Why Not? & What If?

S1E3 - Women, Work & the Hidden Cost of Being Heard

• Siobhan & Andy • Season 1 • Episode 3

Share episode

Send us a text

What actually happens in a woman’s body when she tries to “step up” and be more assertive at work?

In this episode of Why Not and What If, Siobhán and Andy kick off a mini-series inspired by listener Jasmine in Melbourne – a social worker, supervisor and coach to women in the helping professions. They dive into what it reallycosts women to communicate assertively as leaders… and why it’s still so much more complicated than “just be confident.”

Siobhán unpacks how women often have to lean on stress hormones like cortisol to create the same impact that testosterone gives men more naturally – and what that means for burnout, health and the constant tightrope between “clear” and “too much”. She shares boardroom stories of being the only woman in the room, negotiating everyone else’s pay with ease but whispering about her own, and the subtle ways women are punished for speaking plainly.

Andy brings in lived examples from policing and corporate life:

  • the “diddy” female officer who had to psych herself up to roar down a violent crowd,
  • strategic women ignored on male-dominated boards,
  • and Black women leaders silenced by the “angry Black woman” stereotype.

Together they dig into:

  • The science and psychology behind assertive communication for women
  • Why confident men are “strong”, but confident women are still called “bossy” or “bitchy”
  • How internalised misogyny shows up in woman-to-woman dynamics at work
  • The role of soft skills (empathy, listening, emotional intelligence) in an AI-driven world
  • Why men must be part of challenging misogyny and changing the culture

This one is messy, honest and a bit rage-inducing – but also hopeful. If you’ve ever toned yourself down in a meeting, rehearsed an email ten times so you don’t sound “too harsh”, or wondered why asking for fair pay feels like climbing Everest, this conversation is for you.

Got a story or a view? Email letstalk@whynotwhatif.com
— we might do a follow-up episode with your takes.

Siobhan:

Welcome to Why Not and What If. And I'm Siobhon Godman, a HR consultant, coach, and the one who listens through the noise to what really matters. Think of me as the calm to Andy's creative storm. Hi. This is Andy Cracknell, a creative whirlwind, disruptor of dull thinking, and allergic to doing things the usual way.

Andy:

Thanks, Siobon. I'm also a marketing and communications consultant.

Siobhan:

And this is the podcast where we explore the messy, magical intersection of life, work, leadership, and all the bits we're not supposed to talk about. Let's get into it.

Andy:

Guess what? We've had an email. So hopefully a positive email. No, it's it's a lovely email, actually. Yeah, it's a really positive email. So it's come from a lady called Jasmine, who is based in Melbourne, Australia. So we have an international listening. Global brand. Podcasting and blah blah blah. Her email says I'm based in Melbourne, Australia, and a mum of two, qualified social worker and small business owner. I provide mostly clinical supervision to social workers and other helping professionals, such as counselors and youth workers, and career strategy coaching to an all-female client base. So this is somebody who's doing some pretty important stuff. This is social impact stuff, societal impact stuff. She goes on saying, I also have experience of over 10 years working in community services and government roles. I've come up with some topics that no one else is talking about.

Siobhan:

Interesting. We'll talk about those.

Andy:

So today's podcast, we're going to cover these five topics, and we'll probably end up with a couple of spin-off episodes, depending on how juicy each one gets. I mean, they're all juicy, right? But we could talk about well, you said before it's like you could talk about this stuff for days because it's some really important stuff. And yeah, so we're going to go through these five today and we're going to talk around these five different areas. They're all related. It's all to do with women in the workplace and being both a parent and a professional and the impact that having children has on a woman's career. She finishes her email to say, I can't wait to listen to the podcast. I'd love to know if you go ahead with any of these topic ideas. These are topics I often ponder on either personally or with my clients. So this is important stuff.

Siobhan:

It is, and I imagine it comes up a lot with her clients. Yes.

Andy:

Jasmine, thank you. Yeah, so here we go. Right. So I'm going to hand this one over to you, HR Guru. Communicating assertively as a leader so that your team listens. Go on then, let's kick off with that one.

Siobhan:

So I assume she's talking in with the lens of being a female leader. Yes. And this is an interesting because I do a lot of work with leaders around feedback and communication. Because there's that fine line between being assertive, being straightforward, being clear without being aggressive or, you know, what people might deem as overly harsh or bitchy or whatever it might be. And then for females, there is that added dynamic. Because what happens is this is my take on it, and there'd be some psychologists listening, hopefully, and some other experts who may argue or support or have more research in. But a lot of this is driven by what makes us female and male. So the fact that women have less testosterone means that to bring that assertiveness that comes more naturally with men through the testosterone, we create it through the stress hormones. And so when we're trying to feel like, well, I need to be assertive in this situation, especially if it's male-dominated, which in most organizations it still is, and you have all the imposter syndrome and stuff that's going on that we'll talk about later with the motherhood penalty and things. We're creating the stress hormone to create that assertiveness. So there's two things going on here. There's that females trying to present as a male, not as a male, but in with a male masculine style. And to do that, we're we're essentially stressing ourselves out. And then it's not even necessarily taken seriously in the first place. So it is difficult and it is a mind field.

Andy:

That's interesting because I'm assuming that the stress hormone you're talking about, is it cortisol?

Siobhan:

Yes, I can I always get them mixed up, which is why I didn't say it. You can tell I'm not an expert in biology.

Andy:

So here's so here's the first first sidetrack of the yesterday. There's actually two sidetracks here. Oh, my hair's gone mohican. What's going on there? The first one is that so if you live a life where you have continual trauma or you live in a trauma cycle, your cortisol levels are high.

Siobhan:

Yeah.

