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Diversity and inclusion is accepted as something business leaders should be striving for in their teams. But what about cognitive diversity? What does that mean, and why should business leaders be thinking beyond ethnicity, age, gender and other demographic markers when hiring for their businesses?
Cofruition founder Sam Floy speaks with Gov Kandola, Senior Consultant at executive search firm Venari Partners about his recent article on cognitive diversity and the broader impact of diversity in the workplace.
If you've listened to the episode and would like to know more, visit https://www.venaripartners.com/ to discover their work. You'll also find links to their podcast.
Gov recommended loads of great resources for anyone interested in getting more insight into the value of and need for diversity and inclusion. These were:
Rebel Ideas by Matthew Syed,
Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez,
Transit Unplugged by Paul Comfort (there's a book and podcast),
Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall, and
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.
Gov is inspired by Ben Almond for his tireless work in diversity and inclusion. Ben also has a podcast: From Where I sit.
Episode Outline:
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Cognitive Diversity
Chapter 3: Steps for Achieving Cognitive Diversity
Chapter 4: Measuring Cognitive Diversity
Chapter 5: Overcoming Barriers to Cognitive Diversity
Chapter 6: Recommended Resources
Chapter 7: Conclusion
Episode Transcript:
Sam Floy
Diversity and inclusion along the lines of protected characteristics like ethnicity, gender, and age is now commonly accepted as something business leaders should be striving for in their teams. But what about cognitive diversity? What does that mean? Why should business leaders be thinking beyond demographic diversity when hiring for their businesses? You this is Better Business Radar, a practical and, dare we say, inspiring podcast about smart ways to grow better businesses. And I'm Sam Floy, a B2B entrepreneur and founder of Cofruition, the company behind this podcast, bringing you weekly insights from interesting thinkers, doers leaders, and experts.
His particular interest is in diversity and inclusion, an area that he says still needs a lot of work in the transport sector. He recently wrote an article about cognitive diversity, which caught my attention, and after reaching out to him, he agreed to appear on the show. I asked Gov to kick off our conversation by explaining cognitive diversity as he sees it.
Gov Kandola
In its simplest format, cognitive diversity is the inclusion of people with different ways of thinking, different viewpoints, different skill sets. That's it in a nutshell, in terms of comparison to, let's say, other forms of diversity which could be more demographic or neuro. It's very much thinking, viewpoints, skill sets.
Sam Floy
Thinking viewpoints, skill sets, viewpoints. That's interesting. So there's an actual yeah. Can you expand on that a bit?
Gov Kandola
It's just an interesting one because I kind of came across the concept when I was given a book, so Rebel Ideas by Matthew Syed, and it's all to do about the power of diverse thinking when I was reading through the book. It deep dives into cognitive diversity, why organizations should be looking at it, but also just individuals in general should be considering it when they're thinking about diversity, inclusion, and the equality pieces as well. Obviously, he dives into a few different examples. I think one was with the CIA in terms of them being very, I would say levered in terms of one perspective. Often the individuals they were hiring were white, middle class males from a Protestant background. When it came to actually, I would say, understanding information that was coming through, whether it could be from different parts of the world, the Taliban, for example, they didn't have the individuals who had the understanding.
Gov Kandola
That's where he kind of deep dives into, obviously the viewpoint piece. These individuals haven't kind of been within that world. They haven't understood the language in terms of the way it's used, the way it's translated. Different viewpoints and different individuals, I think, is incredibly key when you're kind of putting, I would say a team together for an organization as well.
Sam Floy
In that case, could that not have been sold with demographic diversity by just saying that we need to hire more people that aren't white Protestant and we just need to do it yet to hire people from other backgrounds?
Gov Kandola
Definitely. Look, demographic diversity is key. It's something that we've been pushing forward and we've seen businesses, I would say, really putting an emphasis into it when it comes to gender and backgrounds as well, in terms of race and other individual characteristics. Let's say we had the CIA, for example. Let's say in terms of gender diversity, you bring in a different individual who wasn't white male. Let's say they're black male, but let's compare them, let's say, to a black male and a white male. Let's say they've come through exactly the same private education, went to the same university, they had the same lecturers, the same professors. Yes, you've ticked off the box when it comes to gender diversity. Really, they're kind of clones of each other. They're going to have the dame, same perspectives, they may have the same reasoning and the same thinking when it comes to coming to a conclusion.
