CEOs For Gender Equity with Ashley Speers

Hello, my friend, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. Thanks for joining us today. With over 10 million downloads and listeners from more than 180 different countries, it's dedicated listeners just like you who have made Negotiate Anything the number one negotiation podcast in the world. I'm your host, Kwame Christian. I'm a business lawyer, mediator, author, and the proud CEO of of the American Negotiation Institute. Now, before we get into today's insightful conversation, I have a golden opportunity for those of you who recognize the power of negotiation in your professional lives. Have you ever found yourself wishing that you could navigate those high stakes conversations with more confidence? Or perhaps you're looking to empower your team with the art of persuasion and conflict resolution? At the American Negotiation Institute, we've crafted specialized keynotes and workshops tailored for those very needs. We've transformed the negotiation skills of professionals worldwide and we're eager to do the same for you. We believe the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And our goal is to help you improve your lives and the lives of those around you, one difficult conversation at a time. Don't let another challenging conversation leave you second guessing. Click the link in the description to discover how we can help you find confidence in conflict, negotiate better deals, and have stronger relationships. Because in the world of business, every conversation counts. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview. Ashley, thanks for joining us today.

Thanks for having me, Kwame.

Yeah, it is our pleasure. So how about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Sure. So my name is Ash Spears. I'm the executive officer for a Western Australian non for profit called CEOs for gender equity. And our vision is to accelerate gender equity in Western Australia through inspiring and supporting CEOs to take action. So for us, we're a peer to peer support group and it's really all about sharing who's doing what, what's working, what's not working, and how can we all collaborate to really get a move on.

Oh, this is great. And the work that you all do is really important. So just kudos to you. Before we even get into the substance of interview, and I don't want to take this knowledge for granted. So before we actually get into the strategies, tactics, mindsets, all of that stuff, I think it would be good to just start off by talking about the issue that your organization exists to address.

Sure. So with gender equity, there's a number of different measures and one of them is the gender pay gap. Which looks at the difference in the average weekly earnings between men and women. And overall in Australia that's sitting at around about 21% at the moment. Within Western Australia it's even a little bit higher. And that measure is actually not considering things like bonus payments and overtime as well. So the word on the street is that the real gender pay gap is actually more in the kind of low 30s. So within Western Australia, even if we look at the difference in base salary, women in Western Australia have to work about an extra 108 days than their male peers to earn the same. And so that's just not fair and not right and just doesn't make good business or economic sense. So that's one area that we're looking at. Women's workforce participation is another. So Western Australia has the biggest gap in the participation rate between men and women is about a 10% gap. And I don't know if you've heard, but in Australia we've got a bit of a talent crisis which everyone's talking about, yet we actually have three times the amount of people that we need to fill the vacancies right here in Western Australia. And some of that are new moms which have maybe haven't returned to the workforce or indeed dads for various reasons, various systemic barriers. So again, by working with a gender equity lens, we're just trying to uncover those opportunities because not sure if you've heard about the business case for gender equity, but it's pretty powerful. So businesses which get closer to gender balance are proven categorically over so many studies to make more money, to have less safety incidents, to be more innovative, to increase their customer base, to make better decisions, you name it. So apart from the obvious moral and social case, we've got this huge business case which could bring like 260 million to Australia in one year alone. It's just for me it's, it's at the moment it's missed opportunity and that's what we just want to try and harness.

The work that you're doing is so important. And one of the things that is a strategic challenge that comes up more frequently than we would like is that a lot of people are simply unaware of the fact that these types of gender based issues still exist. That's the first thing. And then the next layer of strategic challenge is actually getting them to change their mind, their perspective and then the next layer is actually getting them to commit to doing something about it. Because I think a lot of us have seen these, we might be watching the news for example, and then we see something horrible on the news and now we're aware of it and we agree, hey, this is horrible. And then we sit there and don't do anything about it. So with what you're doing, there are like three layers of challenges. It's awareness, changing minds and then commitment. And I'd just be interested to hear in general, before we get into like the strategies that you use, what is your perspective of those three layers of challenge?

