the bossbabe podcast - 145. How to Develop A Positive Culture in Your Business with Charlene Brown

Episode Date: January 21, 2021

What exactly is “company culture”? Join BossBabe Co-Founder & President Danielle Canty and special guest Charlene Brown as they pull back the curtain on what company culture is, and why culture, values, and honest conversations are vital to your company success. To join us live on our training to learn how to make six figures in 2021: https://bossbabe.com/join-six-figure-2021 To join us in The Société, our membership for female entrepreneurs, click here: http://bossbabe.com/connectbuildgrow Follow:  BossBabe: @bossbabe.inc Danielle: @daniellecanty

Okay, before we dive in, I have to let you know that the Society is officially open for enrolment. The Society is the place for female entrepreneurs to connect, build and grow. And if you want to work alongside me, Danielle and so many other experts in 2021 to make sure that you hit your massive goals then this is the place for you we created it because we wished it existed when we started out on our journeys we were so incredibly lonely and finding each other and being able to come together and learn from mentors who've been there and done that has been a real game changer so we wanted to create the place where you could come and find your business bestie, where you can learn from experts who've been there and done it before, and where you can get coaching

on anything that's stopping you or blocking you on hitting those goals. So we're open for enrollment and something that I want to let you know is we are making some big changes to the society and it is coming back bigger and better than ever when we reopen. And with that, we are going to have a brand new price tag and it's going to be significantly higher than the cost right now. So this really is your last chance to get in at this price. We're going to be raising the price a lot because the value we're going to be giving is going to be tripled. It's going to be so much bigger and better

than it always has been. So we're really excited to be making all of these changes. And as it stands, the society is already an amazing, amazing program with over $52,000 worth of value that you get for $35 a month. It's crazy. So if you're ready to get in and you're ready to make 2021 the year that you hit those massive goals, and you want to do it alongside me, Danielle, and some amazing other mentors, then all the info is

below in the show notes for you, all the links that you need, or you can head to bossy.com forward slash membership. I cannot wait to see you in there. As soon as you join, come on into the Facebook group and introduce yourself. With that, let's dive in. Communicating change has to be honest. It has to be authentic. It has to be transparent. There are things that you should share and there is so much more that probably doesn't need to be shared. And I think it needs to be timely because the worst thing, trust, is eroded when people feel like you've not valued them. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance and learning how to balance it all. I'm Daniela Canty, co-founder and president of Boss Babe and your host for this week's episode.

Now for all my fellow female entrepreneurs that are looking to scale their teams, this episode right now is for you because we are talking about what is needed to carefully curate a positive company culture. Now in this episode we are going deep into what actually company culture is, why have a good company culture and the values and honest conversations that are vital to really set your company up for success. Now within our team at Boss Babe something that I'm so so glad that Natalie and I did right from the very start was create company values and over the last few years of building this brand and our team, having these values to reference has really served us and allowed us to hire the right people

that align best with these values. And this has actually been the foundation for us really developing our company and the culture that surrounds that. So in this episode, we have invited in an expert in people intelligence and company culture. And that's why I'm really, really excited to have her on as a guest today. Her name is Charlene Brown. She is a lawyer, activist, and founder of people intelligence agency, Howlett Brown, and is driven to help companies develop positive company cultures where their people are actually their priority and in this conversation she is actually pulling back the curtain on what company culture is and why culture values and honest conversations like I said are vital for your company's success

and within this Charlene is actually sharing some really practical tips and tricks on how to create your own company culture so that you can build an equitable practices and allow your teams to have honest conversations with you and each other. So sit back, grab your notepad and pen and listen up to learn the personality tests we use in hiring within our organization, the importance of company values and how to create them and the best ways to communicate change in your organization. So all the ins and outs for you guys to end up with a really, really positive team. As always, my last request is to request that you share your biggest takeaways with myself at Danielle Canty and at bossbabe.inc. A boss babe is unapologetically

ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. Welcome to the Boss Babe Podcast, Shaleen. We are so excited to have you here. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Now, we've known each other for a little while via Boss Babe, which is really cool. Yeah, really, really cool. We have a little, I'm not quite sure how long now, I think maybe a couple of years?