Andy:

And they have a natural impact on your physical being. Now, I'm not a scientist and I'm not a biologist, but from personal experience, one of those side effects is that you put on weight around your stomach. So cortisol impacts your stomach and quite often misdiagnose is things like bloating, IBS, you know, all of the whatever. And then the other thing is that uh the thing that really resonated about what you were saying about women presenting assertiv assertivity. What's the word? My brain's gone blank. Assertivity, that's good. In a male-dominated environment, I it took me straight back to police days where I used to watch my female police colleagues in disorder situations.

Siobhan:

Yeah.

Andy:

It used to inspire me because there was one there's one police officer I used to work with, and she was and these are her words, not mine, okay?

Siobhan:

Yeah.

Andy:

She was diddy. Like she was tiny, she was about five foot four, five foot five. And she was in the middle of a disorder in a fairly large town in the south of England, and out of nowhere, so so there were about 12 police officers there, about 75% of them were male, and then the other 25 are female. And I just remember hearing all this stuff kicking off, people shouting and screaming, and bottles being thrown, and chairs being lobbed about. And it was like life went into slow motion because I then heard this roar come from the middle of this group of people, and it was her. She was surrounded by these there must have been 15 or 20 blokes all beating each other up and kicking off.

Siobhan:

Wow.

Andy:

And she literally just roared. I can't remember what she roared, but she roared, and it was a it was a command, it was, I don't know, disperse or something like that. And these 15 blokes all around the kicking off and beating each other up literally stopped dead in their tracks. Wow. And you could it was only after the event that I noticed how much she was shaking. It was the adrenaline stressful, but she was really shaking, and she said, I had to prepare for that. I couldn't just do it. It was I had to psych myself up.

Siobhan:

Yeah.

Andy:

And she did it by watching the injustice going on around her. So every punch that was thrown or every bad thing that happened, she was utilizing to elevate her cortisol levels to then be able to do what she did. I'm gonna bring the sidetrack to a close fairly quickly because we could talk about this for hours. But it does raise the question around the statistics, which I don't have to hand, so maybe this is an update further down the line, around female police officers and stress levels when they're dealing with public disorder. At six foot six, I could walk into the middle of something, and I'm a tall bloke, I'm not particularly big, but my presence is felt generally wherever I am because I'm so tall. So it's much easier for me to have an effect on a situation. But for my Diddy colleague who just was so much shorter than everybody else, and potentially easily intimidated, especially if you're surrounded by six-foot blokes that are all built like tanks, that's a huge amount of stress to put on your brain and your body just to be able to do that. So there's an instant disadvantage there, which I don't think male colleagues really appreciate. And I didn't grasp until I saw afterwards the extent to which the situation had affected her. She was shaking, she was like, you know, really affected by it. Fairly early on in her career, you know, I don't know whether she's still in the job now, but you would imagine that over time it's something that you get used to and you master is that ability to manipulate cortisol. But that just shows the extent to which a woman has to think before being assertive, and it's something I'd never really clot.

Siobhan:

And it's the reaction to your assertiveness as well in the room. And it could be some might take virtue against it, like who do you who does she think she is? Or it might stop them in their tracks, or there's all you already always thinking about what's the impact of me saying and doing this, what response am I gonna get? And in your example, where there's kind of almost physical danger, you have the same effect, even when you're just walking into a boardroom, for example, and you know you've got to argue your case in front of I mean, most of my career, I would quite often be the only female in the room. Nine times out of ten. If I was working at that senior level, the only other sometimes there might be a finance person who was female, but most of them were male as well. There might be an operations person who was female, but massively in the minority. So when you're early in your career, especially, you do think how and I'm little, I'm diddy, I mean I'm only five foot two. So it is in the back of your mind where you're like, are they gonna take me seriously? And I've I remember feeling physically sick earlier in in my career, and you do, to your point, you start to build up strategies that help you, but it's still very hard, I think, to be assertive because what I find as well with women is we tend to be, as this is a massive generalization, but it it's you can see it play out. We tend to be a lot more self-conscious and self-deprecating. So I can be a lot more assertive if I'm talking about somebody else, or if I'm if I'm in somebody else's corner, especially from a HR perspective, I'm like, this is the right thing to do. I can be really assertive. If I'm talking about me, not at all, you know. You know, I'll I'll be negotiating pay rises for people every day, but when it comes to my pay, for example, I'm like, do you mind if I get paid fairly? Thanks. You know, it's it and and I don't know why that is, uh, but you see it playing out all the time.

Andy:

Sorry, no, I just get an interesting point because I mean look, we're both consultants, right? And I and I think generally speaking, and this is not dismissing what you've just said at all, this is reinforcing it. Generally speaking, I think most consultants, male or female or or whatever, struggle with that asking for an amount.

Siobhan:

Yeah. To illustrate things the worst for a consultant.

Andy:

Well, this is it. What I am learning, or what I have learnt over the last year or so, is that actually, yeah, it's hard for me to do it, but I I like like you, we have I mean we had a conversation earlier on, didn't we, about day rates and pricing and stuff. I would imagine it's probably even harder when you're pitching into a male client as a woman, given well, given your level of expertise, in my in my head, I have a price that I would pay for your services on a day-to-day, on a day rate or on a project delivery rate. That figure is based on the value of your impact, nothing to do with your genita. It's to do with the fact that I know you, I know what you're capable of doing, I know what your knowledge base is, your skills, your experience, and and it's money I'm prepared for one doing air quotes for those that can't see. Money I'm prepared to pay for your services. And if I had a tender opportunity where I had a male with exactly the same skills and experience as you, and you tender for that opportunity, I would be offering the same money to both because that's my positioning. But being on the the tendering end, so your end of it, what you're putting in and you're aware that you've got competition that you're up against, whether they be male or female, I now understand I'm now aware I don't I can't understand it to that depth because I'm not female, right? But I can understand and relate to it to an extent because an element of that will be imposter syndrome or self-worth or self-esteem or self-confidence or whatever. And if I may, just for a moment, I've known you for was it about a year?

Siobhan:

Yeah, probably.

Andy:

A bit longer?

Siobhan:

Longer.

