Episode 28 | MARGOT SLATTERY | President - Sodexo Ireland & NI

Welcome to Face Forward, the Inspiring Change podcast on all things internal communications, engagement, leadership, and change. Before we kick off today's podcast episode, a quick word about Inspiring Change. We help companies to drive successful change through the power of communications, engagement, and leadership. We've worked with many organizations, large and small, across many different sectors, and we'd love to work with you. So if you've got an upcoming change that you think you might need support on, or perhaps you're in the middle of a change that isn't going quite so well, we'd love to hear from you. Simply send an email to hello@inspiringchange.ie and we'll get right back to you. But for now, on with today's podcast. It was really interesting talking to Denis Doolan, the Chief of Organisational Excellence in Special Olympics, in the last episode and exploring a little bit around leadership in the context of people with learning disabilities, and particularly around inclusive leadership and how you bring those people into leadership roles. So, dead interesting, and I'm excited today to be extending that out further in the whole diversity and inclusion space, because for me it's a, it's a theme that's coming up, is sitting on boardroom tables right around the world. So it's interesting today to be able to have a chat with Margot Slattery, the Country Press president of Sodexo Ireland. Now, you may not know Sodexo, but you certainly will have interacted with them at some point, someplace, in some guise in your everyday life because they are everywhere. I was doing a bit of research yesterday on the web, and just a couple of little bits, I guess, from a D&I perspective, that Sodexo was a founding partner of Ireland's first diversity charter a number of years back. Diversity Inc. Named the company among the top companies for LGBT employees, and also talent acquisition for women of colour and executive women. And I guess it's about putting focus on those types of issues first that really gets momentum behind them. I guess from Margo's perspective, I'm sure you're going to be the height of humility, Margo, so I'll do a bit for you first. You're a member of Sodexo's global LGBT leadership team, you chair the UK and Ireland sexual orientation work stream, and you're also the founding chair of Sodexo's Women Work Network, and I'm sure we may well cover off a few of those things as we talk. I do like to do my research.

Well done.

So, so, so thank you for having me. It's, it's really nice to be here.

No, thank you, pleasure.

Why don't we start by, just as I often do, easing you in gently.

Sure, sure, sure.

You tell me, you tell me a little bit about, about your career, where you've come from, and your role in Sodexo.

Okay. And thank you, thank you, Scott. Delighted to be here and to be doing this. A little bit about me. Born in County Limerick. I'll give you the very shortened version. Parents Mick and Anna, both unfortunately now passed from this life, but I suppose pretty idyllic childhood. Born on a farm in County Limerick and brought up in pretty innocent days, I think, and in good times. I probably felt very much a loved and cared for child, so I think that was a great start in life. My mum, prior to giving up work, as you did in the day, and working then with my dad on our family farm, my mum had been in the hotel business and had done hotel management. And I think from a very young age, I had a huge attraction to hospitality, service industry, probably because we knew lots of people in that industry. And talked about it a lot. So when I was getting to the latter part of my career, I was very much attracted to something in that line and had done a couple of summers in hotels, everything from being a chambermaid to cleaning to working behind a bar and waitressing, etc. So I knew it was something I enjoyed, and particularly I think the relationship side of things. And so I decided to go and do hotel and catering management and I had a kind of a linear way of getting there because I didn't actually get in the first time I went there. I had a fairly average Leaving Cert, and so I went and did a chef's course first and then started that as the beginning of my getting into do hotel and catering management, which I laterally went back and did in Carlisle Brew Street. And I suppose life has literally been a very interesting journey from then. And I've ended up, you know, running the company here in Ireland where we've just over 4,000 employees and 100-something-plus services. So food and the service industry is always a big part of it, but we also do so many other things. And my own life has moved in very different directions, and it's pretty wonderful. And I suppose the last couple of things about me: I'm married to Sarah, and we've been married 2 years now, get my facts right. You'll be in trouble otherwise. Yeah, yeah. We've been in a civil partnership since 2014. So we're the beneficiaries, if you like, of some of the big social change in this country. And we have a good life, a busy life, but I'm loving it all and enjoying it and a very happy and contented person, I'd probably say.