Yeah, about two and a half years. And I know that you're part of the society and you've done our courses and you are doing amazing things. And more recently, you have built a people intelligence company. And I would love for you to tell us a little bit about what that is, because it's an unusual title. Sure. You know, you're right. It's absolutely an unusual title. People intelligence is if you think about, you know, you've got businesses that focus on business intelligence, telling you like trends, behaviors, how markets are moving, things that people should, if they're going into business, be aware of, where people intelligence is the same, but it's focused on people. So it looks at behaviors, it looks at practices, it tries to really help organizations understand their people and align that understanding

and that culture with their business practices. And the whole focus is to help organizations do what they're supposed to do in terms of build a successful business, but also make sure that their integrity, their culture, and all of those elements that are focused on their people thrive at the same time. I absolutely love that because I really believe that people make an organization like I know we would not be here without the amazing women and men that support team boss babe and so I love that I think it's just like makes common sense when you say it like we've had business intelligence companies supporting other businesses for so long and so why not take better care of our people so what

made you get into this? So by background I an employment lawyer. I spent many years working in big corporates and big law firms advising businesses, different industries, different types of sectors on their employment issues. And at the same time, I was helping those organizations wearing a different hat with their issues and just passion for diversity and inclusion, how they can ensure that their practices are equitable and fair. But when you look around, you don't see the two align very well, or at least organizations or businesses provide services that do both at the same time. And so I could see the real synergy on if you understand the people and the culture and you're helping build equitable

practices that make it fair for everybody, then why can't you align that to the advisory type of work that you do? And that's really why my business came about, because we really wanted to try and blend all of these different specialisms that do benefit and complement a people intelligence, a positive people culture. And so we kind of pulled that together so I will have my legal hat and I have my culture hat and also I'm an activist by heart in terms of fairness just by virtue of my own background my own ethnicity and the opportunities I've had and it just makes for a great combination and also just fulfills all my passions and everything that I want to do in terms of my career. I love that as well and I love you know you've done training

as far as within the society and with our communities and the passion that comes through for you, I think is really, really important. And it's like part of the culture that you're building with your own company as well. Now, speaking of culture, I just really want to touch on this before we kind of go into the rest of the interview, because for me, a lot of businesses underrate the importance of a carefully curated culture. It's something that we at Boss Babe take really seriously and have been very intentional right from the beginning of the culture that we want to create. How would you describe culture generally? Like what is culture? Because I know a lot of people will be listening and they might be just starting their businesses or they might be

an entrepreneur or an employee of another business. And so how would you describe culture? I think to put it simply, I would say culture is your company lifestyle, right? So how you behave, what you do, who you talk to, the way you talk to people, what's accepted, what's not, what's really within the realms of regular kind of communication, all of those things. And so I think for Team Boss Babe, it's amazing that you guys were focusing on that from the get-go. And it's the same that we're doing at Howlett Brown. We really want to make sure that our culture is right. I think it gets harder the larger your organization gets. And often I think businesses face off between culture,

the practices for their people versus market share, market dominance, growth, scale, even to some extent, regulation law, because all of these things inform the behaviors and the lifestyle of their business. So if you're a regulated entity or you're a business that you have to have additional licenses for to do your work, they set a mandate, a particular type of behavior that you should follow. and all of that feeds into that company lifestyle and what and how you do it i think that's really important like you say that mandate and i think that like you said sometimes depending if they're regulated or not or the type of business and you have to be a little bit more intentional again about the culture but some things

that we've really done is like you know right from the get-go and I alluded to this earlier and I think anyone starting businesses this is really important whether you have like like you say it's hard as you grow but I think if you start with that good foundation is super important so for us when we started Boss Babe we literally one of the first things we did when even it was just Natalie and I we created company values like okay what does Boss Babe stand for internally and externally and so that's always been like a really important synergy that we've had. So whether that being from, okay, one of our values is being passionate. You have to be passionate about female empowerment and females like building wealth of women. And we want to be detail orientated.