Gov Kandola
Actually, yes, you've ticked off one box, but have you actually ticked off something that's going to help the business crack a piece of code moving forward?
Sam Floy
Got it. This book, Rebel Ideas, that was your introduction into this. Once you've read this, are you beginning to see that other organizations are thinking about this? Or is it still something where they're not quite thinking of things necessarily through the cognitive lens as much?
Gov Kandola
I've been seeing a bit more, but not as much as I thought when I first said, read the book. It kind of opened my eyes. I hadn't come across it before as a business, obviously, were looking into diversity, equity and inclusion. We pride ourselves in terms of the work that we do. Every time we're on a search. We look at it from a completely neutral standpoint. We don't just look in terms of our network. We consider across the board, male, female, and we'll often give reasons why we can't attract certain females for this role. I think every business should have that understanding of why they're not attracting a certain demographic. Now, when I looked into it from, let's say, a company perspective, there were a few reports here and there. I think KPMG had one, there was another one in the Harvard Business Review. When it came to search in terms of the work that we do, absolutely nothing.
Gov Kandola
It can be maybe seen because obviously demographic diversity has had such a huge push over the last few years. Cognitive diversity can be seen as a bit more of a headache. It really is deep diving and breaking down the individuals rather than just say, the demographic piece itself. It can be a bit more complicated. It's a little harder to kind of I would say identify but I think through identifying it is where you're often going to see the results. Kind of going back to the book there's a great passage and I think Matt Syed mentioned it also in an interview he did and he kind of said look, let's think about putting together a group of ten people to come up with creative ideas for your business. Let's assume this is a talented group that comes up with ten genuinely useful ideas. However they're cognitively homogeneous so they all think in the same way they come up with the same ideas.
Gov Kandola
Actually from these ten individuals you're only gaining 10%. Now let's flip that and say from a cognitively diverse group of individuals they who come up with ten, genuinely different ideas amongst the group. Now suddenly you have 100 potential new ideas. Now that's 1000% increase in terms of prospective ideas and strategies that the business can use moving forward. Suddenly you've got this huge uplift in collective intelligence in comparison to let's say ten individuals who've kind of had a mirrored perspective, come from the same background and you're not really gaining that much from bringing them together.
Sam Floy
I mean, that sounds quite compelling of I mean why is it that more organizations aren't thinking in this way or doing this do you think?
Gov Kandola
I think it's quite simply because of unconscious bias in terms of individuals. We are attracted unconsciously to people who think like us. When mirroring our perspective back to us, it makes us feel smarter, it makes us feel like our worldviews are more understood and we often are. As I said, we're kind of drawn towards these individuals who may have come from the same school of us. They may do the same sporting background as us. We feel more comfortable. It's like a safety blanket.
Sam Floy
How do organizations or management teams or whoever I imagine they have to fight through some pain of like we used to. Everyone having the same sense of humor, having the same background, being able to have nice chip chats. It was all quite friendly and it seemed like all we're getting quite good results. Do you find that there's a sense of in terms of making that unconscious bias conscious? It typically we've had a bad outcome and we can potentially attribute it down to this homogeneity of thought or is there another way that you found effective in terms of getting organizations to the point of saying actually we want to take this seriously?
Gov Kandola
I think in terms of taking it seriously, it's the financial reward at the end of it as well and the performance of the business. There was a study, I think 2021 study by the Financial Reporting Council that showed better future financial performance and higher stock return among FTSE 350 boards that had a more diverse team and organization. Straight away as a business, you're seeing the rewards financially now in terms of kind of getting businesses to take on that approach. Whenever we've done it as a business, we've kind of broken it down into steps. We're first discussing either a new executive hire or a new board hire, rather than just saying, what is it you need as a new CCO, a new CFO, we'll say, what do you actually need in terms of skill set that's going to help the business grow? What are you missing at the moment in comparison to what you already have?
Gov Kandola
It could be a business saying, actually we're a private business, we're looking to go public. Well, suddenly you may need an individual who's come from a public background, may have taken a business public, understands the risks and mitigations that come with that, and also understands kind of the hurdles that will take to get a business from going from private to public. Suddenly you've identified a need for the business rather than just say a title. The next step is often you'll hear businesses say, look, I've got a very strong network of individuals, I'm going to reach out to them. The horror when we hear the hat is often, again, is the unconscious bias piece. Yes, you have a network, but let's be honest, often the network is again full of individuals like ourselves. The mirror perspective, is that going to be useful for you as a business if you're looking to diversify in terms of thought or bring on new individuals?