Andy:

And you know what you're talking about. We wouldn't be sat here doing a podcast together if you didn't know what you're talking about. Because let's face it, if I was a podcast on my own, I'd probably be sat here flapping in the wind and talking about with no real logical thoughts or anything, right? But joking aside, you know what you're talking about. So I see the value that you deliver to your clients, and the thought of you being penalized because you're a woman is just so alien to me. I just don't understand it because it's the same end result, whether it's you delivering it or a bloke delivering it, what difference does it make? It's about what it gives the business. Sorry, I'll get off my shoebox now and not that I need one.

Siobhan:

Yeah, not with me in the room. I need to be on the box.

Andy:

But no, the point I was gonna make was when we first met, we met an event through it was a well, not a well, kind of a client, an organization where we have a mutual interest, let's put it that way.

Siobhan:

Yeah.

Andy:

And it was really funny because your height never even entered my head. And and but what did you see me? I can hear a voice, but I couldn't see but what hit me was actually like the nature of the event was around people, effectively, and the impact that people make, right? And we had that commonality of the of the organization we were involved with, but you knew what you were talking about, and that came across. Now I don't know, and this is maybe something we can play with now as an example as part of this communic communicating assertively. You didn't know me then. I'm 200 mile an hour, 500 ideas a second, so I'm quite an energy to and I'm six foot six. So for you, I'd imagine it's this bloody huge version of Tigger coming in, bouncing my eyes all excited. I I now understand from your position as a woman how you might how that could impact you very differently to the the other guy that was there that day that I spoke to, who happened to be taller than me and I felt intimidated by it doesn't happen very much. It was the first the first time I've ever had to look up when I'm speaking to somebody. It was hilarious. But I'm now, yeah, getting back to the sensibility of it. I'm now more than aware of the difficulty that that must entail. So it's that added level of anxiety or stress or preparation for any conversation. Whether you're an HR leader, a consultant, a people leader, whatever it might be, even middle management or lower management, that's still an additional stress. So I'm gonna be really, really maverick now and suggest that actually, and this is gonna piss some people off, but I think women should get paid more than men do in leadership positions because they have an extra layer of shit to deal with.

Siobhan:

Yeah, well, yeah. You certainly could argue it. I'll put that forward.

Andy:

Yeah, what's the your male, your male consultant tended for this contract, just add 25%? That's what I'll do it for.

Siobhan:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. But he you're right.

Andy:

I suppose it's pri what is it, positive discrimination.

Siobhan:

And it happens though, rightly, but you know, there's reasons why people have value, market value, as it were. And I think that's part of the problem here, is that females, the skills that females bring, and interestingly, I was at an event at Cambridge University last week, and they were talking about launching a program for female founders who've come out of Cambridge University. Now, Cambridge University, one of the best universities in the world, and even there, where they're doing some great stuff, the stats on the success of female founders was through the floor. And because there's just all these barriers, but they're very subtle barriers sometimes. And some of it is this assertiveness bit. They'd said some statistics around how female-led organizations or mixed organizations where they've got a real balance and diversity perform better financially, profitability, you know, in terms of what they're producing, all of those things, they perform better. Yeah, investment in female-owned businesses is something like 2%. It's absolutely mad. But it's because sometimes the value that females bring isn't seen as a value. So things like, you know, empathy, things like being able to all of those, all of those things which are seen as soft skills, actually, in the modern world with AI, we need those human skills more than ever. So if anything, what we can offer is is even more valuable than it used to be 10, 20 years ago. Yet we're still not beating through that ceiling somehow.

Andy:

Which is interesting because I think the term soft skills, I understand why it's called soft skills, so I'm being a little bit flippant here, but I think it's a bit condescending coin. Because it's it's actually critical. We're human beings, it doesn't matter whether you're male, female, black, white, straight, gay, whatever, you that soft skills are a necessity. Which actually brings us on to a nice point because there's this debate around oh, the the debate, the conversation around confident versus aggressive. So it's the difference between assertiveness and overcompensation. So they look at things like body language, tone, and word choice that matter. Now, I rightly or wrongly, in my relationships or friendships with people, I'm quite I lack a filter. And what I mean by that is because I know those people understand me and they know me, and they know that I'm open to being challenged or held to account or complimented or whatever it might be, is that I don't actually necessarily think about the words that I use. I think about the point that I'm trying to make, and I build a level of emotion around that because that's me. I'm quite an emotional, excitable, exciting person. Not excited. That's really arrogant.

Siobhan:

I'm really excited, so excited.

Andy:

Excitable person. You are excited. I can look at the podcast conversation we had when I came to you and went, we need to do this because this is just mental. We can we can talk about this, this, and this. I didn't really filter it. Okay. So what you got from me was unfiltered. Know me, so I know my audience and I know the the the language that I know I can just speak and then it will be interpreted the right way. Now that's actually a bit of a it's kind of a negative way to exist because it puts the onus on the recipient to decipher the translation, and what I'm learning at the moment is more about actually, it's more about filtering when you're in those scenarios where people you don't know, which is actually something I'm really good at. So if I'm in front of a client and I'm delivering a workshop, I'm a very different person to when I'm in a a group with people like you or other friends. But it's it's the word choice that matters the most, my perception. Because whilst there's that theory around what is it, is it is 20% what you say, 80% how is it how you say it?

Siobhan:

How you say it, and it's all your brain, your brain processes all the communication, and that's the tone, the body language, everything. And uh yeah, is that 80% of it isn't what you're saying, is everything else that's going on.

Andy:

I say it. So those key points are the the the distinguishing features between confidence and as yeah, confidence and aggressiveness. And I now understand a lot more, although I got a fairly good grounding with this with my mum, because my mum was a high flyer in the construction industry in the 80s, and then local government in or well, national government in the 80s and early 2000s.

Siobhan:

And she was a literal high flyer in the 80s.