And so really just like having those values go across like, okay, externally, but also internally and hiring and firing on those values has been really important for us as well just being like okay like does this person like have the same values that we have and if they don't they're not a great fit I think that's really been key for us another thing that we've done as well which I guess is much easier when you're super small but even like as you grow I think it's good practice within teams is we're kind of obsessed with personality tests like because what we do is like we understand like Natalie and I know what types of personality

we are and it really helps us understand like the personalities of people in our team and like we've created a culture around not only understanding that, but also making sure we're intentional about helping people with their set personalities. So we know like, okay, if you did Enneagram and we know that your enthusiast number seven are different from the challenges in number eight. And we actually recently did a training and we had somebody come in and talk about like Enneagrams and how people react differently. And she gave us this amazing task, which was like, okay, guys, we'll split you up into whichever number you're at. So you know your number previously going in, she'd done a test. And depending on which number you are, she split us into groups. And she said, right, I want you to discuss what would happen if you built a house, like what role you would take if

you were building house, then what you would put in the house, then what you would do if someone tried to burgle like burgle your house like rob your house right and these three set questions and so I was with all the threes Natalie she was all the eights and we had some other numbers there as well and we went away and then we came back and we had to share our answers and there was such a stark difference between the answers depending what personality type someone was I was just astounded actually I'm like oh this is why you respond the way you do and this is why I respond the way I do and for us really curating and protecting a culture was around acknowledging that we all have different ways of dealing with situations and that we're here to create an environment for

everybody to thrive but that it's important for everybody to understand not only where they come from but where other people come from so that we can protect that. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place so it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business you know. Get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible

I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students so if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial that's kajabi.com slash boss babe absolutely i couldn't agree more and i think i'm quite like you i love a personality test a lot of people think i'm quite strange but i just i find it fascinating i've done one you know like strengths finder where you look at the different like your top five strengths and how you build teams disc so, so many of them, I think they all give you different insights to yourself. And I see now, particularly with like my, the clients I have and the ones in my previous

role, they are deploying that type of learning and development so much more now to really understand. I guess I question though, for them, how much they focus on those stark moments of learning that you've just referred to I know it's very difficult to do that when you're you know when you're you're getting work thrown at you and you've got to focus or you have deadlines but this is the real importance of making sure that you build a positive and thriving culture it's making it as equal of priority as something else and that's one of the things that we really do. And I think we do it well. And that's really important to us in terms of the services we provide to our clients.

More often than not, with the types of work we do, there will be one predominant issue that a client might need assistance with. And it could be process. It could be a regulatory issue. But we don't forget the culture and the people element of that that might be attached, because if you ignore one, that will probably become a bigger issue later down the line or people get hurt or their position or expectation of the organization changes because issue or a matter equally all at the same time and devising a strategy on equal footing so that things don't get forgotten. And I think that's exactly how businesses need to look at their culture because you're right, you know, they need their people and their people spend more time there than they do anywhere else. And so they also need to be happy, right? And they need to feel like they're being fulfilled, whatever that is. I couldn't agree more. I genuinely used to be a full-on workaholic. No one asked me to, but I would literally work so many hours. So one thing I've really learned as I've kind of

gone through this journey, one, it's a marathon, not a sprint. And two, really recognizing that I'm more successful when I am mentally and physically looking after myself and so I think it's really easy for a lot of people to pile on the work either to themselves or their employees but like okay we have all these tasks to do we have this go go go go and once I think it's really important to make sure like a company is always moving forward it's innovating like it's staying on track I also think it's really important to question what you're doing and really focus on the needle moving tasks so that you actually do have space to think because like it's really important for not every position but like particularly those in any of the strategic

roles but to have thinking time and that's what we've been really carefully about curating in our culture is like okay going to those who are involved in the strategy like you need thinking time and if you are absolutely tired I want you to be saying to me, I need a day off just to rest a second, because I can't think as soon because when actually you take a step back, and I recently just took a couple of days off, and I came back with such much, so much more renewed energy, but I also had better ideas. I was like, Oh, hang on a minute, why are we doing these things this way, when we could switch it and do it in a completely different context. And I do think like, if you just always going going for like the bottom line if you're always going for all these tasks need to be completed because they need to be like for the sake of them being completed that's when ultimately a business

gets into trouble that's when your culture starts to suffer and people become tired and want to leave you know yeah 100% I couldn't agree more and I think the newer businesses that are more conscious around well-being and ethical business are just doing things the right way for them. I think they get culture and are able to bring their culture to the forefront of all of their strategy really, really well. I think it's harder for those historic, long-standing, you know, old industries and old businesses because things are ingrained in their practices, even procedures by which they get approval for stuff can sometimes not really support the culture. So it's a longer

work in progress, but I am completely with you. And something we're trying to employ in Howlett Brown as well, you know, we had some of our strategy sessions not too long ago when we're thinking about the growth of the company and we invited our staff to that session. And we just said like, you know, what do you want from an employer? We really, really want to hear from about the growth of the company. And we invited our staff to that session. And we just said, like, you know, what do you want from an employer? We really, really want to hear from you. We do not want to do things that negates a positive culture. Equally, though, I do need to practice what I preach because I am also a workaholic. So it's definitely a work in progress around balancing and making sure priorities around health and exercise and rest are all managed. But I'm very, I'm far more conscious of it now than I ever have been, I would say for myself personally and my team.

