May 30, 2023 • 46 mins
In this episode, Laura speaks with David Liddle, founder and CEO of the TCM Group, about his career as a dedicated mediator and 'people first' professional. Listen if you are interested in:
- His early career mediating in estates in the UK
- Transformational culture and restorative justice in the workplace
- A role for mediators in broader social conflicts
- Redefining HR in modern organisations
About David: David has developed significant expertise and authority in the areas of people and culture, conflict resolution, leadership and organisational development. He is author of two highly acclaimed books, ‘MANAGING CONFLICT’ and ‘TRANSFORMATIONAL CULTURE’. David has spent the last 30 years reframing HR systems, management processes, and leadership behaviours. He puts purpose, people and values at the heart of his customers organisations. With a passion for collaboration, inclusion and empowerment, he brings people together to deliver high impact transformational change. In 2001, having been awarded an MBA with Distinction, David established The TCM Group (Train. Consult. Mediate). His vision for TCM was, and still is, to integrate fair, just, inclusive, sustainable and high performance cultures by creating the conditions for leaders, managers and employees to have quality conversations. David is a Fellow of the RSA and he is the founder of the Institute of Organizational Dynamics (www.organisationaldynamics.org). David is a well respected speaker and he has written numerous articles and contributed to a number of texts. Contact David at david.liddle@thetcmgroup.com or via www.thetcmgroup.com. His LinkedIn is https://www.linkedin.com/in/liddledavid/. About the host: Laura is a facilitator, people and culture director, and former Executive Director of the International Mediation Institute. Her doctoral research asked “in what ways does blame make villains in politics” and covered the gamut from literature studies and linguistics to psychology and neuroscience, victimology to political science. Her expertise includes emotions, polarization, blame, and international politics. Feel free to connect with her on LinkedIn or ResearchGate—or even both!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Laura May (00:10):
hello and welcome to the conflict of podcast mediate.com,
the podcast that explores socialconflict and what we can do about it.
I'm your host, Laura May, and todayI have with me David Little c e
o, and chief consultant at the TCMGroup, president of the People and
Cultural Association, bestsellingauthor, HR influencer, and mediator.
(00:32):
So welcome David.
David Liddle (00:34):
Hi.
Thank you Laura.
Thank you for having me.
Laura May (00:36):
I am very happy to have you here, especially because you're
my first influencer, so you know, I'mreally going up in the world, and so I
wanna start actually this by going backin time because Sally, I don't have
a time machine, but I've read that inthe early nineties you actually did a
degree in community and race relations.
(00:58):
And that really wasn't in vogue inthe time, from what I understand.
Cause I was about six years old.
So what actually led you there?
David Liddle (01:05):
Great question.
So I wasn't, I wasn't anacademic child, through school.
I grew up in Nottingham, in theEast Midlands here in the uk.
And, yeah, I wasn't particularly strongat school, so I, I, I left school without
necessarily the strongest results.
That you might have hoped for.
So I didn't have an awful lot of choiceof degrees, but I was always, and had
always been interested in exclusion.
(01:26):
So I was, I was offered a, a, anopportunity to, to join a relatively
new degree examining, socialpolicy, racism, community relations.
And it was very new.
It was just post, MargaretThatcher and John Major in the
late, late 1980s and early 1990s.
So I spent three years in my degreereally understanding the structural
(01:46):
social economics, the structures aroundracism in our, in our society, the
consequences of racism and discriminationin, in white sense, but were very
much centered in around racism andhow discrimination and racism impacted
communities and, and the work that wasbeing done within communities to address
these issues, which quite frankly was.
(02:07):
Pretty much zero.
So we studied the 1981riots, the 1985 riots.
I was very interested in social unrestand social unrest as an expression of
exclusion and discrimination and howsocial unrest could drive social change.
So I became a bit of an activist.
I got involved in the students union.
I ultimately became thepresident of the students union.
(02:28):
I became quite an activist in thatspace and quite a big focus on,
on becoming an anti-racist beforeanti-racist was, was, was a concept,
but I also believe very, very, verystrongly in the power of dialogue.
So within the university that I was at,because it was kind of quite a left wing
in institute, we talked about this stuffa lot and there was a lot of focus on.
(02:53):
Anti-racism within the university,and my focus was always to
try and bring people together.
So we had a black caucus and wehad other student bodies within
the organization, and there was apersistent state of tension within
the students union whenever I waschairing the students union meetings.
And within the s u, there wastensions to, my focus was to create
opportunities and moments for dialogueand collaboration, which I did.
(03:16):
And it, and it worked.
It was very powerful and I wasconstantly looking at opportunities to
explore the use of education, insightand dialogue to tackle exclusion and
discrimination, in all of its forms.
I was then went down to Lester.
I worked for a small while in aTenants and residence association.
Just, yeah, kind one of thosein between jobs that you have.
(03:38):
And his took me right into the center ofa extremely deprived inner city estate.
And my job was to go out into thelocal community and listen to local
community members and find out whattheir issues were and bring them back
and translate them to the council.
Say, look, these are theissues that people are facing.
And then building that into socialand economic generation programs.
(03:58):
So I moved from a sort of theoreticalspace into the heart of inner city
very deprived inner city challengesand I kind of experienced firsthand
the exclusion, discrimination.
I looked at the, the role of thestate in tackling these issues.
But I could see it, you know, I couldsee the role that the state were playing.
This wasn't a theoreticalor abstract concept.
(04:19):
I was living it, you know, I'm breathingit day to day, and it was terrible.
I mean, it was shockinglybad, shockingly bad.
And, you know, not withstandingone or two individuals kind
of activists in the community?
Community leaders, some healthcareprofessionals and others on the
whole, the statutory organization,housing, police, health and others
(04:40):
were disregarding, I felt serioushealth and social inequalities.
They were more focused on, youknow, tackling crime than they were
about tackling the cause of crime.
They were more concerned aboutfilling empty properties and void
properties and collecting renters,and they were dealing with.
Low level, um, a social behaviorand disputes within tenants.
And there was a high level ofmarginalization, particularly for single
(05:03):
parents and black minority athleticcommunities, of course, which were heavily
marginalized with very little voice andaccess to service provision and justice.
I was like, you know, you can imagineas a coming out, as a student who'd
studied this and was quite passionateabout it, then living it lit a fire
in my belly, but it never stopped.
I never stopped believing in the powerof dialogue, and I felt that it would be
(05:28):
very easy at that stage as an activistto fall into other models of activism,
which I saw as being, activism it feltto me polarized the tensions as being
about there is an underclass or as agroup of people who are marginalized.
And we have to fight for the marginalizedpeople in order to give them access
(05:49):
to justice and access to health andother, other economic, opportunities.
And I could see the importanceof community activism.
I didn't deny the importance of it,but I didn't feel that was the best
way to tackle the underlying issues.
I felt the best way to tackle theunderlying issues was through dialogue.
Through mediation, restorative practices.
So I started to getexposed to the principle.
(06:10):
I've never heard of mediation,restorative justice, but there's
some work being done in Bristol,a couple of projects in London.
So I just went out and juststarted to learn about mediation
and restorative justice.
Thought, Hey, this is exciting.
This is really talking to me.
I'm really interested in this from aperspective of social activism, community
activism, and dialogue building.
So from that, I set up a smallproject in last on a, the Molay
(06:35):
mediation project store, thesmallest state in northwest last.
And, I managed Togo, quiteentrepreneurial, Laura.
So I, I bought my entrepre ski and myactivism skills into play quite early on.
I had to wangle quite alot of money from various
Laura May (06:50):
Perfect result.
David Liddle (06:51):
Perfect result.
So I was kind of, I've,
Laura May (06:53):
already a talk.
You know you're ready.
You were ready to be a mediator.
You're already talking to people,you're negotiating, you're getting
the funds, and you're getting it done.
David Liddle (07:00):
yeah, exactly.
And I managed to do that.
But my, I, so I was put into a, intoan office in a housing set office,
out in, in the outskirts of Lester.
Again in a very deprived area.
And the housing manager just said tome, look, here's a phone, here's a desk.
Don't bother me.
I'm busy.
This ain't gonna never work.
But you've managed to kind ofget yourself a bit of cash.
(07:21):
Good luck to you, off you go.
And that was my managerpretty much, that was my first
experience of management as well.
So
Laura May (07:27):
I wonder why you started to address HR and management
David Liddle (07:31):
Wow.
Yeah.
It was like, don't, don't come tome with any problems at the level.
Actually, I've, in the end, like I quitethem because what happened is the, the
housing officers were dealing with.
Antisocial How you going FiThey were dealing with renters.
They were dealing, but theyweren't dealing with any of these
problems very well, quite frankly.
So it felt like they had amassive case management system.
Very, you know, I would hear, I'd be inmy office and suddenly there'd be like
(07:54):
an alarm and a lockdown in the housingoffice and someone would be smashing
up the front end of the reception.
People would coming in reallyangry and they would kinda lock
it down and the police wouldcome and whisk the person away.
And you could see the relationshipbetween the housing department and
the local community was fractious.
It was, it was, it was,it wasn't their trust.
(08:15):
There wasn't any mutual respect.
That's not to say all of them oneor two ago, but on the whole, it
wasn't a very nice place to be.
So I was li little old,male, old, big old man.
I'm six foot four, so Right.
I've had enough of this.
I'm gonna get out and go outand start speaking to people.
And I went off and started speakingto people and suddenly the housing
officers who were like dealingwith all this antisocial behavior
were like, who is this person?
Laura May (08:38):
Who is this giant
David Liddle (08:39):
Who this, who this person, who is it?
I mean, I'm sure they have various namesfor me, but it's like, who is this?
We hate dealing with this stuff.
It's a problem.
It's nasty.
It's unpleasant.
We are dealing with a lot ofunderlying mental health issues.
Deep social en deprivation, peopleliving in squalled conditions with very
little, resource, poor, poor education.
(09:03):
And he's going out and, um,Trying to bring them together.
What did he doing?
But suddenly it worked.
You'd go out and you start speakingto neighbor A and talk about their
life and speak to neighbor B and talkabout their life and get to know them a
little bit, show them a bit of respectto treat them with a bit of dignity.
And lo and behold, they're decent people.
Laura May (09:24):
Fuck
David Liddle (09:24):
They, you know, who knew that these did decent folk and that
they've got problems and they've got stuffgoing on in their lives and they're doing
some pretty nasty things, I'm sure, andsome criminal things, no doubt as well.
Not judging, no wagging a fingerand tutting at them or blaming
them for their, their lot.
I'm just listening andbeing there and who knew?
They start to respond and they start tocome together and they start to engage in
(09:46):
dialogue and you go, okay, well who knew?
These people have capacity.
They have skills.
They have knowledge, they have,they have the ability to do stuff.
My job in the first year in the projectwas just to help them do their stuff
and I'd shuttle between them and I'dbring them together every now and again.
