SPEAKER_00 0:00

I don't think anyone is suffering enough yet to really want to change. The um research from McKinsey shows that for every 100 men that are promoted, only 80 women are. So they keep sticking a maternity policy in place and saying we've fixed the gender issue and you're not getting close to scratching the surface.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

You wouldn't just make a decision with one set of expertise. Look at those diverse skill sets. Why should that not apply to diversity across the board?

SPEAKER_03 0:31

Well, welcome Vanessa and Kerry to the Built Perform podcast. And I'd like to dive straight in, if we can, to who are you and why do you do what you do?

SPEAKER_00 0:41

So we're the Circle Partnership. So we run, it's an advocacy and talent development programme that we run for mid-level women in the built environment. And basically, we are trying to improve retention of mid-level women in the built environment. We want to have an impact in the long term on the gender balance at senior leadership level. And I think we basically feel quite passionately about the fact that we've created a programme that we wish we had had when we were both mid-level women in the um in built environment. We both have different backgrounds. My background is on the construction side. Let Vanessa talk about hers, but we've got lived experience of the situation that these mid-level women are in, and we feel quite passionately about wanting to do something about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Yeah, so my background is on the consultancy side. So I trained as a surveyor, and then my last corporate role was with Stanhope as a senior asset manager. And it started off just as a mentoring initiative when we were still both working our full-time jobs, and actually we really identified a gap in the market in terms of mid-level women and the retention issues that we had there. And we wanted to do something practical about it. And uh Kerry was my coach at the time, so Kerry worked for Langorke for about six years and on the client relations side, and then started up her own coaching consultancy. And when I realised she had a skill set that I didn't have, I uh badged her to become my business partner, and that's why we're here today.

unknown 2:02

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 2:03

And what is happening to women's careers in the built environment at mid-level that's causing you to start up the circle partnership?

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Well, I think it's it's multifaceted really, and that's part of why it's so complicated. I think there's there's something around um there being societal pressures and expectations around um women's women's journeys, and there and layered on to that is that there is inevitability around there being life changes at mid-level, and we try not to be um too focused on the childcare issue, but we also can't ignore it. You know, we we always preface everything with say by saying that actually not everyone can have children and they might not want to have children, but a big proportion of women do at this time, and they also have caregiving responsibilities that go in different directions, and naturally that coincides with quite big career leaps. So the mid-level bit is where we lose a lot of talent, but also there's a cultural thing in terms of uh um businesses and their behavioural attitudes, and then the third piece of the puzzle is women's own self-limiting beliefs, and we do a lot of work with them in our programme to try and tackle those main things, and we also try and do a lot of work with businesses themselves to see if we can change the cultural balance of um attitudes towards women in the workplace.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

I think it's probably also important to say the built environment isn't unique in the retention challenge at mid-level. So there's a lot of research from huge organisations, Harvard Business Review, McKinsey, loads of universities in the States in particular. Mid-level is when you do see a huge drop-off in female talent, and then that causes problems for businesses down the road when they look up and think, we want a more balanced leadership team. And you look down through your succession pipeline and you think, where did Sarah and Jane go? Well, they left 10 years ago because at that mid-level there wasn't the support to keep them there. And so you had them on a track in your mind, but they left the business because they didn't have the things in place, like the good line management, the good policies, the good procedures, the self-belief, as Vanessa says. So they're gone before they've even got an opportunity to contribute at that level. And there's lots of businesses talk about the line management problem, that's a perennial issue. That whole thing about people leaving a manager, not a business, is still true. And I don't think there's many businesses out there that have managed to fix that bit yet. But that that plays a big part in it, um, and it's a big contributor, regardless of sector, but it does tend to disproportionately affect sectors where women are in the minority, and the built environment is one of those.

SPEAKER_03 4:35

And why do you think it's uh not sorting itself out organically? And there's a need for the likes of the circle partnership to step in and it's just such a complex issue.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