Brilliant, brilliant. So the podcast, Germany, we're going to kind of delve into some of the D&I kind of things later on. But from a leadership perspective, what's your views on what makes a leader a great leader?

Well, I take it from sort of two perspectives. First of all, what has been my view from, you know, being led by great people or people who I feel have made a big impact, and then obviously what, what have I done and what's my part to play in it. I think one of the most important things in leadership is somebody who leads with a lot of personality and who has a lot of empathy and, you know, is a great listener. So that has been, you know, something that I've enjoyed having the benefit of from some great leaders. So people that have, you know, I suppose, helped me in my journey have been people who have those attributes in a strong way. And I guess if I take the other side of it as a leader myself, I think where we've been very successful and with my own team is having good personal relationships, strong communications, and being able to be on a journey with people, you know, because it's no, it's no, it's not any one way. Sometimes, you know, you have a lot of interaction, sometimes it's tough, sometimes you have difficult things to face, and sometimes it's very smooth. But being, you know, empathetic and understanding, and, you know, more than anything else, I think Being able to take the rough and the smooth with people on a process.

And I think, you know, for me oftentimes I think in business we have this view that it's the very rational, we must go to work and we leave our emotions at the door and we don't bring ourselves, you know, our full selves to work and we don't bring our hobbies or creativity or our personal problems or— of course we do.

Of course we do.

And actually if we don't, if we don't bring them to work, then actually all we're doing is canning them up.

I agree totally. You know, I think we spend so long, you know, I spend an average of 14 hours, and that's not all, you know, great or anything, but if you put in travel and various things that you're doing, so how can I not bring, you know, all of what's happening for me? And it's the same for the people who work with me. And, you know, over the years with my team here, we've all got to know each other very well. I mean, I see people I was looking at something last night on some social media and one of my colleagues' wife had put up something and it was his son graduating and I remember before this little fella was born, you know. So I've seen people in all of their phases of their lives. People get married, divorced, second relationships, kids growing up, communions, confirmations, whatever it might be. And we can't divorce ourselves from that. This is human beings we work with.

Yeah, I agree. As people often say, human beings, not human doings.

Yeah, exactly.

When we think about diversity and the role of diversity in the workplace, what role does diversity have to play in organisational success? Why is it so important to success in organisations?

Because I think if you don't have, you know, if you haven't really examined it. So this is about a life of examination, probably is where I'll start on that, because we can talk about it, but unless it's actually something you proactively try to make sure happens, So we all have diversity, but we don't always examine it or know it. So when it's examined and you know it and then you become inclusive, then I think it becomes, if you like, it's the key in the lock, it's something that turns and changes things. Because what you're doing is you're really saying to people, you know, be yourself, whatever that might be, be free to be that person, and then we'll be inclusive of what that is. And hopefully get the best from you. So I'll take a very simple example, and maybe it's, you know, it's pretty personal to me, but if you take somebody who's LGBT, if that person is covering something, or perhaps somebody with a disability or whatever it might be, if somebody is not being themselves and they're covering something and they're, you know, they're always kind of putting a guard around something, then their engagement is really low. And if their engagement's low, then as an organisation, productivity suffers. So for me, it's about productivity, engagement, and outcome for people. And I think the organisation benefits usually if it can, you know, get 100% or 90-something percent rather than 50%.

And isn't it funny how all of those things are so intertwined, that if I let you bring your best self to work, if I let you 'Bring the diversity that you bring, if I then include you in everything that we're doing, actually in turn that starts to drive business success.' I just find it a really interesting situation.

I agree. And I mean, I think, you know, there's a lot of people say out there at the moment, you know, bring your authentic self. Well, the authentic self for me, you know, is many things. So if I brought all of my authentic self, you might have too much in work. I bring the parts that I'm feeling free to be, to be. So I'm bringing my personality, I'm bringing myself, and in truth there's nothing hidden anymore. So therefore everything about me just means that when I'm here, my engagement with people is probably very heightened and very real and very, a very positive experience in the main.

Okay. It was funny, Denis Doolin, who I mentioned earlier, who we had on the last podcast, podcast, he was talking about inclusive leadership, particularly around people with a learning disability and what somebody who maybe has Down syndrome or another intellectual disability can bring to an organisation. And one of the things that he pointed out was honesty.

Yeah.

