and what those values are. And so that somebody can have something more like a charter or a map for where they might like to go. Now, with that, my experience has been that our common humanity is pretty common. We can talk about difference a lot, but when we do that the things that we share in common are pretty vibrant, pretty vital for us.

And when you can get somebody to start there and articulate from there, how that relates in any way to DEI? How does that deepest position, authentic position for you, the sort of whole and soul if you like, how does that relate to DEI work? And then from there I think you have a really good grounding to start thinking about what to do, because you've already worked on the more sort of personal. And you also set the tone, the anticipatory guidance, that this is going to be a constant, your evolution, not to an end point, but your dynamic evolution is going to be a constant. How do you show up as your best version rather than perfect and complete? How do you take a left turn now and then, and wayfare into something that might really deepen your understanding of what's happening in the organization, or what's happening around DEI?

And for me as well, a really, really important part of this work once somebody's grounded, once somebody's value aligned, is to talk about the stories that run our lives. Talk about the narratives and ideas that have us, we don't have ideas, they have us. So to sort of say, "What do we believe?" And when you really dig down into it, most of Western culture is a belief that White male is best. And if we say that at the start before the sort of grounding and alignment piece, it's very hard to swallow for a lot of people, or it brings up shame and fear. It puts fear straight on the table.

So to go through that process, and then to sort of say, "Okay, now let's have a look at some of the ideas that have us organizationally." And this is one of my bugbears, but when we talk about soft skills, or the wishy-washy stuff that DEI sometimes gets put in that, that is part of the story that we are living of hyper masculinized, over mechanized, performance-based work life. Where the masculine archetype is so strong, and the feminine is...

Feminine archetype, I'm not talking about male female bodies here, I'm talking about the psychology, where that's repressed. So collaboration, growth, development, care, support, those aspects are set to the side because there's a purposeful pursuit of more, and upward, and stronger, and better, and that has become the tone of our work life. And when you really can start to just unpack some of the ideas that have us there, I think it just unlocks something really dramatic when you can have those. But we're talking about slow and intense work with people in small groups or individually, where you can actually take them on a journey over a period of time to say, "Are these the right ideas for your future, for our collective future? Do we want to revise anything? Do we want to realign anything here?" And then the DEI work, not in any way to diminish the systems, programs, processes that have been so powerful in the last couple of decades particularly, but that then has an open door to succeed rather than trying to wedge the door open with people who are not psychologically aligned to that work.

Nadia Nagamootoo:

Yeah. Oh, my gosh, you said so much there my mind's just gone boom in so many different directions. So one of the things you said there was around the masculine archetype, and I think therefore we're less practiced at doing the work, the winning deep work, the grounding, the reflection, the sense of really understanding how my ideas... I love that, what you said, how my ideas have me, rather than the other way round. That actually that's not rewarded, it's not practiced. And I'm thinking about your definition of winning shallow, and it feels like that masculine archetype of how to succeed in organizational life is just so pervasive, that we've set organizations up to win shallow in many ways. Have I understood that correctly?

Dr. Pippa Grange:

A hundred percent. And the point I'd like to make here, Nadia, is that it's not about women and men, it's about lack of wholeness. It's a lack of wholeness, so when we are skewed only to one way, one archetype, that's why White men also feel empty, and lonely, and sort of like it hasn't all been worth it. And that we can see that in the mental health outcomes across the world as well.

And so it's the revision to something more whole. And the win deep in that, is that wholeness is the only place that deep problem solving can come from. It's the only place that genuine innovation and creativity can come from, none of those things are masculine or feminine, they're whole, they require all of us. And so to bring in those practice skills that are broader, and more holistic, and more authentically human rather than born of a system of productivity, and outcome, and mechanization, which is 150 years worth of cultural conditioning. But it's just an idea, it's not real, it's not the only way, it's an idea. And there are many, many other possibilities with that. And this is where biomimicry is so interesting, and looking to the natural world of, how do things actually happen? Because red in tooth and claw competition isn't the only way it happens in nature, and it's not the only way it can happen in our nature.