Yeah, I love that. And I want to just like flag three things really. One is I really agree with you asking employees, we have this saying, it's like ask, listen and learn. And we do that internally and externally. Because you know, whenever doing market research, like we're constantly asking, hey, like, what do you want to hear from us us who do you want to hear on the boss with podcast or you know what improvements would you like to see in the society right because you can guess as much as you want to but really when you include people in the decisions there's a lot of power in that and like i said i think that people do it a lot with market research externally but they forget to do it their own employees and sometimes i like always really passionate about creating the culture where you know I would rather people bring ideas to the

forefront and be okay with them not moving forwards and no one bring them forward at all so we're constantly asking like okay what are you doing that you think could be doing better like always ask yourself like okay I've been given this task but this doesn't really make sense I could be doing it way quicker in a different way so that's one thing I wanted to just highlight another piece is I know loads of listeners right now. They love all the details. And so I wanted just for us to share our favorite personality tests, because I know that's something that a lot of people will want to kind of go, okay, well, which ones can I do? Which ones should I get my employees to do? So which are your favorite, Charlene? I would say probably my

favorite have been, I would say DISC was probably my favorite above all, but the Gallup test, it's not kind of your traditional personality test, but what it does do is highlight your, there's two different models that highlight your top 30 strengths or your top five strengths. I think five is enough to digest and you wouldn't believe how accurate, I've done this test twice and you would not believe how accurate it was. And it does a lot in terms of, I guess, self-confirmation about who you are, what your passions are and where you're aligned. Interestingly, the very first time I did it was the first time I had a coach and she told me to do the test and I did the test and the first strength and they ranked them in order was, it was a strength called futuristic. And they defined it as an ability to have ideas, create new business innovation, and promote and encourage and

inspire other people to come along the journey with you. And then at the top of it, they don't have this bit anymore. But at the top of the test, they kind of give you an indication of what type of career you're in. What was astounding for me was not one of my strengths said I should have been a lawyer. So I had a bit of a meltdown the first time I did it. And I was like, oh, wait, what have I been doing these last 10 years? Anyway, but it was still fine. And then the second time around, futuristic came up again. But it was whilst I was evolving my mindset and really figuring out what mattered to me. And I realized like I love being a lawyer. I wouldn't change that for the world. And I wouldn't be able to do my business now if I wasn't a lawyer,

but at my heart, I am an entrepreneur. So I would say, and then you start to figure out what your strengths are and then what you're missing in terms of having a real solid team to progress. So I would say DISC number one is far more collaborative in terms of really understanding personalities. And then second is the Gallup Strengths Finder. I love those ones. I love Disc and Gallup too. The other ones I really like is, like I said, Enneagram, which I mentioned earlier, which is more a number, much more simple, but it is very interesting.

So there's nine numbers. So I'd check that one out. Then I also like Wealth Dynamic Test. Have you done that one before? No, I'm making a note now. My team's going to be like, what are you doing, doing Charlene this is one that's more aimed at entrepreneurs to really help you decide like what businesses should be great at growing but it really splits it up it's like a square and it splits up into different quadrants and you have different types of energies so you

probably heard of like steel energy dynamo energy blaze energy tempo energy and you can really see that on them and so we really like to make sure that we have like which is really interesting natalie and i are two points over from each other our first hire after that was two points over again for me and so it's been really interesting how we've actually found people got them to take the test and we're like oh yeah you fit into this role perfectly like and so you know how you're talking earlier about hiring on what your weaknesses are like really understanding what you're not good at and then then applying it to the next hire that's been really helpful for us and we've used wealth dynamic a few times and then the last one we do is Myers-Briggs that's more not necessarily so much actually there's two more that's not so much a business one I just think that's like really a good one to do and then the

last one actually I have do which I recommend in business is the Colby one and that will tell you like how people make decisions it has all kinds of things but one of the things I like it for is how people make decisions and how people like to organize things because often you'll get people who will literally jump into something two feet first and you need to know who those people are and then also you get those people who are more cautious and they take longer to make decisions because they like to cover all the bases. They make sure we dig into things a little bit more thoroughly.