So there's it's there's a societal element to it, there's a personal element to it, and there's a cultural element to it, and there's only so much of those bits that you can control. You look at the societal stuff, that's things like unequal political representation, the fact that men are 30% more likely to be quoted in the media, like hundreds and hundreds of facets in the societal bit that we can't touch. There's cultural stuff, which is like uh stereotypes, uh assumptions, benevolent sexism, all of the microaggressions, all of the traditional roles that we still aren't really making that much progress with. And then you've also got the personal issues of limiting self-beliefs, need for flexible working patterns. It's it's just such a big issue that the whole of there needs to be quite a big seismic cultural shift for things to change. And there are certain things that you can control and we can affect, and we're quite intentional with the way that we've built our programme and that we've picked four areas where we do believe we really can influence. So the lack of role models, that's a real problem for women coming up. They can't see people who look like them, and that causes problems. So we address that through our mentoring arm. Uh, the issue with limiting self-belief, so we address that through all the very targeted training that we do to help with women's confidence, to help with self-esteem, to help with making an impact in the workplace. Perceived lack of progression opportunities, which is this issue with getting women to only that first level on the management ladder. The mess the um research from McKinsey shows that for every 100 men that are promoted, only 80 women are, and that hasn't changed in decades. So that broken rung is the first problem. So by giving them a year of targeted training and investment, we hope that means when they get back to their organisations, they invest in them and push them up. And then the fourth piece of the puzzle is that women often have a lack of access to networks and critical experiences. If you're in a surveying company and just to be very casual about it, but you're surrounded by Hugo's and Henry's, but there aren't many Sarah's, those men are naturally just going to have more exposure to opportunities and networks because you pull up people who look like you, and it's no, it's nothing intentional, but that then creates a bigger problem down the line. So if we spend a year with these women and they meet 99 other women who look like them and are going to be the MDs of the future and are going to give them their next job and tell them that there's this opportunity that their company could pitch for, then we're building them those networks and those experiences. So we've quite intentionally picked some areas where we think we can affect change, but there's a hell of a lot that businesses need to do, society needs to look at, and that feels quite hard.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

And also, I think there's a reality in that people need to take accountability for their own career journeys. And the reason that mid-levels are interesting for us is because actually you're past that point of structured development. So we all know what it's like when you start as a grad and you have to hit this milestone by this time and this milestone by this time, and if you pass that, you get a promotion. You're really at the mercy of your line manager at the point at which you pass all of that. So not only are you at the mercy of someone who's more senior than you and you hope that they're competent, but also you have to be very intentional in what you're doing. And quite often, if you've been in a certain career trajectory for a certain amount of time, you might be in that stage where actually you just find yourself in a certain doing a certain thing, which perhaps you didn't realise that you were doing, and thinking, actually, do I want to be doing this right now? Is it the right challenge for me? Is there something more I could be doing? And that's why I think the mid-level point is really interesting because we're what what we're really trying to do is force people to think about their journeys, what they can offer, what value they need to bring. And we work across uh a huge number of different organizations, and some of them will be big corporates with very kind of linear career structures, others will be quite flat. And so part of it is giving people the tools and the abilities to think more strategically about what they want to do, what value they might want to add. And people aren't very good unless they're told to do it, about putting time aside in their own diaries to really make time for that personal development. And we want to be able to, you know, give them all the tools that they need, and we want to be able to help businesses empower their employees, but really it's up to the individual at the end of the program what they do with that. And there is an accountability piece of that that I that I think plays a big role.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

Just going back as well, you say about losing people, women at mid-level. Are we are we losing them from the workforce entirely, or we losing them from the industry, or are we losing them to different companies? How are we losing them?