That actually oftentimes somebody with an intellectual disability just says it how it is.

Exactly.

Which is so refreshing. But actually, as he pointed out, you can train them, you can upskill them, you can give them all the leadership development, you can really help them to be their best self. But if you then drop them into a culture that isn't ready for that, then they're not going to succeed.

I agree.

It's not going to go well. So I wonder from your perspective, you know, what's the role of a leader in, or even the leader and the people in the organisation? What's their role in creating that culture where people who are more diverse can be included and that there is that inclusive culture?

Yeah, I think you pick across or pick on something that's incredibly important there. Because you can't just sort of, you know, we need to create the culture, we need to make sure there's the right environment, and the worst thing possible, you know, whether it's a physical disability, whether it's somebody, you know, coming from a point of view of orientation, whether it's around a gender, whatever it might be, and we all have all of these things, so that's all of us, but we need to make sure that, you know, the environment we're putting somebody into is suitable, and I think there's an incredible responsibility on an employer to make sure that that's there. So there's nothing worse than saying, you know, we're going to ask 3 people with disability, or, you know, we're going to have inclusive around autism or something, and not create an environment that's suitable. Because what you'll do is you'll drive these people away. And we see it even now, you know, and I think in the very modern world of work that we're perhaps, you know, doing a lot of conversations around millennials and How do we include more Generation Z, etc.? But we don't actually change anything about our way of working. And if we don't, they're just not staying. So they'll come, they'll stay for a little bit, and then they'll just go. Yeah. So I think that, you know, it's not just a responsibility, but it's also a good investment. So if you're going to be an inclusive employer and you're going to be an inclusive leader, you have to make sure you have an inclusive environment. Or else you're kind of putting it in at one end and letting it out at the other. So it's false.

And what are some of the practical things do you think that leaders can do to create that inclusive environment or that inclusive culture?

Well, I think it starts in the very beginning by setting out as a leader what your stance is on it. And then you have to be that change you want to see. And, you know, many people use it, but I love Mahatma Gandhi's saying around that. Because if you don't live it and breathe it and do it, what ends up happening is people do something different. So of course we don't want a dictatorship, you know, people have got to do what feels right for them. So I think you've got to set the bar, you've got to be really clear about what your expectation is and what kind of company you're trying to lead. So an example here in our own organization is, as you can see, it's pretty open-plan office, very relaxed, people people are dressed pretty casually, you know, we set out to have something that's very open to people being themselves. Then you need to have strong communication and you need to keep that communication out to all of your people and keep it open and, you know, stay true to it and not just fall the first time you come against a hurdle and be able to stand up sometimes when there are difficult situations that you might easily back down from. So the consistency is incredibly important. And then encourage and support people. So it's one thing doing all of those things, but if you don't invest in it— so you need to invest in it. So that might be around, for instance, some training around unconscious bias. I think race is a really big issue at the moment. We need to really, really invest in that, invest in You know, education around that area, around gender, behavior. Behavior, I mean, in workplaces can be often very poor. Making sure we set very, very good guidelines for people and then continue investing. So it's like a learning cycle where we're putting everything in, we're spending time, we're communicating, and we go back and do it all over again. So we're, you know, creating the culture. I think of it like a culture when you're growing, for instance, something like, you know, something in the science lab. I'm trying to think what it's called, but you know, you create that culture.

A petri dish.

Yeah, your petri dish. You need to make sure if you're putting something down there to grow, you've created the right environment.

It's interesting. I wrote a blog post this week, which listeners can find at inspiringchange.com/podcast on Israel Falau. I don't know if you saw that in the paper.

Yes. I don't know depth, but I've seen some.