Andy:

Yeah, she was. She then and the problem she kind of faced, I was teenage 20s, yeah, mid-late twenties, then, and she'd come home in tears because you know, all kinds of stuff had kicked off. Yeah. But it's that she was great because she did teach me and my brothers a level of understanding beyond just look at how somebody's standing, what they're saying, and their tone of voice. Think about their motive. It was always what's their motive, what's the intent behind what they're saying? Because as human beings, we do give out the wrong, it doesn't matter if you're male or female, we use the wrong words, we use the wrong tone, we knew-jerk react. So, but there's that added let added pressure, as you say, for women, because it's very easy for a bloke and a well, any bloke to go, oh, she's just an aggressive woman stamping her feet. It's that dismissive, patronizing, blood-boiling response that men give when they either can't handle a a woman telling them something or whatever it might be, and we're obviously talking about misogynists here, but yeah, and I think that's really important is to break that down.

Siobhan:

It's also the same with women-to-women communication, because what I've seen in my history working with but in male-dominated environments, I've had some amazing female leaders, really great managers who have ended up being, you know, personal friends, mentors for life, amazing women. But I've also had the other side where it's been an absolute nightmare, and it and for those I've noticed that it's what's happened is they've they've stepped into that masculine energy because they've had to for to survive, and it's it's created this armour around them, and they almost have to be even more assertive or slash aggressive to get heard, and it then it becomes part of a habit and a and a behaviour that can be really quite damaging, and then there's a bit of competitiveness that might go on if you've got like two women vying for a role amongst 10 other men, you kind of turn on each other as well, which is really, really sad. I am seeing that less, I have to say, I am seeing that less, and I think that's how I think organizations especially are starting to get better, some of them anyway. And as I said, I've got have had some amazing female managers who have been fantastic, and hopefully there'll be more of them because you shouldn't have to create these monsters, basically. That's almost what it is. Like you've created a monster with some of these ones that create really toxic environments.

Andy:

And you made an interesting point there because then you end up in a cycle where these women leaders that have created that armor are then judged again by men as being bitchy, obnoxious, horrible, toxic, whatever. But actually, it's men that have put them in that place in the first place, put in that position in the first place. But is it my life?

Siobhan:

Sorry, but even add on to that a black woman.

Andy:

That that's exactly where my head was going.

Siobhan:

Oh really?

Andy:

Yeah, because I quite a while back now, Emma, my wife and I worked with a client, I probably could name her, but I won't. And part of the conversation at the time was around various things that happened kind of in our personal lives that had made me question my view on racism and how I as an adult can protect children from those kinds of prejudices and and discrimination and stuff. And I asked a quite strong question, and I just said to her, look, I'm struggling with the racism thing because something's happened recently which has exposed me to a side of life that I I've never experienced as a white middle-aged male. Grew up with five black Afro-Caribbean cousins and used to, you know, back in the 80s when we were growing up, there was all kinds of again air quotes banter between me and them. They used to call me all kinds of racial slurs, and I used to do the same back, but we were kids, we didn't see any difference in the world. And you were family, and we were family. But she went on to say that we had a conversation around the racism bit, and then she said, But as a black woman and a black leader, it's very difficult. And there's a term she uses which is self-filtering, self- sorry, self-silencing, which is where you don't react in a situation because it's blatant that the reaction is going to be you're just an angry black woman.

Siobhan:

Yeah, absolutely.

Andy:

And I asked her, I said, Is that does that do you just get that from men? And she said, No, I get it from women as well. So if it's a white woman, I'm reacting assertively because I'm in a leadership role, you can hear the whispers by the water machine saying, Oh, she's an angry black woman, and it's because she's black and she's a woman. So there's another level to this which we can't dismiss, but I think it's a separate conversation because it's built into racism. But it's massive. But you know, to your point, it's men are creating monsters because of their ignorance, discriminatory attitudes, misogyny, whatever it might be, and who's suffering. Well, women are suffering one because they're being changed into these things, because they have no choice. If they're going to survive, then then in certain pockets they have to do it. But then the women who are aspiring and looking at those women as role models as they go into that position are then getting burnt or scorned because they're then seeing that to be a successful woman, you have to be bitchy, cut off, and everything else. And just to be crystal clear, I am not saying that that's a woman's fault at all. It's born from a discrimination from men to women. But there has to be a level or a point where a mechanism is in place or a realization is in place where one men grow up and realize that actually women are equal and have the same, if not more, to contribute. That's point number one. And numero uno, that's what's gonna happen first. But then women also, because they've been conditioned to behave that way, will then have to realise that they no longer need to behave that way because men have changed their attitude. This is in a utopia world, right? Yeah, but then they'll need to reflect more on how they represent themselves as role models to other younger women or other women who are working their way up to become those leaders. And that, even just saying that, it's just scared the crap out of me because I've got two daughters, I've got a 19-year-old and a 13-year-old, and they already face their own challenges in life because of the fact that one they're female and two, there's various other bits and pieces. But then when you're fighting your own allies, yeah, absolutely. That's a that's a hostile place to be, that.

Siobhan:

Yeah, yeah. It's a systemic thing, it's not an easy fix for sure.

Andy:

Yeah, and then I mean, this kind of goes on to the science of influence, doesn't it? So studies show that confident women leaders who use decisive language are 33% more likely to be respected. So that statistic for me demonstrates that women are adapting and they are utilising the right mechanisms to be heard and seen, albeit that it's unfair that they should have to do that and they should just be able to present themselves as themselves. So it reinforces your point earlier about female-led women-owned business or women-led business, and then businesses that have that dynamic right about the increase in productivity and everything else, which is quite kind of bittersweet for me because it just means I can sit back and laugh at all of these male-dominated businesses who are struggling and just go, you morons. Like, why are you not thinking more diverse? And actually, if I can take you off on a sidetrack, yeah, go for it. There's a case study with a profiling tool where they went into a construction company. So the construction company, multinational, international, multi-billion pound organization, right, got hold of this consulting firm or this profiling tool, and they said, Right, we've got a problem. We are struggling to define our five, ten-year business plan.

