March 15, 2025 • 36 mins
In this episode, we sit down with Irfaan Arif to explore how behavioural science can enhance diversity and inclusion efforts in organisations and society.
Irfaan explains how understanding human behaviour can help avoid common DEI pitfalls and why some diversity initiatives fail.
We delve into the power of incentives and decision-making strategies to promote equity and discuss practical ways to shift cultural norms using behavioural science.
Irfaan also explains "nudge theory" and shares real-life examples of its impact on embracing diversity.
Finally, we look at the future of behavioural science in DEI and how managers can lead inclusively through this approach.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:10):
Hello and welcome to another episode of a
conversation with now, today we have the absolute
pleasure of speaking to a behavioural science expert,
someone that we've got to work and collaborate
with in a few different projects as well.
Irfaan is just a fantastically talented person, just
(00:32):
someone that we really love to speak to.
And I think you're going to really enjoy
this conversation today because he's talking about lots
of really interesting aspects around how behavioural science
plays a part in diversity, equity and inclusion.
Really starting to talk a little bit about that behavioural
design piece as well, and just some really good recommendations
and some suggestions of things that we can do as
(00:54):
leaders of organisations, but also as people managers as well,
to start to think about how we can use behavioural
science in our inclusion work.
So grab a coca, kick back and have a listen.
So welcome to the podcast.
(01:16):
I'm really excited to have the incredibly
talented Irfaan Arif here with us today.
Irfaan is going to speak to us a
little bit about behavioural science and all of
the wonderful things that that's connected to.
But before we go on, I'm
going to let him introduce himself. Thank you.
Thank you, Zoe.
So, yeah, my name is Irfaan Arif.
(01:36):
I'm a behavioural scientist and
diversity and inclusion specialist.
Majority of my work experience from 2005 onwards
has been within working in that space around
diversity and inclusion, ranging from public sector, private
sector, across all different sectors, if you want.
And kind of more recent part of my
(01:56):
work experience and my life in the professional
setting has been as a behavioural scientist.
So I kind of slowly transitioned from diversity
and inclusion into behavioural science, psychology and applying
that to DNI, but also other things such
as sustainability, organisational change, culture change and so
on and so forth.
So, yeah, as a behavioural scientist, what we do is
(02:16):
we try to understand why people do what they do.
Yeah, amazing. Thank you so much.
And I didn't realise it was since 2005.
So you've got almost.
You're almost at your 20 year mark. Yeah.
I don't want to age, age
the work there, but that's incredible.
So you must have seen some pretty big
changes in the last 20 years, not just
in Dei, but in behavioural science as well.
(02:38):
Yeah, I mean, I remember my first kind of introduction
to DNI Washington, actually, in 2003, and I was doing.
I was at uni and I was doing a HR advisor
kind of role and I wasn't trained as a HR person.
I had a kind of a colleague said, I've
got this job, someone needs a HR person.
Do a bit of payroll and that kind of stuff.
And I kind of ended up in that role and I
(03:01):
remember them asking, asking us to look at some equal opportunities
training as it was back then, I did a bit of
research and I spoke to a few people and they were
like, look, we just need to think about the legislation.
And at that time, obviously, we had all
the different separate legislations, race relations, etcetera.
So that was in 2003 and I did some really
(03:21):
rough and probably really bad training on equal opportunities.
A year later I ended up doing a
masters in human resource development and consulting.
And in that masters, my dissertation
was doing a project for Leeds.
It was a kind of arm's length homes
organisation connected to Leeds City council and I.
The project was basically doing a bit of research
(03:42):
or needs analysis for diversity and inclusion training.
So I went in, did some focus groups, some
interviews, questionnaires, and then did a dissertation on the
leads of the organisations in diversity training.
And before you know it, six months later, sorry,
when I finished my masters, a job came up,
I applied for it and I ended up getting
the job as equality and diversity officer.
And that's where I started in 2000.
(04:03):
That's why I say 2005.
Around that time, that was my first job in this space.
And then literally eight months later I
saw a job as an equality and
diversity manager at the University of Kent.
I applied for it and got the
job and then ended up moving there.
And I was there for the next.
I think it was five, six years after that.
I've been in the higher education stroke NHS
(04:23):
environment until I went self employed and then
I started working across all of the sectors.
So, yeah, so, been there a long time, but
the changes that I've seen are obviously the language.
So equal opportunities to diversity and
inclusion, to quality, diversity and inclusion,
to equity, diversity and inclusion.
And so there's been a big change in how
we define things, introducing new concepts around belonging, inclusion,
(04:46):
which weren't always things that we discussed.
So it kind of went from a very legalistic
approach to a much more kind of awareness approach
and then to more of a systemic approach and
I guess now probably more of a kind of
emotional, kind of cognitive approach as well. Lots of.
Lots of change.
Oh, amazing.
And I'm really interested to hear a little bit
(05:07):
about how people's views have changed now, of course.
So I've been.
I actually had a similar start to you with
regards to a HR job that turned into a
learning and development job, that turned into working on
projects around Dei in the learning space, and then
much more strategic and then setting up the business.
Similar ish in some ways.
(05:29):
And I've obviously seen probably only over about a
ten year period compared to your 20 years.
I've seen a lot of differences in the
way that people perceive diversity, equity and inclusion.
They talk about it.
Language thing is really important, actually.
We've just been talking to Michael Reed, who is a
linguistic expert about this sort of stuff as well.
But I guess I'm really interested to hear
(05:50):
about how do you think people's mindsets have
changed in the vast 20 years that you've
been working in this particular field.
I mean, people's mindsets back then used to be
about what we can and can't say, and it
was very much about avoiding saying the wrong thing.
And it was almost.
And I guess if I were to go back
ten years from 2003, it was probably very much
(06:12):
around what is illegal and what isn't.
And it was much more of a legalistic
conversation then, whereas when I was in post,
it was very much around understanding.
And then also terminology was a big part of it.
And I remember someone telling me, I did some
training for the Met police once, an unconscious bias.
And one of the police officers there said,
oh, we had this training 20 years ago.
(06:33):
And he goes, we basically got a list of words that
we can't say, 100 lists of words that we can't say.
So it's kind of gone from what they can
and can't say and language and so forth.
And I guess also diversity itself, the
idea of difference wasn't that prominent.
I mean, it was about giving people equal opportunities
and saying, yeah, all right, we need to.
And there was a big focus on gender,
(06:54):
more so than race, although the race was
still a big issue then, as was disability.
But some of the protected characteristics, as we know of
them now, were not fully developed and not everybody understood
them as much as maybe they might do now.
And then the attitude kind of shifted a little
bit more to kind of acknowledging and understanding.
Yeah, that there are inequalities.
And I think actually for a brief moment to
(07:15):
actually, we need to do something about this.
There's more kind of reflection and reflection now.
So we went from a space of where there
wasn't much reflection, it was just more about recognising
and just saying, acknowledging and saying, yeah, okay, this
exists, fair enough, I've got it in my periphery
to, okay, I'm part of this, so I need
to really maybe, what does it mean for me?
(07:36):
And so people maybe were challenged a little bit more
to take ownership and kind of really take action in,
in organisations, individually, collectively to now, where we still got
a bit of that, but we've also got kind of
a lot more question and challenge to it as well.
So people are challenging, I mean, this
is my perception so far anyway.
People are challenging dei more than ever now.
(07:57):
So you've got the two kind of polls if you want.
One group of people are very active and kind of
maybe saying, well, actually we need to really kind of
take even more changes another group by saying, I think
we've passed it now, we're a meritocracy and it's all
working and if you want to get somewhere, you just
need to put the effort in.
Maybe that side has come full circle to
where it was back in the day.
Yeah, that's a really interesting point.
(08:18):
And I'm just sitting here thinking about even ten
years ago when I started really paying attention to
this field from a learning point of view.
That idea of what you can and can't
say was very rife then and I've been
in, like you in your organisational work now.
I've been in a lot of different industries
when I was in employment, I guess.