So I think those are really good ones. But for us, like it's actually part of our interview process now. You know, we do our interviews and stuff and it's like, you know, we don't ask for those straight away but we're also really curious because it does tell us a lot. And for us, we always have this saying, you know,

we're interviewing the new candidate but the candidate's also interviewing us and we owe it to everybody to make sure the role is a good fit particularly for small businesses too and startups and so we really incorporate it into our process to be like oh yeah this is good this is good to know a little bit more about this person that may not have come across in an interview or an application form. Yeah that's so so important and I know a lot of companies now, no matter their size, are doing this as part of their recruitment. I wonder how thoughtful they are. Like Boss Babe clearly sounds incredibly thoughtful about the results and what that means and where people fit and how that person then is integrated into the team, which is then all about retention and how

people feel fulfilled in their role and stay. So I wonder how thoughtful bigger and larger organizations are. I think sometimes that can get lost, but definitely I see a massive increase in those types of tests just to be able to assess. One of the things I think, particularly on culture, which I'm not sure can be identified through a test, but it is something that requires thought and sensitivity as people are moving into new roles. And this is whomever you are, whether you're a manager or you're someone looking to come in. It's just understanding what really matters to an individual, the subtleties, some things you can't define or you can't get your hands around. It's almost like really trying to deepen your understanding about

what is priority for that person, what really matters. And some things are, for example, like we talked about boundaries, right? Others are to be inspired, to feel like the work that they're doing adds value to the world, depending on what it is. And so I think even with the test, I would always recommend that managers and whomever interviewing, they really take the time to get to know that person, right? Because they might find actually that they're a great person to join and they'll be incredible for the organization. Or they might realize, you know, this person has a huge ambition. This person is hungry to change the world. Our organization isn't there yet. So is it fair to bring that person in when all we will do is stifle that person and that's equally as important as it is yeah this is wonderful this person's super talented let's bring them in yeah I completely agree another one

actually that we just based on that not so much about aspirations because I do agree that is really important but getting to know those that you do decide to bring in is like how they feel seen and heard and it's not like a conventional one but there's the love languages test which you normally do with like relationships and partners but we get people to do it from a work aspect because it really tells us like some people are very much motivated by like if they've done well they want words of affirmation or if they've done well they want a gift which is more like you know either something nice or like a monetary value but it really allows you to see what people very much feel valued when

they get rewards and because like you say everyone's so different so when as managers or part of a team or as leaders we know that it means that i can actually do you know what i'm very much words of affirmation so natalie knows she's like oh like telling danielle she's done well it's gonna keep me happy yeah yeah versus hers is like acts of service so I'm like okay what can I support Natalie with it's gonna make her feel loved and seen in her role you know and so those are just really key points I think like the more you learn about people in your team the better so we've spoken about now like bringing people on and hiring and what's making good those hires but you touched on this earlier when you spoke about change and I feel like when you're in startups when you're

starting a business things change very very quickly and often people can be what's that word nervous around change or change can actually spark a response in someone that you didn't necessarily actually expect and so I'd love for you to share like ways to deal with change in a company whether it's big or small like how are best ways to communicate change? Yeah, it's interesting you ask that question because we, my business, Howlip Brown, we turned one yesterday. And so in our first year of trading, we've had so, so much change. What's really sad is that I forgot we turned one until about 9pm last night. And I was like, oh, we turned one and I need then to celebrate it. But it was because I was so in the zone with the work and enjoying it. And in that we've had lots of change. We've

had, you know, we've had quiet periods through wintry months. We've had, you know, fluctuations in terms of markets, in terms of the services that we provide. We've had people join, people leave. We've had COVID, you know, we're now in a recession here in the UK. Like, you know, all of those things, they definitely do their changes for an organization and a new business, particularly if you build a plan and you want to follow a plan. And then, you know, you're on your way to progressing that plan. And all of a sudden, something like COVID comes into play, which really can be make or break for many people's businesses and also them personally in terms of their lives and livelihoods and their families, right? And I think the best way to communicate change, and I'm thinking about my employment law hat here in terms of some of the things that I've advised on, let's say redundancies, for example, which are happening worldwide now as a result of recession and other things. Communicating change has to be honest. It has to be authentic. It has

to be transparent. Where you are still balancing your kind of legal profile or your risk, you know, there are things that you should share and there is so much more that probably doesn't need to be shared. And I think it needs to be timely because the worst thing, trust is eroded when people feel like you've not valued them. And if you don't feel part of the things that they don't feel valued about is when they're not spoken to in a timely manner about something that affects them. And so just being honest and just saying, you know, even if you don't know where the end is, just to say, this is where we are, this is what's happening. This is our commitment and this is what we're going to do.