Gov Kandola
Probably not. The first thing we often say is don't just look in terms of your network. We don't do as a business. We'll take, as I said, every search, completely fresh break down in terms of what they need, looking at adjacent industries, often looking at individuals from other industries. A perfect example of that is we have teams that work within rail and aviation. Personally, I've done a lot of work with the surface transport side and the rail side. We also have an aviation team. Now, I love taking talent from aviation over to rail. Reason being is, let's say from a commercial perspective, they're often more competitive and they can look at things from a different angle. If I were to bring on a new CCO for a rail business, and I only looked at other rail companies to bring that individual on, often you're going to bring over bad habits from one business to another.
Gov Kandola
Also as a business, rail often isn't the most competitive. You look at an industry like aviation that has a high level of competition, often a more complex product, their customer experience in terms of the journey that they are leading individuals on is a bit more complex as well. As an Xtio, wouldn't you want to take on those perspectives and bring them over to another industry, especially an adjacent one as well? We'll often say to a lot of our rail clients say, look at these aviation individuals. If we're looking at this in this type of role, why not bring over those individuals who may look at revenue management differently, the product development piece differently, the customer journey slightly differently from a more competitive angle. Suddenly you get different perspectives who join the business and it suddenly will, I would say, increase the number of ideas that business can then utilize, especially if they're competing with a business like aviation in terms of short haul journeys as well.
Sam Floy
Now you bring over this person who's got new perspectives. I think part of that is it is a slight disruption to how things have been done before. What are some ways you find have been good to either minimize the disruption or make people lean into it? It's all well and good to say we like to have these new perspectives, but can they ever be too disruptive?
Gov Kandola
It possibly can. We've always said disruption can be a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing. I think when you're bringing over these individuals, especially the executive level, we're not going to be dropping them in the deep end. They've gone through multiple rounds. They met with other executives. They've been having very in depth conversations in regards to the role itself. The team itself has, I would say, an insight to what this individual could be bringing to the table. Unless we're having those conversations, often those difficult conversations, that's where change can often come from. If we're not having those difficult conversations, let's be honest, we're more likely just to be sat in a room with like minded individuals, feel very comfortable, and kind of nod our heads and say, yes, that's exactly what I was thinking. We should be moving forward with that.
Gov Kandola
For me, in that situation, the possible negative that comes with bringing in someone who could be slightly more disruptive from a different industry, I'll say the financial performance or the actual team performance piece will outweigh that slight disruption.
Sam Floy
Intellectually, the idea sounds good, let's get this diversity of thought, et cetera. I've also worked in teams where we need to talk about how we communicate so that we don't end up just speaking past each other. Because sometimes someone can come in and have a different way of communicating and it can either rub people off the wrong way or they are unable to really convey what they're trying to say in a way that people from the same background, for example, can do. That just something that comes with experience? That something that you've seen needs to have, like this part of your steps? There like an aspect on integrating this new person into these new viewpoints, into how the company or the organization operates?
Gov Kandola
Yeah, look, I think certain businesses will obviously take that or work with it in different ways. I remember reading one about Amazon and I thought it was incredibly unique, incredibly powerful. Whenever they're coming up with new ideas, the business, when they're sat around a meeting room table, it could be anywhere. Now, like this, via Skype, they'll often be given the brief beforehand. Rather than reading out the brief during the meeting and then exchanging ideas, they'll often read the brief within their own time and at that point write down ideas rather than kind of blurting the mouth and then speaking over each other. At that point the individuals are put forward their ideas and the most senior individual within the team actually waits last. The reason why they've done that is it's been recorded where the most senior person within the room stands up first and puts their points across.
Gov Kandola
We're often kind of afraid and sometimes very much more likely to just agree with what that individual is saying. A it could because we want that individual to think that we think like them, we're on the same wavelength, when in fact this individual could be coming up with ten horrendous ideas and everyone else around the room is just agreeing with it. Now, if we're all bringing up different perspectives individually, suddenly the leader of that business has a number of different ideas to play with. Some of them could be ideas that they've never even thought of, but work incredibly well with maybe some other ideas that they had thought of in the past. Suddenly we've come from a position where we've only had a few ideas and everyone agrees with them to actually a number of ideas exponential in terms of the number of individuals in the room.
