17: Diversity and Inclusion: Are You Performing or Reforming with Pooja Sachdev

Pooja Sachdev is a leading practitioner in the diversity and
inclusion space. Pooja discusses with Simon the real challenges
faced by organisations when working on diversity and inclusion.
This conversation reveals how language can be used to silence
people rather than open up discussions, and how we need to
'decriminalise bias' if we are to acknowledge our conscious and
unconscious biases.   

Pooja and Simon discuss their personal experiences of working
with diversity; Pooja from a perspective of her 'hyphenated'
Indian-UK identity,  and Simon as a white UK male.  
They discuss shame and guilt, and how racism is often repressed
but returns in different ways in each generation, the latest wave
being the Black Lives Matter movement.  



Organisations are often performative in the way they use
woke-slogans to cover up hidden toxic cultures. A shift is needed
from woke and blame cultures towards creating safe spaces that
encourage curious conversations, which can reveal what's really
going on, and enable positive reform and changes to be
made.  Enjoy this podcast. 



Note: Pooja and Simon will be leading a Webinar titled
'Diversity and Inclusion: Are you performing or
reforming' on January 28th 2021 3-5pm UK time.  For
more information contact simon@analyticnetwork.com  


 



Bio


Pooja is a business psychologist, organisational consultant and
founder of Rewire Consulting (www.rewireconsulting.com). 
Pooja is co-author of 'Rewire: A Radical Approach to Tackling
Diversity and Difference', which was published by Bloomsbury in
2015 and described by the FT as "the most refreshing approach to
diversity I have read" (Nov 4, 2015).


Prior to setting up her own practice, she served as Senior Policy
Officer at the (then) Commission for Racial Equality in the UK
and as a Consultant in the Human Capital division at Towers
Watson. In recent years, she has consulted with organisations
such as Microsoft, Caterpillar, HSBC, Universal, Annapurna
Pictures, Vice Media and Red Bull to help embed inclusive
leadership and practices.  She has lived in three countries
and is raising two feisty and fabulous daughters in London