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Less so from different companies, I would say. I mean, the fastest growing, um I I I can't remember the quite the exact statistic, but the fastest growing bit of the market is female entrepreneurs. So mid-level female entrepreneurs. So there was a really interesting report, the Careers After Pay Babies report, that said that there was 83% of women left full-time employment after having babies. That doesn't mean that they drop they drop out altogether, but they they leave full-time employment. Some people do drop out of the workforce altogether, but it doesn't mean to say that they don't have jobs, they might be starting something different. So I think it's more actually about understanding where they go. People will naturally jump to competitors. I think that's always happened, but I don't think that's female specific necessarily. That could that's not a gendered thing. Um, it's more about, but but if you look at the the number of mid-level women who are dropping out, if you look at where they're going to, it's either reducing their working hours or it's about starting something that works for them. And to be honest, we're we're the example. Like Kerry left her job, not because they didn't have a fantastic maternity package, um, but actually, you know, I won't speak for you, but actually you you you you got a little less tolerant.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Yeah. Well, I I always give myself as the example of that statistic. I left full-time employment after the birth of my second child, and I worked for a company, Langerork, who had phenomenal policies and procedures around paternity, maternity, absolutely faultless, really flexible in terms of how I wanted to come back. I was basically just able to say, what do you want to do? You will make it work around you. And we often tie ourselves up in the policy and procedure side of trying to change things. And it's so much more complicated than that. There was a the real estate balance study that's done every two years. The latest one said that employees believe that it's cultural change that will make more of a difference than the policies and procedures, but no one pays attention to that. So they keep sticking a maternity policy in place and saying we've fixed the gender issue, and you're not getting close to scratching the surface because the issue is the culture underneath, and that's the exact was the example for me. There was nothing wrong with the culture. But when I had two children and therefore I had quite a complicated life, you know, I'm doing nursery drop-offs, I'm I'm work for a construction company, so I'm traveling, I'm away, all sorts of different places. I think a lot of the stuff that I would have let slide about always being the only woman in a room and always having to adapt my behavior to fit in, I didn't have the energy for it anymore. I was really tired. And it wasn't because I wasn't enjoying my job and didn't like my employer, but I didn't have the energy for all of that anymore. And it and it really stood out in a way it hadn't before. When I've I'm the first person knocking on the door to drop my child off at nursery at 7:30 in the morning, and then I'm getting in the office and thinking, right, I'm going into this senior leadership team meeting and I'm the only woman in a room. How do I need to act today? I just didn't have the energy for it anymore. And so I left the industry. I mean, I'm still in the sector, but I left full-time employment because I just wanted to spend more time being myself and feeling like I don't have to change and I don't have to figure out what this situation requires of me. I can say what I think, be who I am, and not hear, don't swear there's a lady present 20 times a day and have to smile about it. Tell them to F off. I mean, and we give examples like that when we talk about like proper things that will make a difference. It sometimes is those tiny little things. Because, and we also really emphasize always that we don't believe there's ever any bad intent. We are not a girls-only club, like we want more men involved, like we do loads of events where we're bringing men in that I'm sure we'll talk about later. But it if you're not aware of little things like that, your intent that's a really chivalrous thing to say. And every single time that a man said that to me on a construction site, they meant it politely. But when I have heard that 20 times a day because my job was to go around lots of different construction sites and meet only ever men, all that does is point out that you're an only and you're not part of the gang, or cover your ears, love, like we're gonna swear, or whatever that saying is. Again, it's it's chivalrous, but there's no, it's a very difficult, it's very difficult as a woman to respond to that appropriately. You either laugh, and after the fifth time, you don't want to laugh and it was never funny in the first place, or you do react in a more challenging way and you get some very sarcastic response about time of the month, or like you cannot win when you're put in a situation like that. And it is people don't like, and I don't like the term microaggressions because being British sometimes I think things like that sound over the top. But I guess the reason that something like that is called a microaggression is because if you get that, it's like a little pinprick over and over again, and it does start to wear you down and think this isn't the place for me. Vanessa has never said, Don't swear because there's a lady present. And it's the little things like that that become the big things when they're repeated over and over and over and over again. It's the it's the like death by a thousand cuts thing, isn't it? But we don't we don't give enough attention to that stuff because we don't take that seriously. We put a maternity policy in place instead.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

And I and I think that's because there are some things which are low-hanging fruit, which everyone can do, which are easy to do, which are uh that they're not huge budgetary items that you can do. I think when you're trying to change the culture, and I really admire companies who are outwardly acknowledging that they have something to change and that it does need to change, I think it's very brave, and I really admire them because I think when you change culture, it's like turning a tanker. And we met someone this morning actually, and I loved what she was saying because she said that she was speaking to another person about the big moves that we're all trying to make. And we are quite unashamedly ambitious in terms of impacting gender parity at a senior leadership level, and we recognise that at the end of our careers we're not going to have cured gender inequality, but we will have shifted the dial a bit, and we are being very deliberate in the area that we're focusing. And so if we can make a small shift in that, I think we'd be very happy.

SPEAKER_03 15:02

Yeah, and also a big impact to lots of individuals as well. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Yeah, and that's where we get. That's a huge driver for us. That really is like when you get the testimonials at the end of the year, and we've just had our we've just finished our year and received the feedback from last year, and to see those shifts that people have made, you know, it's uh it's hugely reward rewarding for us.

SPEAKER_03 15:22

And going back to that that that mid-level piece as well, is an exacerbated issue, right? That you've got guys who are getting promoted and they're promoting other guys, they're getting paid better. And then obviously women are having children um and and you're having to make that decision as a couple who's gonna move forward and who's gonna have to take a pause, um, which feels very unfair as well.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