Siobhan:

Yeah.

Andy:

And we need to understand why we're struggling to do it. And it was a board of 12, 11 men, one woman. And they were quite brutal. They didn't even hide it. Like in the exposure that the team had to this organization, you could see the disdain that this woman was the token woman on the board and the DEI tick box exercise and sit in the corner, shut your mouth, and say nothing kind of attitude. Anyway, they profiled the board, and it turned out that the reason that they couldn't think strategically is because they weren't strategic thinkers, which you kind of need if you're in leadership and you're going to build a strategy, right? Duh. And then the Piesta Resistance came when they profiled the female exec and she had the highest possible strategy score you can get. There you go. Now, because they've been discriminating discriminating against her because she was a woman, she wasn't able to make her impact and contribution. Therefore, she was ignored, therefore the business was failing. That is a classic example of where this group of male execs that dismiss women are actually cutting their own noses off because of some stupid whatever it is in their head that make them discriminate. Anyway, the upshot was that when they had a fairly stern talking to from the consultants that delivered the workshop, they then recognised that input and then started to elevate her. Now, this is the this is the is it an oxymoron or the irony of the situation was that wound me up even more because then she was in a position where she was allowed to fly, but she was only being allowed to do it because she was. A strategic thinker, in spite of being a woman.

Siobhan:

Yeah.

Andy:

And that made my blood boil. And I was sat there going, just leave. Leave the organization. Go and find an organization that will respect you as a woman and allow you to be a strategic thinker and live your, and I I hate this expression, it just sounds so but your true self. Don't stick around by these 11 morons that are just sitting there going, Oh, she's a woman, but I suppose we've got to let her be strategic because otherwise the business is gonna fail. Because that's such a loaded motive. Anyway, so yeah, so that's the point. So it's it's just yeah.

Siobhan:

Because it's something that you hear a lot of, but that that is a real kind of you can grab hold of it example, you can see it coming to life in a very practical way. It's not just talk. This is actually you can see how it plays out.

Andy:

And it turned the business round, like it made a real difference. So they got the success they wanted for, right? But I it's still that bittersweet for me. I was still so annoyed that it that she just felt. I don't know how she felt because I didn't speak to her about it, but I'm and I'm making an assumption, but I I was just it's the justice thing in ADHD. It's this thing around a sense of injustice of she's only being allowed to do this because she's a strategic thinker, and there is this attitude of yeah, but she's still a woman, even though they weren't demonstrating that behaviour. They were only I know how to word it, they were only not giving her shit as a woman because she actually could give them something that none of them could do, yeah, which is so unequal and a non-level pain field, you know. Anyway, I'm gonna stop because I'm getting really round off about it now.

Siobhan:

It is frustrating though, it really is.

Andy:

Yeah, and I think and and this is where the understanding and appreciation of others. When I meet people, I don't look at them as male or female or black or white, straight or gay. And and the more I say that to people and the more weird looks I get, it's like, okay, I'm beginning to be able to get people's measure on their attitude towards differences to them, right? So members and all this stuff. But I re this is why I've struggled all my life with things like the gender discrimination that my mum experienced and then racial discrimination that my cousins experience. It's because the concept of penalizing or discriminating against anybody is so alien to me. It just doesn't make sense. Look, I'm not, and again, I'm not trying to paint out like I'm a martyr on anything special. What I'm saying is that surely this is just the way everybody should be.

Siobhan:

Yeah, you just you just need to look at the person in front of you as the person in front of you, whatever they might look like or come from and things like that. I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? Because one of the things is is knowing I want to be respected as a woman. You know, I've got friends from different ethnic ethnicities, and they want to be recognized from that ethnicity because it's part of their identity. And that's another thing you can see it almost goes too far the other way, where it's like, you know, I don't see any differences. Well, we are different. But the thing is it's seeing it's seeing the value of those differences and actually seeing the person within that. What makes that person that person? Why is it you like that person, you know, and then you and then you just see that person, you don't see they're short or white or woman or male, you just see that's my friend, or whatever it might be. That's the way where you want to get to, isn't it? Or my colleague.

Andy:

That's an interesting point because that was a challenge that I so I was talking about neurodiversity at one point, and somebody made a challenge, and I said, I just see everybody as themselves. Effectively, the words I use were the same. And I said, Yeah, but we're not, we're all different. And it was a correction point for me because actually, one of the things that makes me so excitable is whenever I meet someone new and you had this experience, I'm like Tigger. Somebody said to me once, you're like a vacuum, and you stick and you suck as much information out of them as you can because you're excited to learn about that person, which I thought was an amazing analogy. Yeah, yeah. Um so, and the reason I'm like that is because there is no predictability in meeting someone new.

Siobhan:

No, you don't know where it's gonna go.

Andy:

Unless you allow the stereotype generalizations to kick in. So, oh, I'm gonna go and meet a woman, or I'm gonna go and meet a black person, or I'm gonna go and meet somebody who's gay, whatever that is. I never do that. I just get I'm like, yeah, t Tigger is a nickname that now more than ever makes sense for me because I'm just about people, it's ridiculous.

Siobhan:

But you make a good point though, I think the whole point is is curiosity, isn't it? Yeah, genuinely interested in what that person has to offer, whether it's knowledge, fun, you know, whatever companionship, whatever it might be. If you're coming at it from a I'm genuinely interested in you and your life, because we we and my husband joke all the time, how even with some of our friends, quite often people will talk a lot about themselves and won't we'll leave, they're going, Well, nobody asked me how work's going or how the kids are. Nobody's asked. And it doesn't matter, you know, what what you are. Sometimes you just think it's it's just nice to be asked sometimes. So coming from the relationships of actually, I'm genuinely curious about you, then I think you can't go wrong, really.