Gov Kandola
Suddenly now we're bouncing ideas which we may not have come across before because everyone was too silent to kind of bring them up in the first place.
Sam Floy
That's excellent, that's so practical, but it's often not utilized.
Gov Kandola
I remember reading about it and thinking actually, in terms of a tool, it's incredibly powerful. I know as a business, whenever we're thinking about ideas, we never have, let's say the director of the business stand up first, whether it's to do about the business or it could be to do with a role. We'll always think about and exchange ideas. We'll often tell even our associates think about the role itself, come back to me with some ideas and then we can exchange rather than me telling you exactly how we're going to be doing it and then we move forward.
Sam Floy
Yeah, I've just come from a meeting where I, as the leader in the business, kicks off a bunch of ideas and I feel rather silly. Now, whilst we're on Amazon meetings, bit of a niche topic. The other one I heard, which I don't know how they do it now there's remote meetings, but I heard that in Amazon meetings everyone sat around and there's always an empty chair and the empty chair is to represent the viewpoint of the customer who's not in the room. It's like a visual cue that they need to keep the customer at the forefront of the mind. Very interesting Amazon meetings. You mentioned, I think, some reports that have been able to quantify some of the financial implications or quantitatively explain what the results are of having a more cognitively diverse now, first of all, how does one measure cognitive diversity at that meta scale?
Sam Floy
If we are saying that each individual person has a different viewpoint, what are some of the metrics they use to quantify?
Gov Kandola
That's probably the first time actually that question has been posed to me. I wouldn't be able to give a clear answer to that. I'm going to be completely honest, because in terms of the reading that I'm doing on cognitive diversity, it is about obviously exchanging different viewpoints and skill sets. In terms of actually measuring it, because there hasn't been that. Much visibility within this space. Other than a few books here and a few reports there, we don't really have key findings, let's say in comparison to demographic diversity, which obviously we're now seeing improvements, as I mentioned, obviously with the Financial Reporting Council, who showed better future financial performance or higher stock returns. That was actually more to do with gender diversity rather than just purely cognitive diversity. We're still in a very much a phase where we're building that information, that data to kind of see if it truly translates to an increase in performance.
Gov Kandola
Now, on paper it should you bring in different ideas to a table. We should see an increase, I would say, in terms of strategic deployment, in terms of performance. Until the actual figures are there, it's still very much an idea.
Sam Floy
Yeah, I guess they just have to find various proxies maybe, I don't know, education background or countries that people live in. Yeah, I was just curious if there was answer because I was thinking about it for this call and I thought, I've got no idea how you'd actually have a metric for that. You mentioned one thing here, which was you're in a meeting, the leader says something first. Lots of people go around. What do you think of some other telltale signs that you might be in a cognitive undiverse location?
Gov Kandola
In terms of cognitive undiversity, it's one of those ones where you just feel comfortable when you're exchanging ideas. If you're not disagreeing with individuals, but you're just agreeing and kind of also feeling quite comfortable. The scary thing about obviously feeling comfortable is you often come away with something that could be detrimental to your business. I would say it's often if you look around the room, it could be the dress sense, the individuals, it could be the topic of conversations that we're often having over a coffee. Suddenly you will kind of get a quick, I would say, insight whether a business is quite cognitively homogeneous rather than diverse. It's one of those ones where I've walked into some boardrooms with individuals and it's all white men even. It could just be men in general and they've often come from the same schooling background, they're often having the same conversations regarding, let's say, the sport of the weekend.
Gov Kandola
It's very much like a little club.
Sam Floy
In itself, so I guess sometimes you can spot it just from the demographic. I think it's curious, isn't it, when you talk about the same let's say we got up to the weekend or whatever. It's also, isn't it like if you find that everyone in the company is reaching the same conclusion when it comes to problem solving, then it's like it might be the right solution, but just as a like logically. As you say, having these different ideas will, you would hope, lead to better things. I'm also wondering now there's a lot of online meetings that are happening and I'm sure there's not some software, there should be some software which analyzes the transcripts and comes out with how cognitively diverse is it based on the sentiment of how much people are agreeing with things? I don't know if that does exist, but maybe that should better Business Radar is a podcast made by us, the team at Covarition.