It it is and but also I kind of I want to acknowledge that there is a biological impact here. Like if you are in a heteronormative couple and there is one person who is biologically able to have that child, obviously they're going to come out of the workforce for a little bit of time. I think it's more about what you do strategically when they come back to make sure that they aren't lacking any opportunities and that people aren't making assumptions about where they want to might where they want to take their career. So, for example, I mean Kerry mentioned benevolent sexism. You might have something where someone has uh gone off on maternity leave, let's say, and then come back, and they might be having a conversation with their partner who might go down to four days a week, for example. If that woman is told, we see you on the partner track, and actually you could be going from here to here in the next five years, that decision between the couple in this kind of heteronormative example uh might be very useful for that woman to know, so that she can say, actually, I'm not going to take a step back because I want to get to here. And they can make that decision, but there is a lot of there's a lack of transparent transparency around that. And it's just one example of the little cultural shifts that could be made by organisations to help people make sure that there isn't such a disparity in those sort of circumstances.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Because where the benevolent sexism comes in is that in that example, what actually happens a lot is that a decision will be made for a woman in a boardroom or a meeting room that she's not even aware of. So she will have come back from maternity leave, and you and your boss might be talking about her future, and you might say, I just don't think she'll be interested in going to Dubai next year because she's just had a baby. And she doesn't even know that, and that will have been very well intentioned because maybe you've had kids too, and you know how tough it is, and you're saying that with all the best intent, but she doesn't even know that she was ever even up for that, that that was even possible for her, and she's already been dismissed from it, having no idea that that happened, and that happens all the time, and it's not just also a lot of what we're saying, it's not just men that do this. We are as subject to all of society's biases and stereotypes as everyone else. It's women would have done the same. I will have had conversations when I used to have teams when I was working in comms where I might have thought this woman is this age, what does that mean for her having children? Or we all do it, it's not a male thing, but we do, you have to put awareness on that for to be able to then shift. It's like the kind of coaching journey. If you're not even aware it's happening, you can't make any change. And that benevolent sexism happens constantly, even in your head. Sometimes it's not even said out loud.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

And I think we've like we always talk to the fact that like most people come in with good intent. Like none of this is there's very, very few people who come in thinking, I am going to be a misogynist today. Like that that doesn't happen. People are trying, people are trying to do their jobs, they're hard, they're trying to do the right thing, but there's lots of hurdles. And I think what we quite often find is that actually there's lots of, I think people find that there are barriers that they can trip over in terms of the way they talk about D ⁇ I, the way they talk about maternity and paternity and these kind of explosive subjects. What we really want to do is kind of open up the conversation so that people can have the chat, know that it's well intentioned, and not to worry too much about getting it right or getting it wrong. Like let's just shine a light on some of the issues that we talk about because we talk about it so much, but it doesn't really move the dial, and we really want to try and move that dial forward a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 19:22

It needs to move forward. Um although I think how I'm trying to think how long I've been in the industry. 17 years now. There's been a big change in those 17 years in kind of the conversations which you could hear at the start of my career to now, which is is positive, but there's so much further we can go.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

Well, and also to your like kind of back to your question about you know women taking time out of their workplace and the couple deciding these days, most families have to be dual income workers, and that will have changed a lot in 17 years. And what we're also going to start to see is this next tranche of leadership that retires are probably the last tranche where the woman stayed at home completely and didn't work because that doesn't happen that often anymore. Whereas that was par for the course that every single successful man's probably his wife didn't work. Now everyone has to work just to afford the cost of living in this country. So actually nursery fees. So the conversations actually are very different. It doesn't have to be so binary that you know one of us doesn't. Most of you, if you're paying nursery fees, you have to earn a certain amount to even make that worthwhile. So you're all the there's an amazing woman on LinkedIn who we'd love to get in as one of our speakers called Dr. Elize Dr. Eliza Philby, I think, is her name. She talks a lot about generational wealth and generational shifts and dual income households. And it's fascinating, but it it's different now in that it's it's never a cut and dry and it's not a binary conversation anymore. And that's why making progress on this really would be a win for everyone. And that's one of the other biggest things we're always talking about is this isn't about a win for women, it's about a win for like families and couples, and not to sound really earnest, but society, because it really would be better for everyone if it was a bit more balanced. Then we wouldn't be going on about the mental load and the pressure that's on women and men, the mental health crisis might be different. Like there are so many benefits if we could actually think about what the win would be for both of us.

SPEAKER_03 21:24

Yeah, 100%. I mean, I've got two young children, so I'm I'm definitely thinking about it. Nursery fees, interest rates, um, working out, you know, what what we're gonna do. Um, you know, can you even afford going one of you going down to four days a week? Yeah. Can you can you make you know does it work both us working in London? All those conversations which you you know we're having to have, um make some fun evening discussions when you're when you're laughing. Um going back now. I think some one of you mentioned it, but I think it's a really good point. Do you think that women self-select out of opportunities more so than men would?

SPEAKER_01 22:11

I do. I mean it's a sweeping statement and I've got absolutely no uh statistics to back it up.

