Rina Lynch: The D&I conscious leader

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome to Deny Spy, the fortnightly podcast which uncovers what's really going on in the world of diversity and inclusion. I'm Dr. Julie Humphries.

Speaker A: And I'm Natasha Whitehurst.

Speaker B: And in today's episode we're discussing the D and I conscious leader.

Speaker A: We're joined today by Rena Goldenberg lynch, founder and CEO. From Voice at the Table, Ren Reena has 20 years of experience previously as a lawyer, having started her legal career in Washington D.C. but nowadays spends time focusing on D and I. Welcome Rena.

Speaker C: Thank you. Great to be here.

Speaker B: It's fabulous to have you here, Rena. And we were talking just before we started recording saying that, uh, Natasha and I know you and have worked with you. So it's great to have you on the podcast. Um, we're gonna go straight into a big question. Um, what's really changed in the world of D and I around the conversation over the last few years and what has just been rebranded?

Speaker C: That's a great question. A lot has changed obviously. And um, here's what I think has really genuinely changed. Um, obviously the political environment has forced organizations, uh, to change a little bit how they see D and I. And what I've noticed is over the years they've become a lot more honest about what they're actually doing and why they're doing it. And this has started with a few very public moments that have evolved over the years. And I have a couple of examples taking us back to 2018 with the first one, and that's the H and M M, uh, fiasco that I'm sure you're familiar with. And just for the audience, a quick overview of what happened then. Um, H and M M is one of its ads put um, a black child in a hoodie with the slogan coolest monkey in the jungle on their way website. And the backlash from that was immediate and global. WCAN pulled um, his collaboration from it and stores in South Africa were thrashed. Um, and what came out of it wasn't just reputational damage. It was um, this very visible reminder that if you don't have diverse, uh, perspectives in the room when the decisions are made, you will miss things that are completely obvious to others. And a room full of people who all see the world the same way will keep making the same blind spot mistakes. And this was a wake up call for the very homogenous team that came up with that ad. So that's 2018. Fast forward to 2023. We had the Bud Light fiasco where, um, one partnership with a Transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney was handled clumsily and without conviction. And the brand lost billions in market value within weeks. And what was striking about that is just not just the consumer backlash, it was how the company's response was and it made it actually even worse. Um, and they didn't please anyone in the end because it wasn't clear to anyone, um, whether they had thought through about this and how the decision first was made. And then later on in 2025, uh, when Google quietly rolled back, um, their ETI commitments, scrapping diversity, hiring targets, disbanding inclusion programs, um, and that's all following the political pressure from, uh, the U.S. administration. And of course, at that time, they weren't alone. There was a wave of US companies that followed. Um, and in that moment, what that moment did is, particularly in the UK and in Europe, it forced organizations to ask themselves, are we doing this because we believe it changes how we perform or because it looks good? The ones, the companies that were doing it for optics, they pulled back from the market. And the ones who were doing it for, um, real, they got clarity, they became more honest about how they view TNI and how much resource and time and investment they put into it. What's been rebranded is, um, what I refer to as awareness training. So it was the same content with a different wrapper. Um, for instance, um, the unconscious bias workshops. Maybe now they're called something else, something like inclusive leadership development. Um, but it landed in the same way as it always did. Uh, people became more aware of, of what's going on. And then pressure hit and nothing changed. So that was the rebranding without necessarily a lot of, um, uh, impact. And I want to say something about our, our own work because we've never felt, we've never led voice at the table, never led with fairness and doing the right thing as the reason to do diversity and inclusion. From the very beginning, it was always about the benefit to the business, the decision quality, the retention of people, the competitive advant, the innovation. That was always our argument. And what has changed over the time is now that the market has started to catch up with that thinking, even in the us where it's always, not always, but, uh, more traditionally, has been a fairness conversation. So for years for us, it felt like we were the only ones making the case and that everybody was necessarily ready to hear it. And now it becomes a little bit more, much more, not just a little bit, um, more broadly recognized. And that the business case for inclusion is not just a fringe position. It's A mainstream conversation. Um, and that's good news. Uh, it means that we're spending less time focusing or arguing about whether it matters and more time on actually building it.

Speaker A: That's really helpful. And, you know, with a lot of change comes people having different comfort levels. Where do you think organizations are most uncomfortable right now when it comes to D and I? And why?