So rugby, international rugby player, played for, played until last week for Australia, had the bones of 70 or 80 caps in a World Cup year and came out with a statement on Instagram which did not align at all, was completely at odds and clashed with the values of Australian rugby. And Israel Folau, like us all, are, he is absolutely entitled to his views and his opinions. In this case, those views and opinions did not tally with the views and opinions of Australian Rugby, and they said, well, that's your second strike actually, so you're gone. It's a really, really brave organisation because you and I have both seen it many, many times where I'm sure where, you know, somebody isn't exhibiting the values in the organisation that you want, Perhaps they're using language what they might think is funny, but actually somebody who's LGBT might find offensive, or just somebody else in the office might find it offensive regardless of their sexual orientation. But they made a stand and they said, "No, no, that's not acceptable. Bang, you're gone." But so often, and I actually said in the article, it would be kind of a behind-the-hand deploy the PR people, get rid of the problem, it's fine, it's a World Cup year, we really need him, he's a key part of the team. 'we can't let him go just yet.' But of course then within the organisation that says, 'That's okay, we don't mind that, bit of homophobic slander, you know, that's fine, that's okay in here.' And it's not, and it's not okay in here. But it's so often just swept under the carpet because the person is a good salesperson or a nice guy or listen, sure, he didn't really mean it, that's just the way he is. What's the role of leaders there? What should they do in that situation?

Well, I'm very much probably with Australian Rugby. I mean, I believe that you set it out, you're very clear with people, you give them, if you like, and it sounds a bit stuffy if I say code of conduct, but we have in our organisation here code of ethics. Everybody signs up to it. We have a training around this, so you have to go and do a mandatory training. So there's no lack of clarity. Everybody signs a contract. And as part of that contract, it says on it, you know, have you read the ethics? Have you done this? Have you? And if you don't do it, then I think the leaders have to absolutely, you know, put their money where their mouth is, so to speak. Because just like you said, Scott, I think that, you know, we— what does it say to everybody else?

It undermines the whole thing.

Yeah. I know certainly from a point of view of Sodexo and a company I've been with 20-something years, If people at a very senior level started saying something very different from what I believe are very strong and entrenched values, then I'd be seriously concerned, you know, and I would say, this isn't the company I've signed up to be in. And I wouldn't expect that that was allowed to be. And I know that certainly our organization has made some hard decisions around people when they don't.

And probably the right decision.

Yeah, because listen, no organization, no company Nothing in the world, you know, whether it's voluntary, sport, whatever, is just one person. No. It's a community of so many people. Yeah. And we all need to be somewhat aligned to be able to live together with comfort and manners and behaviors are important.

One of the things that we, I think that when people talk about diversity, yeah, generally that conversation is going on, I think the immediate thing that we jump to is gender, diversity of gender, and of course the whole idea of board quotas for women and this kind of thing, which we might come on to in a second. But outside of gender, what else should companies be thinking about from a diversity perspective? Because gender is the easy one. Yeah. But what else should they be thinking about?

Well, I think there are many different areas, and certainly go through them, but if you think of us as human as human beings, there are many things that happen in our life at various stages. So, you know, there are things like our generations. So we can be, you know, we start off, most of us start off young, and at some stage we get to the very end of our careers, whatever age that might be at. So I think that's one I just probably put out there that people don't think enough about, about generations. I think we have a real danger in the workplace at the moment. I hear it in Ireland a lot as well around ageism kind of almost happening because we've had so much concentration on millennials and Generation Z, etc., that we've kind of forgotten there's a whole bunch of people who are in their 50s, 60s, you know, there are people working into their 70s now and in Ireland, you know, over the last couple of years we'll have more because of the changes with pensions, etc. So I think that's one area. Social inclusion is an area I think you know, I'm really passionate about, that no matter where you come from, what your postcode address is, where you're from in the world, what your parents did, where you went to school, you're entitled to a chance and you're entitled to be included. And I don't know that there's enough. I think there's some great changes from when I was a kid. You know, I look at somebody like Lynne Roanne, look at the Access Programme, but I can call out exceptions, but I can't say it's still where I would want it to be. I think Dublin is always very interesting, and you'll know that coming here, is that it's a lot of who, you know, where did you go to school and who do you know and that sort of thing, whereas probably we don't do enough of where we take people for themselves and their ability. So that to me is another area of inclusion. Ability, and I'm probably on the Caroline Casey one here, more ability than disability, but How do we bring into, you know, view people's ability at different stages in their lives? Because you may have different challenges to your physical ability at 20, 25, 30 to what you have at 60, 70, but none of them take away from your ability to actually contribute and add to a workforce. Gender is most definitely, and I think around gender we need to talk bigger about gender. Gender isn't just binary. You know, there are many different— I was surprised actually a couple of weeks ago on a national radio station, there was a bit of sniggering around gender and sort of somebody said, well, surely it's black and white. Well, it isn't just black and white, so there's a lot more to gender. And I think we've got to talk about the intersectionality of all of these things coming together. And then there are areas like we in Ireland, you know, we need to think about the fact that we have an ethnic population. That doesn't feel incredibly— and we don't deal with it very well. And then there's sexual orientation and listen, I could go on. And probably the one that I started with when we were chatting a little earlier was around race. Irish people have said for a very long time, "Oh, we're not racist." Well, by God, you know, it's easy to say that when you're sitting and you're probably one culture, we're all white, you know, we're very similar. You know, the biggest differentiation we've had is your religion, and even that has probably been more Catholic than Church of Ireland, etc. But that's beginning to change. We're getting more people with different religions, but we're also getting people from different countries, and that's happened over the last 20 years. And now I think for the first time, you know, I'm reading a lot around racism, etc., happening here, and I don't know as a nation that we're actually really ready for it, or have we dealt with it well. So I think there's a much bigger pot of things to need to bring to the surface.