SPEAKER_03 22:17

There's those those very like I think it's a Hewlett-Packard study, wasn't there, study um back in the day which are saying like a man would go for a job if he was 60% of he met the 60% of the criteria, whereas a woman would need 100%. It's that's completely false.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

Like it's not a proper study, it's not nothing real, but it's kind of I I think I think part of it, like, and this is just observational in my experience, not that I've got any data to back this up, but I I my view is when you are a minority working in industry, you feel like to have credibility, you have to be so much better to be able to get there. So you don't necessarily go for opportunities unless you're very, very confident that you're going to get them and that you're going to be able to deliver on them. There isn't much room for, oh yeah, I'll give it a whirl. As some people do, and I absolutely I'm not saying that this applies to everyone, but generally speaking, I what I witnessed was when I when I was working in consultancy, there were lots of women who weren't putting themselves forward for directorships and they were completely capable of doing it. And I didn't necessarily see that so much with the men, and I I don't know why that is. I think that there's a bit of a societal thing, especially being British, where culturally, you know, being humble is very and being very modest is like a great attribute. To be to be really boastful, I think, is seen as a bit distasteful. And I think yeah, being slightly Americanized, and I think that we don't we like to be recognised for opportunities rather than putting our hand up and saying, I think I'm good enough. I'm I'm prepared to give that a whirl. So I do think that there are proportionally a bigger proportion of women that would self-select out of them. I don't know, what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 24:03

I might give a politician's answer. I think it's because we're in part I think women define ambition differently. Yes. So Lean In, the Lean In organization do a study every year with McKinsey about women at work, and there were big headlines um just before Christmas for last year's study about again, women it's been proved women are less ambitious than men. And you dig under the content, and that's not just at all, because it also then mentions how mid-level women are the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs, and if that's not ambition, I don't know what is. But this it also coincided with we had a conversation with a um top-level head headhunter, and we said, What are the kind of trends that you've been noticing in the last 12 months? And she said, The biggest trend is I'm seeing women being offered C-suite roles and they turn them down because they don't, they are not interested in the level of attention, the level of pressure, the level of stress, the expectations, that whole football manager thing that you know you'll be sacked after two really good games. They've got a longer-term play, and they're not interested in that definition of power and success and ambition. I think women are ambitious for not work-life balance because that is not real and it doesn't exist anywhere. But I think particularly at mid-level, you start being interested in purpose a bit more. Things there has to be a point to it. Why am I doing this? What's it for? What's it giving me and maybe my family? And that doesn't always look like going up to the top of the tree. That might look like I'm really happy at this director level, partner-level position or whatever it may be, but I also want to do this other thing over here. And I want to set up this networking group, and I want to start doing this podcast series, and and and and because these things I'm passionate about and I'm ambitious for that a more fulfilling life. So I think it's more that there's a different definition of I don't necessarily want to be on that really obvious ladder track. I want what's it called, like a squiggly career.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Yeah. Although there's also part of me that thinks in doing so, they are sort of self-selecting out because they're thinking, I can't, I can't do that and look like that. Like that doesn't look like that for me. So rather than say, I'm gonna do that and make it my own, they don't really see that because there isn't there isn't that many people who are above them who are doing that. So they do self-select out of it. But I see, I do see what you mean. And I think I think you're right that people do define success differently. And we actually try, you know, running our own business, we try and have those conversations pretty regularly to say, are we happy? What are we doing? What do we want? What do we want to aim for? Are we too busy at the moment? Are we absolutely frazzled? Like we kind of know what we are like when we're frazzled, and it's not, oh, you know, we're not very productive. And so so we do try and check in and say, you know, case in point this quarter, taking on too much. We need to slow it down and kind of change how it looks. But I think we're lucky in a lucky position to be able to do that because not everybody can when you're on that train, you're on it.

SPEAKER_03 26:58

Gonna do a sidestep here, as you're probably in the midst of it as well. Um, and teachers. Close your ears, and that includes my little sister. Culturally has a has a well, do we need to stop this 320 pickup time? Oh my god wouldn't that solve a few problems?

SPEAKER_00 27:16

If only the teachers had control over that, I'd love to think that it got control over.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

I know it's so practical, isn't it? Yeah. And six holiday in the summer.

SPEAKER_03 27:27

Can we just align it a little bit more to the working hours? That would be everyone's life a little bit easier, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Oh yeah, yeah. I hear you're still.

SPEAKER_03 27:37

Yeah, my little sister would uh fortunate I don't think she'll be listening to this, so I think I'm safe. Um so as male leaders in the sector, what is our responsibility here? And then also, where do you think we unintentionally reinforce the status quo?