(08:40):
So that was really rife across the industries.
It certainly wasn't just one particular industry.
And one thing that really sparked them when
you were talking about it is that idea
that 20 years ago gender was the focus.
Because I think that there's still a lot
of organisations that still sit around gender because
they feel like it's a safer topic.
(09:00):
There's still a hell of a lot of work to do.
We are definitely nothing in any way, shape
or form within most countries in the world.
And we're not just talking about workplaces, of
course, we're talking about social kind of systems
and all of the different aspects when it
comes to those gender differences.
But that's definitely an area I see a lot
of organisations wanting to focus in in their first
(09:20):
step into DEi because it feels safe compared to
race or disability or sexuality or whatever.
Whatever, whatever.
So I think it's quite interesting that.
Yeah, I definitely have connected that, as you've
said, that definitely something that was ten years
ago written for U 20 and it's definitely
still a safety net for people now.
I think on that. I think it's a really good point
(09:42):
and that's my experience as well.
People are more comfortable with gender.
Unless you were around George
Floyd and Black lives Matter.
It's almost like awareness around what was going on gave
organisations a bit more kind of, let's just say safety
to come out and say, right, actually we need to
do something around anti racism or maybe safety.
Maybe there was a bit of a bandwagon.
People jumping on the bandwagon say,
we also need to do this.
(10:03):
You know, organisations tend to kind of copy each other
a little bit as well, and so they're doing it.
So we need to do this as well.
But if I go back, actually, going back, one thing
I didn't say was 20 years ago and maybe even
ten, actually, probably ten years ago as well, it was
still very much a deficit approach to inequities and inequalities.
And if you're looking at gender, for example,
it was still very much, we need to
(10:24):
upskill women to get to the level.
It was almost a, you know, without
saying, it was like, we need to
give women leadership programmes and development programmes.
And so they was almost unconsciously
or consciously saying that we need.
You obviously need to get better.
I mean, that's what the message, in my opinion, was.
A lot of the women were very
good at what they were doing.
It was just that seemed to be, well,
let's put some leadership development programmes and they
(10:45):
weren't really often translating into leadership positions and
just really quickly in higher education as well,
same as when I was working for the
University of Kent and University of East London.
There was a lot of work we
used to do around degree attainment.
So the degree attainment gap basically was, or is still so
of all black students in the UK around, I think it
(11:06):
was around 60% would get a two one or a first.
Compared to proportion of white students going to
university, they would get around 80, between 85
or 87% would get a first.
And that gap is called the attainment gap.
And so when what a lot of
universities used to do first was thinking,
well, what's missing with the black students?
What do we need to fix with them?
Rather than what they started to do in, you know, let
(11:29):
maybe say, five to six years ago, maybe a bit longer.
Some were way ahead the curve,
others were kind of further behind.
But the approach where we say, well, let's look at
ourselves as an institution, look at our systems, you know,
do we make students feel like they belong?
And actually do we provide a slightly
different service to different types of students?
So really kind of questioning your systems
(11:49):
and processes and structures and power and
all of these things and asking the
question, actually, who benefits from us more?
And that's it as a simple kind of question.
And it's really interesting because as you were talking
then, I was thinking straight over to the medical
and social model that we look at when we
think about disability and it's exactly the same thing,
we're putting the onus, and this has definitely been
(12:10):
a theme throughout Dei in general, you put the
onus on the people that are historically marginalised, underrepresented,
whatever it might be.
And actually you're like, well, how can we fix them?
How can we give them what they need?
Rather than thinking, well, how
do we fix those systems?
So we've really moved away from that idea of
thinking of the person as the problem and instead
(12:30):
thinking about equity in its true form because we're
thinking, well, what is it about the systems that
are in our education, in our housing, in our
healthcare, in our governments, wherever it might be.
That means by the time people do get to
higher education, if they have access to that, they
get to employment, if they have access to that,
what is it that we're doing to make sure
(12:51):
it evens out by the time they get there?
And that is equity.
You know, organisations, universities, whatever, we're doing a hell
of a lot of the work, we're fixing a
hell of a lot of the social issues that
are happening outside of our control and I think
that's a big bugbear for a lot of organisations.
It feels like a massive responsibility to take on.
(13:11):
So I think that's quite interesting
that you've just shared that. I think it's.
But sometimes I feel, I mean, somebody
asked me the question about diversity equity
inclusion or diversity inclusion, you know, how
it's changed over the last 20 years.
And sometimes I say, and I mean, maybe this is kind
of really cynical from me, but sometimes I say, I still
look at where we were, 2005 and I just feel like
we're in a similar place, but with this upgraded terminology and
(13:34):
the ways of looking, because even back, back in 20 03
20 04 20 00 519 95 then they were still looking
at, I mean, anti racism was actually a word then, right?
Anti racism was something that a
lot of organisations were doing, actually.
We need to be proactive.
So they were saying the same things then.
It's just almost like it kind of goes
in peaks and troughs and sometimes some things
(13:55):
become fashionable and organisations are cyclical, right, as
in culturally, they focus on what they put
their budgets in, changes constantly.
Unfortunately, in the past, diversity equity inclusion hasn't
always had, hasn't always been a priority.
And so that's why that often always got.
The budgets were kind of cancelled or maybe they
(14:17):
did a bit of training and that was it.
And then it carried on and then a year or two later, we
need to do a little bit more now or we need to do
this, and a year or two later, a little bit more.
And strategies would have action plans with them.
Action plans would be kind of not always
well informed and I, and so forth.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that there
weren't good organisations out there that did good things, but
I think on the whole, the pattern was that around
(14:40):
99% or 90, maybe, let's be a bit more generous,
around 95% of organisations were kind of very much legalistic
marketing kind of approach to DNI, rather than a kind
of an inclusion leadership led type of approach. Yeah.
And I think that there's something really useful in
that idea of remembering that organisations are cyclical, you
(15:01):
know, that idea of culture and how it changes.
And that actually has led me to just
thinking a little bit about behavioural science.
So how do you think then behavioural science is used
really well to help people to break free of just
doing the marketing, just doing the tick boxes, just doing
the legal aspects and actually truly helping people to buy
(15:24):
into the concept of these systems and the human.
And like you said, the cognitive approach to Dei
behavioural science in itself, first of all, is ultimately
about understanding people, understanding our context and saying, okay,
well, without telling you what to do or without
kind of pushing you in a certain way, what
can we do to influence behaviour ethically? Right.
(15:47):
I think we look at it from an
ethical perspective, what can we do to nudge?
And you might have heard the term nudge
before, nudging and nudge theory is part of
the whole behavioural science framework, if you want.
There's lots of different
frameworks of behavioural science.
So anyway, so how can we, why do,
essentially, why do people do what they do?
And how can we use that knowledge and that understanding
to design our work environments in a better way, design
(16:10):
our interventions in a way that they were going to
be more effective, design our learning training, for example, to
make it more effective and so on and so forth.
Generally, behavioural science often will take a behaviour
approach, as in, we'll say, okay, well, as
a behavioural scientist, I might ask, what are
the behaviours we want to change right now?
It's not just the outcome, but what are
the behaviours that are leading to that outcome?
(16:31):
And so we'll take a very
kind of behaviour led approach.
So one of the kind of nudges, if you want,
or principles in DNI, is around something called defaults.
So, for example, and this default, one of
the famous examples, one of the most famous
examples around defaults, nothing to do with DNI,
it's to do with organ donation.
NHS, for example, generally ask you,
(16:52):
do you want to opt in?
Right to organ donation? And most people will.
Some people will do it, some people won't do it.
And the default approach would say, well,
actually, let's opt everybody in and see.
Do you ask the question, do you want to opt out?
And what you find, and across Europe you have an
opt out system as opposed to an opt in system.
So a lot of the organ donations are over 90%,
whereas in the UK, for example, a couple of the
(17:12):
countries much lower, around 30 to maybe 30 and 50%.
And so you can apply that process into DNI.
So think about your job descriptions.