And that's, I mean, that just my head spinning.

Yeah.

Just from the last 2 or 3 minutes of you talking and just thinking about the challenge that that must present for organizations, for leaders. You know, in my head, you know, I've got the analogy of, you know, on Record Breakers on the TV with a guy spinning plates and trying to keep 120 plates spinning, you know, all at once to try and kind of beat the world record. And that's, from your description, that's what it feels like. It feels like somebody trying to spin lots of plates and keep them all up and keep the balance and keep the status quo. But think about all the different angles that make them more diverse and more inclusive as organizations and people.

I mean, incredibly, I mean, you know, if you're looking now at talent, And talent has all ages, you know, again, if you're looking to increase and add to your workforce and you see daily announcements, you know, somebody's adding 200 jobs, Google's adding so many, I don't know, whatever. If people are adding numbers, then they need to think about what is our company like, what are we saying to the outside world, and, you know, how do we attract talent? Because it's no longer just a war for talent, it's about a war for content. What is, What is our website saying? What do we, you know, what is there an authentic feeling? And you're spinning all these plates because the people are coming to you are bringing all of those things that I've spoken about. So they may, you know, have a sort of fluidity around their gender. They may have a physical ability, disability. They may come from a different race, a different culture. Even that whole issue about people, cultural alignment. You know, how we do things, how we do a deal in Holland, you know, how we even kiss each other when we meet, you know, you do it different in one country to another. And our cultural differences are so many. So I think as an employer, if you're not conscious to that, or as a leader, if you're not conscious to that, then you're missing out and you're literally, you're closing down opportunities and gaps.

Yeah, one of the things I talk about often on on training courses that I run or workshops is this whole idea of, and it's really simple, but it seems to come up time and time again, is the idea of awareness.

Yeah.

Of just being self-aware. And I think you touched off unconscious bias there a minute ago. Of just being aware that, you know, I've seen this person and I've just made a snap judgment on them, whether it be good or bad. And it's being aware enough to know that you've done that to be able to take a step back. To reframe and say, actually, okay, let's park that for a second, that snap judgment, as one piece of information. But actually, what other information is there here that I can take and glean that will allow me perhaps to make a better hiring decision, a better firing decision, a better promotion decision, a better whatever decision? What else is there? So I think for me, that whole self-awareness thing is so critically important for good leaders.

Incredibly. And you know, there's a thing called the implicit test. I don't know if you've heard of it, but you can actually go online and do it, and anybody can do it, but it's really worth doing because even if you think you don't have bias, we've all got it. And that's also the first thing you'll learn whenever you do one of these courses on it, is that everybody's biased. I'd like to think I'm pretty, you know, aware, and, you know, I've a lot of insight to lots of this, but my God, when I did it, I've got loads of bias. I'm particularly favoured towards people from Limerick just because I'm from That's natural. That's natural.

And that's okay.

And double up if you're from Munster, and you know, there's a whole other sort of things.