Andy:

No, you can't, except, and and I'm not gonna go down this this rabbit hole, but we'll have it as a slight tiny diversion. This is why I wrote an article about the intensity of relationships with ADHD, because and again, you know me well enough that our boundaries are well defined, and we never cross those, and we I don't think we really ever get anywhere near them just because we're two decent people that communicate well and we get on really well. But there is a real problem with the interpretation of somebody's intensity in a situation. Now I can be really intense, especially if somebody really excites me, and I'm not talking about for the morons out there that interpret it as a so I met a guy going back, this is going back seven or eight years, a guy called Peter Blexley. Now, some of our audience will know who he is, others won't. Anybody in the policing and law enforcement community absolutely will know who he is. He is the guy who founded the first undercover unit in the Metropolitan Police and therefore in the UK. This guy was also the chief on the TV show Hunted, so he led the hunters to find the fugitives. Now, for those of you that aren't familiar with the TV show, the concept is that basically you get a group of people go on the run for 30 days, and there's a team of intelligence and law enforcement specialists and military specialists who have to find them using all of the current practices of our real law enforcement services to find them. So that could be things like mobile phone tracking, bank account checking, CCTV, surveillance, AMPR, like loads of real James Bond magic shit, all really awesome stuff. Anyway, I, for one reason or another, which I'm not going to bore you with, basically spoke to quite a few of the participants of the first two or three series of Hunted on a research project I was working on, and I've made some really good friends off the back of it. Peter is one of those people who, as a, as a man, as an individual, and as a professional, I hugely admire. He's done a number of documentaries about racism in the police, about the Brixton riots, about being an undercover operative and the risks and the dangers, the damage to his mental health, the danger it put his family through. So this is a really interesting person. This this guy's got a phenomenal amount of insight into life policing, crime, drugs, you name it, because being undercover, they have to get involved in all that stuff. And I did, he and I arranged to meet in a pub in London, and for the first time in as long as I can remember, I was bricking it about meeting this bloke. Because in my head, I was like, don't be yourself because he'll just get up and walk out of the pub because barraging him with questions and my god and all this kind of stuff. And uh it's it was such an intense conversation, but I was really lucky because his energy or his energy for impact as measured by the GC index is similar to mine, so he got me. Right. So we were sat in this pub drinking a couple of pies, talking about all kinds of really random, wacky ideas and stuff he did in the police and my experiences and everything else. And the main reason I went to see it, which I'm not going to go into. And I came out the back of it feeling hugely relieved, but I also sat there thinking, my god, if that had been anybody else whose energy for impact had been implementer, for example, they'd have probably called the police and gone, please get this weirdo away from me because it's that. So that's the point it's the intensity of relationships for anybody, it's not just necessarily neurodivergent, neurotypical, but different people hold different values in relationships, and that is a hurdle in and of itself, especially if you're somebody like me who's really intense, because our intensity is often misunderstood. So especially generalizing again, guys look at me and they're like, Yeah, he's a little bit weird, a little bit off the wall, a little bit soft. I'm not really sure what to make of him. And women generally think, is he trying to get in my pants? Like, why is he so kind, so attentive, so yeah, focused on me or curious about me? What is it about him? Why is he doing that? Now I understand why those questions are asked. It's it's personal preservation and safety, right? I get it completely. I hasten to add that I'm rarely ever, if ever, seen as that weird guy. It's never a sexual threat weirdness, it's just what's his motive question being asked.

Siobhan:

Yeah, you're not one of those people that I have as a HR person where it's like, you need to be careful in the room with that guy.

Andy:

No, no, no, thank no, no, categorically not. I mean, for clarity on it, there's an art I'll link it in the show notes, but there's an article I wrote on LinkedIn about the intensity of friendships. But I think it's important in this context that that's another point that we make is that actually different people, we're all different, and our levels of investment into anything are all different, and our interests and excitement about things are all different. So going back to your original point, I don't see everybody as the same. Our equality is in that everyone is different, so there is there should be no measure. So the stereotypical measure is a straight white middle-aged male who's able-bodied.

Siobhan:

Yes, absolutely.

Andy:

That's not the measure. The measure should be an alien from outer space with 20 legs, 15 different colours, and we don't know their gender or sexual orientation or religious beliefs. That's what the normal benchmark should be to illustrate how different we all are to each other.

Siobhan:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Andy:

That was a bit of a sidetrack on that.

Siobhan:

So, but you're right, you're right. It's hard, and we see with some of the tools we use, like the GC index for as an example, where you can get people with a similar profile. Most I've never seen two the same, so. And when they are similar, but they very different people, and you can see how these things play out because of the interaction with each of them. So it you're right, and that's why I struggle a little bit with um some personality profiles where they just stick people in a box. It's like, well, you guys are all the same. You all you all behave in the same way. We might have some similar traits, but that's probably about it.

Andy:

We're gonna save this one for another podcast.

Siobhan:

Have DSL conversations.

Andy:

The MBTI theory that people are either introverted or extroverted really winds me up. We're actually ambivalts, so we're both. It depends on the environment you put us in as to which one we perform at. And the other thing is going back to what you were saying just now, I profiled a mate of mine recently on the GC Index, and their profile is identical to mine, but their way they do stuff is very different. And it validates, it validates the process rather than invalidates it, because it goes to prove that even if a characteristic is the same, so you and I are both white, but that doesn't mean we're the same person. And it's all about the conversation and the feedback and the review of the GC index profile that actually personalises what, in our example, being white means, and what your being white means and what my being white means is completely different because there are so many other variables in it.