Sam Floy
We offer an all in one solution for high value service companies looking for a simple and effective way to grow. A lot of businesses don't need Facebook ads or Drip funnel campaigns. They need to have a systematic way to demonstrate your leadership, expand their network and have the consistent high quality content to stay on people's radar. This is what we offer with our fully managed company podcasts. You may have individuals who just don't have a voice. The link is also in the episode description. Now back to the episode. In terms of how can companies increase cognitive diversity? It basically just hiring different people or is there anything that you can do within your own organization with the people that you've got to increase the cognitive diversity, do you think in terms.
Gov Kandola
Of like the company that you already have? You may have individuals who just don't have a voice. Again, we go back to the Amazon piece where everyone writing down their viewpoints and then kind of putting them across rather than just hearing one person speak as a business. Here we have a higher female to male ratio. Now, if all the decision makers are male, then often that will translate to only one way of thinking. Again, as a business we're often thinking though we want to hear from every single person whether it's to do with the business, whether it's to do with a search how we should improve the business. It could be anything, it could be a social aspect, things we should be doing differently. I think in terms of giving the people within your business a voice and feeling that it's not going to be judged in terms of the information they give back to you, I think that creating that environment is going to be key and then obviously moving forward from that in terms of future hiring, rather than just looking at certain criteria, really thinking about a the job description that you're putting across and also the message the business is putting across as well.
Gov Kandola
Because we've looked at cognitive diversity, obviously demographic diversity, but there are other forms of diversity that are very much underexposed and really not getting that much airtime. You look at neurodiversity, we're actually in Neurodiversity Awareness Week at this point where we're speaking and that's a term used to describe differences in ways of processing and thinking about the world and one's surroundings. It was coined by Judy Singer. She noted a growing movement from people with autism to claim self advocacy and remove social stigmas around the condition. Now obviously in today's society, it's not just in regards to autism, it's with ADHD, amongst other things as well. Thinking about are we actually creating an environment that is also neurodiverse in terms of its approach as well? There was a study, I'm trying to think which one that noted it might have been from the University of Connecticut and they mentioned that in terms of neurodiverse candidates, there was a 30% to 40% decrease in terms of being awarded or applying for jobs.
Gov Kandola
Now that was three times higher than individuals with a disability, a visual disability, and eight times higher for individuals without a disability. Often individuals who are neurodiverse, when they see a job description, they can often be put off by it as well. We often say we want a team player who works well in social surroundings, can build great rapport with individuals when it comes to clients or candidates. Often we have a misperception as well for people, let's say often we think they have a lack of focus, the social skills are not going to be the best, so we're not going to have a lack of rapport, which, let's be honest, is completely nonsense in many cases. They actually have hyper focus, they're often emotionally intelligent. In terms of building that rapport with clients or the individuals they're working alongside, they're often better at it than individuals who, let's say, don't have ADHD.
Gov Kandola
Again, breaking down those barriers and also thinking about the way we're putting across, let's say, a job description, for example. We really need to start thinking about the wording, the way it comes across, and is translated amongst a wider group of individuals or a variety of individuals, rather than just focusing on something that we've kind of thought ourselves.
Sam Floy
Yeah, I think the other thing which I've heard on this is rather than trying to get people to conform too much to this perception of what is a great employee or whatever, is recognizing that different people have different strengths. How can we lean into people's strengths rather than make them not feel like they can be themselves to conform with this slot that we have to fill? Because then it just for me, just completely unlocks this different way of thinking about things. Okay, we think this person's good. We've done some test work, they're clearly competent, et cetera. Now it's like, okay, now you're in the business. Use your superpower. Everyone has a superpower. What is it that you really are passionate about and you see things in ways so that you can kind of inform us or you can use that in a way that's going to bring these new perspectives versus we kind of try and get you into this job role that we need doing.
Sam Floy
Obviously, there is some quality control. You make sure people are competent, but once they're in seeing where their strengths lie and leaning into that.
Gov Kandola
I couldn't agree more. There's so much unlocked potential with individuals. Unless we kind of give them the platform to shine, it's not going to happen.