And some would work and some wouldmiserably fail, and some would boot
(10:07):
me out the house with expletives asI'm walking back down the street.
And others would embrace mewith open arms and almost hugged
me to bring me into the house.
Cause they'd never experiencedanything like it in their lives.
I got through that first year, and I thinkI did about a hundred mediations in 111.
I remember very clear it was 111mediations in the first year.
Uh,
Laura May (10:27):
decide to stop at that number just so you'd have the nice one 11?
Like
David Liddle (10:32):
I, it, it, it worked.
Well, no, cuz thenpeople started to go, oh.
What's all this about?
So I got started to ask to writereports for the local council.
I started to do presentations in other,estates, and suddenly I started to get
noticed and people will talk to you.
I remember very clearly, I've got,I've got all of the documents.
I sometimes go through them,Laura, just remind myself.
And I started.
(10:52):
So I've got all my littlereports and all the leaflets and
pamphlets and all the rest of it.
So I loved, I loved all of that,but suddenly it went massive.
And you know, as I said, I was good.
I was good at finding pots ofmoney and good at myself in there.
So, long story short, I thenran the project for seven years.
It grew into a citywide, then acountywide, then a UK-wide project.
(11:16):
Then we went into schools and set upa project called crisp, the Company
of Resolution Schools program.
I did restorative justice in.
Low level criminality.
I did victim impact work and thenwe did, restorative justice in
serious, very serious offense andincluding not to un unlawful killing
and bringing families together.
And it was a, it was the most amazingexperience, but, it came to an end.
(11:37):
And, uh, then I went onto set up my own business.
Laura May (11:41):
Well before we go on to talk about your business, I actually wanna
go back for a second because somethingthat struck me as you were talking about
your experiences moving from studyingrace relations to then working locally
in these housing projects, is that insome ways your journey reflects that of
Felicity Sedman, who obviously you'llknow, she's at Cedar and I also did the
(12:02):
podcast with her about her experiences.
In apartheid South Africaworking with, um, workers Union.
Right.
And I kind of wonder, because thiswas actually a similar moment in time.
I mean, seeing what washappening in South Africa?
Do you think that that informed yourapproach and commitment to dialogue?
Because I'm now kind of wondering aboutmediators generally, because it seems
like this actual hot period of time mighthave been quite key to the development
(12:25):
of mediation in a broader sense.
David Liddle (12:28):
I think so if you look at Apartheid and you look at
Nelson Mandela, and the incredible.
Dignity that that, that he bought.
I mean, and I was learning this atthe same time as he was being released.
And, I think there was a sort of asense that, I mean, I was very much
focused on local conditions and localissues law, but you had an eye on
global conditions and global issues.
(12:49):
So I think, you know, there weremany different factors and features,
and I think there was a sense of,certainly here in the uk, but not
internationally, I think of a generaldisdain and frustration with the way that.
Conflicts, tensions,disagreements were being managed.
And I felt that, I mean I was onmediation Newcast, I became a director
of mediation in uk, obviously nolonger exists, which is a shame really.
(13:13):
And I always miss itand regret mediation uk.
It's demise.
What media in UK, I think was doingwell was starting to coalesce and bring
people together within the UK who sharedit, shared the passion, shared the
experience, and it was also startingto build up some strong international
links as well, so we could begin to,to learn from each other and understand
different models and different practices.
(13:34):
But it feels like there were the.
Just a beginning of a movement, throughthat early period of the early nineties,
early to mid nineties, it felt likethings were starting to grow and
shape into something very exciting.
Laura May (13:45):
Incredible.
Okay, so.
I you've just mentioned your involvementwith mediation UK and that that no
longer exists and that you moved onfrom the work you were doing, because
should I understand that that wasthe point at which you founded tcm?
David Liddle (14:00):
Yeah, it is.
I mean, I kind of, again, the piece ofwork I was really interested in, was
around equality, diversity, and inclusion.
So I was doing a lot of work with thelocal authority, left city council.
Around Ed and I and restorative practice,which I thought w was work together.
And actually the lead from um, less citycouncil put me in touch with two London
boroughs, Hounslow Andreu as, so I wasinvited to go down to Hounds and Councils.
(14:21):
I was starting to feel a little bit hemmedin by the, the charity I had trustees and
I, I was finding working in a charity wasbecoming limiting and my entrepreneurial
spirit was being, was being the.
Laura May (14:33):
me free.
David Liddle (14:34):
It was, I needed to be set in, set free, and at the
same time I was referred to Ha.
So I was invited to go and workwith two large London borrowers,
prep Gordon and Hak to developtheir dignity work processes, which
incorporated restorative practices.
And I was also working with thecabinet office as a consultant, to
help them develop some practice aroundrestorative justice in the workplace.
(14:56):
So I was starting to dabble ina bit of consultancy work just
to feel my way through this.
So I thought, well, I'mbest gonna do an mba.
So I went to register for anMBA and I completed my mba.
With distinction, having then studiedthe use of restorative justice RJ in
these two large leather versions of whichHounslow one who I'm now working with.
(15:18):
And the symmetry is wonderful causeHounslow counselor now adopting
the resolution framework as analternative to their discipline,
grievance and performance system.
So is a kind of, I've been workingwith them for 20, since I set it up.
So, yeah, so I, I.
Quit the job, sat on a park bench,thought, what am I gonna do?
And came up with the name,total Conflict Management.
(15:38):
Cause I was really, I lovedJapanese management systems.
I was inspired by, the continuousimprovement, Kaizen principles, quality
circles, tqm, which I learned aboutin the B I thought I love that stuff.
I thought, you know, Japanesemanagement systems were incredibly
powerful and productive andit made some of our management
systems in the UK look down right.
(15:59):
Out date and yeah, where, where we'dadopted some of those, those lean
principles and just in time principlesI thought were very powerful.
So I was really interested in just intime lean, T Q M management systems.
And I was also interested in integratedconflict management systems ICMs
and the concept of whole systemsdevelopment of conflict resolution
system coming out of Harvard Corner.
(16:19):
There's a few bits beingwritten about ICMs.
So I put tqm and ICMs together in abucket and stirred it up and came up
with terrible conflict management.
Laura May (16:28):
I love the name actually.
It's so like we will fixall of the conflicts.
We're
David Liddle (16:34):
I love it.
Laura May (16:34):
Have no chance.
David Liddle (16:37):
It was, it was, it was an attempt.
It wasn't a company.
Now, I didn't come up withit as my company name.
I came it up with as a philosophicalframework that could then be
rolled into organizations.
To systematize the resolution of conflict.
And I saw, and I thought to myself, ifquality is at the heart of effective
management systems within ourorganizations, then the management of
conflict is the other side of that coin.
(16:57):
Because conflict impedesvalue in the value chain.
It undermined quality processes,it distracted managers and and
other actors in the workplace.
So it felt like if we could followquality systems within the organization
and the adoption of quality systemsand use the same approach for conflict
resolution, I felt it became a verymeaningful part of a management
(17:18):
lexicon to how we deliver quality.
So I was very keen to, Touse quality management as the
principles for conflict resolution.
So I learned a lot about qualitysystems and quality management
and then try to hang conflict.
Said it was unashamedly hanging conflicton the coattails of quality management.
But it was the worst branding nightmare.
And who wants to work with a companycalled Total Conflict Management?
(17:41):
And the logo was massive and itwas, you know, tried, I didn't have
any marketing people, so kind ofscribbling logos on the back of it.
Bare Matt and all that kind of stuff.
But you know, it made sense in my head.
Laura May (17:52):
Mm-hmm.
David Liddle (17:53):
And yeah, suddenly makes sense in a few other people's heads.
They start going through itand organizations are getting
me in and they're liking it.
But what happened, I think is I wantedto do this whole system conflict
resolution, total conflict management.
And actually what organizationswanted was someone to come in
and put out the fires from failedsystems and come in as a mediator.
(18:14):
And of course, mediation was myfirst passion, my first love.
Like, yeah, that's what I'll do.
So I've got this vision for beingin the boardroom and reshaping and
repurposing all of the organizationalsystems, redefining concepts of value,
redeveloping systems and processes.
But what I was actually doing was,Coming in with a bag over my head
at night to try and fix the problemsthat were going on in the workplaces
(18:35):
cuz of these failed sisters.
But it was all, I paid thebills, so I'm not gonna argue.
Um, and, you know, got a bitof a reputation for doing
a decent half decent job.
And then I just deconstructed thatI created our course to National
Certificate Workplace Mediation.
I created the fair model, facilitate,appreciate, innovate, resolve.
(18:56):
I'm a big fan of modelsand developing frameworks.
Laura May (19:00):
I mean, I've read one of your books and it is full of
fantastic models and acronyms.
I'm just here like, yes.
Give me another acronym please, David.
Like what's this one gonna mean?
You just mentioned the fair model,
wanna talk a bit about this.
Uh, this book appeals that Iread, transformational Culture.
Um, and I know you've justfinished a second edition of
Managing Conflict as well, right?
(19:21):
We write more booksthan I think is healthy.
I, it is very impressive.
It scares me a little, but you know howI feel about people getting enough sleep.
Um, and so, yeah.
So in this book, transformationalCulture, you talk about a workplace
culture as being fair, just inclusive,sustainable and high performing.
And so it seems like there's aclear link with the previous work
(19:42):
you'd done in terms of mediation andinclusivity, plus high performing.
And so how did you actually come up withthis specific combination of five factors?
David Liddle (19:52):
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yeah, it took a lot of time for me tosit down and, cause you know, I was
doing a lot of work around culture.
So media, and suddenly you kind ofstart working with the board and
suddenly my aspirations start to come.
I am starting to work at board level.
I am starting to influence strategy.
I'm starting to influence systems andprocesses, so, I'm in a really good
place and starting to learn a lotabout what I understood was wrong with
(20:13):
organizations, but also what I feltcould work, and I've got this very
interesting perspective on organizations.
I hadn't just picked up an OD book orlearned from an OD or an HR perspective.
I'd been in the basements dealingwith this stuff and looking up,
which was quite a unique position.
So from that very unique perspective ofbeing in the bottom, looking up rather
than at the top, looking down, I couldsee what I think was wrong and where I
(20:37):
also think systems could be developedthat could begin to shape and develop
a positive workplace culture, not justfrom a moral and ethical perspective.
Although morals and ethics havealways been key to my work.
I've never done thingspurely for morals and ethics.
I honestly believe as well that ifwe do morals and ethics, values,
integrity, right, then it can delivergood high performing organizations.
(21:00):
And I'm not afraid of profit,although I don't think profit's
the only measure of success.
I think social value and shareholdervalue are equal, maybe not quite
equal, but our critical measures ofsuccess in the modern organization.
Laura May (21:12):
back.
David Liddle (21:13):
Yeah.
Maybe not quite equal.
Laura May (21:14):
scared of profit.
I mean, there's.
David Liddle (21:16):
But the fact, I can say that in the same sentence.
