International Women’s Day is a global event celebrating the achievements of women. This year it was also a call to action to accelerate women’s equality and encourage people across the globe to #BreakTheBias. This year's International Women's Day took place against the dreadful backdrop of events in eastern Europe and highlighted the plight of women in the conflict. 

The ABSTRACT team have been actively involved in a number of events for IWD this year:

• Andy Nicol and Sue Liburd MBE DL hosted an ABSTRACT virtual event where Sue provided fresh perspectives, inspired us with what is in her ‘Bag of Aspirations’ and helped attendees re-imagine what’s possible. Sue encouraged participants to get comfortable with being uncomfortable by listening and speaking to people with opposing views, and also encouraged open-dialogue by making the sometimes unconscious more conscious. Sue explained how taking small actions can cumulatively lead to big changes in results. Sue also delivered a presentation on this topic at the University of Lincoln.

• ABSTRACT Founder and MD, David Nikolich, was a guest for an interesting and insightful panel discussion at the Chartered Banker Institute’s ‘Break the Bias’ webcast, alongside panel chair Jo Murphy and some leading industry experts. David stressed the importance of leaders and managers displaying their visible commitment to breaking the bias and how organisational culture is only as good as the worst behaviour you are willing to tolerate.

• Anne Clarke delivered an IWD themed event for Women at Tesco Bank on Building Your Personal Brand in a blended working environment, providing practical actions for career development. Sarah Furness hosted an IWD panel event for Sopra Steria. We also published this deliberatively provocative article by Sarah on What Can Women Learn from Men about Empathetic Leadership?

The expertise and wisdom of our NED, Sue Liburd, has been particularly in demand. This is what Sue had to say about International Women’s Day:

"This week many of us have been celebrating International Women’s Day. It has been an opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. To discuss our gendered biases and explore ideas on how we can accelerate change. The theme this year was breaking the bias. There is no doubt about the importance of bias and the role it plays in our lives. In the discussions where I played a part, we moved beyond the rhetoric of making bias normatively bad, and asked deeper questions about gender, diversity, inclusion. Men are not the gold standard against which women and minorities should continue to be measured. Sharing aspirations this week I have laughed, been thoughtful, emotionally moved, felt connected and been inspired by possibility. I thank the diverse groups of people from all genders with whom I’ve spent time." (1)

Amongst the wave of positive social media coverage for IWD and support by individuals and organisations, I also picked up some frustrations by some that positive intent and themed events have to be backed up by meaningful action. For example, I noticed on Twitter a campaign by an organisation that was re-tweeting corporate IWD posts together with a simple brief summary of their actual gender pay gap. For some, to use an old banking term, words and figures differed.

At ABSTRACT we aim to help organisations turn their positive intent into meaningful and impactful action, to build modern organisations fit for today’s social objectives. We have created our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Client Introductory Pack to share our philosophy and approach to successfully embedding ED&I behavioural change within an inclusive working environment.

More details will follow but get in touch at info@abstractuk.co.uk if you would like to receive a copy of our pack or to arrange a consultation. 

References:

(1) These thoughts were initially shared through Black Leaders UK, a collaboration of Black professionals and allies from corporates, education, civil service and communities volunteering to deliver black inclusion.