And if you're a Leinster fan, God help you.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. But, you know, if you're not aware of that, then the danger is, you know, particularly for instance in hiring, you are parking that information sort of in front of yourself, and it blocks you seeing the whole of the person. And you're missing out on something. So as a leader, to me, that's probably one of the most important things we need to become more aware of. And in my experience, it's just very personal, in Dublin, in the sort of leadership circles and that sort of thing, we have a lot of very similar people running companies. The boards are made up of very similar people. We do things in very similar ways. And so, you know, we don't introduce enough difference. Because difference creates good conversations, a little bit of argument, disruption.

Yeah.

So quality.

It's funny that people often see arguments as bad.

Yeah.

Whereas actually I see arguments as good because if you're not having arguments, you're not necessarily making as much progress as you could.

Exactly. Yeah. And there's nothing like having someone in your team or your board who's a bit of a disruptor. It's good for kind of challenging.

So we're talking about boards and we talked about gender earlier on and this whole idea of gender quotas at board level and at senior management level. What's your take on that?

Well, again, if I'm specifying it to Ireland and probably this marketplace, you know, the male London Irish market, I think the numbers are very, very poor, particularly from a gender mix. And then if you mix it up in relation to, you know, people who come from different parts of the world, people of different race, different abilities. So take any of the kind of number of things I spoke to you about as probably some of the areas of inclusion, then I think it's pretty appalling. You know, that joke goes around about there's more people called Steve who are at, you know, a CEO level or board level, but seriously, it is. Yeah, oh, I mean, all the facts will tell you.

I'm gonna change my name and then bias might actually get me into a less big job.

Exactly, exactly, exactly. I mean, it's very interesting, even if you, again, if you look at this, remember things like that implicit test and bias, but more people of certain names. So if your name is, you know, a non-Irish, maybe Arabic name versus something like Michael or John, you know, your chances of even your CV getting in there are so much lower. We tend to hire exactly people like ourselves because it's safe. Or at least we perceive it safe. The difficulty is that safeness stops us being as innovative and probably progressing more than we should.

Yeah, and is it right, do you think, that we specify that by 2020 organizations across Ireland need to have 30% of boards or 30% of leadership teams as women members of the team? Is that the right way to go?

I think absolutely. I mean, I understand that it's going to take time, and I think we've got to be aiming for 50% because if you look at the world, it's, you know, as I said, if you just pick those two main genders, then you're probably saying, you know, your customer base for any business is 50/50. Service industry, even in, for instance, for FMCG, the biggest amount of consumers are female, yet most of the boards are actually mostly male. So many There's a great new book out, and I don't have the title in front of me, but it's around bias in the workplace and bias in design. And it talks a lot about, you know, who designs things that are everyday objects, and yet they're not actually even the same gender as the people who are the end users. So if you don't think with your end user in mind, and I think boards who are trying to sell a product need to think about that.

I remember reading an article a while ago that somebody in the office posted about crash test dummies. And the average crash test dummy is actually, it's been around for so long, but it was designed on the weight and size of a 26-year-old Canadian male Air Force pilot. That's a crash test dummy. It's an Air Force pilot from Canada.

Even the simple one, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but police people all over the world, bulletproof jackets that were designed for men. So when a woman wears one and she's got boobs, then the reality is that they can't close them properly, so they make them looser and they're less effective, and more women get killed. Like, even the fact of a health and safety risk. So going back to the boards, I think it's incredibly important that boards reflect more of society, they reflect more of the people who are the end users, and and they reflect, if you like, a varied opinion. And as long as we got people who are qualified, and there is no shortage of qualified people, but we need to ask better questions and we need to seek better.

And what about people, when you look at the whole kind of 30% or 50% argument, what about people who would say, I want to get the job because I'm bloody good at the job, not because I'm black or for the traveling community or a woman or LGBT or whatever reason. I don't want to get the job because I want to be a percent. I want to get the job because I deserve the job, because I've got the skills and experience to do the job.

Well, I think that everybody should get the job because they've got the skills and experience. So whatever your background is, that, that, that, that's secondary to your ability. I mean, if I'm going for a board then I would hope that the board looks at the fact that I have the capacity and understand what governance is and all of those kind of things, and I bring skills to a board. The fact that I bring extra skills or different skills or complementary skills is incredibly good, I think. And obviously, if you're composing a board, you want to get a mix of skills. But the reality is, and this is very true in Ireland, is we're bringing the same kind of people all the time, so we're not asking enough questions and we're not doing enough work to get them complementary mix. And so nobody's stopping, you know, anybody going for a job. We don't want to take away from that, but it tends to be the same bunch. We're drawing from the same gene pool all the time. If you draw from that, you know, what you end up doing is you're kind of making, if you like, the innovation extinct. Because you're literally weakening the gene pool.