So the awareness piece is, is I guess the first stumbling point, if you ask me. I think there's not a lot of really direct, clear information out there as to what gender equity is, how it's manifesting and the missed opportunity. So I think there's a huge opportunity to build awareness. We've got so many amazing insights, but we just don't seem to be reaching our target market. For me, at CEOs for gender equity, it's business leaders. But really the issues which drive some of the challenges in gender equity are societal level issues. So there's something to be said for awareness for leaders to really get that buy in who can drive really dramatic change in organizations. But we also need to get people on board. There's no point in making part time leadership opportunities to try and get more women in leadership roles if they don't have the support in the household to make that happen. Right. So from an awareness perspective, there are. We need to reach broader society and we need some targeted, powerful staff to get the attention of business leaders, which is the business case I was referring to. So we've got work to do with awareness. I think you said the next one was getting them to change their perspective on things. So for me, I've been in this role now about seven months and I've seen the Aha or Eureka moments in two different forms. One is through one on one. So I meet with our existing members and other potential members in CEOs in Western Australia regularly. And the second forum are we host CEO roundtables which are kind of 12 to 15. One of our members hosts 12 to 15 CEOs in their network, in their supply chain, in their customer base. So that's one. And the other group forum is a CEO summit, which is when all our members get together three times a year. So one thing I would say is that the need to set the scene in your tone for those conversations. So the narrative around gender equity has been quite negative against men, you know, blaming men, also quite fixing women. That narrative just doesn't work. You know, who wants to hear that so for me it's really about setting the tone of completely non judgmental, completely neutral, just focusing on the why, which is this powerful business social case. So I just wanted to call that out because I feel like the narrative around gender equity just people just like to whinge about the problem and I just can't deal. I'm just like, let's just get on with a really constructive conversation which is going to influence and inspire change. That's important because when you do that, people feel comfortable to be themselves and to really listen and really be open and be really honest with their own perspective. A really couple of examples on that one. I met with the CEO recently and I noticed that he was kind of telling me that in his organization they were making some changes to try and drive that gender equity. But I noticed that they didn't have a policy to support people experiencing family and domestic violence. So in the meeting I said to the CEO, everything's great that you're doing. I just wanted to flag that. I noticed you don't have this policy in place. And he kind of squirmed a bit awkwardly and he said to me, but kind of leant over the table and he said, but Ash, if I put a family domestic violence policy in place, does it not make it look like I've got an issue here? And I said, well, you do have an issue here because 1 in 4 of the women in your workforce, never mind the men, have experienced family domestic violence. So by you saying, hey, we acknowledge that this is happening to some of you. I'm your CEO, I care.

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Here's a new policy and here's how we're going to support you through this. It changes the narrative completely from a taboo topic to something which is really caring about your employees and everything else that feeds from that. And he looked at me, he took a couple of moments and he looked at me and went, thank you Ash, I just never thought about it like that. Thank you. Of course we should have that. Of course we should put a policy in place. And so it was just a simple changing in perspective which has now, you know, that's his eureka moment. Another eureka moment in the round tables that we host which is when one of our existing members gathers some typically of the non converted to be honest, in a room. And we operate under Chatham House rules, which means whatever gets discussed in the room stays in the room. Which I think is really important and helps for those really brutally honest conversations. Another example is the current chair of my board. Peter Bennett. The CEO of Clough is a big engineer and construction company. He attended one of those roundtables initially and according to my predecessor he walked in with a bit of a swag and gender equity, it's all good in my organization. By the end of that two hour roundtable he was sat with his head in his hands going why would any woman want to come and work for Clough? So that was his eureka moment. And that happened because of the conversations that happened on that day. He is now the chair of my board. I am based in his office and it is incredible, it gives me goosebumps. His perspective how much they are leading the way with their policies, plans, frameworks, culture is unbelievable. One final example from our latest CEO summit which is when all our members come together three times a year is parental support programs came up and there was a big discussion about, you know, how many weeks pay is on offer, what the experience of people going on parental leave looks like, how it needs to be flexible, how it needs to be personalized. I met with the inclusion and diversity lead from one of my members shortly after that summit and she pulled me aside and she said, oh Ash, after that summit our CEO came back and said to me, right, I want to meet every person, I want to have a meeting with every person before they go on parental leave from now on. And I was just like, oh, this is it, this is goosebumps. These are the little nudges which come when we have really raw and open and supportive conversations about this really tricky topic.