Siobhan:

And actually, you made me think going back to the original point, we've done our classic and gone off on a tangent around communication. Because when I'm coaching women, and it tends to be, I tend to coach a lot of other HR people and a lot of women who are in senior roles, it's finding your voice, and that's what we tend to look through. And I think that's the key thing here. Like we were saying, how you can get two people, but they approach things in a very different way. It's it's having that learning and opportunity to find out what is my voice. So then you have a natural assertiveness because you're confident in how you're delivering things, and I think that's sometimes where the lack of assertives comes from, is because you're trying to play a role sometimes, or masking things, or this is what how things are done here, so this is how people communicate here, so that's how I'm gonna try and communicate. It's getting to that point of not no yeah, yes. I don't want to go as far as saying you mean your authentic self in work because I, for example, like to have a bit of a barrier. I don't, I'm not like I'm not at work, I'm not the same as I am with my kids, for example. I do have a different, a different way about me, and I'm I'm happy with that as long as it's as long as it's aligned to my values. But it's knowing, and sometimes this comes with age, is knowing, okay, what do I have to say? What's important to me to say it and how I say it, and finding my own voice to be assertive, and that's the bit I think we need working on for females, especially, with men too, to be fair, they've got some male clients and and it's a similar sort of theme quite often, but especially with women, it's like, what is your voice?

Andy:

You know, I'm conscious of time, but you've just reminded me of something that had a profound impact on me. So I worked for a really inspirational female leader at LV Insurance, and I can name them because this is that they're deserving of what I'm about to say. They are a progressive, game-changing organization, so they enable everybody through their values and they live their values. They're not just written on a bit of paper in some employee handbook. They act, you can see it and feel it. It's tactile every single day. And my line manager at LV, when I started working there, I was broken. So I came out of the police, I had PTSD life trauma going on, all kinds of stuff, which we'll go into at some point in another podcast. I was a mess and I needed a job I could do with my eyes shut. So I applied to work as a call center advisor. So answering phone calls from insurance customers, motor, home, and travel, servicing their policies, right? So it was it was stuff I could do with my eyes shut because it was stuff I did before I went into law enforcement. Working in call centres, it's the same principle, same science. And after about six weeks, she came over to me. She was the sales and service manager, so she came over and she said, We've got a team leader role coming up. I want you to apply for it. Now I was gobsmacked because that was the first time in my career that anybody had ever approached me and said, I want you to apply for something. Wow, okay. So I applied for the role, got the role out of nine or ten final applicants of which all of the others had worked in the call center for a number of years and been on development programs to get to lead team leadership roles, that kind of stuff.

Siobhan:

Yeah.

Andy:

Because there's this random bloke that's just come in six weeks and he's being promoted. And I developed a really close working relationship with her over the four or five years I was there. Anyway, one of the conversations I had with her was around confidence because she was great. She advocated me around the business, she got me involved in all kinds of projects from fraud, marketing, comms, underwriting, claims, like loads and loads of experience all around the business. And I didn't realise at the time, but she was doing it to help me recover and get self-confidence and self-esteem back. She knew me inside out, she knew me better than I knew myself. And she was quite often criticized for protecting me when I screwed up. Her attitude towards me was look, if you cock something up, as long as it's not gross misconduct, we'll deal with it. And as long as you don't make the same mistake again, then you've learned from it, you've moved on, then fine, right? I sat talking to her one afternoon and I said to her, How do you do it? And she said, What do you mean? And I said, Everybody in this building looks at you as being this amazing, confident, strong, independent woman. And I said, and and this is slightly out of context, but because I this is how well I knew her. And I said, and effectively I said to her, You present that, but based on our professional friendship, I know that you've got struggles in your life and everything else. And I was struggling at the time because I'd gone through a relationship breakup, which is the context around why this came up, because I needed a coping mechanism, and I could see she was doing it. I wanted to know how I could do it. And she said, Andy, it's easy. She said, When I get up in the morning, I sit in front of the mirror and I do my makeup. And while I'm doing my makeup, I think about Hollywood actresses.

Siobhan:

Yeah.

Andy:

And I pick a persona and I'm that person for the day. And then whatever happens in the day, whatever insult or challenge that's thrown at me, it's not at me, Karen, it's at whichever Hollywood actress it is that she's chosen to be. But it empowered her to assume a confidence as well, whilst fake or false, not fake, that's the wrong word, but false. That actually enabled her to network and have the credibility across the business she did. That for me goes back to what you were saying about having boundaries in place, not being completely open, but using your ability to act, but not in a deceptive way, that enables you to exist in any given day to do any given task, but be authentic. And that's the point here. You don't have to be completely open and vulnerable to be authentic, but you also don't have to be closed off hard as nails and obnoxious to be authentic. And she found that balance. She's a particularly powerful figure in my personal development, and she is also the person who probably saved me from myself when I was going through Helen back. She sadly passed away. Well, that was the reason I left LV. So she passed away within the last six months of me working there. She had epilepsy, she had an accident and passed away. And I couldn't stay there after that. That crucified me. But it's a testament to that organization because that was whilst Karen was unique, and I mean unique, their ethos around encouraging leadership to adapt and behave that way was remarkable in their values. And LV will always be a brand that I will look to with incredibly fond memories of how they handled somebody who was so broken, and that was because I had the right manager. And I came out the back of it a far better, more rounded, more aware person than when I went in. But as I say, that illustrates your point around the levels of authenticity and how much you expose as an individual, especially as a woman in a male-dominated environment, where you've got this risk of being discriminated against. And it also reinforces your point around the diverse management teams of businesses, because Karen was the sales and service. How was she sales and service manager? Sales and service manager, and then Holly was her line manager, female, and then their boss was male, but all of the management within the call center structure were female. In Bristol, Croydon, Bournemouth, I think there were probably only 10-15% that were male. And I noticed the difference because I worked in call centres previously where it was all male-dominated. Very different culture, very competitive, toxic environments. And the value that they brought from an emotional perspective, as well as productivity and commercial. So again, we're talking soft skills, made the business what it is, and it left little old me walking away from the business heartbroken. I was walking away, but with that lifelong respect for that business and that brand at that time, because they behaved the way they did, and they were predominantly female led. So that illustrates your point. So yeah, I think I think his insight that senior leaders need to shut up and wind their necks in and actually pay attention to, that ultimately there's no place for misogyny at the top, but at the top, and if we're putting women in a position out of all of the above we've discussed today, then it's a much bigger, more serious problem. And as men in leadership roles, we need to sit down and have a pretty stern word with ourselves because if we're stifling the future people like Karen or Holly or Zoe or you know whoever else from LV and people you've experienced, and we're putting them in a position where they become perceivably toxic amongst their own gender, that is a messed up world we're living in, which is the reality of it.