And you know, people who are kindof concerned about issues of
organizational success measured in termsof shareholder value and wealth probably
aren't gonna roll their eyes at thatstatement and go, this is just crazy.
Of course, organizations aren'tabout social value, of course,
they're not about stakeholder value.
They only existed to deliverwealth for the shareholder.
(21:37):
I think there's a fantastic debate,which we obviously can't get into today.
But there's another conversation to be hadabout concept of value and how cultures
and people relationships can drive value.
And what did we mean by that?
Man, I'm very locked into that.
I'm very interested in that discourse.
So the idea behind, the justfair, inclusive, sustainable
(21:57):
and high performing was cuz I, Ithought, what does good look like?
And what are the outcomes of good?
And how can we achieve good?
And people were telling me thejustice systems were broken.
Retributive and adversarial though aboutblame, shame, punishment, delivering
harm rather than healthy outcomes.
So the first measure is toredefine what we mean by justice.
And I was, you know, I'm a mediator,I'm a restorative justice practitioner.
(22:20):
Justice is, My trade is my profession.
But when you look at other justicemodels, retributive, just justice
model, the model of choice that'sembedded in all of our organizations
in one form or another, it is broken.
It's a broken, tired, anddreary system which causes harm.
So the just talks to a model ofjustice, which is transformative.
(22:42):
Which is about dialogue, collaboration,accountability, because accountability
is important, but you can stilldeliver accountability through
a non retributive system system.
So I saw the repurposing of justicebeing really, really very critical.
The concept then of equity andfairness is absolutely essential,
and people's perception of beingtreated fairly in the workplace.
(23:03):
You know, I've got children.
The first value that they expressis they, they've got more to been,
you know, it's the first valuethat we express as a human being.
That that notion of I'm not beingfairly treated and when I'm not fairly
treated, that feeling of loss, whichcan create despair and suspicion,
and I break breakdown and trust.
(23:23):
So trying to rethink about howorganizations could be fair
through the justice model.
Giving everyone a voicein the organization.
And of course it's mediators.
That's what we do.
We give each person a voice.
We don't judge, we don't tu, wedon't start wagging fingers at
them telling them they've beennaughty boys and naughty girls.
That's not what we do.
We let them have their voice andsay what's important and value that
(23:45):
voice and listen, to understand.
We listen to.
To try and really get a deep senseof empathy and connection with people
where so much listening is to listento defend what we're saying in
organizations probably defensive.
So really including people andhelping people, be the best version
of themselves by including them in aprocess so they can shine rather than
(24:07):
diminishing them and damaging them.
Which I think happens so much in ourorganizations and sustainability,
I think is clearly if we're notthinking about our cultures and our.
Relationship with the planet and ourecosystems and locally within our
local ecosystems where we l work andlive and play, and also more widely
globally than our, you know, our,organizations will ultimately contribute
to the destruction of our planet.
(24:28):
So that has to be that.
It's also about building sustainableoutcomes internally as well.
And finally, the high performancesyou referenced is an outcome because
if we aggregate all of that together,Then we begin to feel happy and
healthy and we begin to perform.
Now, what that performance lookslike is not like me and a mediator.
I don't care what your outcomeis, as long as you two can find an
outcome that you are happy with,that meets your least, that's not
(24:52):
my, that's not for me to care about.
And it's the same in an organization,how you measure your performance
and your outputs in your outcomes.
That's not for me to define.
My role here is to help create theconditions whereby you can do the
thing that's important to you witheveryone there, having a sense of
common purpose and unity behindthat and being part of that and
connected to that sense of purpose.
(25:13):
And that's so I'm taking that mediationthinking and just taking it into
a kind of cult, the model around.
Laura May (25:22):
Thank you so much for the exploration, exploration, explanation.
I dunno what happened there.
Exploration and
David Liddle (25:28):
as well.
It is an exploration bytrying to give an explanation.
Laura May (25:32):
Yes.
Well thank you on both accounts.
And there's actually one thing I wantedto, gain clarity about while I've got
you here, because when I was readingyour book, and you do obviously talk
about restorative justice a lot, andyou've just mentioned it as being
quite fundamental to your work, butthere was something that surprised
me a little bit, especially given howyou've just described in approach a
transformational culture, and that's thatyou talked about it as minimizing harm.
(25:58):
Whereas, and maybe this is me coming fromthe political science background, right?
When I think about restorativejustice in that non-legal sense, I'm
thinking about restoring them, right?
So it's not just minimizing harm.
It's not doing harm, and maybeleaving them better than you found
them almost because you're restoringthem to some kind of better state.
And so I was justwondering what led to this.
(26:20):
Perhaps slightly conservative approachto justice, given everything you've just
said about being inclusive and fair andhaving people feel good they can perform.
David Liddle (26:30):
Yeah.
I don't disagree with what you've said.
I think one of the overarching,philosophies of a mediator is to
do no harm and to create a conditionwhich reduces the propensity of harm.
So I think that's astarting point for myself.
I think we probably both agreed thatthe objective then of the process
is to try and help the parties tocoalesce around an agreement which
(26:51):
optimizes their relationship.
Laura May (26:54):
Yeah, I just remember reading in your book that it said restorative
justice is about reducing harm and it justsurprised me that it would be reducing
harm as opposed to restoring people.
David Liddle (27:05):
But it is, it is restoring, but I think if you look at restorative
justice in a criminal justice settingwhere an offense is being committed
by an offender against a victim.
Laura May (27:14):
Mm-hmm.
David Liddle (27:15):
There are certain factors that give rise in
that restorative process.
The defendant needs to demonstratesome form of remorse and needs to
be an acceptance of culpability andresponsibility for the individual and the
event and the harm is being committed.
And the restorative justice processis very much about rebuilding some
sort of life of the parties beyondthe harm that's been committed.
(27:36):
The chances of further harm inthat relationship would only really
come from the restorative process.
Because they unlikely have an ongoingrelationship , whereas in a workplace,
Laura May (27:45):
Mm-hmm.
David Liddle (27:46):
the restorative processes aren't triggered by maybe a single event
of harm or a single offense if we use thelanguage from the criminal justice system.
It's an ongoing relationship breakdown ora series of events or activities between
the two actors and the two actors thenhave a continued relationship in the
workplace whereby the restorative processis restoring some form of a relationship
(28:10):
based on trust, mutual respect, sense ofvaluing one another's contribution, but
it's also about reducing the harm builtinto the relationship on an ongoing basis.
So there's an ongoing relationshipbetween the actors through a
restorative process in a workplaceenvironment that you wouldn't have,
were you working in a sort of classicrestorative justice intervention,
(28:31):
maybe in a criminal justice system.
So the reduction of harm in that senseis about creating an environment whereby
the two actors in that case are ableto have continued positive dialogue.
Opportunities and moments where they cangive in each other, feedback, reflections,
more constructive, more respectful,interactions between the actors.
(28:52):
And in that sense, it is aboutreducing harm over the longer term.
Laura May (28:57):
That actually makes so much sense because I remember
reading at the time and going,why does anyone reduce harm?
Is some harm allowed?
But of course, I was coming from thesocial perspective where I'm thinking
about, you know, huge social groups.
And thinking about race relationsagain, for instance, what does
it look like for justice, forrestorative in that context, right?
(29:17):
And does it involve repayments forpast harm, for instance, does it
involve restoring people , givena dearth of opportunities or a
generational trauma or what have you?
Does it involve making up for that?
So I came from this social perspectiveand I was so confused, but you've
clarified that really nicely for me.
David Liddle (29:33):
It's a really interesting point around reparation.
So if you were, if I was doing arestorative justice intervention,
in a community setting or in acriminal justice setting, there can
be some form of reparation that maybe undertaken as an outcome from
the restorative justice process.
In a workplace setting,there's very little opportunity
for a reparative outcomes.
So for a reparation, it's a reallyinteresting point, and I was actually
(29:56):
working with an organization looking ata mechanism whereby they might be able to
introduce some form of reparation througha restorative process in the workplace.
But of course, it's limited, you know, wecan't go and clean a wall or, you know,
mow garden or rebuild a fence or whatever.
That might well be as a reparation, asyou might see from a classic RJ outcome.
(30:16):
So, there's less.
There's a lot less opportunityfor that in the workplace.
So the reparation comes through anagreement or a psychological contract
between the actors about how they willinteract with each other to reduce the
propensity for them to experience harm.
Former division, relationshipradar down stress in the future.
That is in itself the, therestorative element to it,
(30:38):
but it is slightly different.
So it's using.
I think, I'd probably say it'smore drawing on those restorative
principles than it is drawingon restorative justice per se.
It's why I call, I call itmore transformative justice,
restorative justice, I guess.
Laura May (30:51):
Interesting.
David Liddle (30:52):
helps.
Laura May (30:53):
No, it does.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
And yeah, what you'vesaid makes a lot of sense.
So, that was my tricky question.
So,
David Liddle (30:59):
We've worked through it.
Laura May (31:05):
Because the last thing I really wanted to, to talk about is
actually something we touched on brieflyearlier, and that is social value, right?
Because I mean, you are talking aboutthese organizations where you're
going in, you're putting in thesetotal conflict management system.
You've got this transformative justiceor restorative justice, whichever justice
David Liddle (31:23):
Yeah, it's, it's,
Laura May (31:24):
and so, do you think there are spillover effects of changes
within the organizations to thebroader social context of individuals
working in these organizations?
David Liddle (31:35):
Uh, I think it's a really, really important question.
I think the answer is mostdefinitely a resounding yes.
I don't think this is the onlyfactor that's causing that to happen.
However, I think, you know,certainly through covid.
George Floyd's murder,the Me Too movement.
Black Lives Matter, continuedfocus on climate justice.
You know, the fact that, we don'tseem to be having a conversation post
(31:58):
covid and we really urgently needto have a conversation about health
and social inequalities that washighlighted through, through Covid,
but people can see them and people canfeel them, and they've not gone away.
And all of these sort organizationsare microcosms of all of this stuff
going on, and people are coming intoorganizations now, they're experience
a very different style of working,whether it's hybrid working or whatever
(32:20):
the model is that's using, that's notgoing to go away or change any time.
So, so the notion of work has changed,
Laura May (32:26):
Mm-hmm.
David Liddle (32:27):
dramatically over the last sort of three years and
probably has been for a number ofyears for a while before that, But
organizations haven't kept up, Laura.
That's my concern.
Leaders have not been equipped with theskills they need in order to be able
to manage this very new style of work.
HR is still reliance on a set ofprocesses and a rule book and a
rules-based system that was designedin the eighties and nineties.
(32:51):
Which is so horrendously out of date, it'sso horrendously outmoded that they don't
have the ability to address these issues.
And our managers don't have the skillsand the competencies and the capabilities.
They're not even measured orrewarded on the stuff that they
need to be able to be equipped.
But dealing with this stuff.
It's in Enactable and it's undeniableand it is not going to stop.