And for example, if your job description by
default, they were looking for a full time
person, nine to five, working from an office
requires international travel, something along those lines.
(17:34):
Now let's just assume that's your default.
And then after that, at the end you have
a statement that says, we welcome applicants from all
backgrounds and so on and so forth.
So what happens then is you're only
going to have people applying that.
See that first couple of what the core
kind of default of that job is.
Well, actually what you might find is a lot more.
On average, a lot more men might look at
that and think, well, I've got nothing else to
(17:55):
think about stereotyping here, but let's go with it.
I'm more likely to apply for it if I'm
a male, maybe less compared to a female who
might have more responsibilities, who might see international travel.
You're willing, you're able to travel internationally
as a bit of a barrier.
The default, you might change the default of
your job descriptions and say, right, okay, by
(18:16):
default, all our job descriptions will start off
with the premise that all jobs are offered
on a job share part time flexible basis.
And where a manager needs, wants a full time job,
they need to provide justification for why that is.
So that will be flipping it, essentially.
And if you had that as a job default
(18:37):
job description, let's just say marketing director, flexible working
hours, willing to travel at some point.
This is where Kopinski and Nielsen use a really good
example and say, look, if you ask on a job
description whether you know, we're looking for somebody who is
willing to travel or is able to travel internationally for
(18:57):
jobs, if you reframe that and say, are you willing
to travel at some point during this job, then what
happens is you've got women maybe who are you know,
currently maybe got caring responsibilities that aren't able to do
it, but at some point they can say, well, actually,
in the next six months I can, or in the
next three months I can.
You're opening up that talent pool to
(19:18):
a whole new group of people. Right?
And so that's one example of how behavioural
science can change the process of change your.
The way you design things to encourage more applicants.
You're really looking at that
inclusive design element here.
And I think that's really interesting because
one of the organisations we work with
is a mechanical engineering organisation.
(19:40):
And actually there's some.
In fact, I know you work with them
as well around some of the culture pieces.
So we've seen some of that inclusive design
piece really land with the organisation because it
directly connects to the work that they're doing.
And I think you can do this throughout the
organisation, you can do this with the exec, you
can do this with leaders, you can probably also
(20:01):
do it with some of those lower skilled roles
as well, because when you design much more inclusively,
naturally, then, like you say, inclusion is the default
and it's actually really difficult, then if you've set
these really fantastic systems and structures up, you kind
of have to try quite hard to be exclusionary.
And that's something that is obviously not what most of
(20:24):
us are trying to do in a day to day.
We're just kind of going along with the systems
that are there because that's all we know and
that's what kind of makes our jobs easier.
Whatever else it might be, I'm really interested
to hear from you some of the common
pitfalls that you think organisations fall into when
it comes to behavioural science.
(20:44):
Dei that cultural approach, can you think of
some common pitfalls that they might fall into?
I think from a behavioural science perspective, still
not many organisations understand what behavioural science is
because behavioural science requires a little bit more
of a longer term, possibly longer term approach
because you are trying to change possibly kind
(21:05):
of deeply entrenched behaviours or cultures, and then
on top of that, you're applying it to
a topic like DNI, where it's already.
I mean, look, if you, if you go into
an organisation and let's just say you want to
introduce and say we're going to focus on race
and racism within our organisations, organisations generally go through
kind of four stages and.
And the first one is denial, then the next
(21:27):
where it's a case of we haven't got a
problem here and, you know, denying that even exists.
And I'm not saying this is a kind of
explicit thing, but implicitly through kind of communications, how
they talk and so forth, and then you've got
defensiveness and then they go through a phase of
defensiveness where you kind of say, well actually this
is not something to do with us, maybe it's
someone else and kind of, you're really kind of
(21:48):
pushing back and then you go to deliberation.
So as you go through that process now, okay, well
maybe we need to, we're able to have that discussion.
What does that mean for us? And then development.
And so development being that, okay, well we
recognise that we're part of the problem now.
We need to kind of move forward.
So a lot of organisations, because of
their approach, often approaches training first.
It kind of training in a way is kind
(22:09):
of pointing finger saying we need especially to staff
and say you need to get better or we're
going to give you some training here to make
you more inclusive or whatever that might be.
And I think that in itself
straight away puts up a barrier.
So whenever I do training and I'm invited into
do training, I always see very kind of defensive
faces sometimes and then at the end I get
comments like, ah, I'm quite surprised.
(22:30):
It's not what I expected.
And that's often linked to them feeling like when I, when
they were coming into this training, we were going to be
told that we're wrong in some way or that we're behaving
in a non inclusive way in some way.
And so that's, that's one of
them is generally the approach.
Sometimes the reliance on training.
Now training can be hugely beneficial and hugely
effective if it's coupled with other interventions.
(22:53):
And there's been lots of research showing that training
is the least effective intervention if it's done in
isolation and of course if it's done in a
very, if it's not done in a very good
way, it's not experiential or anything like that.
But so training one thing, other, other pitfalls.
I think that organisations start off easy as well.
I think while it seems intuitive, starting off with
gender, for example, that creates a kind of false
(23:14):
sense of security as well, saying, well, actually this
is really, this is not that difficult.
We can go in and you've got DNI
professionals or leaders thinking, yeah, gender is something
I can, I can deal with.
And then bang, we're going to focus on race and racism.
Now that's a more difficult conversation to have, or
sexual orientation or, and so on and so forth.
As the conversations come, they can potentially
(23:36):
cause you to kind of almost take
a step back, especially leaders.
Leaders might take a step back at some point
and then that what that does is it slows
down their whole process and their progress going forward.
Yeah, I mean, everything you just said there is,
is spot on from definitely from my experience and
from all of the other wonderful Dei practitioners that
I get to work with as well, like yourself,
(23:58):
I think, because inclusion and belonging is intersectional.
I think that's when a lot of organisations trip up
because they think, like you say, they're very siloed.
Okay, we really need to focus on gender.
A, because we have some really good data on gender because
the government forced us to have some good data on gender
and b, because it feels a little bit safer.
(24:20):
And actually we have a really good gender mix when
it comes to the lower aspects of the organisation.
But like you say, just putting in
those leadership programmes, whether it is around
race, gender, disability, whatever, whatever, naturally that's
not going to fix the structures.
And again, you're putting the onus on that
person and then you've got to add intersectionality
(24:41):
to it and that's a whole different ballgame.
So if you don't start with intersection and
inclusion naturally, then that's when organisations fail.
But I do love what you just said there about that
safety net feeling when you focus on gender, because it's definitely
something we have experienced a lot in the work that we
do and we try to push back a little bit.
(25:01):
It's always a nice, easy way to root in.
But then that's opening up
those really interesting conversations. And I.
The way you were talking about some of those training
sessions where you go in and you've got these kind
of defensive faces right at the start and then at
the end, it's a completely different mindset.
We see that a lot as well.
And I think that another
(25:22):
common pitfall is the organisation.
And this is not even just in Dei.
When I was in L and D and in
the corporate world, everyone blames training for things not
working, customer service, finance, whatever it is.
So they put some time into training and then if
it doesn't work because all of the structures around it
(25:42):
don't make sense and the internal PR and the SLT
are not on board or whatever, whatever it is, naturally,
then it's not going to work.
And you're so right in Silo,
training can't work by itself.
It has to be surrounded by the structures and
all of the other interventions that are happening, the
campaigns that you might be running internally, you know,
a lot of organisations focus really hard on those
(26:06):
external PR and the external campaigns that they do,
and they don't really think that they need to
do just as much work internally.
But we know that a culture can make or break
an organisation, so actually, you've got to spend just as
much energy and effort on your internal campaigns and PR
and engagement as you do externally to your customers.
(26:26):
100%. I mean, I couldn't agree more.
And I think just on that, I mean,
you just mentioned around training and everything else,
going back to behavioural science brief, there's a
behavioural one of many behavioural science models, and
this is more from the health.
Applying behavioural science to health.
It's called the behaviour change wheel and it's
Susan Mitchey, Lou Atkins and Robert west.