Siobhan:

Sadly, it is. And we haven't even talked about the motherhood bit yet, so that's definitely gonna have to be another episode.

Andy:

Yeah, it is. I think what we'll do though is so that's that was the piece that Jasmine messages was that was one of five she sent in. So I think we'll do a mini Jasmine series. Yeah, isn't it? What if we could just it's so difficult, isn't it? Because of all the stuff that's going on with America where people are getting rid of DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion stuff. We might have to come back to you with a what if on that because it's such a potential big one. But I think what we really need to be thinking about is given the world is the way it is, how do we support women in enabling themselves in that environment and reducing the stress levels? And what do we do more importantly to educate men to understand that there is an extra layer of stress when it comes to being assertive as a leader for a woman going back to what we were talking about around cortisol and the differences in testosterone and stress hormones?

Siobhan:

What if what if we did all go backwards? It because it feels a little bit like we are going a bit backwards at the minute. So what if it did go backwards where the Western world becomes like other? It still happens in some nations where you know women can't work, or you go back to the olden days, women don't have a voice. I mean, we would already in America you're seeing women losing their medical freedoms. What if it does go backwards? What impact now? If that happened, I think my take on it is a bit like when the Roman Empire fell. So if you go somewhere like Pompeii or Rome, I'm going a bit off on the tangent here now, but if you go to somewhere like Pompeii and Rome and you see they had underfloor heating and central heating and all this amazing technology, then you're like, hold on a minute, then a few hundred years later we're back in mud huts again. What happened? I feel like we're it is happening again. I think we're having a bit of a reset, like we're going backwards to go forwards, which is scary as hell. But if we can go forwards, if it resets some things and we end up with more equality as a result of it, that maybe is needed. But at the moment I'm a bit scared. Yeah.

Andy:

Yeah, and so my brain's caught up. I see what you're saying. I I actually think a reset is a good thing, but to clarify, I don't agree with what's being said at the moment. I think we've gone so far down this path of men are testosterone-driven leaders and women are just there to do their job that that whilst rightly we've got individuals, organisations, politicians, whoever fighting the fight, it's not demonstrably not being heard given what the US government are doing at the moment. So I think we almost have to sink into a point of anarchy where we create such a divide that something more powerful is done in support of women and by women. And then there's a I can't think what a surname in there's a surname is there's a lady called Charlotte on LinkedIn who talks a lot about challenges that women face that men don't even consider. So walking down the street at night, if you're walking behind her as a bloke, just think about the fact you're probably scaring the hell out of her, even if that's not your intent. Yeah. Yeah, and and we'll look at that because we'll look at that post she did because it was a really powerful post. And I'll put her name in the show notes and a link to the post so people can look at it. But the point that she makes, and I had the pleasure of talking to her afterwards because I was so inspired by what she wrote. I got in touch with her and just said, I need to talk to you, and we had a conversation. The point that she made, which is one I've heard before but is so powerful, is women can't change this. The misogyny thing, women can't change it. It has to be men driving the change, calling things out, and standing up for women. 100% agree because I see it. I see it in my daughter's lives, I see it in my wife's life, I see it in friends' lives. And I've got to the point where there are times where I've put myself at professional risk, sticking up for it. Sounds so wrong saying it, doesn't it? Sticking up for women, like what? But do you know what I mean? Advocating or challenging behaviours that if there's only a handful of guys out there doing it, it's not gonna work. It needs to be every single bloke who isn't a misogynist needs to be challenging this. And then what will end up happening is those that are misogynists will end up being alienated by society. This is how society works, and they'll either die a misogynist and very lonely, or they'll realize, or something will trigger in their heads where they'll realize and change will start to happen. But you have to alienate those individuals. And I'm talking about high-level misogynists, not people that are misguided or you know, have had whatever influences that they haven't. Misogyny fueled by ignorance. I'm not referring to that, I'm referring to proactive misogynists, people like Andrew Tate and people like that. But they need to be alienated from society to be changed. Everybody else can be changed.

Siobhan:

I think to your point, actually, one of the good things that comes out of people like Andrew Tate is it makes men notice who men who maybe who aren't misogynists but haven't really appreciated the the disparity with men and women or some of the things that women go through. They just haven't noticed, you know, because they haven't needed to. They are noticing. And that's what we need to happen. So that could be a positive that comes out of some of this stuff, couldn't it? Yeah, I hope so. Positive spin on it. I hope so. Some men wake up.

Andy:

There we go. Well, we'll see. And it's the same, and it's not just around sexism, it's around racism, it's around, you know, gender, gender discrimin, uh sorry, sexual orientation, discrimination, all that kind of stuff. But it's the same principle that applies across the board. It's got to be called out. It has to be called out. Right. Well, I think we got pretty much the end of our podcast now. So yeah, we're gonna have to pick up the other four for Jasmine in a mini-series, which we'll have to figure out. You see, we kind of knew that we'd end up going down rabbit holes and stuff, but we chalked out an hour to talk about five topics and we covered one.

Siobhan:

So what were we thinking?

Andy:

Well, that's it for this episode of Why Not and What If, where the conversations get messy, magical, and a little bit rebellious. If it made you think, laugh, or rage text you mate, jump done. That's all we're here for. Got a topic you think we should dive into? Drop us a line and let's talk about why not? What if don't come? Seriously, your ideas you're don't forget to follow, subscribe, channel, and your WhatsApp, we've got to be updated,

Head Shot

Andy Cracknell

Co-host
Head Shot

Siobhan Godden

Co-host