So Ash, there are a couple of things that I realized. The first thing I realized is that we don't have a domestic violence type of program here at ani. So now for me as a CEO saying our program is Kwame threatening to whoop people's is it is insufficient.

I mean, hey, that's still appreciated I'm sure but something more formal would be, I'm sure go down very well. With your employees. Can I just tell you a really exciting change in legislation here in Australia on this topic. So up until change in legislation last year, which comes into effect tomorrow, so this is just awesome timing. Employees in Western Australia were entitled to five days family domestic violence leave unpaid, right? As of tomorrow in Australia, employees are entitled to 10 days family domestic violence leave every year. And it's paid. So this is a game changer, you know, for someone who is experience in family domestic violence and needs some time to sort some things out. They've got 10 days of pay versus five days of no pay. So this is just not only really impactful for people in Australia, but it's also just got the topic out there, right? It's on the news, people who talk about it, it's in the newspapers. So just any opportunity which gets these little taboo topics out there is so positive. So I'm really excited about that.

Yeah, that's really important. But again, like you said, it's not just the policy itself, it's also the opportunity that the policy creates for conversations to start.

Exactly.

When I think about your approach here, I really appreciate the fact that you talked about two challenging narratives that exist in the topic of gender equity, which is blaming men and fixing women. That latter one is almost akin to like societal gaslighting where we're saying, hey you, this is an inequitable society and this is what you as a woman need to do to make things better for yourself. And it's highly problematic. And I'll concede that when people would ask me about the wage gap, when you think about the negotiation space, the solution is always, hey, just negotiate. And that's what all the literature from men and women was always saying. We're just thinking about it from a tactical perspective. Just one, like one person trying to fight the entire world here, but just recognizing, hey, this is more of a societal issue that we need to address, that's really important. But I think one of the things that I want to focus in on here, that blaming men approach and the non judgmental approach you're taking here, there might be some advocates who are doing the same work and saying it is the men's fault, so we should blame them. What do you say to them about your strategy?

I say, what's your end goal? What are you trying to achieve? If you're trying to achieve gender equity, you need to engage 100% of the population and around about 50% of the population are men. So you can, it might make you feel good for half an hour if you Have a good old rant and wipe your finger. But if you're thinking smart and if you want to make significant seismic change in this space, you've got to engage the mental, you've got to make them feel comfortable with the fact that they don't have all the answers. They don't really know what it's about and neither do women by the way. So it's, for me it's just all about working smarter, not harder. And also some of the narrative around gender equity is really quite exclusive of men as well. And so you can't be saying you want, you want this, but you're, you're going to write it in the exact way which is causing the inequity. So the bottom line is you need the, the best solutions for gender equity. Engage everyone.

Exactly. I'm with you 100%. This is something I talked about in my last book, how to have difficult conversations about race. And there, there similarities between gender equity, racial equity, those type of things. The sensitivity of the topic, the temptation to get into blaming and shaming as a strategy. But like you said, it might make you feel good, but it, it often does not lead to the goals that we want. And when you're thinking about your approach, that non judgmental approach is beneficial because it creates psychological safety that allows them to feel comfortable enough being vulnerable with you and the other people at the round table to wrestle with the realities of the situation, but also come to terms with some of their inadvertent failures of the past. But if we come at them way too strong, then they feel shamed. And when you feel shame, that is a feeling that makes you pull back versus guilt. Guilt doesn't feel great, but it at least leads you to lean in and do something about it. And if we're working against not just the inertia of gender inequity, but also the psychology of somebody feeling unsafe in the interaction and feeling the need to defend themselves during the interaction. We're just making it so much harder for us to make progress on the issue.