So there's a simplistic part of that behaviour change
(26:49):
wheel is that there's a model called comb.
So c o m b c stands for
kind of competence or capability, o stands for
opportunity and m stands for motivation.
And obviously the B B, which is for behaviour.
So the behaviour you want to achieve might
(27:09):
be, for example, we want all staff in
team meetings to exhibit inclusive behaviours.
Now, you might break that down even further.
What do you mean by inclusive behaviours?
Well, okay, we found out there's a
problem in our meetings where some people
aren't speaking up, other people are.
So let's try and change behaviour there.
Let's try and make people a little bit
more encouraging of each other to speak up.
Let's keep it as simple as that.
(27:30):
So the comb.
The c part of that is
competence and capability, right, or capability.
So that could be physical or psychological here.
The competence might be the ability for active
listening, being able to ask curious questions, how
we facilitate conversations, whatever that might be.
There may be a number of different
skills we're required to do that.
Part of that also might be
(27:50):
understanding of inclusion and inequity. Right?
So sees capabilities now on its own, that might be
some training that you give people as part of that.
On its own, that might not work because it's.
People go to a training session and
they go back into their normal environment. Opportunity.
And opportunity is all about the kind
of physical, kind of social, even psychological
(28:11):
kind of context, the environment.
So now, in this case, if you look at the
meeting being the context, how do we structure the meeting?
Who goes first, how does the chair set the
ground rules and so on and so forth.
So now, if you have that right,
inclusive structure, so supporting the capabilities, they're
more likely to come up.
But then the next part is motivation. Right.
Is what's your motivation to do that?
(28:32):
Now, there's two types of motivation, as
you probably know, intrinsic and extrinsic. Right.
So extrinsic being.
Well, I might start off with extrinsic motivation.
So I'm doing this because it's something that we need
to do to be a little bit more inclusive.
My colleagues are doing it, we're asked
to do it or whatever that might. The reason might be.
I'm doing it because it's external to me, but
the intrinsic motivation would be that maybe aligns what
(28:55):
I'm doing now, aligns with my values in some
way, my beliefs about inclusive environments, and so I'm
more likely to do it.
And so when you have all of these in
alignment and there will be other aspects that you
need to think about this as part of this,
then you're more likely to see not just behaviour
change, but sustainable behaviour change.
And I think a lot of it, going back
to your previous question about problems, maybe some things
(29:15):
that don't work in DNI is around sustainability.
The often DNI strategies, DNI interventions or
initiatives, whatever they might be, aren't sustained.
They're not often.
The biggest complaint I get is that, yeah, we
did this something, we got a big spike in
interest and then after we're back to normal.
And so there's not always that sustainability, but
with this, you're kind of coming at it
(29:37):
at three different factors, essentially, and so you're
more likely, likely to see success.
Now, the final thing is with behavioural
science is we don't know the answer.
So we come in there, we don't know
the answer, we're trying to understand more.
So you might experiment.
So, true behavioural science would be.
Right, okay, well, let's try.
Here's one intervention, and this intervention
we're going to use things like
defaults, social proofing, etcetera.
(29:59):
And for this intervention we're going to try
this particular framework or these particular interventions and
see what works and then we'll iterate and
try again and so on and so forth.
And I guess going forward, I think
evidence based change is really important.
I think we've not.
If you ask a lot of organisations, they don't have
(30:19):
a lot of evidence to kind of say, well, actually,
yeah, we measured this and we know this works.
They can't always put their finger
on what works and what doesn't.
And so that's where maybe behavioural science would say, well,
we need to take a more evidence based approach.
Well, some of the things that you just said there.
I really liked the word experimental because that's definitely
(30:39):
something that you have to do in this field.
Even if you forgot about behavioural science, right, removed it
from this field, you have to be able to create
those spaces where people feel safe to experiment.
You also need to make sure, and you use the
word practise a couple of times there as well, which
I really like, because that's definitely a bit of a
(31:01):
shift in the way we've started doing things.
So rather than kind of asking people to act on
the work that we're doing with them in the learning
field, we're asking them to practise it, because the psychology
around practising it means you can get it wrong.
And we know a big part of the reason
that people are not necessarily being able to take
forward their learning sometimes is because it's scary.
(31:24):
They're terrified of getting things wrong.
Cancel culture is a very real thing for some people.
So actually, it's really, really important
for us to create those spaces.
Whether it is through inclusion nudges, whether it
is through habits, habitual changes, whatever it is,
we've got to create this spaces.
We can go, why don't you go and have a practise?
Why don't you go and experiment?
And let's see what works.
(31:46):
Because also, every organisation is different,
every single person's different, every department
in each organisation is different.
So what works for one space
will not necessarily work for another.
And I think that's a really lovely way
to start to wrap up our conversation today.
And just before we do finish, I'd love to get
just one suggestion, one tip, one piece of advice that
(32:08):
you would give to leaders of organisations, to managers of
people that can start to think a bit more about
Dei from a behavioural science point of view.
If you've got some sort of useful tip
for people, take away the term behavioural science
and actually call it behavioural design and ask
yourself, what do you want to.
What is it you want to design your organisation for?
(32:30):
And even if some, you know, let's just say your HR director
comes to you as a leader and says, we need some money
for diversity and inclusion, or we need to do this, and as
a leader, I would ask the question and say, look, what do
we need to do to design our organisation?
I mean, let's look at it
from a strategic perspective, right?
So what behaviours are we trying to promote?
What behaviours are we trying to kind of get
(32:51):
rid of, and so on and so forth.
So I get leaders to really kind of reflect.
And that question, how does this make me feel?
It helps them internalise what they're learning.
I'm getting them to kind of internalise the
reality and I don't frame it as a
problem because it's not a problem.
If you frame it as a problem,
then you're saying that you need to.
(33:11):
These people are wrong and this environment
is wrong or the situation's wrong.
We're saying, well, how do we
widen our kind of pool here?
So, yeah, I think, I guess I would
ask leaders to take a much more reflective
and observational approach and ask questions about what
are the behaviours we want to be.
What organisation do I want to see?
Just ask that question.
What organisation do you want to see?
Who do you want to see in your organisation?
(33:33):
I'm not going to answer that question for them.
I want them to come answer that and
think about that and reflect on that.
And I guess then the behavioural science element of that
will be saying, okay, that's what I want to see.
What do we need to do to get there?
And how can we apply behavioural sciences to get there?
Yeah, and I can hear a lot of that intrinsic
motivation coming through there and that's definitely something we spend
(33:54):
a lot of time on in the field in general.
It's something that we probably spend the most
time on really getting that close personal connection
so people can have that intrinsic motivation.
So thank you so much for
spending this time with me today.
I think that that was just so interesting.
I think there's some really useful
things that people can take away.
There's some really interesting insights around sustainability and thinking
(34:17):
about how we've moved from, or we're trying to
move from the deficit approach into that.
Actually, like you say, how do we build a bigger
cake, a bigger table, so that we've got better representation
of the communities we're serving, the customers that we're serving,
whatever it might be in our organisation.
So we've actually got a much more
representative organisation that is truly culturally diverse
(34:40):
in so many different ways.
And we know, look, there's loads of stats and
data and stuff and research to support the fact
that that is going to make your organisation much
more sustainable, much more profitable and actually have a
much bigger social impact on the world as well.
Absolutely.
And I've loved having that conversation and I've got so
many more examples, but yeah, maybe another time we can
go into a bit more depth as well.
(35:01):
Sounds great, I'd love that.
Thank you so much.
I'll speak to you soon. Brilliant.
Thanks, Zoe.
What an amazing episode that was.
I just absolutely loved the way that ERPM is just
talking so much about that intrinsic motivation, that idea around,
(35:26):
really moving in the evolution of behavioural science and diversity,
equity and inclusion thinking from back around 20 years ago
when it was very legal, moving on to that awareness
piece, and now really looking towards that more systematic and
emotional aspect of the work that we do, I think
that there's some really great insights there around taking it
(35:46):
as much more of an experimental point of view, so
it feels a little bit less overwhelming, I think, for
people.