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Male leaders, and I sympathise in some ways because I actually think that, like I said earlier, I think most people come to work wanting to do the right thing. And I think where they're in a difficult position at the moment is that they feel part of the problem, which means they feel excluded from the conversation. I think there are lots of women's networks who are doing fantastic things, and one of the things that we need to be doing is opening the doors to having quite honest conversations without fear of kind of saying the wrong thing. I do think that when it comes to male leadership, an acknowledgement of what's going on, but also sharing the challenges openly about their own personal challenges because where when people connect with one another, progress can be made. Um, I think I'm not sure that in terms of their strategic ability, they've got any more or less responsibility than female leaders, really. Again, that's not gendered, but I think just generally making sure that they're part of the conversation rather than saying, um, I'm going to delegate the DI to the DI team. If you're an if you're a leader, regardless of your gender, you need to be in the mixture of the conversation and you need to be leading from top down. Because if you're not, no one's going to see it as a priority. If you delegate it and you're not in those conversations and you're not showing up as senior leadership, no one else is going to see as it see it as important and then it's going to go missed. I don't know if you'd add anything to that.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

No, I think that was speech beotic. But yeah, I think you have to be part, they have to be part of the conversation too. Don't think, oh, it's a diversity group, so it's not for me. It's for everyone. That's what diversity is.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

But the ones who make the biggest difference are the ones who are actually living and breathing it with everyone else and learning, because we're all learning. Like we're we're always part of conversations where we're like, oh gosh, actually, we haven't thought of that. We better do that. And I think when when you see people who are really interested and showing a genuine interest and really putting it as a priority, and I don't mean chucking the most money at it, I mean really kind of trying to emulate the values. That that is hugely impactful.

SPEAKER_03 29:55

Um, how do diverse leadership teams change uh decision-making quality?

SPEAKER_00 30:00

I think it's kind of self-evident and it's answered in the question is you can't possibly make good decisions. When we talk about coaching techniques and we talk about people like mastering decision-making and all sorts, we talk about people needing to make decisions from all different facets of their mind and taking lots of different perspectives. So, if you're someone, for example, who has a really active inner critic, we talk in our program about trying to find other voices in your mind. And when you're making decisions, take advice from different parts of and different perspectives before landing on what you're going to do. And the same is true of organizations. If you're only ever making decisions with people who look the same and think the same, you are not opening yourself up to a million other options and possibilities. And we don't need to sit here and talk you through all the studies that talk about the enhancements in profitability, productivity, innovation, everything that happens with more diversity. What is staggering is that still people don't seem to pay attention to those facts. That's not a fact that's just used to kind of plug diversity businesses' objectives. It's just a fact. And you don't really even have to see the data beneath that to know that just makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

But and and also, particularly if we look if we're talking about the built environment, the built environment says everyone. Look at the diversity of the population. You know, all businesses have a commercial uh you know outcome. That's what we're doing, like we're there to make money. If you're building buildings for people, you need to represent society. Look out in society. If you're we're in London today, look at London, look at the mix of London. You can't be making decisions for those people over there if you're not involving them in what you're doing. And even if you kind of extrapolate that a bit further, if you look at how businesses run, you will have on the top level a CEO, a COO, a finance director, someone in marketing, someone in an HR, uh whatever it might be, look at those diverse skill sets. Why should that not apply to diversity across the board? You know, you wouldn't just make a decision with one set of expertise. You know, we we are quite similar in how we think about things, and we we really try hard to make sure that we're going to lots of different people to kind of test our ideas against and say, are we mad to think of it like this? And actually, you know, there are so many times where we think we've landed on something and we can't move it any further forwards ourselves, and we go and have lunch with one person and they kind of completely change the way we think, we run with that idea and hey presto. I mean, it's it's kind of it's it seems obvious, isn't it? And it feels frustrating that um that has to be argued for in reports where it's pretty common sense.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

I mean, what what to take your thread and really run with it, I think the latest census date or whatever is that women are 51% of the population. So actually men are in the minority. So we should be talking about diversity and bringing men in because there's more of us. Well, actually, and we have a male mentor, and that's why.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Yeah, you know, gotta get the male mental.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Well, and we're bigger consumers, so that's always, you know, a fact, and that's accepted that women are bigger consumers than men. They are the people who often make the household spending decisions, they are the people who make more consuming, they have much more buying power. So actually, when you really think about strategy and the kind of industries that are involved in serving the population, women should be a hell of a lot more involved in decision making.

SPEAKER_03 33:19

But there's still massive data gender gaps as well.

SPEAKER_01 33:23

And not to mention diversity within that as well. I mean, we're talking about gender diversity specifically, but actually, you know, if you think of um, you know, racial and ethnic and religious diversity, I mean there's all sorts of things.

SPEAKER_03 33:34

Yeah. How important are peer networks uh in in building resilience and progress?