Social justice and social, the conceptof social value employee activism
(33:15):
are coming into our organizations,and organizations are having to
act now to address these issues.
Because if they're not, we see every dayin the newspapers or coming out of our,
Amazons or whatever the devices that wehave to giving us the news feeds of these
breakdowns in the, the word toxic culture.
You know, like all of these shortphrases is convenient, a sound bite
(33:36):
for the media, but it talks about harmand destroyed relationships, destroyed
lives, abuses of power, misogyny, racism,bullying, you know, deep divisions within
our workplace, inability to resolvedifferences, people disagreeing in a
violently negative and destructive way.
So the word toxic culture,it's a nice catchphrase.
(33:56):
It, it sounds good, Anna.
Media soundbite, but it talks about,very seriously broken relationships and
and structures within our workplaces.
And I've been predicting this.
I'm not trying to claim some sortof, some sort of a ability to see
in the future, but I was going intoorganizations and saying, this is broken.
Laura May (34:14):
Mm-hmm.
David Liddle (34:14):
systems and processes and rule based system is broken.
Laura May (34:18):
Mm-hmm.
David Liddle (34:19):
And I think the chickens are coming home to roost
for a great many organizations now.
So I think, you know, organizations havingto rethink the social contract, and what
I mean by the social contract is theway that we design our organizations
and bringing in employees, people,professionals, managers, leaders who
are big conversations about what does itmean to be in the world of work leaders.
(34:40):
We defining the concept of what is leader.
For me, a leader is someone whogenerates leadership in others.
There's a very simple idea I have in myhead of what it means to be a leader.
Your job as a leader is tocreate leadership in others.
In order, be able to create leadershipin others, need to understand
them, their strengths, theirchallenges, their opportunities.
We need to invest inthem and listen to them.
And we need to critically notbe threatened when that leader
(35:03):
becomes brilliant and I don'tsee that person as a threat.
So allyship skills, conflict revolution,skills need negotiation skills are
critical skills for our leaders, butwe're not developing those and they sit
within the schools of positive psychology.
All the stuff we use as mediators.
Appreciative inquiry.
Non-violent communication, which theycould all do with the dose of Martin
(35:23):
Rosenberg, you know, to help deal withthese issues on a day-to-day basis.
So I think it's, it's coming atorganizations and it's What are
you as a organization leader of HRdirector, a manager, a union, leader.
Are you ready?
Because if you're not ready, it ain'tgonna go, oh, you are not ready.
We'll wait till you're ready.
It's gonna come at you.
(35:44):
And if you're not ready to deal withthis stuff, your organization will
either fail in a blaze of social mediapublicity and all of the stuff that
we've seen in so many organization.
It'll be a very, or it'll bea very slow creeping, losing
top talent, losing good people.
Losing all of the value that I havebuilt up within the organization's.
(36:05):
Slow reputational harm and damage and aslow creeping death of that organization
with competitors circling you, um,so I would say social value employee
activism, repurposing our way we thinkabout leadership, rethinking some of
our HR systems, redefining the rulebook in our organization, ripping out
retributive justice and replacing it withthe stuff that we promote as mediators.
(36:28):
That to me defines the notion of asuccessful company measured in terms
of attracting the top talent, the bestcustomers, the top investors driving
organizational success with everyone apart of that, or I'm afraid to choose an
F word at the very end of our podcast.
Failure, I think.
Laura May (36:48):
Oh my goodness.
You know, I was gonna allow you.
I'm like, I'm Australia
to be offended, but failure.
Oh my goodness.
It hits hard.
Right?
Amazing.
And so, that was a veryintense call to action.
I mean, I had images of sharkscircling, there was blood in the
water and then there was failure.
Oh my goodness.
And so, I mean, do you think organizationsactually have a role to play?
(37:10):
In changing society rather thanjust society changing organizations.
David Liddle (37:15):
Uh, no.
Cause organizations are society, so it'snot that organizations change society.
I think the concept of an abstract oresoteric society that exists outside
of the door of the organization is a.
The organization is society.
We spend as individuals, so much ofour time in the workplace, it creeps
into so many aspects of our lives.
We bring us into the organization.
(37:36):
You know, I was at a conferencerecently and I heard a quote and I can't
blame, it's my own quote, but it's aquote that really resonated with me.
I.
Is organizations borrow their peoplefrom their families and we need to
give them back to their families ingood shape at the end of the day.
And what I really liked about thatis it connects the individual,
their life outside the workand real life inside the work.
(37:56):
So organizations, the organizationsthat are successful all continue
to thrive in the future.
In the future organizations, onesthat we don't know about yet.
Laura will be the ones who getthis stuff and get it right.
And they see they have a criticalrole to play in the concept and
notion of society and societal good.
And that again goes back tothe redefinition of value
and opposition in the world.
(38:18):
Organizations which beginning tounderstand their position in the world.
You know, B Corporation certificationis one example of many others
which organizations can use thatmakes a clear statement about their
position in the world and theirposition in the local community.
I.
Person believe would the organizationsthat have a competitive advantage in
the future, and your point about sharkcircling, they are circling, you know,
(38:39):
speak to any chief executive of anorganization that's been on Twitter or
any social media channel, or in the newsor in the HR press or elsewhere who've
had people going and talking about toxiccultures or had whistle blowing It's, it's
happening right now, it's hap it's there.
I think to me, it's there.
It's, it's playing out.
And I guess as a mediator, firstand foremost, I can see the conflict
(39:03):
and I can see the tension, but Ican also see the pull of action.
And as I said at the very start, Iam an activist and an entrepreneur
as well as a mediator and arestorative justice practitioner.
So all of those.
All of those lights are lighting up inmy head and I see opportunities, I see
risks, and I'm, I'm fearful in many such,but I see huge, huge opportunities for
(39:24):
us as a mediation movement to step up.
The world needs us right now, andit's, you know, we can step up.
And be part of a societal shift.
You know, I'm, I'm trying to learnmore about toxic masculinity at
moment and trying to understandthe concept of toxic masculinity.
So I'm watching as many documentariesas I can about man and what it means to
be a man in our society at the moment,and trying to get a sense of the culture
(39:48):
wars and what does the culture wars mean.
And the word Andrew Taton is Morganand various other actors who are out
there driving the conversation about.
Society and the culture wars andculture wars equals conflict.
Conflict equals mediation.
Mediation equals opportunity.
So as a mediator, I see the culturewars, whether they're played out on
(40:11):
social media, are being played out in oursociety, being played out in the states.
You know, the stuff at the moment iswe're preparing for the 24 election.
I mean, goodness man.
Yeah.
If that's not gonna highlight theculture wars, what is as a mediator,
I see that as a court of action.
I see that as an opportunity andI'd love to see more mediators being
part of the culture wars, and I'dlove to see more mediators getting
(40:34):
in that and trying to bring peace in.
The culture wars and we see, youknow, you've been part of it yourself.
You know, we see so much peace buildingwork going on around the world.
But we also need a lot of peacebuildingwork going on in the cultural war as well.
I see the cultural wars as being awhole new area that mediation practice
globally, where I think mediatorscould be stepping in and creating a
(40:55):
very powerful, but a very respectfuldiscourse between opposing views.
Cuz I worry having got kids and,you know, concerned about these
things as a parent and a citizenas much as anything else, I worry
that this is going unchecked.
That as a, we're not doing anything aboutit, to bring some form of peace building
(41:16):
and dialogue building into that frame.
So that would be one area that I'mreally interested in exploring now
at the moment, is the concept ofpeace building in the cultural walls.
Laura May (41:27):
Hmm.
Well, hey, that's part of thereason I have this podcast, right?
To get all these experts intalking about social conflict
and what we can do about it.
So is there anything elseI should have asked you?
But I haven't.
David Liddle (41:41):
That is a great question.
I mean, I guess the only thing Iam doing just really, I'm really
interested in human resources.
It's the human resources function.
So I've recently launched a newwebsite called People and culture.com
to try and help the HR functionreimagine what it means to be in hr.
Because my final point really, and it's apoint that I'm really excited about, Is,
(42:03):
could the HR function in our organizationrelease itself from being a long arm of
management or the stooge of management?
Laura May (42:12):
Oof.
Great word.
David Liddle (42:15):
Yeah, is a challenging word as well, and many in HR would be throwing,
rotten tomatoes to hear me say that.
But that's how people perceive them.
And there's a massive breakdownin trust and a deep suspicion of
hr because the perception is theyare a long arm of management.
If HR can embrace that, not as adefensive response to an attack from
someone who's attacking them, but seethat as an opportunity to reimagine
(42:38):
what it means to be an HR and releasethemselves as an arm of management.
Rock terms like business partnerand become people partners, become
a people and culture function.
Put the HR fund can become anindependent, objective function
in our firms and our organizations,and could they become a mediating
function within the organization?
Now many people are suspicious ofhr and in indeed there are many
(42:59):
organizations where I go to embeddedmediation programs and I was talking
to Intel Corporation yesterday, andas with many others, they wouldn't
put mediation into the HR function cuzthere's an intrinsic suspicion of hr.
So I'm on a one person mission atthe moment to repurpose HR as an
independent objective function to doeverything that we do as mediators.
(43:19):
And to instill that and institutionalizethat within the organization, within
the people and culture function.
And that is a really excitingopportunity to take mediation and
maximize its potential by creating aninstitutional function who centered
around the principles of mediationcalled the people and culture function.
So I'm, I'm actively out there now.
(43:42):
And that's a book I've justbeen commissioned another book.
Laura, you're gonna
Laura May (43:45):
Oh my goodness.
Calm down.
You're making the rest of
David Liddle (43:48):
Well, um, exploring the concept of people and culture as
a mediating function in our firms,
Laura May (43:55):
Hmm.
Great.
David Liddle (43:56):
which I'm excited about.
So that'll be coming out in 2025.
Laura May (44:00):
All right.
Excellent.
Well, thank you so much for that,and I think that, you know, you
are not just an army of one.
I'm definitely gonna be fightingthat battle with you as well.
Although I do always find a bitfunny to be using these very violent
metaphors and talking about mediation.
Right?
David, thank you so muchfor joining me today.
And for those who are interestedin learning more about your work,
(44:20):
which I assume is everybody,where can they find you?
David Liddle (44:24):
Uh, well, thank you.
So I'm on LinkedIn a lot, probablyjust a little bit too much.
So you can track me down on LinkedIn.
The company's called the TCM Group.
So if you go to the tcm group.com.
That's gonna give you a goodplace to go to and just find out
a little bit more about work.
So the two texts, as you mentionedearlier, managing conflict, the second
edition comes out in October, but thefirst edition is available on Amazon.
(44:45):
Other book sellers and transformationalculture similarly is available on
Amazon, both published by Kogan page.
And yeah, there's, there'sother ways of tracking me down.
If you just drop me intoGoogle, you'll probably find me
Laura May (44:57):
Well, I mean, I turned up in your office the other day, so
you're, you're very easy to track down.
