Category: diversity

The Pattern Seekers – insights into how different brain structures have saved humanity

If you are looking for a well-referenced, very readable and intriguing but satisfying book which explores why difference in human brains is of value in our development as human beings, then you should read ‘The Pattern Seekers’, by Simon Baron Cohen. It was recommended to me by a very good friend a couple of months …

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“Diversity is not an absolute”

I have had such fun this past week! Genuinely! My kind of fun, just to be clear, involves engaging in uplifting dialogue with potential change-makers, with a view to making the world a better place; when I do, in whatever format this is, I come away energised, determined, positive, optimistic … what is not to …

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‘The stark and penetrable reality of diversity and inclusion …’

… is that they are not “nice to haves”.’ So writes Michael Bertolino from EY in a recent Forbes article about leadership in organisations, which you can read here. He lays out convincingly why this is the case, he refers to research which proves it, and he summarises succinctly what companies can do to become …

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School Boards … keep a clear head

If school leaders and Boards are honest, there is a little corner of their minds which wants to say ‘please, just make all of this go away …’. The stresses on school enrolment, the spiralling costs – in time as well as in money – of measures to protect against Covid-19, the uncertainties of the …

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‘Hiding behind unconscious bias’: a huge challenge for NEDs from Romeo Effs

I was brought up short while listening into a Changing the Chemistry Graduate Group Meeting last week. These meetings are regular member-only events, intended for existing non-executive directors and trustees, and they deal with topical issues, with the aim of supporting boards to ensure ever better governance. This month, the topic was ‘Increasing diversity on …

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Learning to connect with those around us: a Macedonian learning adventure in the Scottish Borders

Courtesy of some poor systems and staffing planning by Trans-Pennine Express trains last week, I found myself on a rail replacement bus meandering across the Scottish Borders towards Carlisle, in order to get on another train that would finally take me to my destination. I can now report that there is a distinct limit to …

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Celebrating difference: people of determination

For a number of reasons, which would take too long to explain just at the moment, I have recently been researching and learning a lot more about autism in girls, and I have a number of observations. First, there really is an inequality in how autism is understood in girls when compared to how it …

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Diversity – a blindingly obvious choice?

Listening to Jayne-Anne Ghadia last week was a refreshing experience. Ms Ghadia – CEO of Virgin Money and author of the 2016 Ghadia report into women and finance, ‘Empowering Productivity: Harnessing the Talents of Women in Financial Services’  – was speaking at an event in Edinburgh aimed at demonstrating to private sector companies why board …

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Diversity of thought flourishes when …

Yesterday evening saw the Annual General Meeting of Changing the Chemistry, which in its first year of operation as a Scottish-based charity committed to promoting diversity on boards has had extraordinary success. This unique peer-network has already grown to over 200 active members, and has contributed to filling 70 board positions. Yesterday, in the AGM …

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Women: disadvantaged from childhood

If you read only one PhD thesis this year, make it this one. And if you only read one chapter of this thesis, make it Chapter 7 (which you will find on pages 175-249), entitled ‘The CEO habitus’. Submitted to the University of Queensland in 2011, this thesis is the work of Dr Terrance Fitzsimmons, …

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