But also really great suggestions there on a
couple of books, a couple of things that
people can learn about a little bit more.
So we really hope you enjoyed this and
we'll see you on the next one.
Hello and welcome to another episode of a
conversation with now, today we have the absolute
pleasure of speaking to a behavioural science expert,
someone that we've got to work and collaborate
with in a few different projects as well.
Irfaan is just a fantastically talented person, just
(00:32):
someone that we really love to speak to.
And I think you're going to really enjoy
this conversation today because he's talking about lots
of really interesting aspects around how behavioural science
plays a part in diversity, equity and inclusion.
Really starting to talk a little bit about that behavioural
design piece as well, and just some really good recommendations
and some suggestions of things that we can do as
(00:54):
leaders of organisations, but also as people managers as well,
to start to think about how we can use behavioural
science in our inclusion work.
So grab a coca, kick back and have a listen.
So welcome to the podcast.
(01:16):
I'm really excited to have the incredibly
talented Irfaan Arif here with us today.
Irfaan is going to speak to us a
little bit about behavioural science and all of
the wonderful things that that's connected to.
But before we go on, I'm
going to let him introduce himself. Thank you.
Thank you, Zoe.
So, yeah, my name is Irfaan Arif.
(01:36):
I'm a behavioural scientist and
diversity and inclusion specialist.
Majority of my work experience from 2005 onwards
has been within working in that space around
diversity and inclusion, ranging from public sector, private
sector, across all different sectors, if you want.
And kind of more recent part of my
(01:56):
work experience and my life in the professional
setting has been as a behavioural scientist.
So I kind of slowly transitioned from diversity
and inclusion into behavioural science, psychology and applying
that to DNI, but also other things such
as sustainability, organisational change, culture change and so
on and so forth.
So, yeah, as a behavioural scientist, what we do is
(02:16):
we try to understand why people do what they do.
Yeah, amazing. Thank you so much.
And I didn't realise it was since 2005.
So you've got almost.
You're almost at your 20 year mark. Yeah.
I don't want to age, age
the work there, but that's incredible.
So you must have seen some pretty big
changes in the last 20 years, not just
in Dei, but in behavioural science as well.
(02:38):
Yeah, I mean, I remember my first kind of introduction
to DNI Washington, actually, in 2003, and I was doing.
I was at uni and I was doing a HR advisor
kind of role and I wasn't trained as a HR person.
I had a kind of a colleague said, I've
got this job, someone needs a HR person.
Do a bit of payroll and that kind of stuff.
And I kind of ended up in that role and I
(03:01):
remember them asking, asking us to look at some equal opportunities
training as it was back then, I did a bit of
research and I spoke to a few people and they were
like, look, we just need to think about the legislation.
And at that time, obviously, we had all
the different separate legislations, race relations, etcetera.
So that was in 2003 and I did some really
(03:21):
rough and probably really bad training on equal opportunities.
A year later I ended up doing a
masters in human resource development and consulting.
And in that masters, my dissertation
was doing a project for Leeds.
It was a kind of arm's length homes
organisation connected to Leeds City council and I.
The project was basically doing a bit of research
(03:42):
or needs analysis for diversity and inclusion training.
So I went in, did some focus groups, some
interviews, questionnaires, and then did a dissertation on the
leads of the organisations in diversity training.
And before you know it, six months later, sorry,
when I finished my masters, a job came up,
I applied for it and I ended up getting
the job as equality and diversity officer.
And that's where I started in 2000.
(04:03):
That's why I say 2005.
Around that time, that was my first job in this space.
And then literally eight months later I
saw a job as an equality and
diversity manager at the University of Kent.
I applied for it and got the
job and then ended up moving there.
And I was there for the next.
I think it was five, six years after that.
I've been in the higher education stroke NHS
(04:23):
environment until I went self employed and then
I started working across all of the sectors.
So, yeah, so, been there a long time, but
the changes that I've seen are obviously the language.
So equal opportunities to diversity and
inclusion, to quality, diversity and inclusion,
to equity, diversity and inclusion.
And so there's been a big change in how
we define things, introducing new concepts around belonging, inclusion,
(04:46):
which weren't always things that we discussed.
So it kind of went from a very legalistic
approach to a much more kind of awareness approach
and then to more of a systemic approach and
I guess now probably more of a kind of
emotional, kind of cognitive approach as well. Lots of.
Lots of change.
Oh, amazing.
And I'm really interested to hear a little bit
(05:07):
about how people's views have changed now, of course.
So I've been.
I actually had a similar start to you with
regards to a HR job that turned into a
learning and development job, that turned into working on
projects around Dei in the learning space, and then
much more strategic and then setting up the business.
Similar ish in some ways.
(05:29):
And I've obviously seen probably only over about a
ten year period compared to your 20 years.
I've seen a lot of differences in the
way that people perceive diversity, equity and inclusion.
They talk about it.
Language thing is really important, actually.
We've just been talking to Michael Reed, who is a
linguistic expert about this sort of stuff as well.
But I guess I'm really interested to hear
(05:50):
about how do you think people's mindsets have
changed in the vast 20 years that you've
been working in this particular field.
I mean, people's mindsets back then used to be
about what we can and can't say, and it
was very much about avoiding saying the wrong thing.
And it was almost.
And I guess if I were to go back
ten years from 2003, it was probably very much
(06:12):
around what is illegal and what isn't.
And it was much more of a legalistic
conversation then, whereas when I was in post,
it was very much around understanding.
And then also terminology was a big part of it.
And I remember someone telling me, I did some
training for the Met police once, an unconscious bias.
And one of the police officers there said,
oh, we had this training 20 years ago.
(06:33):
And he goes, we basically got a list of words that
we can't say, 100 lists of words that we can't say.
So it's kind of gone from what they can
and can't say and language and so forth.
And I guess also diversity itself, the
idea of difference wasn't that prominent.
I mean, it was about giving people equal opportunities
and saying, yeah, all right, we need to.
And there was a big focus on gender,
(06:54):
more so than race, although the race was
still a big issue then, as was disability.
But some of the protected characteristics, as we know of
them now, were not fully developed and not everybody understood
them as much as maybe they might do now.
And then the attitude kind of shifted a little
bit more to kind of acknowledging and understanding.
Yeah, that there are inequalities.
And I think actually for a brief moment to
(07:15):
actually, we need to do something about this.
There's more kind of reflection and reflection now.
So we went from a space of where there
wasn't much reflection, it was just more about recognising
and just saying, acknowledging and saying, yeah, okay, this
exists, fair enough, I've got it in my periphery
to, okay, I'm part of this, so I need
to really maybe, what does it mean for me?
(07:36):
And so people maybe were challenged a little bit more
to take ownership and kind of really take action in,
in organisations, individually, collectively to now, where we still got
a bit of that, but we've also got kind of
a lot more question and challenge to it as well.
So people are challenging, I mean, this
is my perception so far anyway.
People are challenging dei more than ever now.
(07:57):
So you've got the two kind of polls if you want.
One group of people are very active and kind of
maybe saying, well, actually we need to really kind of
take even more changes another group by saying, I think
we've passed it now, we're a meritocracy and it's all
working and if you want to get somewhere, you just
need to put the effort in.
Maybe that side has come full circle to
where it was back in the day.
Yeah, that's a really interesting point.
(08:18):
And I'm just sitting here thinking about even ten
years ago when I started really paying attention to
this field from a learning point of view.
That idea of what you can and can't
say was very rife then and I've been
in, like you in your organisational work now.
I've been in a lot of different industries
when I was in employment, I guess.
(08:40):
So that was really rife across the industries.
It certainly wasn't just one particular industry.
And one thing that really sparked them when
you were talking about it is that idea
that 20 years ago gender was the focus.
Because I think that there's still a lot
of organisations that still sit around gender because
they feel like it's a safer topic.