Exactly. And I think, I'm not sure how much you know about this topic, but that is the pace of change for gender equity is painfully slow. Painfully slow. At last, calculations to address the gender pay gap in Australia. It's going to take 125 years. And as a, as a country, there's a global. The World Economic Forum has an annual ranking of countries for gender equity. They look at four different areas and Australia is like 42nd. New Zealand, our closest neighbor, is fourth. It's just. It's just not cool. And I can't help but think part of the reason why the pace of change has been so slow is because of this just whingy, negative narrative around gender equity. And that's something I'm really passionate about trying to change. And I've had really great feedback so far in the journey by coming at it with that fresh, neutral, unjudged approach.

This is great. I really appreciate this. And I can see the strategy behind it. That's. That's the thing, you know, that we're not just doing this because, oh, I'm feeling nice today. I'm feeling charitable today. You are making the conscious decision. This is what I need to do. Not only because being empathetic and creating a safe space is a nice thing to do, but also because it's more effective.

Look at your end goal. You know the end goal. You're trying to influence change. You're not going to do that by excluding people and getting people's backs up.

So.

And I think that is a bit of a point of difference of CEOs for gender equity and my amazing members is that they are so raw. To give you a really tangible example of how these conversations flow, you'd love to be a fly on the wall. One of my members in the past at his CEO roundtable stood up and kind of welcomed everyone and then said, I am a late convert to gender equity and I used to think that women couldn't sell and everyone's like, oh, you know, around the room. But then he went on to share the journey that he's been on since then and how the impact of making some small changes and how his company is now thriving under gender balance. So you can just see initially people's eyebrows go, you know, but he was being so honest. And that's what we coach our members to be. Because by him doing that, it sets the scene for everyone else to be so real and raw. And that's where the magic happens. I can't. It just. I get goosebumps every time I talk about it. Because when you see the CEOs talking to each other and saying, oh, well, I just need to hire anyone with a pulse at the minute. And I thought it was a nightmare with this. And, you know, it's just magic because we're all just saying what we really feel, and that's whenever we have the most productive conversations.

Oh, this is so good. Because when you're allowing people to say what they really feel, you're allowing them to show up as their authentic self. Think about the. Expand the scope of the conversation momentarily for diversity, equity, inclusion in general. We realize that a lot of times we prioritize the safety of marginalized or at risk communities, but we don't celebrate the authenticity of the majority.

Right.

And I think this is one of the things that is very hypocritical in the industry, that holds the industry back when it comes to making this progress. Because, let's face it, when you think about the compelling nature of these stories, we have to recognize that different people have different persuasive skills. The lived experience that I bring is going to be very different from the lived experience that you bring, which is different from the lived experience of the gentleman that you were just talking about. Three allies trying to address the same problem, but doing it very differently. And one of the things I always say is we can't shame people into being allies. It's very unlikely that we are so bad and judge them so harshly that we say, wow, I like being judged on Ash's team. Now, that's not how it works. But when you gave him the space to, to be an ally, there's. There's a segment of the population based on his experience that he can connect with in a way that we can't. And just kudos to you for creating a program that allows you to, to recruit allies like this and also trusting them enough to, to be authentic in their own type of way.