Yeah, it's all the same ideas coming out.

It's the same ideas, and we've seen it over the last couple of financial crises and everything like that. You know what happens? People react the same way. They panic, they do things that are, you know, really ill-advised instead of having maybe perhaps that steadying hand. If there was more difference, people might say stop. I'm not saying they will necessarily, but I think it's something to be thought about.

It's that other, I think it's that shoulder on the other, that voice on the other shoulder just saying, hang on a minute, is this the right thing to do? Let's look at it from this perspective. Let's think differently.

Yeah. Also, there's a piece maybe around privilege. People here, you know, when I hear people saying, oh, well, we want to get the right people and, you know, we don't want to give people a job. What's really coming at the back of that? Are people afraid? Is there a fear of losing your privilege? Because if you really, really believe you're 'You're so good and you should be on a board,' then you'll be picked because if you are actually really good, people will come to you because of your ability. But if you're going to, you know, put a lot of that out there, is there somebody fearing? And I mean, it's one of the biggest challenges in our global world, is there so much fear at the moment. This is why populism is on the rise, etc. People are fearful of losing things. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. When they have privilege.

A few little things. What hints and tips might you give to leaders who are maybe struggling to create and build more diverse teams?

I think the first thing to do is to realize that, you know, you can't sort of bite off the whole of the elephant, so to speak, or you can't, you can't do it all at once. Important, I think, to believe in it. And to really feel it and know what it is and to think maybe some self-examination is maybe the very first thing and to understand if you've ever felt excluded then I think you really understand inclusion. So you need to think about what's it like when you've actually not felt included in a group or in an organisation. So somebody gave me an example, it was a chap and he said, you know, I've been, I've had all these things in life and it's always been really good. Then he went to live, it was about about 10 years ago, and he went to live in China. For the first time he didn't speak the language, and he said, "It was the first time I really felt excluded," and it made him think about what exclusion feels like. So start and understand exclusion, then you can have an understanding of inclusion. Try not to sort of, try to do it all at once. Get help and get support. There are a lot of organizations, a lot of consultants, and there's lots of other leaders who will you know, gladly share their experience. I've never held back. If anyone asks for my help, I will always give them my insight. And then take it slowly and try not to over-promise and under-deliver. I think you're better off to over-deliver and under-promise, probably, to begin with. And give yourself a long breadth of span of time to do it.

Okay, very last question, and this is one that I ask to Um, you said great there as if it was like— oh my God!

No, no, I'm enjoying this actually. Great, that's another question.

Um, tell me very quickly what one piece of leadership advice you would give to your 20-year-old self or at the start of your career knowing what you know now? What would that be?

Um, I think I'd— you know, when I often think about this one and I say to leaders out there about, you you know, just do it and be yourself. And probably if I go back, I would probably have done more things and been braver than I probably had been. I waited too long to come out. I was fearful of my sexual orientation, and I think it held me back a lot. And I probably had a couple of opportunities where I could have made more money, invested in things that I probably held back on for various reasons, being safe. So do it, go for it, take chances. And when I talk to young people, and particularly my nieces and nephews, I sort of say to them now, don't get too caught up about the security part in the early part of your lives. I came from a generation, you know, Charlie Haughey was warning about, you know, spending and all that kind of stuff in the '80s, and we were very fearful of ever having a house and all that kind of stuff. I'd now say to him, forget about all that for a while, just enjoy life and do it.

Just enjoy life.

Yeah.

I love that. And what a great way to finish. Margot, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to me. It's been a really interesting, insightful conversation. I think listeners will take a huge amount away from that. A couple of little bits you've mentioned that we'll put into the show notes for listeners. But for now, thank you very much.

Oh no, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed it. It's a pleasure. Can I do this every day?

You can do this every day. Let's do it again next week. Let's do it again next week. Thanks a lot.

Thank you.

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