(09:00):
There's still a hell of a lot of work to do.
We are definitely nothing in any way, shape
or form within most countries in the world.
And we're not just talking about workplaces, of
course, we're talking about social kind of systems
and all of the different aspects when it
comes to those gender differences.
But that's definitely an area I see a lot
of organisations wanting to focus in in their first
(09:20):
step into DEi because it feels safe compared to
race or disability or sexuality or whatever.
Whatever, whatever.
So I think it's quite interesting that.
Yeah, I definitely have connected that, as you've
said, that definitely something that was ten years
ago written for U 20 and it's definitely
still a safety net for people now.
I think on that. I think it's a really good point
(09:42):
and that's my experience as well.
People are more comfortable with gender.
Unless you were around George
Floyd and Black lives Matter.
It's almost like awareness around what was going on gave
organisations a bit more kind of, let's just say safety
to come out and say, right, actually we need to
do something around anti racism or maybe safety.
Maybe there was a bit of a bandwagon.
People jumping on the bandwagon say,
we also need to do this.
(10:03):
You know, organisations tend to kind of copy each other
a little bit as well, and so they're doing it.
So we need to do this as well.
But if I go back, actually, going back, one thing
I didn't say was 20 years ago and maybe even
ten, actually, probably ten years ago as well, it was
still very much a deficit approach to inequities and inequalities.
And if you're looking at gender, for example,
it was still very much, we need to
(10:24):
upskill women to get to the level.
It was almost a, you know, without
saying, it was like, we need to
give women leadership programmes and development programmes.
And so they was almost unconsciously
or consciously saying that we need.
You obviously need to get better.
I mean, that's what the message, in my opinion, was.
A lot of the women were very
good at what they were doing.
It was just that seemed to be, well,
let's put some leadership development programmes and they
(10:45):
weren't really often translating into leadership positions and
just really quickly in higher education as well,
same as when I was working for the
University of Kent and University of East London.
There was a lot of work we
used to do around degree attainment.
So the degree attainment gap basically was, or is still so
of all black students in the UK around, I think it
(11:06):
was around 60% would get a two one or a first.
Compared to proportion of white students going to
university, they would get around 80, between 85
or 87% would get a first.
And that gap is called the attainment gap.
And so when what a lot of
universities used to do first was thinking,
well, what's missing with the black students?
What do we need to fix with them?
Rather than what they started to do in, you know, let
(11:29):
maybe say, five to six years ago, maybe a bit longer.
Some were way ahead the curve,
others were kind of further behind.
But the approach where we say, well, let's look at
ourselves as an institution, look at our systems, you know,
do we make students feel like they belong?
And actually do we provide a slightly
different service to different types of students?
So really kind of questioning your systems
(11:49):
and processes and structures and power and
all of these things and asking the
question, actually, who benefits from us more?
And that's it as a simple kind of question.
And it's really interesting because as you were talking
then, I was thinking straight over to the medical
and social model that we look at when we
think about disability and it's exactly the same thing,
we're putting the onus, and this has definitely been
(12:10):
a theme throughout Dei in general, you put the
onus on the people that are historically marginalised, underrepresented,
whatever it might be.
And actually you're like, well, how can we fix them?
How can we give them what they need?
Rather than thinking, well, how
do we fix those systems?
So we've really moved away from that idea of
thinking of the person as the problem and instead
(12:30):
thinking about equity in its true form because we're
thinking, well, what is it about the systems that
are in our education, in our housing, in our
healthcare, in our governments, wherever it might be.
That means by the time people do get to
higher education, if they have access to that, they
get to employment, if they have access to that,
what is it that we're doing to make sure
(12:51):
it evens out by the time they get there?
And that is equity.
You know, organisations, universities, whatever, we're doing a hell
of a lot of the work, we're fixing a
hell of a lot of the social issues that
are happening outside of our control and I think
that's a big bugbear for a lot of organisations.
It feels like a massive responsibility to take on.
(13:11):
So I think that's quite interesting
that you've just shared that. I think it's.
But sometimes I feel, I mean, somebody
asked me the question about diversity equity
inclusion or diversity inclusion, you know, how
it's changed over the last 20 years.
And sometimes I say, and I mean, maybe this is kind
of really cynical from me, but sometimes I say, I still
look at where we were, 2005 and I just feel like
we're in a similar place, but with this upgraded terminology and
(13:34):
the ways of looking, because even back, back in 20 03
20 04 20 00 519 95 then they were still looking
at, I mean, anti racism was actually a word then, right?
Anti racism was something that a
lot of organisations were doing, actually.
We need to be proactive.
So they were saying the same things then.
It's just almost like it kind of goes
in peaks and troughs and sometimes some things
(13:55):
become fashionable and organisations are cyclical, right, as
in culturally, they focus on what they put
their budgets in, changes constantly.
Unfortunately, in the past, diversity equity inclusion hasn't
always had, hasn't always been a priority.
And so that's why that often always got.
The budgets were kind of cancelled or maybe they
(14:17):
did a bit of training and that was it.
And then it carried on and then a year or two later, we
need to do a little bit more now or we need to do
this, and a year or two later, a little bit more.
And strategies would have action plans with them.
Action plans would be kind of not always
well informed and I, and so forth.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that there
weren't good organisations out there that did good things, but
I think on the whole, the pattern was that around
(14:40):
99% or 90, maybe, let's be a bit more generous,
around 95% of organisations were kind of very much legalistic
marketing kind of approach to DNI, rather than a kind
of an inclusion leadership led type of approach. Yeah.
And I think that there's something really useful in
that idea of remembering that organisations are cyclical, you
(15:01):
know, that idea of culture and how it changes.
And that actually has led me to just
thinking a little bit about behavioural science.
So how do you think then behavioural science is used
really well to help people to break free of just
doing the marketing, just doing the tick boxes, just doing
the legal aspects and actually truly helping people to buy
(15:24):
into the concept of these systems and the human.
And like you said, the cognitive approach to Dei
behavioural science in itself, first of all, is ultimately
about understanding people, understanding our context and saying, okay,
well, without telling you what to do or without
kind of pushing you in a certain way, what
can we do to influence behaviour ethically? Right.
(15:47):
I think we look at it from an
ethical perspective, what can we do to nudge?
And you might have heard the term nudge
before, nudging and nudge theory is part of
the whole behavioural science framework, if you want.
There's lots of different
frameworks of behavioural science.
So anyway, so how can we, why do,
essentially, why do people do what they do?
And how can we use that knowledge and that understanding
to design our work environments in a better way, design
(16:10):
our interventions in a way that they were going to
be more effective, design our learning training, for example, to
make it more effective and so on and so forth.
Generally, behavioural science often will take a behaviour
approach, as in, we'll say, okay, well, as
a behavioural scientist, I might ask, what are
the behaviours we want to change right now?
It's not just the outcome, but what are
the behaviours that are leading to that outcome?
(16:31):
And so we'll take a very
kind of behaviour led approach.
So one of the kind of nudges, if you want,
or principles in DNI, is around something called defaults.
So, for example, and this default, one of
the famous examples, one of the most famous
examples around defaults, nothing to do with DNI,
it's to do with organ donation.
NHS, for example, generally ask you,
(16:52):
do you want to opt in?
Right to organ donation? And most people will.
Some people will do it, some people won't do it.
And the default approach would say, well,
actually, let's opt everybody in and see.
Do you ask the question, do you want to opt out?
And what you find, and across Europe you have an
opt out system as opposed to an opt in system.
So a lot of the organ donations are over 90%,
whereas in the UK, for example, a couple of the
(17:12):
countries much lower, around 30 to maybe 30 and 50%.
And so you can apply that process into DNI.
So think about your job descriptions.
And for example, if your job description by
default, they were looking for a full time
person, nine to five, working from an office
requires international travel, something along those lines.
(17:34):
Now let's just assume that's your default.
And then after that, at the end you have
a statement that says, we welcome applicants from all
backgrounds and so on and so forth.
So what happens then is you're only
going to have people applying that.