Sam Floy
We spoke with Holly who runs a company called Naya and they help organizations hire underrepresented people. Specifically on the Neurodiversity point, she was saying that a lot of it can be in terms of training being the interviewer, to not always look for the same cues that you used to normally. The example she gave was I remember being told when you go into a job interview, shake the person's hand, good firm handshake, look the person in the eye and give them a smile and sit down. For people who are less socially comfortable, maintaining eye contact can be really hard. If you're the interviewer and this person comes in, they've not made eye contact straight away, you're like, oh God, okay, well, they clearly can't build rapport. They can't do all these things and you kind of dismiss them. Whereas if you're able to know, yeah, just really zone in on all these unconscious things.
Sam Floy
Look to the future and we look to a world where there's perhaps more awareness of cognitive diversity and organizations are beginning to hire and have practices which encourage and foster cognitive diversity. What do you think needs to happen for us to get there? What are some signs that we are already getting there?
Gov Kandola
Perhaps I think we need to carry on not just on incognitive diversity, but also demographic diversity as well. The neurodiversity piece, just diversity in general. I think we are moving in the right direction. We are seeing an improvement in terms of individuals being hired. Also an increase in terms of females taking on board position, taking on CEO positions or executive positions in general. I know, obviously our airline practice put together a paper where they were looking at, I think, 40 leading carriers globally. In terms of their board composition, I think they identified only 22% of executives across those boards had female representation. I think the scary notion was actually twelve and a half percent of those companies didn't have any female representation. I think only one had a 50 split between male and female. Just kind of identifying these things, getting these stats across, making them aware, making individuals aware, I think will help more people.
Gov Kandola
Like the thing we're doing right now, having a conversation about it. I think we also need to think about the industries we're working within alongside cognitive diversity. I was doing a lot of reading into the gender bias in terms of, let's say for women when it comes to different industries as well. Working within the transportation industry, again, incredibly underrepresented. I think it's only 20% of transport sector employees are female. In Europe. I'm unsure on the one in North America. However, in France, 67% of transit users are female. In the US, I think it was Chicago and Philadelphia it was 62 and 64%, respectively. Suddenly the majority user isn't actually involved in terms of decision making when it comes to systems planning, what's actually needed by the majority user and then not at the actual final decision making process, which is quite frightening.
Sam Floy
I think that's such a clarifying point. Often, until I heard you say that, read the report as well before, I was like, I know underrepresentation is an issue, but then it was for some reason just hit you. The simplicity of 20% of the decision makers are from this group, but the majority users are not. For me, that just totally clicks in terms of how things systems are designed and these different viewpoints aren't done, basically.
Gov Kandola
It's so funny. I was actually given the books, it's called Invisible Women by Caroline Creator Perez, and it came by chance, obviously doing a lot of work within diversity, equity and inclusion. I actually broke my hand playing rugby and it was weird because I couldn't hold my iPhone. I've got my iPhone here and I was really struggling to kind of use my thumb to get from the top of the screen to the bottom of the screen because of the way it was kind of healing. My partner snigged and she goes, now how we feel on a day to day basis. What you mean? She goes, you do know that all smart phones are probably five and a half inches too big for the average female hand. She gave me the book and I was obviously reading more into it. It had bits on transportation, so it had just general day to day differences in terms of gender bias.
Gov Kandola
It kind of just blew my mind in terms of things that I take for granted on a day to day that the other site 50% of the human population have to go through, which, yeah, kind of brought it home for me.
Sam Floy
I've got to say, Gov, you seem like quite a reader. What's on your bookshelf at the moment or what's on your bedside table at the moment?
Gov Kandola
I'm reading a book that's actually looking into diversity within transit by a gentleman called Paul Comfort. He does a podcast as well called Transit Unplugged and he's interviewing different leaders within North America in terms of what they're doing in regards to equity, inclusion and the diversity piece. Yeah, anything that I would say that kind of helps build a different perspective or kind of gives me an insight into a different world is a book that I want to read or kind of love reading about prisoners of geography. I'm trying to think who wrote as a tim Marshall.
Sam Floy
Tim marshall yeah.
Gov Kandola
Brilliant book. The power of habit. It was another one that was exceptional. Things like that are things I love to read.
Sam Floy
What are ways of increasing diversity in transit?
Gov Kandola
It's getting more leaders at that decision making table. Now, obviously that starts and bomb when it comes to hiring individuals. There were a few great ones. I think we're going to be doing a podcast in terms of speaking with female engineering leads, their story and how they've kind of gone through the ranks within businesses, but also they've often gone into schools to highlight the fact that not only men have to go into engineering, they did a brilliant one where they kind of came in. One was wearing a fire helmet, the other one had a police helmet and there were a few different ones, but her faces were covered. As they took off the helmets, there were obviously female representation underneath and there were full gasps in the room of small children. Suddenly, from a young age, the impression is that these jobs are usually only for men, which is not the case.