And that could be anything from the business doing really well or not knowing if you're going to get new business in which means those people might not have a role in six months you know whatever the case may be it's being transparent it's being honest it's being timely and it's showing support for them as individuals as well as business leads. So important. I think being open communication is just such a powerful tool as well and to recognize that and the importance of that. So, so important. I mean, we see at the moment, you know, we see there's, if we look at the reemergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, there has been such divergent views, polarizing views from individuals, no matter which way you look at

what this movement means and what this movement is and what your lived experience is. But those people who are then employed by businesses, there is breadth of expectations from an employer about what they should and shouldn't do. And if an employer has never really addressed that, the issue of equity in the workplace. To put a statement out around this now without being honest about their lack of attention to it in the past is only going to erode trust for their staff because those people are behind the scenes. Those staff will have had that lived experience and know their organization hasn't been focused on it right now. I think you get a lot more trust and improvement on reputation when you are honest

about that. You know, it hasn't been a focus. We recognize that was an error, but here's what we're trying to do to improve that. And I think that's the way we all should be going in terms of our communications inside our work and outside our work, depending on what we're talking about. Yeah, I 100% agree. I think that transparency and that, you know, also one thing I think is really important with this is the ability to be able to learn and grow. And I know we've spoken on trainings and previously around shame, but actually being able to go, okay, right, like, maybe we didn't look at this, or we didn't look at this previously as much as we want, but able to be able to hold your hands up and go okay we're changing that and we're moving forwards and I think that's just really important for companies to take that responsibility versus like you say brushing under the carpet making out as if they've been saints previously when they've not it's better just to be like okay right now we're growing because that's how we all learn that's how we move this movement forwards as well so I just really want you to share as well like the difference between equality and equity because I

also feel that that's something that's actually quite misunderstood. Yeah, no, absolutely. So equality is more focused on, I guess, it's supposed to be focused on fairness. It's supposed to focus on, you know, equality for all, everybody having fair treatment, whereas equity is more about, you know, that treatment being equal across the board, equal value, equal contribution, equal return. So you can have practices and procedures in place that demonstrate equality, but actually a lot of those procedures don't translate to equity in the workplace. with unintended consequences of practices or unconscious bias behavior or bias. And so there really is a difference. And I think the other thing as well is with all these topics, with all these issues that we see in organizations, things evolve. So for a long time, people were talking about the need for having unconscious bias training to really recognize your bias. That's great. And that was really important probably a couple of years ago. But actually what people

have realized is that unconscious bias is if it only highlights your bias and then that's the end of it, really what happens next? And so we've evolved and we're now focused on anti-racism training, resilient equity training that really helps organizations go on this journey on a frequent basis where they are evolving, they are recognizing their bias, they're recognizing their practices that could be improved. And that's how you start to get to equity. Whereas equality was probably what people thought was the end goal previously, we're now moving on and we're talking about equity. I agree. Can you talk us through, because I really love what you're saying there. Like you say, it's not good enough just to be educated on it anymore. It's about education and action I'm aware of my biases but actually making sure that they don't impact you is another thing.

Yeah and that was one of the flaws in not all but a lot of the unconscious bias training. It highlights your flaws it doesn't tell you what to do with them and how you address them. There isn't a magic wand that kind of fixes everything. And there isn't one tip that makes sure that you kind of address it across the board. In all of our training, we, at our core, we have three principles that we aspire to and we ensure that our training meets. And that's knowledge, empathy, and action. And it is about understanding where you are on your journey and understanding the context of the subjects or the issues that

you are learning about. Why is it an issue? Where has it come from? Even if it's not your lived experience. The empathy is about understanding the role, the roles people play in that dynamic that is around those issues. Whether you are, let's use microaggressions for an example, whether you are a receiver of a microaggression or you are the issuer of one, empathy starts to understand and pay attention to how those things have unfolded. And the action is this continual action to reach and continue to grow into a resilient, equitable environment. And you be one of those leaders in that space. So I would say the most important thing, the most important tip is to constantly reflect. Don't get me wrong, you don't want to