Nadia Nagamootoo:

So I'm going to come to you now, Errol, because there's something that actually Pippa says in her book, which is around belonging. And what Pippa says, is that there are three door openers to belonging, friendship, kindness, and intimacy. And Pippa just mentioned there, that it can feel to some leaders that it's just soft wishy-washy intimacy, "What, you want me to be intimate with my colleagues?" And this could lead across boundaries according to how organizational life typically is. So Errol, so with particularly your sports industry hat on. You've worked with a lot of leaders in that particular domain, which is typically quite a very masculine archetype, in terms of their leadership and dominated by men. How do you work through that? Do you bring intimacy into your work?

Errol Amerasekera:

It's such an interesting question. I think I bring intimacy to the work, but I think if as facilitators and leaders we create the space, intimacy happens organically. Now, I often say there's three things we can't mandate or force, and I think it's love, safety, and trust. All we can do is just create the space and these things happen. And it's amazing that these macho athletes, or these high profile leaders, you just scratch below the surface and give them the chance to have their personhood revealed, and it comes to the surface really quickly. It's almost like part of them is just dying to have this experience of their loneliness, or their shame, or their fear seen, and see the light of day, and be validated, because in no other part of their life is that part of them seen and valued.

So you create the space, and they're almost banging the door down, in some respect, to share this. And so I think that's where we start. So if we go back a couple of steps, when Pippa asked you about, "How'd you feel about winning shallow through your life?" And for me, if I was working with you, you'd be going, "I feel this and I feel that." And then noticing the moment you start to decentralize your experience, and take away from your own experience of winning shallow, because that's the moment we've lost intimacy. Firstly with yourself and your own experience, and secondly with me, it's just that connection.

So it's continually bringing people back to their lived experience and their deepest experience, and why's that so important? Because what it does, is it supports and models their internal diversity. So I don't think we can create external diversity until we can create and support our internal diversity. I'm okay with my vulnerable side, I'm okay with my more introverted side, my extroverted side, my out their side, how do all of my different sides live in harmony? And knowing how I prioritize one side over another, same as we do in the external world. So how do we find the parts of us we oppress and marginalize, and unpack the narratives and the stories we tell ourselves around why we do that? I think those stories are part personal and part structural and systemic in the same breadth.

Nadia Nagamootoo:

It's funny because as...

Errol Amerasekera:

Does that kind of make sense though?

Nadia Nagamootoo:

It does, complete sense, it absolutely makes sense. And what I'm thinking as I'm hearing you speak, is that actually as a facilitator, coach, DEI professional working in this space. That sometimes it's my own narratives that are playing out as to what holds me back from opening up that conversation with a load of White male leaders, that I typically am facilitating conversations with, wondering how are they going to view my legitimacy, my competence, professionalism, if I start opening up? If I ask that question that I want to ask, that I know they need to answer to get into this space, to win deep, to start that work. But I hesitate because I'm thinking, I don't know... I fear that they're going to respond in a way that's just like, "Oh, who is she? She's coming along and opening up this conversation, we never had these conversations before. I don't see the point. Quite frankly, I lead in an equal and a fair way, I don't really see the point in going there, where she wants to take us." So that's something about me too, right?

Errol Amerasekera:

Well, it's the paradox, I think it's your own narratives and the people you're working with narratives. Even saying they're your own narratives, it's true, but it's not totally true, because we've all inherited those narratives.

Nadia Nagamootoo:

It's all wrapped up in the system.

Errol Amerasekera:

You weren't born with those narratives, so how do we start to tease apart... I think Pippa's chomping at the bit. How do we tease those narratives apart? To go, "Actually, that is the structures of sexism, or homophobia, or racism, or classism that I've internalized and then I'm playing out."

Nadia Nagamootoo:

Yeah, Pippa?

Dr. Pippa Grange:

I just wanted to say that also, that is what they will say on day one, or the first time it's risen. I think it's really important that we talk about that together as a community of facilitators in this work, you will get that fear response. People will be defensive and resistance, and they will make it about you not presenting the perfect thing to solve the problem immediately, and making them feel uncomfortable. It will go that way, that's actually part of the composting, it's part of all of the things that need to break down to allow some new fertile ground, it's part of the process. And this is why that working in community is so important, that you don't take that personally, you're not triggered by that personally. If they're not feeling slightly uncomfortable, we're probably not doing the psychological work. Nobody's ever done psychological work comfortably.