See that first couple of what the core
kind of default of that job is.
Well, actually what you might find is a lot more.
On average, a lot more men might look at
that and think, well, I've got nothing else to
(17:55):
think about stereotyping here, but let's go with it.
I'm more likely to apply for it if I'm
a male, maybe less compared to a female who
might have more responsibilities, who might see international travel.
You're willing, you're able to travel internationally
as a bit of a barrier.
The default, you might change the default of
your job descriptions and say, right, okay, by
(18:16):
default, all our job descriptions will start off
with the premise that all jobs are offered
on a job share part time flexible basis.
And where a manager needs, wants a full time job,
they need to provide justification for why that is.
So that will be flipping it, essentially.
And if you had that as a job default
(18:37):
job description, let's just say marketing director, flexible working
hours, willing to travel at some point.
This is where Kopinski and Nielsen use a really good
example and say, look, if you ask on a job
description whether you know, we're looking for somebody who is
willing to travel or is able to travel internationally for
(18:57):
jobs, if you reframe that and say, are you willing
to travel at some point during this job, then what
happens is you've got women maybe who are you know,
currently maybe got caring responsibilities that aren't able to do
it, but at some point they can say, well, actually,
in the next six months I can, or in the
next three months I can.
You're opening up that talent pool to
(19:18):
a whole new group of people. Right?
And so that's one example of how behavioural
science can change the process of change your.
The way you design things to encourage more applicants.
You're really looking at that
inclusive design element here.
And I think that's really interesting because
one of the organisations we work with
is a mechanical engineering organisation.
(19:40):
And actually there's some.
In fact, I know you work with them
as well around some of the culture pieces.
So we've seen some of that inclusive design
piece really land with the organisation because it
directly connects to the work that they're doing.
And I think you can do this throughout the
organisation, you can do this with the exec, you
can do this with leaders, you can probably also
(20:01):
do it with some of those lower skilled roles
as well, because when you design much more inclusively,
naturally, then, like you say, inclusion is the default
and it's actually really difficult, then if you've set
these really fantastic systems and structures up, you kind
of have to try quite hard to be exclusionary.
And that's something that is obviously not what most of
(20:24):
us are trying to do in a day to day.
We're just kind of going along with the systems
that are there because that's all we know and
that's what kind of makes our jobs easier.
Whatever else it might be, I'm really interested
to hear from you some of the common
pitfalls that you think organisations fall into when
it comes to behavioural science.
(20:44):
Dei that cultural approach, can you think of
some common pitfalls that they might fall into?
I think from a behavioural science perspective, still
not many organisations understand what behavioural science is
because behavioural science requires a little bit more
of a longer term, possibly longer term approach
because you are trying to change possibly kind
(21:05):
of deeply entrenched behaviours or cultures, and then
on top of that, you're applying it to
a topic like DNI, where it's already.
I mean, look, if you, if you go into
an organisation and let's just say you want to
introduce and say we're going to focus on race
and racism within our organisations, organisations generally go through
kind of four stages and.
And the first one is denial, then the next
(21:27):
where it's a case of we haven't got a
problem here and, you know, denying that even exists.
And I'm not saying this is a kind of
explicit thing, but implicitly through kind of communications, how
they talk and so forth, and then you've got
defensiveness and then they go through a phase of
defensiveness where you kind of say, well actually this
is not something to do with us, maybe it's
someone else and kind of, you're really kind of
(21:48):
pushing back and then you go to deliberation.
So as you go through that process now, okay, well
maybe we need to, we're able to have that discussion.
What does that mean for us? And then development.
And so development being that, okay, well we
recognise that we're part of the problem now.
We need to kind of move forward.
So a lot of organisations, because of
their approach, often approaches training first.
It kind of training in a way is kind
(22:09):
of pointing finger saying we need especially to staff
and say you need to get better or we're
going to give you some training here to make
you more inclusive or whatever that might be.
And I think that in itself
straight away puts up a barrier.
So whenever I do training and I'm invited into
do training, I always see very kind of defensive
faces sometimes and then at the end I get
comments like, ah, I'm quite surprised.
(22:30):
It's not what I expected.
And that's often linked to them feeling like when I, when
they were coming into this training, we were going to be
told that we're wrong in some way or that we're behaving
in a non inclusive way in some way.
And so that's, that's one of
them is generally the approach.
Sometimes the reliance on training.
Now training can be hugely beneficial and hugely
effective if it's coupled with other interventions.
(22:53):
And there's been lots of research showing that training
is the least effective intervention if it's done in
isolation and of course if it's done in a
very, if it's not done in a very good
way, it's not experiential or anything like that.
But so training one thing, other, other pitfalls.
I think that organisations start off easy as well.
I think while it seems intuitive, starting off with
gender, for example, that creates a kind of false
(23:14):
sense of security as well, saying, well, actually this
is really, this is not that difficult.
We can go in and you've got DNI
professionals or leaders thinking, yeah, gender is something
I can, I can deal with.
And then bang, we're going to focus on race and racism.
Now that's a more difficult conversation to have, or
sexual orientation or, and so on and so forth.
As the conversations come, they can potentially
(23:36):
cause you to kind of almost take
a step back, especially leaders.
Leaders might take a step back at some point
and then that what that does is it slows
down their whole process and their progress going forward.
Yeah, I mean, everything you just said there is,
is spot on from definitely from my experience and
from all of the other wonderful Dei practitioners that
I get to work with as well, like yourself,
(23:58):
I think, because inclusion and belonging is intersectional.
I think that's when a lot of organisations trip up
because they think, like you say, they're very siloed.
Okay, we really need to focus on gender.
A, because we have some really good data on gender because
the government forced us to have some good data on gender
and b, because it feels a little bit safer.
(24:20):
And actually we have a really good gender mix when
it comes to the lower aspects of the organisation.
But like you say, just putting in
those leadership programmes, whether it is around
race, gender, disability, whatever, whatever, naturally that's
not going to fix the structures.
And again, you're putting the onus on that
person and then you've got to add intersectionality
(24:41):
to it and that's a whole different ballgame.
So if you don't start with intersection and
inclusion naturally, then that's when organisations fail.
But I do love what you just said there about that
safety net feeling when you focus on gender, because it's definitely
something we have experienced a lot in the work that we
do and we try to push back a little bit.
(25:01):
It's always a nice, easy way to root in.
But then that's opening up
those really interesting conversations. And I.
The way you were talking about some of those training
sessions where you go in and you've got these kind
of defensive faces right at the start and then at
the end, it's a completely different mindset.
We see that a lot as well.
And I think that another
(25:22):
common pitfall is the organisation.
And this is not even just in Dei.
When I was in L and D and in
the corporate world, everyone blames training for things not
working, customer service, finance, whatever it is.
So they put some time into training and then if
it doesn't work because all of the structures around it
(25:42):
don't make sense and the internal PR and the SLT
are not on board or whatever, whatever it is, naturally,
then it's not going to work.
And you're so right in Silo,
training can't work by itself.
It has to be surrounded by the structures and
all of the other interventions that are happening, the
campaigns that you might be running internally, you know,
a lot of organisations focus really hard on those
(26:06):
external PR and the external campaigns that they do,
and they don't really think that they need to
do just as much work internally.
But we know that a culture can make or break
an organisation, so actually, you've got to spend just as
much energy and effort on your internal campaigns and PR
and engagement as you do externally to your customers.
(26:26):
100%. I mean, I couldn't agree more.
And I think just on that, I mean,
you just mentioned around training and everything else,
going back to behavioural science brief, there's a
behavioural one of many behavioural science models, and
this is more from the health.
Applying behavioural science to health.
It's called the behaviour change wheel and it's
Susan Mitchey, Lou Atkins and Robert west.
So there's a simplistic part of that behaviour change
(26:49):
wheel is that there's a model called comb.
So c o m b c stands for
kind of competence or capability, o stands for
opportunity and m stands for motivation.
And obviously the B B, which is for behaviour.