David Liddle (45:01):
There is that, there's that as well.
And of course I shouldsay, I've got a wonderful team.
And you know, I couldn't do this.
I couldn't even be here, sat talking toyou without a team of incredible people
who make all of this stuff come to life.
So, you know, must, acknowledge theincredible team based in London.
In Islington, just an incredible team.
And also I've got about a hundredodd consultants who are out
(45:23):
doing work around the globe.
We work globally, doingall of this stuff.
So, you know, I've probably finishedthe podcast by acknowledging that
incredible efforts, endeavors tomake all of this stuff come to life.
I say it gives me a chance tocome onto podcasts and chats.
Laura May (45:38):
I love that.
No, it's a very good vibes way tofinish a podcast, that's for sure.
And so thank you again,David, and for everybody else.
Until next time, this is Laura May withthe conflict of podcast from mediate.com
hello and welcome to the conflict of podcast mediate.com,
the podcast that explores socialconflict and what we can do about it.
I'm your host, Laura May, and todayI have with me David Little c e
o, and chief consultant at the TCMGroup, president of the People and
Cultural Association, bestsellingauthor, HR influencer, and mediator.
(00:32):
So welcome David.
David Liddle (00:34):
Hi.
Thank you Laura.
Thank you for having me.
Laura May (00:36):
I am very happy to have you here, especially because you're
my first influencer, so you know, I'mreally going up in the world, and so I
wanna start actually this by going backin time because Sally, I don't have
a time machine, but I've read that inthe early nineties you actually did a
degree in community and race relations.
(00:58):
And that really wasn't in vogue inthe time, from what I understand.
Cause I was about six years old.
So what actually led you there?
David Liddle (01:05):
Great question.
So I wasn't, I wasn't anacademic child, through school.
I grew up in Nottingham, in theEast Midlands here in the uk.
And, yeah, I wasn't particularly strongat school, so I, I, I left school without
necessarily the strongest results.
That you might have hoped for.
So I didn't have an awful lot of choiceof degrees, but I was always, and had
always been interested in exclusion.
(01:26):
So I was, I was offered a, a, anopportunity to, to join a relatively
new degree examining, socialpolicy, racism, community relations.
And it was very new.
It was just post, MargaretThatcher and John Major in the
late, late 1980s and early 1990s.
So I spent three years in my degreereally understanding the structural
(01:46):
social economics, the structures aroundracism in our, in our society, the
consequences of racism and discriminationin, in white sense, but were very
much centered in around racism andhow discrimination and racism impacted
communities and, and the work that wasbeing done within communities to address
these issues, which quite frankly was.
(02:07):
Pretty much zero.
So we studied the 1981riots, the 1985 riots.
I was very interested in social unrestand social unrest as an expression of
exclusion and discrimination and howsocial unrest could drive social change.
So I became a bit of an activist.
I got involved in the students union.
I ultimately became thepresident of the students union.
(02:28):
I became quite an activist in thatspace and quite a big focus on,
on becoming an anti-racist beforeanti-racist was, was, was a concept,
but I also believe very, very, verystrongly in the power of dialogue.
So within the university that I was at,because it was kind of quite a left wing
in institute, we talked about this stuffa lot and there was a lot of focus on.
(02:53):
Anti-racism within the university,and my focus was always to
try and bring people together.
So we had a black caucus and wehad other student bodies within
the organization, and there was apersistent state of tension within
the students union whenever I waschairing the students union meetings.
And within the s u, there wastensions to, my focus was to create
opportunities and moments for dialogueand collaboration, which I did.
(03:16):
And it, and it worked.
It was very powerful and I wasconstantly looking at opportunities to
explore the use of education, insightand dialogue to tackle exclusion and
discrimination, in all of its forms.
I was then went down to Lester.
I worked for a small while in aTenants and residence association.
Just, yeah, kind one of thosein between jobs that you have.
(03:38):
And his took me right into the center ofa extremely deprived inner city estate.
And my job was to go out into thelocal community and listen to local
community members and find out whattheir issues were and bring them back
and translate them to the council.
Say, look, these are theissues that people are facing.
And then building that into socialand economic generation programs.
(03:58):
So I moved from a sort of theoreticalspace into the heart of inner city
very deprived inner city challengesand I kind of experienced firsthand
the exclusion, discrimination.
I looked at the, the role of thestate in tackling these issues.
But I could see it, you know, I couldsee the role that the state were playing.
This wasn't a theoreticalor abstract concept.
(04:19):
I was living it, you know, I'm breathingit day to day, and it was terrible.
I mean, it was shockinglybad, shockingly bad.
And, you know, not withstandingone or two individuals kind
of activists in the community?
Community leaders, some healthcareprofessionals and others on the
whole, the statutory organization,housing, police, health and others
(04:40):
were disregarding, I felt serioushealth and social inequalities.
They were more focused on, youknow, tackling crime than they were
about tackling the cause of crime.
They were more concerned aboutfilling empty properties and void
properties and collecting renters,and they were dealing with.
Low level, um, a social behaviorand disputes within tenants.
And there was a high level ofmarginalization, particularly for single
(05:03):
parents and black minority athleticcommunities, of course, which were heavily
marginalized with very little voice andaccess to service provision and justice.
I was like, you know, you can imagineas a coming out, as a student who'd
studied this and was quite passionateabout it, then living it lit a fire
in my belly, but it never stopped.
I never stopped believing in the powerof dialogue, and I felt that it would be
(05:28):
very easy at that stage as an activistto fall into other models of activism,
which I saw as being, activism it feltto me polarized the tensions as being
about there is an underclass or as agroup of people who are marginalized.
And we have to fight for the marginalizedpeople in order to give them access
(05:49):
to justice and access to health andother, other economic, opportunities.
And I could see the importanceof community activism.
I didn't deny the importance of it,but I didn't feel that was the best
way to tackle the underlying issues.
I felt the best way to tackle theunderlying issues was through dialogue.
Through mediation, restorative practices.
So I started to getexposed to the principle.
(06:10):
I've never heard of mediation,restorative justice, but there's
some work being done in Bristol,a couple of projects in London.
So I just went out and juststarted to learn about mediation
and restorative justice.
Thought, Hey, this is exciting.
This is really talking to me.
I'm really interested in this from aperspective of social activism, community
activism, and dialogue building.
So from that, I set up a smallproject in last on a, the Molay
(06:35):
mediation project store, thesmallest state in northwest last.
And, I managed Togo, quiteentrepreneurial, Laura.
So I, I bought my entrepre ski and myactivism skills into play quite early on.
I had to wangle quite alot of money from various
Laura May (06:50):
Perfect result.
David Liddle (06:51):
Perfect result.
So I was kind of, I've,
Laura May (06:53):
already a talk.
You know you're ready.
You were ready to be a mediator.
You're already talking to people,you're negotiating, you're getting
the funds, and you're getting it done.
David Liddle (07:00):
yeah, exactly.
And I managed to do that.
But my, I, so I was put into a, intoan office in a housing set office,
out in, in the outskirts of Lester.
Again in a very deprived area.
And the housing manager just said tome, look, here's a phone, here's a desk.
Don't bother me.
I'm busy.
This ain't gonna never work.
But you've managed to kind ofget yourself a bit of cash.
(07:21):
Good luck to you, off you go.
And that was my managerpretty much, that was my first
experience of management as well.
So
Laura May (07:27):
I wonder why you started to address HR and management
David Liddle (07:31):
Wow.
Yeah.
It was like, don't, don't come tome with any problems at the level.
Actually, I've, in the end, like I quitethem because what happened is the, the
housing officers were dealing with.
Antisocial How you going FiThey were dealing with renters.
They were dealing, but theyweren't dealing with any of these
problems very well, quite frankly.
So it felt like they had amassive case management system.
Very, you know, I would hear, I'd be inmy office and suddenly there'd be like
(07:54):
an alarm and a lockdown in the housingoffice and someone would be smashing
up the front end of the reception.
People would coming in reallyangry and they would kinda lock
it down and the police wouldcome and whisk the person away.
And you could see the relationshipbetween the housing department and
the local community was fractious.
It was, it was, it was,it wasn't their trust.
(08:15):
There wasn't any mutual respect.
That's not to say all of them oneor two ago, but on the whole, it
wasn't a very nice place to be.
So I was li little old,male, old, big old man.
I'm six foot four, so Right.
I've had enough of this.
I'm gonna get out and go outand start speaking to people.
And I went off and started speakingto people and suddenly the housing
officers who were like dealingwith all this antisocial behavior
were like, who is this person?
Laura May (08:38):
Who is this giant
David Liddle (08:39):
Who this, who this person, who is it?
I mean, I'm sure they have various namesfor me, but it's like, who is this?
We hate dealing with this stuff.
It's a problem.
It's nasty.
It's unpleasant.
We are dealing with a lot ofunderlying mental health issues.
Deep social en deprivation, peopleliving in squalled conditions with very
little, resource, poor, poor education.
(09:03):
And he's going out and, um,Trying to bring them together.
What did he doing?
But suddenly it worked.
You'd go out and you start speakingto neighbor A and talk about their
life and speak to neighbor B and talkabout their life and get to know them a
little bit, show them a bit of respectto treat them with a bit of dignity.
And lo and behold, they're decent people.
Laura May (09:24):
Fuck
David Liddle (09:24):
They, you know, who knew that these did decent folk and that
they've got problems and they've got stuffgoing on in their lives and they're doing
some pretty nasty things, I'm sure, andsome criminal things, no doubt as well.
Not judging, no wagging a fingerand tutting at them or blaming
them for their, their lot.
I'm just listening andbeing there and who knew?
They start to respond and they start tocome together and they start to engage in
(09:46):
dialogue and you go, okay, well who knew?
These people have capacity.
They have skills.
They have knowledge, they have,they have the ability to do stuff.
My job in the first year in the projectwas just to help them do their stuff
and I'd shuttle between them and I'dbring them together every now and again.
And some would work and some wouldmiserably fail, and some would boot
(10:07):
me out the house with expletives asI'm walking back down the street.
And others would embrace mewith open arms and almost hugged
me to bring me into the house.
Cause they'd never experiencedanything like it in their lives.
I got through that first year, and I thinkI did about a hundred mediations in 111.
I remember very clear it was 111mediations in the first year.
Uh,
Laura May (10:27):
decide to stop at that number just so you'd have the nice one 11?
Like
David Liddle (10:32):
I, it, it, it worked.
Well, no, cuz thenpeople started to go, oh.
What's all this about?
So I got started to ask to writereports for the local council.
I started to do presentations in other,estates, and suddenly I started to get
noticed and people will talk to you.
I remember very clearly, I've got,I've got all of the documents.
I sometimes go through them,Laura, just remind myself.
And I started.
(10:52):
So I've got all my littlereports and all the leaflets and
pamphlets and all the rest of it.