So there's a wonderful journalist and author, Amanda Ripley, who writes about high conflict. And she was in a podcast I listened to recently with Krista Tippett. And I think she was just fantastic on this topic, because it was about where we go when we sit in discomfort in that way, and why there is a particular sort of way of elevating beyond conflict to get an outcome. But I think we need to expect it, which is what you're writing about too. So for me, that guidance of if you're not getting... I can't tell you how many times I've sat in a room, or stood at the front of a room of 40 men with folded arms looking at me with a furrowed brow. And what's in my mind they're thinking, what are you talking about? But they're not going to show anybody next to them that they're taking any of it in.

And so I can't pay attention to that. I pay attention to what I am hoping to share with them, and that I'm doing so with care, and I'm giving them the space to meet me in the middle. And that might take quite a long time. So I need to get my solace or my down low, that's why Errol's always on speed dial, in another place because I'm expecting that kind of defensiveness.

And some of the hardest conversations I've had where I've been really quite triggered, have been around the investment in women versus the investment in men in sport, boys, girls. And where I've had to be the person who raises the disparity, and I get a defensive reaction. Because the people that you're talking to, they don't want that to be the story that's heard. They might have enough cognitive dissonance that they don't really want to believe that's the story that they're in. But it's the actions that are being taken, it's real. And so you're going to get a whole wave of dissonant defensiveness coming at you, it's not yours, you don't have to own that, you should expect that and then work out, how do we... That's why we need a board of directors for life when we're a DEI facilitator in any way. And you come back to community, you work through it, you know where people are at, and you move forward.

Nadia Nagamootoo:

Thank you. Errol, I can see you want to come in.

Errol Amerasekera:

Yeah, I think what Pippa's saying, it's such a underestimated part of our work. Because when you get that defensive reaction, if we get triggered or we get to start to prove them wrong, all our... We know from neuroscience the prefrontal cortex shuts down, we make bad decisions, empathy goes, compassion goes, it's a neuroscience phenomenon. But if we can stay untriggered and keep our heart open, then you notice the defensiveness, and as a facilitator context.

[Inaudible 00:54:37] can go, "I notice you are a little bit defensive. If you're defensive, you must be feeling attacked from somewhere. Where's the attack you're perceiving? If it's real or perceived, where are you feeling it's coming from?" And can then get them to unpack that moment of defensiveness. That they can go, "Oh yeah, the attack is the invisible shamer, or the critic, or my past boss, or the media, or shareholders." And then we can unpack that with them. So it's seeing the wisdom in their defensiveness, not just seeing us as the enemy, and helping them to see as it's a normal, healthy response to where they feel attacked. That might not be by us, but they project something onto us as the facilitator or trainer. But it's our job to help them gain their awareness and unpack that reaction of theirs.

Dr. Pippa Grange:

And that's exactly...

Errol Amerasekera:

Then we can start to transform that defensiveness. [inaudible 00:55:42].

Dr. Pippa Grange:

Yeah, and we're triggering the not good enough there.

Errol Amerasekera.:

They just do more of this, and we get more triggered.

Nadia Nagamootoo:

Yeah, you're not going anywhere. Oh, I can't believe we're out of time, it feels like there's so much more in our conversation, and perhaps there's a part two at some point where we can realign, come together. Maybe after your book's out, Errol, and maybe after mine, and, Pippa, your your next book. So let's put a pause there, and thank you. Oh, my goodness, thank you a hundred times for your insights, this discussion. I've got so much from it, and I know that those listeners out there will too. So thank you, Pippa. Thank you, Errol.

Errol Amerasekera:

Thanks, Nadia. [inaudible 00:56:34].

Dr. Pippa Grange:

Thank you so much, it's a wonderful conversation with you both. Yeah, really appreciate it.

Jennifer Brown:

Hi, this is Jennifer. Did you know that we offer a full transcript of every podcast episode on my website over at jenniferbrownspeaks.com? You can also subscribe so that you get notified every time a new episode goes live, head over there now to read my latest thoughts on diversity, inclusion, and the future of work. And discover how we can all be champions of change by bringing our collective voices together, and standing up for ourselves and each other.

Speaker 2:

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