Gov Kandola
Kind of getting more female diverse representation within these industries right from the bottom up, I think that's going to help. Also getting a lot of the individuals who are at, let's say the director level, the VP level, really pushing them through so they can be at that decision making table and being part of these final systems planning and those final meetings, I think that's going to be incredibly important moving forward.
Sam Floy
As you say, if you have this diversity of thought and this diversity of perspective, then ultimately you're going to be serving your customers better because they're not just feeling, oh, I kind of have to live with having a smartphone that's too big because that's just the way it is. Suddenly, oh, my gosh, this smartphone actually feels right and that's going to lead to much better outcome, as opposed to just, oh, that's just the way it is, that's just the way it has to be. And I think companies can be forward. Yeah. It's not just, oh, we have to do this because it ticks a box if you're able to serve your end users better and that comes from having this broad perspective on the world, that decision making level, I think hopefully that's something more people will grasp.
Gov Kandola
Fingers crossed. Research perspective. We're kind of pushing that forward as well. Whenever we're discussing with individuals and they're looking to bring on new hires, as I said, we want to see a higher proportion of diverse representation at that decision making table. Fingers crossed, more businesses are thinking like ourselves in terms of that as well and kind of getting that message across to businesses they're working with.
Sam Floy
Yeah. Well, Gov, it's been fantastic. So a couple of questions. I think he has a podcast called From Where I Sit, similar to the Venari podcast, often just speaking with senior leaders regarding either hot topics within the industry or just something they're very passionate about.
Gov Kandola
That's a good one. There is one individual actually, so he works for a global engineering consulting firm, gentleman called Ben Almond. He is an executive with SNC Lavalin in Canada and he's got a great story and also is incredibly, I would say forward thinking does a lot in terms of equity, diversity and inclusion. The reason he's kind of at the forefront of it is I think back in five, he had a biking accident and he's now a paraplegic from went from being able bodied to paraplegic and didn't want it to hold him back. He is often posting about what the business is doing, what the industry is doing, changes that need to be made. I think he has a podcast called From Where I Sit, similar to the Bernard podcast, often just speaking with senior leaders regarding either hot topics within the industry or just something they're very passionate about.
Gov Kandola
Definitely worth a listen to any of your listeners that want to get a perspective. As I said, his is very much in terms of engineering and consulting, but often they'll have guests on who are discussing topics that are completely separate to that as well.
Sam Floy
Excellent. We'll add that in the show notes as well. I've got a feeling I might know the answer to this, but what is a book or resource that you would recommend for people to get an introduction into cognitive diversity?
Gov Kandola
Yeah, I think it's got to be Rebel ideas. Anything to do with him, honestly, he's been on a number of podcasts. I know he's been on the high performance one. Learn more about Venari, go to our website venaripartners.com. Whenever you listen to him speak and he's putting across his ideas incredibly thoughtful, you can kind of get lost in terms of listening to him speak about the subject. He's incredibly passionate about it and yeah, definitely worth a read. Not only just in regards to cognitive diversity, but just in terms of diverse thinking in general.
Sam Floy
We also have the Venari podcast. Where can people learn more about you?
Gov Kandola
Learn more about Venari, go to our website venaripartners.com. Personally. I lead our surface transport logistics practice. We work with corporates, but also on the private equity side in regards to helping those funds either help restructuring or bring in new individuals at the executive level and probably two below. We also have the Venari podcast. I believe it's on Apple podcast. As you said, everything is on our website. If you are looking for any executive search or advice, we're here and happy to help.
Sam Floy
If you'd like to find out more about Venari partners, visit Venaripartners.com. Great we've got. Thanks so much.
Gov Kandola
I'm Sam Floy.
Sam Floy
Thank you for joining me for this episode of Better Business Radar. It's been great to speak with Gov about all things diversity and inclusion. If you'd like to find out more about Venari partners, visit venaripartners.com. There is a link in the show notes along with all of Gov's book recommendations. If you enjoyed the episode and would like more insights from leading thinkers and doers who can help you be smart in building a better business, please subscribe wherever you get your podcast. This has been better business, Radar. See you next week.
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