So I loved, I loved all of that,but suddenly it went massive.
And you know, as I said, I was good.
I was good at finding pots ofmoney and good at myself in there.
So, long story short, I thenran the project for seven years.
It grew into a citywide, then acountywide, then a UK-wide project.
(11:16):
Then we went into schools and set upa project called crisp, the Company
of Resolution Schools program.
I did restorative justice in.
Low level criminality.
I did victim impact work and thenwe did, restorative justice in
serious, very serious offense andincluding not to un unlawful killing
and bringing families together.
And it was a, it was the most amazingexperience, but, it came to an end.
(11:37):
And, uh, then I went onto set up my own business.
Laura May (11:41):
Well before we go on to talk about your business, I actually wanna
go back for a second because somethingthat struck me as you were talking about
your experiences moving from studyingrace relations to then working locally
in these housing projects, is that insome ways your journey reflects that of
Felicity Sedman, who obviously you'llknow, she's at Cedar and I also did the
(12:02):
podcast with her about her experiences.
In apartheid South Africaworking with, um, workers Union.
Right.
And I kind of wonder, because thiswas actually a similar moment in time.
I mean, seeing what washappening in South Africa?
Do you think that that informed yourapproach and commitment to dialogue?
Because I'm now kind of wondering aboutmediators generally, because it seems
like this actual hot period of time mighthave been quite key to the development
(12:25):
of mediation in a broader sense.
David Liddle (12:28):
I think so if you look at Apartheid and you look at
Nelson Mandela, and the incredible.
Dignity that that, that he bought.
I mean, and I was learning this atthe same time as he was being released.
And, I think there was a sort of asense that, I mean, I was very much
focused on local conditions and localissues law, but you had an eye on
global conditions and global issues.
(12:49):
So I think, you know, there weremany different factors and features,
and I think there was a sense of,certainly here in the uk, but not
internationally, I think of a generaldisdain and frustration with the way that.
Conflicts, tensions,disagreements were being managed.
And I felt that, I mean I was onmediation Newcast, I became a director
of mediation in uk, obviously nolonger exists, which is a shame really.
(13:13):
And I always miss itand regret mediation uk.
It's demise.
What media in UK, I think was doingwell was starting to coalesce and bring
people together within the UK who sharedit, shared the passion, shared the
experience, and it was also startingto build up some strong international
links as well, so we could begin to,to learn from each other and understand
different models and different practices.
(13:34):
But it feels like there were the.
Just a beginning of a movement, throughthat early period of the early nineties,
early to mid nineties, it felt likethings were starting to grow and
shape into something very exciting.
Laura May (13:45):
Incredible.
Okay, so.
I you've just mentioned your involvementwith mediation UK and that that no
longer exists and that you moved onfrom the work you were doing, because
should I understand that that wasthe point at which you founded tcm?
David Liddle (14:00):
Yeah, it is.
I mean, I kind of, again, the piece ofwork I was really interested in, was
around equality, diversity, and inclusion.
So I was doing a lot of work with thelocal authority, left city council.
Around Ed and I and restorative practice,which I thought w was work together.
And actually the lead from um, less citycouncil put me in touch with two London
boroughs, Hounslow Andreu as, so I wasinvited to go down to Hounds and Councils.
(14:21):
I was starting to feel a little bit hemmedin by the, the charity I had trustees and
I, I was finding working in a charity wasbecoming limiting and my entrepreneurial
spirit was being, was being the.
Laura May (14:33):
me free.
David Liddle (14:34):
It was, I needed to be set in, set free, and at the
same time I was referred to Ha.
So I was invited to go and workwith two large London borrowers,
prep Gordon and Hak to developtheir dignity work processes, which
incorporated restorative practices.
And I was also working with thecabinet office as a consultant, to
help them develop some practice aroundrestorative justice in the workplace.
(14:56):
So I was starting to dabble ina bit of consultancy work just
to feel my way through this.
So I thought, well, I'mbest gonna do an mba.
So I went to register for anMBA and I completed my mba.
With distinction, having then studiedthe use of restorative justice RJ in
these two large leather versions of whichHounslow one who I'm now working with.
(15:18):
And the symmetry is wonderful causeHounslow counselor now adopting
the resolution framework as analternative to their discipline,
grievance and performance system.
So is a kind of, I've been workingwith them for 20, since I set it up.
So, yeah, so I, I.
Quit the job, sat on a park bench,thought, what am I gonna do?
And came up with the name,total Conflict Management.
(15:38):
Cause I was really, I lovedJapanese management systems.
I was inspired by, the continuousimprovement, Kaizen principles, quality
circles, tqm, which I learned aboutin the B I thought I love that stuff.
I thought, you know, Japanesemanagement systems were incredibly
powerful and productive andit made some of our management
systems in the UK look down right.
(15:59):
Out date and yeah, where, where we'dadopted some of those, those lean
principles and just in time principlesI thought were very powerful.
So I was really interested in just intime lean, T Q M management systems.
And I was also interested in integratedconflict management systems ICMs
and the concept of whole systemsdevelopment of conflict resolution
system coming out of Harvard Corner.
(16:19):
There's a few bits beingwritten about ICMs.
So I put tqm and ICMs together in abucket and stirred it up and came up
with terrible conflict management.
Laura May (16:28):
I love the name actually.
It's so like we will fixall of the conflicts.
We're
David Liddle (16:34):
I love it.
Laura May (16:34):
Have no chance.
David Liddle (16:37):
It was, it was, it was an attempt.
It wasn't a company.
Now, I didn't come up withit as my company name.
I came it up with as a philosophicalframework that could then be
rolled into organizations.
To systematize the resolution of conflict.
And I saw, and I thought to myself, ifquality is at the heart of effective
management systems within ourorganizations, then the management of
conflict is the other side of that coin.
(16:57):
Because conflict impedesvalue in the value chain.
It undermined quality processes,it distracted managers and and
other actors in the workplace.
So it felt like if we could followquality systems within the organization
and the adoption of quality systemsand use the same approach for conflict
resolution, I felt it became a verymeaningful part of a management
(17:18):
lexicon to how we deliver quality.
So I was very keen to, Touse quality management as the
principles for conflict resolution.
So I learned a lot about qualitysystems and quality management
and then try to hang conflict.
Said it was unashamedly hanging conflicton the coattails of quality management.
But it was the worst branding nightmare.
And who wants to work with a companycalled Total Conflict Management?
(17:41):
And the logo was massive and itwas, you know, tried, I didn't have
any marketing people, so kind ofscribbling logos on the back of it.
Bare Matt and all that kind of stuff.
But you know, it made sense in my head.
Laura May (17:52):
Mm-hmm.
David Liddle (17:53):
And yeah, suddenly makes sense in a few other people's heads.
They start going through itand organizations are getting
me in and they're liking it.
But what happened, I think is I wantedto do this whole system conflict
resolution, total conflict management.
And actually what organizationswanted was someone to come in
and put out the fires from failedsystems and come in as a mediator.
(18:14):
And of course, mediation was myfirst passion, my first love.
Like, yeah, that's what I'll do.
So I've got this vision for beingin the boardroom and reshaping and
repurposing all of the organizationalsystems, redefining concepts of value,
redeveloping systems and processes.
But what I was actually doing was,Coming in with a bag over my head
at night to try and fix the problemsthat were going on in the workplaces
(18:35):
cuz of these failed sisters.
But it was all, I paid thebills, so I'm not gonna argue.
Um, and, you know, got a bitof a reputation for doing
a decent half decent job.
And then I just deconstructed thatI created our course to National
Certificate Workplace Mediation.
I created the fair model, facilitate,appreciate, innovate, resolve.
(18:56):
I'm a big fan of modelsand developing frameworks.
Laura May (19:00):
I mean, I've read one of your books and it is full of
fantastic models and acronyms.
I'm just here like, yes.
Give me another acronym please, David.
Like what's this one gonna mean?
You just mentioned the fair model,
wanna talk a bit about this.
Uh, this book appeals that Iread, transformational Culture.
Um, and I know you've justfinished a second edition of
Managing Conflict as well, right?
(19:21):
We write more booksthan I think is healthy.
I, it is very impressive.
It scares me a little, but you know howI feel about people getting enough sleep.
Um, and so, yeah.
So in this book, transformationalCulture, you talk about a workplace
culture as being fair, just inclusive,sustainable and high performing.
And so it seems like there's aclear link with the previous work
(19:42):
you'd done in terms of mediation andinclusivity, plus high performing.
And so how did you actually come up withthis specific combination of five factors?
David Liddle (19:52):
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yeah, it took a lot of time for me tosit down and, cause you know, I was
doing a lot of work around culture.
So media, and suddenly you kind ofstart working with the board and
suddenly my aspirations start to come.
I am starting to work at board level.
I am starting to influence strategy.
I'm starting to influence systems andprocesses, so, I'm in a really good
place and starting to learn a lotabout what I understood was wrong with
(20:13):
organizations, but also what I feltcould work, and I've got this very
interesting perspective on organizations.
I hadn't just picked up an OD book orlearned from an OD or an HR perspective.
I'd been in the basements dealingwith this stuff and looking up,
which was quite a unique position.
So from that very unique perspective ofbeing in the bottom, looking up rather
than at the top, looking down, I couldsee what I think was wrong and where I
(20:37):
also think systems could be developedthat could begin to shape and develop
a positive workplace culture, not justfrom a moral and ethical perspective.
Although morals and ethics havealways been key to my work.
I've never done thingspurely for morals and ethics.
I honestly believe as well that ifwe do morals and ethics, values,
integrity, right, then it can delivergood high performing organizations.
(21:00):
And I'm not afraid of profit,although I don't think profit's
the only measure of success.
I think social value and shareholdervalue are equal, maybe not quite
equal, but our critical measures ofsuccess in the modern organization.
Laura May (21:12):
back.
David Liddle (21:13):
Yeah.
Maybe not quite equal.
Laura May (21:14):
scared of profit.
I mean, there's.
David Liddle (21:16):
But the fact, I can say that in the same sentence.
And you know, people who are kindof concerned about issues of
organizational success measured in termsof shareholder value and wealth probably
aren't gonna roll their eyes at thatstatement and go, this is just crazy.
Of course, organizations aren'tabout social value, of course,
they're not about stakeholder value.
They only existed to deliverwealth for the shareholder.
(21:37):
I think there's a fantastic debate,which we obviously can't get into today.
But there's another conversation to be hadabout concept of value and how cultures
and people relationships can drive value.
And what did we mean by that?
Man, I'm very locked into that.
I'm very interested in that discourse.
So the idea behind, the justfair, inclusive, sustainable
(21:57):
and high performing was cuz I, Ithought, what does good look like?
And what are the outcomes of good?
And how can we achieve good?
And people were telling me thejustice systems were broken.
Retributive and adversarial though aboutblame, shame, punishment, delivering
harm rather than healthy outcomes.
So the first measure is toredefine what we mean by justice.