SPEAKER_00 33:41

I think hugely so, just because everyone wants to feel part of something. There's just no better feeling than feeling like you're with people who understand you, who've got your back, who are celebrating success with you. The statistics about burnout are that women are three times more likely to suffer from burnout when they work in sectors where they are and only is the term. And that it's so it and it is stressful on your system as a human because we're wired for connection and belonging. That's one of our hard wirings in our brain. There's only two, and the other one is for procreation and survival. But the other one is connection and belonging. And so if you are in a situation where you don't feel part of something and you don't have those connections, you quite literally are going to have a serious nervous system stressor all the time. So that is going to be running through your system all the time. So these peer networks and feeling like, yeah, that you've got your gang and your team and you're part of something, I don't think it's just important for your career. I think it's important for your health.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

Um and to take the commercial angle of that is also really important for your career because I think people underestimate that that's your network. And when you when people talk about networking, it has a horrible term of everyone imagining that you're going to a big room full of people that you don't know and just gonna have to talk and charm people. Actually, networking is at its most valuable with your peer group because they're the ones who are gonna go to different companies, work their way up the ladder, and suddenly your mate who you knew was an idiot at grad is gonna be really important up there, and you're you don't even realize that you're you're you're growing up together, and they're the ones who are gonna be able to help. And I think that that network is so invaluable. And I definitely didn't realise that you know as I was a bit more junior in my career. And I sort of thought networking was speaking to the most important person in the room, but it's not, it's engendering trust with the group around you, and then growing together in your careers and being able to call them up and say, What's that about? Or, you know, have you heard about this? Could you intro me to that person? It's much more informal and much more um and much easier than I think people give it credit for.

SPEAKER_03 35:46

I think I think that social side of with your peers, though, has rapidly declined from when I was at a graduate level and and younger level to kind of what what you see now. It very much is a case of arriving at your time and then leaving on time and maybe going to gym, maybe going to gym with one other person, but you're not going to be. We had a terrible pub culture where I was when I was a graduate, and we were at the pub every single every single night. Um but and we but we hung out over the weekends, we worked in the office over the weekends doing our APCs as a big group of graduates. I I don't see that those sort of relationships of people peers and then those peers going up the ranks together so much anymore.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

And I actually think that's really valid, that and that's probably not something that we really think about too much, but actually uh having structure around flexibility helps that because then you can build in the social times. And I think companies that are strategic about what days they expect people to be in and why means that you can actually have times where you're all in the office together and like social events can be planned in advance for those people who are able to attend them, but the social side of it is harder to administer when people are here, there, and everywhere, and there's a lot to be said for that, and I don't really think that there's an answer that people have necessarily rather than like oh show it's not a cat.

SPEAKER_03 37:10

It's fine, I should just go or go to Pub or go somewhere else or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Yeah, that's definitely missing actually. There's a lot of generational shifts happening though, aren't there? That I don't think we have enough research on yet, because probably as well, that age and stage you're talking about is the is the COVID generation, and so there will have genuinely been some damage, some challenges and some impacts of being stuck inside and losing social skills and entering the workplace in a terrifying jobs market and not knowing how long you've got, and maybe thinking that you need to do other things on the side and and and so I think some of that is a hangover from that. And I wonder how many kind of years that will affect, or if that's an entire generational challenge. And I mean, there isn't enough research on any of it yet, other than to say we're at a really unique stage, aren't we, where there's something like three generations in the workplace at once, which hasn't happened for a very long time, and they are all butting up against each other, and they all want very different things from the world of work.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

And the poor people in the middle have learnt from the people at the top who are incredibly different to the people that they're managing, and they're trying to manage downwards in a different culture to the way that they're being managed upwards, and it's really difficult. Give luck to them.

SPEAKER_03 38:28

Um what do you think is slowing change down most in the industry? Because you you mentioned it earlier to a different point, but I always refer to the industry as like an oil tanker. And making change and turning turning things around is extraordinarily slow, but painful. Um what do you think is kind of slowing the change down the most?

SPEAKER_00 38:51

We often talk about this concept of change that um suffering has to outweigh the reward, and I'm still not convinced the industry is suffering enough to want to change. I think it will be different when this last tranche of leadership retires. I think it'll be different when this skills crisis that we keep talking about actually hits, because it still is talked about as this thing that's going to come over the horizon but hasn't hit yet. I don't think anyone is suffering enough yet to really want to change. People are talking a good game, acknowledging that something needs to be different, but I think there's also often the challenge of the can being pushed down the road. Like you lose count of the number of times people talk about how the industry needs a rebrand and we need to reach more people and we need to show this, and and that's all true, but who does? So who's who's gonna do that? Is it the institutions are gonna do that? Are the companies all gonna band together and all decide to collaborate to try and change the image of the industry? Like who people have these great ideas that they talk about at these roundtables and they write about in white papers, and the conclusion is we need to change the brand of the industry. Who d who? Who's gonna do that?