Thank you. And that's really why in our vision, we talk about inspiring and supporting CEOs, because that's what it's all about. We want to inspire that change that we talked about, the three stages, the awareness, the change in the commitment. We want to inspire that change and then engage them in the group. And we actually missed out on talking about commitments. But that's something which, when you join CEOs for gender equity, we have three commitments which our members need to work their way through. The first is a CEO statement. So our new members have to articulate in writing why gender equity, why is it important? Why have you joined CEOs for gender equity? And why should other CEOs get on board? And some of them really struggle with that. But that's okay because that's the first time they've taken the time to articulate that. You need to go away and you need to reflect and really think about that. So that's number one, the CEO commitment. And then we host that on the member page on our website and we share insights from those through our social media. The Second is CEO conversation. Now, that's even harder. That's a recorded conversation where we delve into, Tell me about the business case for gender equity at your company. What are the top three actions which have driven change? What hasn't worked, and what have you learned on your journey so far? So, again, sometimes we have to take several takes of those, but that is totally cool. And whenever the CEO is finished, they say, right, I am so much better prepared now to have conversations with my executive leadership team, with my board, because they've had to just have that space to be able to start getting comfortable with having the conversation. And the third is the CEO Roundtable, which we spoke about earlier, where that CEO has to gather 12 to 15 CEOs from their peer group, supply chain, whatever the case may be, and host a roundtable which aims to inspire and influence commitment. So each of those CEOs, before they leave, make one commitment based on what they've discussed and learned that day that they're going to go back and implement in their workplace. And I follow up in writing. I'm like a dog with a bone. And so that's the commitment piece. So when CEOs join, we've got those three commitments to gender equity. And then we have obviously the three CEO Summits each year where it's really into the juicy stuff of who's doing what and what's worked and what's not worked and how can we all just come together to really make some seismic change. And just from the last CEO Summit, there's so much exciting things in the pipeline, it's crazy. We're looking at trying to address the regional childcare challenge in Western Australia. So we're looking at companies with sites in similar regional areas coming together, chipping in money or chipping in a certain commitment of child care to try and encourage new child care centers to open. We're looking at standardized, upstander, active bystander training for gender equity. In our membership group, we're looking at joint school engagement programs so our members can go into schools together and share different careers and try and change gendered norms about subject choices and career choices. It's just the magic. All the. All the feels.

Oh, this is so good. And I love the fact that you're focused on commitment, too, because I think just in negotiation in general, but in these types of situations as well, people can get so excited when they hear a yes, like, we see that aha moment. Are you going to do something about it? Yes, I will. Oh, my goodness. We won. That's it we need accountability and commitment, and if we haven't gotten those things, then we haven't accomplished anything.

And I'll just say that in the past we've actually rejected memberships. So if we don't think that you're genuinely committed to gender equity, we say, no, thanks, come back when you're serious. Because this is not a media stunt. This is not talk, this is action. And our group is really special in how authentic and how honest and how vulnerable the group are with each other. You can't let someone in who's not on board. It's just not going to work. And to be honest, they don't deserve to be part of the group. So if I think it's lip service, it'll be a see you later.

I love that part because this is one again, just standard negotiation principle. There's a walk away point and if we're not getting what we need, then sometimes the best answer is to walk away. Not all deals are meant to be made in this situation. It's not a situation of money directly to you where you're saying, oh, you're not paying me, Ash Spears, what I'm worth. In this particular instance, you are not paying the concept of gender equity the respect that it deserves. I need to see you reach that standard of respect. And if you don't, this is not the right deal. You can come back if circumstances change. But no, I'm holding myself to this standard just to make sure that everybody else holds themselves to that standard. Because if there's no consequence from misbehavior in relationships and life in general, then people will just keep on misbehaving and people will keep on taking advantage of the organization and trying to get virtue singling points without putting in the work.

We're not interested. You've got to be genuinely committed to gender equity.

Oh, this is great, Ash. Thank you. And thanks for coming on the podcast. For folks that are interested in learning more about you and your company, what's the best way to get in touch?

Sure. So we've got the website for CEOs for gender equity is CEOs4gender equity.com and I'm on LinkedIn. Ashley Speers. A s h l e y dot s p e R S Perfect, everybody.

We will have links in the description. Ashley, really appreciate it. Thanks for joining us.

Thanks a million.

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