And I was, you know, I'm a mediator,I'm a restorative justice practitioner.
(22:20):
Justice is, My trade is my profession.
But when you look at other justicemodels, retributive, just justice
model, the model of choice that'sembedded in all of our organizations
in one form or another, it is broken.
It's a broken, tired, anddreary system which causes harm.
So the just talks to a model ofjustice, which is transformative.
(22:42):
Which is about dialogue, collaboration,accountability, because accountability
is important, but you can stilldeliver accountability through
a non retributive system system.
So I saw the repurposing of justicebeing really, really very critical.
The concept then of equity andfairness is absolutely essential,
and people's perception of beingtreated fairly in the workplace.
(23:03):
You know, I've got children.
The first value that they expressis they, they've got more to been,
you know, it's the first valuethat we express as a human being.
That that notion of I'm not beingfairly treated and when I'm not fairly
treated, that feeling of loss, whichcan create despair and suspicion,
and I break breakdown and trust.
(23:23):
So trying to rethink about howorganizations could be fair
through the justice model.
Giving everyone a voicein the organization.
And of course it's mediators.
That's what we do.
We give each person a voice.
We don't judge, we don't tu, wedon't start wagging fingers at
them telling them they've beennaughty boys and naughty girls.
That's not what we do.
We let them have their voice andsay what's important and value that
(23:45):
voice and listen, to understand.
We listen to.
To try and really get a deep senseof empathy and connection with people
where so much listening is to listento defend what we're saying in
organizations probably defensive.
So really including people andhelping people, be the best version
of themselves by including them in aprocess so they can shine rather than
(24:07):
diminishing them and damaging them.
Which I think happens so much in ourorganizations and sustainability,
I think is clearly if we're notthinking about our cultures and our.
Relationship with the planet and ourecosystems and locally within our
local ecosystems where we l work andlive and play, and also more widely
globally than our, you know, our,organizations will ultimately contribute
to the destruction of our planet.
(24:28):
So that has to be that.
It's also about building sustainableoutcomes internally as well.
And finally, the high performancesyou referenced is an outcome because
if we aggregate all of that together,Then we begin to feel happy and
healthy and we begin to perform.
Now, what that performance lookslike is not like me and a mediator.
I don't care what your outcomeis, as long as you two can find an
outcome that you are happy with,that meets your least, that's not
(24:52):
my, that's not for me to care about.
And it's the same in an organization,how you measure your performance
and your outputs in your outcomes.
That's not for me to define.
My role here is to help create theconditions whereby you can do the
thing that's important to you witheveryone there, having a sense of
common purpose and unity behindthat and being part of that and
connected to that sense of purpose.
(25:13):
And that's so I'm taking that mediationthinking and just taking it into
a kind of cult, the model around.
Laura May (25:22):
Thank you so much for the exploration, exploration, explanation.
I dunno what happened there.
Exploration and
David Liddle (25:28):
as well.
It is an exploration bytrying to give an explanation.
Laura May (25:32):
Yes.
Well thank you on both accounts.
And there's actually one thing I wantedto, gain clarity about while I've got
you here, because when I was readingyour book, and you do obviously talk
about restorative justice a lot, andyou've just mentioned it as being
quite fundamental to your work, butthere was something that surprised
me a little bit, especially given howyou've just described in approach a
transformational culture, and that's thatyou talked about it as minimizing harm.
(25:58):
Whereas, and maybe this is me coming fromthe political science background, right?
When I think about restorativejustice in that non-legal sense, I'm
thinking about restoring them, right?
So it's not just minimizing harm.
It's not doing harm, and maybeleaving them better than you found
them almost because you're restoringthem to some kind of better state.
And so I was justwondering what led to this.
(26:20):
Perhaps slightly conservative approachto justice, given everything you've just
said about being inclusive and fair andhaving people feel good they can perform.
David Liddle (26:30):
Yeah.
I don't disagree with what you've said.
I think one of the overarching,philosophies of a mediator is to
do no harm and to create a conditionwhich reduces the propensity of harm.
So I think that's astarting point for myself.
I think we probably both agreed thatthe objective then of the process
is to try and help the parties tocoalesce around an agreement which
(26:51):
optimizes their relationship.
Laura May (26:54):
Yeah, I just remember reading in your book that it said restorative
justice is about reducing harm and it justsurprised me that it would be reducing
harm as opposed to restoring people.
David Liddle (27:05):
But it is, it is restoring, but I think if you look at restorative
justice in a criminal justice settingwhere an offense is being committed
by an offender against a victim.
Laura May (27:14):
Mm-hmm.
David Liddle (27:15):
There are certain factors that give rise in
that restorative process.
The defendant needs to demonstratesome form of remorse and needs to
be an acceptance of culpability andresponsibility for the individual and the
event and the harm is being committed.
And the restorative justice processis very much about rebuilding some
sort of life of the parties beyondthe harm that's been committed.
(27:36):
The chances of further harm inthat relationship would only really
come from the restorative process.
Because they unlikely have an ongoingrelationship , whereas in a workplace,
Laura May (27:45):
Mm-hmm.
David Liddle (27:46):
the restorative processes aren't triggered by maybe a single event
of harm or a single offense if we use thelanguage from the criminal justice system.
It's an ongoing relationship breakdown ora series of events or activities between
the two actors and the two actors thenhave a continued relationship in the
workplace whereby the restorative processis restoring some form of a relationship
(28:10):
based on trust, mutual respect, sense ofvaluing one another's contribution, but
it's also about reducing the harm builtinto the relationship on an ongoing basis.
So there's an ongoing relationshipbetween the actors through a
restorative process in a workplaceenvironment that you wouldn't have,
were you working in a sort of classicrestorative justice intervention,
(28:31):
maybe in a criminal justice system.
So the reduction of harm in that senseis about creating an environment whereby
the two actors in that case are ableto have continued positive dialogue.
Opportunities and moments where they cangive in each other, feedback, reflections,
more constructive, more respectful,interactions between the actors.
(28:52):
And in that sense, it is aboutreducing harm over the longer term.
Laura May (28:57):
That actually makes so much sense because I remember
reading at the time and going,why does anyone reduce harm?
Is some harm allowed?
But of course, I was coming from thesocial perspective where I'm thinking
about, you know, huge social groups.
And thinking about race relationsagain, for instance, what does
it look like for justice, forrestorative in that context, right?
(29:17):
And does it involve repayments forpast harm, for instance, does it
involve restoring people , givena dearth of opportunities or a
generational trauma or what have you?
Does it involve making up for that?
So I came from this social perspectiveand I was so confused, but you've
clarified that really nicely for me.
David Liddle (29:33):
It's a really interesting point around reparation.
So if you were, if I was doing arestorative justice intervention,
in a community setting or in acriminal justice setting, there can
be some form of reparation that maybe undertaken as an outcome from
the restorative justice process.
In a workplace setting,there's very little opportunity
for a reparative outcomes.
So for a reparation, it's a reallyinteresting point, and I was actually
(29:56):
working with an organization looking ata mechanism whereby they might be able to
introduce some form of reparation througha restorative process in the workplace.
But of course, it's limited, you know, wecan't go and clean a wall or, you know,
mow garden or rebuild a fence or whatever.
That might well be as a reparation, asyou might see from a classic RJ outcome.
(30:16):
So, there's less.
There's a lot less opportunityfor that in the workplace.
So the reparation comes through anagreement or a psychological contract
between the actors about how they willinteract with each other to reduce the
propensity for them to experience harm.
Former division, relationshipradar down stress in the future.
That is in itself the, therestorative element to it,
(30:38):
but it is slightly different.
So it's using.
I think, I'd probably say it'smore drawing on those restorative
principles than it is drawingon restorative justice per se.
It's why I call, I call itmore transformative justice,
restorative justice, I guess.
Laura May (30:51):
Interesting.
David Liddle (30:52):
helps.
Laura May (30:53):
No, it does.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
And yeah, what you'vesaid makes a lot of sense.
So, that was my tricky question.
So,
David Liddle (30:59):
We've worked through it.
Laura May (31:05):
Because the last thing I really wanted to, to talk about is
actually something we touched on brieflyearlier, and that is social value, right?
Because I mean, you are talking aboutthese organizations where you're
going in, you're putting in thesetotal conflict management system.
You've got this transformative justiceor restorative justice, whichever justice
David Liddle (31:23):
Yeah, it's, it's,
Laura May (31:24):
and so, do you think there are spillover effects of changes
within the organizations to thebroader social context of individuals
working in these organizations?
David Liddle (31:35):
Uh, I think it's a really, really important question.
I think the answer is mostdefinitely a resounding yes.
I don't think this is the onlyfactor that's causing that to happen.
However, I think, you know,certainly through covid.
George Floyd's murder,the Me Too movement.
Black Lives Matter, continuedfocus on climate justice.
You know, the fact that, we don'tseem to be having a conversation post
(31:58):
covid and we really urgently needto have a conversation about health
and social inequalities that washighlighted through, through Covid,
but people can see them and people canfeel them, and they've not gone away.
And all of these sort organizationsare microcosms of all of this stuff
going on, and people are coming intoorganizations now, they're experience
a very different style of working,whether it's hybrid working or whatever
(32:20):
the model is that's using, that's notgoing to go away or change any time.
So, so the notion of work has changed,
Laura May (32:26):
Mm-hmm.
David Liddle (32:27):
dramatically over the last sort of three years and
probably has been for a number ofyears for a while before that, But
organizations haven't kept up, Laura.
That's my concern.
Leaders have not been equipped with theskills they need in order to be able
to manage this very new style of work.
HR is still reliance on a set ofprocesses and a rule book and a
rules-based system that was designedin the eighties and nineties.
(32:51):
Which is so horrendously out of date, it'sso horrendously outmoded that they don't
have the ability to address these issues.
And our managers don't have the skillsand the competencies and the capabilities.
They're not even measured orrewarded on the stuff that they
need to be able to be equipped.
But dealing with this stuff.
It's in Enactable and it's undeniableand it is not going to stop.
Social justice and social, the conceptof social value employee activism
(33:15):
are coming into our organizations,and organizations are having to
act now to address these issues.
Because if they're not, we see every dayin the newspapers or coming out of our,
Amazons or whatever the devices that wehave to giving us the news feeds of these
breakdowns in the, the word toxic culture.
You know, like all of these shortphrases is convenient, a sound bite
(33:36):
for the media, but it talks about harmand destroyed relationships, destroyed
lives, abuses of power, misogyny, racism,bullying, you know, deep divisions within
our workplace, inability to resolvedifferences, people disagreeing in a
violently negative and destructive way.
So the word toxic culture,it's a nice catchphrase.
(33:56):
It, it sounds good, Anna.
Media soundbite, but it talks about,very seriously broken relationships and
and structures within our workplaces.
And I've been predicting this.
I'm not trying to claim some sortof, some sort of a ability to see
in the future, but I was going intoorganizations and saying, this is broken.