go down a rabbit hole of constantly reflecting and never taking any action, but reflecting on your behaviors and being honest with yourself and having community of people, people you trust, where you can check your behavior and they can tell you, you know, they can, they're a trusted voice that can say that was a little bit, you know, unacceptable, or that could have said it a better way. You know, those types of things and holding yourself accountable, I think is really important and being open to feedback. This, you know, we talk about shaming doesn't lead to learning, but neither does being defensive. If you are defensive, when you receive feedback, you instantly shut yourself off from the progression

and the learning. You're missing out. And so that's important too. So whilst there's not a one trick or one strategy, at its core, it's about reflection, routine reflection, and holding yourself accountable and being open to feedback and having honest conversations where that's concerned and that's what I think unconscious bias training doesn't always have but if you can find yourself in an environment where you can get those things that's a really

important first step so with people listening who perhaps they say have just started their business and they're kind of like okay there's certain things that I want to make sure that I do well and I do the right way how can I find out like how can I get someone to review my policies or how can I get somebody to you know it might not be necessary their field obviously you're really articulate in this and spent a lot of time in that where do people start I guess is my question if they're just starting out and they want to be making sure they're starting on the right foot yeah it's a really good question. And again, it really does depend on, like you said, what you're doing and what your kind of business model is. But I think it starts with what do you want to achieve? What do you want from a people standpoint, from a value ethics and

ethical standpoint? What's really important to you. And if it is about, I want to make sure that my organization doesn't support or perpetuate systemic issues of bias or racism or discrimination across the board, then, you know, work with people, find organizations like Howlett Brown or like others to think, okay, what are my practices? How do I do the business? How does this operationally unfold step by step? And where are the potential areas where this might be an issue? And how do I improve that? And then ultimately review that on a routine basis. So whether it's every year, every two years is depending on as you grow. I think if you're a small business and you're in the service

provision kind of arena in terms of what types of, you know, it's an individual service that you provide to people. I would personally put myself through an education process of understanding diversity, understanding lived experiences, understanding what microaggressions are, how they show up and what they mean to people. Because if you're meeting with an individual that doesn't have your lived experience, it's important that you are open and it's important that you are reflective of how your actions and what you do might affect that person. Just on a personal level, on a human nature level, and then obviously on a business one, because you don't really want to, you know, reputationsations matter and first impressions last so you want to make sure that you get that right

purely as well from a business standpoint yeah i have to say the training that you did for us within the society and boss babe was absolutely amazing and so i really would love for you to share charlene because this interview has been like incredible i really want you to share where people can find out more about you and the trainings that you do offer. Yeah, sure. So we have a website you can check us out there and it's howlettbrown.com. So H-O-W-L-E-T-T, brown is in the color, dot com. And that tells you all of our information, the services we provide, what it means to us doing the work we do, what is a people intelligence company. And you can get in touch with us there. Or you can contact us on LinkedIn, where we have our own page there as well. So we'd be more than happy to kind of talk you through some of our training

and just share some tips. We're really passionate, Howlett Brown, about, you know, not being a veneer to tick box exercising, right? Tick box exercises we it's really important and we take real pride in what we do so we'd be happy to have conversations with you because not least we're playing our role in helping bring about a positive change yeah i love that and i just want to like finish on those three things that you said earlier which was knowledge empathy and action and that's how we make a difference and i personally believe that every single one of us has a personal responsibility to make those changes and i'm excited to be part of that I think it's really important that we all are so thank you for coming in and sharing your knowledge. If you loved this episode please

subscribe, download a few more and please leave us a review. I really want to hear what you enjoyed, what your main takeaways were and I also want to hear what you enjoyed, what your main takeaways were and I also want to know what you want to hear us talk about next. To say thanks for leaving us a review, we'll send you a copy of The Boss Babe 25. The Boss Babe 25 is the 25 essential resources you need for personal and professional growth.

It covers everything from our favorite rituals, books and hacks. If you want a copy, just leave us a review, screenshot it and send to podcastatbossbabe.com. We will then email want a copy just leave us a review screenshot it and send to podcast at bossbib.com we will then email you a copy ASAP and since we love Instagram you can go to the hashtag the bossbib podcast and find our latest post and leave a question in the comments we love reading through the comments and we'll make sure to answer it on our next podcast