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Yeah, and I think you know, it's a bit like the sustainability thing. Like we all sustainability is such a huge thing. Global warming, carbon emissions, it is common knowledge that this is a huge thing. Like we can see all these huge weather events happening. If people really, really cared, they would be like government would be making policy, certain things would be illegal, they'd be putting their money where their mouth is, and it just isn't happening because economically there just isn't the drive from the people at the top to want to change it. And I really think EDI is the same. And I sort of hate using the word EDI because it's it's it's branded in a not it's got not got an attractive reputation, but if we just think about it as opportunity for all, there are certain people who have it's really not in their best interest to do that. And if you think about America, even in the last year, you know, they've rode back on their DEI policies, it's made a huge impact. And you know, you you you can speak to everybody and say, Do you think this is a good idea? And I don't know anyone that we've spoken to has said no. Like everyone acknowledges that it's a good idea, but very few people are willing to put their hand in the pocket to do it. And I think because if it's not a commercial priority and they're not suffering like you're saying they are, it's not going to change.

SPEAKER_03 41:16

Yeah, um so where are you seeing genuine progress today?

SPEAKER_01 41:21

I think I can I can only speak to that on an individual level actually, because where are we seeing change in terms of what we're involved with? We have fantastic clients who are really trying to change the culture within their businesses, and they're not afraid to trial certain things to see if they work or not. And I I haven't seen that attitude before necessarily, and we do have leaders now who are stepping into the space who are willing, counter to my point before, who are really willing to put their money where their mouth is and see it as a priority, and there's been a few leadership changes where that has enabled that to happen, and it's really heartening to see that. I think on a personal level from our programme, we are seeing people like you mentioned with our statistics who are growing in confidence, who are increasing their personal impact, who are more able to make conscious choices about their future. All those small bits of change all stack up and will come back full circle to kind of impact people at top level. So we're definitely we are seeing change in in the work that we're doing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

Um, I don't know about more broader change, but in a shift from last year to this year, women are feeling much more optimistic about their future in the sector as a woman. They're feeling much more positive about um gender balance in the sector, they're feeling much more committed. So lots more of them saying they want to spend their whole career in the sector rather than three to five years or under. And that's been a shift in the last 12 months, and it was a stark shift, and one we really weren't expecting to come through the data. So that does suggest if that's just, you know, like a little finger in the air idea of sentiment of 220 mid-level women working in the sector, they are feeling more optimistic about the pace of change.

SPEAKER_03 43:14

That's good. And how do we accelerate it further?

SPEAKER_00 43:17

Invest in our program. I was about to say exactly. Come to us and we'll help. Get more men involved in the conversation, seriously. Like it needs to stop being. We're doing some uh events at UK Reef this year, and we're doing something uh alongside Kia. And one of the big things that we're trying to get away from is the the women, the diversity conversations happening in a tent over there, and the skills crisis and the commercial conversations happening over there, they are one and the same thing and should stop being treated as fringe issues. We are fed up of seeing the same people at talks about diversity, talking to the choir, same old stuff. It needs to be talked about alongside growth, investment, commerciality, skills crises, as just one element of one of those problems, not as a separate topic in itself.

SPEAKER_03 44:06

Um, and what is the one piece of advice you would give to mid-career women listening?

SPEAKER_00 44:11

To not be afraid of defining success on your own terms. So, yeah, don't feel like you have to fit into some kind of societal definition of what success looks like. Figure out what it looks like for you and go after that.

SPEAKER_03 44:22

And to be fair, that's not just women.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:26

That's to everybody, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 44:27

100%.

SPEAKER_03 44:28

Um, I think we could all do with learning that. Um, and then finally, what's the one major change you would like to see happen in commercial real estate?

SPEAKER_00 44:36

I would like I would genuinely like to see more women. I mean, I know that's such a silly thing to say given the kind of journey we've gone on this conversation, but it would be great to walk into more rooms and see more women alongside men. And I'm not ambitious enough to necessarily think it will ever be 50-50, and not least because women might not want to all work in the sector, but it would be really lovely if it wasn't unusual to walk into a room and not be the only woman.

SPEAKER_01 45:06

And I personally would like to see senior uh male leaders um demonstrating flexibility and really leading by example because I think that when we start to see a shift in behaviour from the top and people uh making adjustments to suit their personal lives and ambition as well, that really makes room for everyone. And I think that would be really complimentary to Carrie's point.

SPEAKER_03 45:29

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Really interesting. Yeah, it's a a lot to think about, a lot for everyone to take home, I think. Um thank you so much for coming on. And thank you for your time.