Laura May (34:14):
Mm-hmm.
David Liddle (34:14):
systems and processes and rule based system is broken.
Laura May (34:18):
Mm-hmm.
David Liddle (34:19):
And I think the chickens are coming home to roost
for a great many organizations now.
So I think, you know, organizations havingto rethink the social contract, and what
I mean by the social contract is theway that we design our organizations
and bringing in employees, people,professionals, managers, leaders who
are big conversations about what does itmean to be in the world of work leaders.
(34:40):
We defining the concept of what is leader.
For me, a leader is someone whogenerates leadership in others.
There's a very simple idea I have in myhead of what it means to be a leader.
Your job as a leader is tocreate leadership in others.
In order, be able to create leadershipin others, need to understand
them, their strengths, theirchallenges, their opportunities.
We need to invest inthem and listen to them.
And we need to critically notbe threatened when that leader
(35:03):
becomes brilliant and I don'tsee that person as a threat.
So allyship skills, conflict revolution,skills need negotiation skills are
critical skills for our leaders, butwe're not developing those and they sit
within the schools of positive psychology.
All the stuff we use as mediators.
Appreciative inquiry.
Non-violent communication, which theycould all do with the dose of Martin
(35:23):
Rosenberg, you know, to help deal withthese issues on a day-to-day basis.
So I think it's, it's coming atorganizations and it's What are
you as a organization leader of HRdirector, a manager, a union, leader.
Are you ready?
Because if you're not ready, it ain'tgonna go, oh, you are not ready.
We'll wait till you're ready.
It's gonna come at you.
(35:44):
And if you're not ready to deal withthis stuff, your organization will
either fail in a blaze of social mediapublicity and all of the stuff that
we've seen in so many organization.
It'll be a very, or it'll bea very slow creeping, losing
top talent, losing good people.
Losing all of the value that I havebuilt up within the organization's.
(36:05):
Slow reputational harm and damage and aslow creeping death of that organization
with competitors circling you, um,so I would say social value employee
activism, repurposing our way we thinkabout leadership, rethinking some of
our HR systems, redefining the rulebook in our organization, ripping out
retributive justice and replacing it withthe stuff that we promote as mediators.
(36:28):
That to me defines the notion of asuccessful company measured in terms
of attracting the top talent, the bestcustomers, the top investors driving
organizational success with everyone apart of that, or I'm afraid to choose an
F word at the very end of our podcast.
Failure, I think.
Laura May (36:48):
Oh my goodness.
You know, I was gonna allow you.
I'm like, I'm Australia
to be offended, but failure.
Oh my goodness.
It hits hard.
Right?
Amazing.
And so, that was a veryintense call to action.
I mean, I had images of sharkscircling, there was blood in the
water and then there was failure.
Oh my goodness.
And so, I mean, do you think organizationsactually have a role to play?
(37:10):
In changing society rather thanjust society changing organizations.
David Liddle (37:15):
Uh, no.
Cause organizations are society, so it'snot that organizations change society.
I think the concept of an abstract oresoteric society that exists outside
of the door of the organization is a.
The organization is society.
We spend as individuals, so much ofour time in the workplace, it creeps
into so many aspects of our lives.
We bring us into the organization.
(37:36):
You know, I was at a conferencerecently and I heard a quote and I can't
blame, it's my own quote, but it's aquote that really resonated with me.
I.
Is organizations borrow their peoplefrom their families and we need to
give them back to their families ingood shape at the end of the day.
And what I really liked about thatis it connects the individual,
their life outside the workand real life inside the work.
(37:56):
So organizations, the organizationsthat are successful all continue
to thrive in the future.
In the future organizations, onesthat we don't know about yet.
Laura will be the ones who getthis stuff and get it right.
And they see they have a criticalrole to play in the concept and
notion of society and societal good.
And that again goes back tothe redefinition of value
and opposition in the world.
(38:18):
Organizations which beginning tounderstand their position in the world.
You know, B Corporation certificationis one example of many others
which organizations can use thatmakes a clear statement about their
position in the world and theirposition in the local community.
I.
Person believe would the organizationsthat have a competitive advantage in
the future, and your point about sharkcircling, they are circling, you know,
(38:39):
speak to any chief executive of anorganization that's been on Twitter or
any social media channel, or in the newsor in the HR press or elsewhere who've
had people going and talking about toxiccultures or had whistle blowing It's, it's
happening right now, it's hap it's there.
I think to me, it's there.
It's, it's playing out.
And I guess as a mediator, firstand foremost, I can see the conflict
(39:03):
and I can see the tension, but Ican also see the pull of action.
And as I said at the very start, Iam an activist and an entrepreneur
as well as a mediator and arestorative justice practitioner.
So all of those.
All of those lights are lighting up inmy head and I see opportunities, I see
risks, and I'm, I'm fearful in many such,but I see huge, huge opportunities for
(39:24):
us as a mediation movement to step up.
The world needs us right now, andit's, you know, we can step up.
And be part of a societal shift.
You know, I'm, I'm trying to learnmore about toxic masculinity at
moment and trying to understandthe concept of toxic masculinity.
So I'm watching as many documentariesas I can about man and what it means to
be a man in our society at the moment,and trying to get a sense of the culture
(39:48):
wars and what does the culture wars mean.
And the word Andrew Taton is Morganand various other actors who are out
there driving the conversation about.
Society and the culture wars andculture wars equals conflict.
Conflict equals mediation.
Mediation equals opportunity.
So as a mediator, I see the culturewars, whether they're played out on
(40:11):
social media, are being played out in oursociety, being played out in the states.
You know, the stuff at the moment iswe're preparing for the 24 election.
I mean, goodness man.
Yeah.
If that's not gonna highlight theculture wars, what is as a mediator,
I see that as a court of action.
I see that as an opportunity andI'd love to see more mediators being
part of the culture wars, and I'dlove to see more mediators getting
(40:34):
in that and trying to bring peace in.
The culture wars and we see, youknow, you've been part of it yourself.
You know, we see so much peace buildingwork going on around the world.
But we also need a lot of peacebuildingwork going on in the cultural war as well.
I see the cultural wars as being awhole new area that mediation practice
globally, where I think mediatorscould be stepping in and creating a
(40:55):
very powerful, but a very respectfuldiscourse between opposing views.
Cuz I worry having got kids and,you know, concerned about these
things as a parent and a citizenas much as anything else, I worry
that this is going unchecked.
That as a, we're not doing anything aboutit, to bring some form of peace building
(41:16):
and dialogue building into that frame.
So that would be one area that I'mreally interested in exploring now
at the moment, is the concept ofpeace building in the cultural walls.
Laura May (41:27):
Hmm.
Well, hey, that's part of thereason I have this podcast, right?
To get all these experts intalking about social conflict
and what we can do about it.
So is there anything elseI should have asked you?
But I haven't.
David Liddle (41:41):
That is a great question.
I mean, I guess the only thing Iam doing just really, I'm really
interested in human resources.
It's the human resources function.
So I've recently launched a newwebsite called People and culture.com
to try and help the HR functionreimagine what it means to be in hr.
Because my final point really, and it's apoint that I'm really excited about, Is,
(42:03):
could the HR function in our organizationrelease itself from being a long arm of
management or the stooge of management?
Laura May (42:12):
Oof.
Great word.
David Liddle (42:15):
Yeah, is a challenging word as well, and many in HR would be throwing,
rotten tomatoes to hear me say that.
But that's how people perceive them.
And there's a massive breakdownin trust and a deep suspicion of
hr because the perception is theyare a long arm of management.
If HR can embrace that, not as adefensive response to an attack from
someone who's attacking them, but seethat as an opportunity to reimagine
(42:38):
what it means to be an HR and releasethemselves as an arm of management.
Rock terms like business partnerand become people partners, become
a people and culture function.
Put the HR fund can become anindependent, objective function
in our firms and our organizations,and could they become a mediating
function within the organization?
Now many people are suspicious ofhr and in indeed there are many
(42:59):
organizations where I go to embeddedmediation programs and I was talking
to Intel Corporation yesterday, andas with many others, they wouldn't
put mediation into the HR function cuzthere's an intrinsic suspicion of hr.
So I'm on a one person mission atthe moment to repurpose HR as an
independent objective function to doeverything that we do as mediators.
(43:19):
And to instill that and institutionalizethat within the organization, within
the people and culture function.
And that is a really excitingopportunity to take mediation and
maximize its potential by creating aninstitutional function who centered
around the principles of mediationcalled the people and culture function.
So I'm, I'm actively out there now.
(43:42):
And that's a book I've justbeen commissioned another book.
Laura, you're gonna
Laura May (43:45):
Oh my goodness.
Calm down.
You're making the rest of
David Liddle (43:48):
Well, um, exploring the concept of people and culture as
a mediating function in our firms,
Laura May (43:55):
Hmm.
Great.
David Liddle (43:56):
which I'm excited about.
So that'll be coming out in 2025.
Laura May (44:00):
All right.
Excellent.
Well, thank you so much for that,and I think that, you know, you
are not just an army of one.
I'm definitely gonna be fightingthat battle with you as well.
Although I do always find a bitfunny to be using these very violent
metaphors and talking about mediation.
Right?
David, thank you so muchfor joining me today.
And for those who are interestedin learning more about your work,
(44:20):
which I assume is everybody,where can they find you?
David Liddle (44:24):
Uh, well, thank you.
So I'm on LinkedIn a lot, probablyjust a little bit too much.
So you can track me down on LinkedIn.
The company's called the TCM Group.
So if you go to the tcm group.com.
That's gonna give you a goodplace to go to and just find out
a little bit more about work.
So the two texts, as you mentionedearlier, managing conflict, the second
edition comes out in October, but thefirst edition is available on Amazon.
(44:45):
Other book sellers and transformationalculture similarly is available on
Amazon, both published by Kogan page.
And yeah, there's, there'sother ways of tracking me down.
If you just drop me intoGoogle, you'll probably find me
Laura May (44:57):
Well, I mean, I turned up in your office the other day, so
you're, you're very easy to track down.
David Liddle (45:01):
There is that, there's that as well.
And of course I shouldsay, I've got a wonderful team.
And you know, I couldn't do this.
I couldn't even be here, sat talking toyou without a team of incredible people
who make all of this stuff come to life.
So, you know, must, acknowledge theincredible team based in London.
In Islington, just an incredible team.
And also I've got about a hundredodd consultants who are out
(45:23):
doing work around the globe.
We work globally, doingall of this stuff.
So, you know, I've probably finishedthe podcast by acknowledging that
incredible efforts, endeavors tomake all of this stuff come to life.
I say it gives me a chance tocome onto podcasts and chats.
Laura May (45:38):
I love that.
No, it's a very good vibes way tofinish a podcast, that's for sure.
And so thank you again,David, and for everybody else.
Until next time, this is Laura May withthe conflict of podcast from mediate.com
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