So the behaviour you want to achieve might
(27:09):
be, for example, we want all staff in
team meetings to exhibit inclusive behaviours.
Now, you might break that down even further.
What do you mean by inclusive behaviours?
Well, okay, we found out there's a
problem in our meetings where some people
aren't speaking up, other people are.
So let's try and change behaviour there.
Let's try and make people a little bit
more encouraging of each other to speak up.
Let's keep it as simple as that.
(27:30):
So the comb.
The c part of that is
competence and capability, right, or capability.
So that could be physical or psychological here.
The competence might be the ability for active
listening, being able to ask curious questions, how
we facilitate conversations, whatever that might be.
There may be a number of different
skills we're required to do that.
Part of that also might be
(27:50):
understanding of inclusion and inequity. Right?
So sees capabilities now on its own, that might be
some training that you give people as part of that.
On its own, that might not work because it's.
People go to a training session and
they go back into their normal environment. Opportunity.
And opportunity is all about the kind
of physical, kind of social, even psychological
(28:11):
kind of context, the environment.
So now, in this case, if you look at the
meeting being the context, how do we structure the meeting?
Who goes first, how does the chair set the
ground rules and so on and so forth.
So now, if you have that right,
inclusive structure, so supporting the capabilities, they're
more likely to come up.
But then the next part is motivation. Right.
Is what's your motivation to do that?
(28:32):
Now, there's two types of motivation, as
you probably know, intrinsic and extrinsic. Right.
So extrinsic being.
Well, I might start off with extrinsic motivation.
So I'm doing this because it's something that we need
to do to be a little bit more inclusive.
My colleagues are doing it, we're asked
to do it or whatever that might. The reason might be.
I'm doing it because it's external to me, but
the intrinsic motivation would be that maybe aligns what
(28:55):
I'm doing now, aligns with my values in some
way, my beliefs about inclusive environments, and so I'm
more likely to do it.
And so when you have all of these in
alignment and there will be other aspects that you
need to think about this as part of this,
then you're more likely to see not just behaviour
change, but sustainable behaviour change.
And I think a lot of it, going back
to your previous question about problems, maybe some things
(29:15):
that don't work in DNI is around sustainability.
The often DNI strategies, DNI interventions or
initiatives, whatever they might be, aren't sustained.
They're not often.
The biggest complaint I get is that, yeah, we
did this something, we got a big spike in
interest and then after we're back to normal.
And so there's not always that sustainability, but
with this, you're kind of coming at it
(29:37):
at three different factors, essentially, and so you're
more likely, likely to see success.
Now, the final thing is with behavioural
science is we don't know the answer.
So we come in there, we don't know
the answer, we're trying to understand more.
So you might experiment.
So, true behavioural science would be.
Right, okay, well, let's try.
Here's one intervention, and this intervention
we're going to use things like
defaults, social proofing, etcetera.
(29:59):
And for this intervention we're going to try
this particular framework or these particular interventions and
see what works and then we'll iterate and
try again and so on and so forth.
And I guess going forward, I think
evidence based change is really important.
I think we've not.
If you ask a lot of organisations, they don't have
(30:19):
a lot of evidence to kind of say, well, actually,
yeah, we measured this and we know this works.
They can't always put their finger
on what works and what doesn't.
And so that's where maybe behavioural science would say, well,
we need to take a more evidence based approach.
Well, some of the things that you just said there.
I really liked the word experimental because that's definitely
(30:39):
something that you have to do in this field.
Even if you forgot about behavioural science, right, removed it
from this field, you have to be able to create
those spaces where people feel safe to experiment.
You also need to make sure, and you use the
word practise a couple of times there as well, which
I really like, because that's definitely a bit of a
(31:01):
shift in the way we've started doing things.
So rather than kind of asking people to act on
the work that we're doing with them in the learning
field, we're asking them to practise it, because the psychology
around practising it means you can get it wrong.
And we know a big part of the reason
that people are not necessarily being able to take
forward their learning sometimes is because it's scary.
(31:24):
They're terrified of getting things wrong.
Cancel culture is a very real thing for some people.
So actually, it's really, really important
for us to create those spaces.
Whether it is through inclusion nudges, whether it
is through habits, habitual changes, whatever it is,
we've got to create this spaces.
We can go, why don't you go and have a practise?
Why don't you go and experiment?
And let's see what works.
(31:46):
Because also, every organisation is different,
every single person's different, every department
in each organisation is different.
So what works for one space
will not necessarily work for another.
And I think that's a really lovely way
to start to wrap up our conversation today.
And just before we do finish, I'd love to get
just one suggestion, one tip, one piece of advice that
(32:08):
you would give to leaders of organisations, to managers of
people that can start to think a bit more about
Dei from a behavioural science point of view.
If you've got some sort of useful tip
for people, take away the term behavioural science
and actually call it behavioural design and ask
yourself, what do you want to.
What is it you want to design your organisation for?
(32:30):
And even if some, you know, let's just say your HR director
comes to you as a leader and says, we need some money
for diversity and inclusion, or we need to do this, and as
a leader, I would ask the question and say, look, what do
we need to do to design our organisation?
I mean, let's look at it
from a strategic perspective, right?
So what behaviours are we trying to promote?
What behaviours are we trying to kind of get
(32:51):
rid of, and so on and so forth.
So I get leaders to really kind of reflect.
And that question, how does this make me feel?
It helps them internalise what they're learning.
I'm getting them to kind of internalise the
reality and I don't frame it as a
problem because it's not a problem.
If you frame it as a problem,
then you're saying that you need to.
(33:11):
These people are wrong and this environment
is wrong or the situation's wrong.
We're saying, well, how do we
widen our kind of pool here?
So, yeah, I think, I guess I would
ask leaders to take a much more reflective
and observational approach and ask questions about what
are the behaviours we want to be.
What organisation do I want to see?
Just ask that question.
What organisation do you want to see?
Who do you want to see in your organisation?
(33:33):
I'm not going to answer that question for them.
I want them to come answer that and
think about that and reflect on that.
And I guess then the behavioural science element of that
will be saying, okay, that's what I want to see.
What do we need to do to get there?
And how can we apply behavioural sciences to get there?
Yeah, and I can hear a lot of that intrinsic
motivation coming through there and that's definitely something we spend
(33:54):
a lot of time on in the field in general.
It's something that we probably spend the most
time on really getting that close personal connection
so people can have that intrinsic motivation.
So thank you so much for
spending this time with me today.
I think that that was just so interesting.
I think there's some really useful
things that people can take away.
There's some really interesting insights around sustainability and thinking
(34:17):
about how we've moved from, or we're trying to
move from the deficit approach into that.
Actually, like you say, how do we build a bigger
cake, a bigger table, so that we've got better representation
of the communities we're serving, the customers that we're serving,
whatever it might be in our organisation.
So we've actually got a much more
representative organisation that is truly culturally diverse
(34:40):
in so many different ways.
And we know, look, there's loads of stats and
data and stuff and research to support the fact
that that is going to make your organisation much
more sustainable, much more profitable and actually have a
much bigger social impact on the world as well.
Absolutely.
And I've loved having that conversation and I've got so
many more examples, but yeah, maybe another time we can
go into a bit more depth as well.
(35:01):
Sounds great, I'd love that.
Thank you so much.
I'll speak to you soon. Brilliant.
Thanks, Zoe.
What an amazing episode that was.
I just absolutely loved the way that ERPM is just
talking so much about that intrinsic motivation, that idea around,
(35:26):
really moving in the evolution of behavioural science and diversity,
equity and inclusion thinking from back around 20 years ago
when it was very legal, moving on to that awareness
piece, and now really looking towards that more systematic and
emotional aspect of the work that we do, I think
that there's some really great insights there around taking it
(35:46):
as much more of an experimental point of view, so
it feels a little bit less overwhelming, I think, for
people.
But also really great suggestions there on a
couple of books, a couple of things that
people can learn about a little bit more.
So we really hope you enjoyed this and
we'll see you on the next one.
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