Speaker C: Yeah, that's a great observation, actually. And where, um, I feel that there's the deepest discomfort right now is the gap. And it's the gap between what leaders mean and what they want to do and what actually happens. So most leaders know exactly, um, uh, what I mean by that. Um, the gap between what they say in all hands, um, about their conviction and their values and their understanding of diversity and inclusion, and then what actually happens in the room when a decision is at the table and they're not pretending when they're saying all those wonderful things. Uh, because most of the leaders I work with are very genuine about it, and they genuinely care about inclusion. But what happens is when the agenda is packed, when there's pressure to move forward, when they need to make a call, they default and they go with a familiar candidate. The comfortable thinking, the loudest voice in the room, and they know they default. And that's what makes it uncomfortable. It's not the ignorance. It's the skill gap that nobody's ever really addressed is how do we bring it into the moment? And the second place where I see discomfort is around that point, um, about accountability, because a lot of organizations have made very public commitments, um, after 2020, starting with George Floyd, there was a wave of pledges and representations on targets. And here we are several years later, and senior leadership teams look pretty much the way they had. And in fact, one might say things have gotten worse. They started rolling back. So all these organizations are sitting with this gap and not quite knowing how to talk about it honestly without sounding defensive, um, or seeming to abandon the work altogether. So it's that gap between the level of discomfort between what they said they would do and what they're actually delivering, or rather, not delivering.

Speaker B: Marina, you say that leaders are genuine. Um, so what are clients getting right about D and I at the moment?

Speaker C: So what clients, um, are getting right right now? Clients and companies that I've observed is that, um, the people who are doing it right have stopped treating diversity and inclusion as a separate work stream and are connecting it directly to their business mission. So they're not asking themselves, how do we look on inclusion? Um, they are asking themselves, how does Inclusion make us better at what we're already doing, what we're actually trying to achieve. And that's a fundamentally different question because it changes how you view D and I and how the work is prioritized and resourced and sustained. And an example of that is, um, Google. And particularly interesting, uh, given their very public rollback on EDI, like I mentioned earlier in 2025. So that decision got a lot of attention in 2025. But what got less attention is what they're already doing quietly. And what that is, is, um, that they're connecting some of the work they're doing directly to their business mission. And the business mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. And the world, the word universally turned out to matter. And Christopher, uh, Patna, who is their head of uh, EMEA Accessibility and Disability Inclusion, had spoken about how, uh, Sundar Pichai framed we don't think a problem is solved until we've sold it for everyone. And that thinking led directly to the creation of their accessibility Discovery centers, which is a physical space dedicated to inclusive research and product development where they bring people in from various aspects, um, of life to tell them how they use or could use the various products they developed. So that then together they create something that is useful for everyone really. Um, and they opened their first UM center in London in December 2022. And it just kept expanding across Maya. They've got centers in Dublin, Zurich, Dubai, Munich, and more and more are coming on board. And that's what we're seeing is as inclusion growing out of a mission and not bolted on as a program. And these are the leaders who understand that DNI isn't a nice to have sitting alongside their strategy. It's part of it, it's integral to it. Um, and they can articulate why, because their customer base is becoming more diverse and they need to understand it better. Because innovation genuinely, um, different, uh, thinking in the room, it requires different thinking in the room. And because the next generation of talent, um, want to, that they want to attract, uh, won't join organizations that don't walk the talk.

Speaker A: So with that in mind then, um, what actually embeds D and I into everyday work? You know, not strategies, because there's one element having the strategy, but actually in reality.

Speaker C: Yeah, that's a great question. There are two things really, and they kind of work together. So the first thing that I see that's working really well is required steps. It's the actual, um, part of the architecture. So not, not necessarily best Practice or encouraged behavior, but steps built into the processes so that inclusion happens more automatically and regardless of whether somebody remembers to include it and to think about it in the moment. Um, so we had a client, for instance, um, a financial services firm where diverse hires, um, kept leaving within 18 months. And at the exit interviews they kind of said the same thing every time, which was I never felt like my perspectives were valued and I felt like decisions were made before I even got into the room. So they felt that they weren't contributing. So what we did then with them is instead of running some training programs, we redesigned some of the promotion processes. We made specific inputs like um, you know, thinking about who needs to be consulted, who needs to be in that room, uh, before decisions um, are made and what questions have to be answered before a decision is final. We've incorporated it into the process, into the structure. It wasn't a negotiable. And then what they've noticed once they started applying this process is 18 months later retention had um, improved and the composition of the leadership has also started to shift. So some people call it inclusion nudges to incorporate these nudges if you will, these prompts that happen more naturally into the process really, really works. And the second thing that I think really works is um, much smaller and maybe a little bit underrated. Um, but it's this concept of marginal gains. So um, these are the things that um, when you do them, uh, tiny little changes that perhaps individually are not even visible but they add up to the difference between losing and winning. If you think about the British cycling team who first employed that concept of marginal gains. So it works in inclusion in a similar way. So things like learning not to interrupt someone when they're mid thought, like tiny things making space for the quieter person before the loudest voice closes down the conversation. Noticing when an assumption is sitting under a decision and just um, naming it out loud so that people notice it as well. And even things like asking your team to actively challenge you rather than agree with you.

Speaker B: So all of those sounds like allyship around making sure that you're hearing all the voices, making sure you do the right thing. That takes um, sometimes some confidence um, around the table. It certainly needs psychological safety. Um, so how would you approach that then? Because it's easy to say, yeah, just make sure that you know you're listening to people, make sure that you're asking people. But sometimes it's really difficult.

Speaker C: That's, that's absolutely the case. Uh, and it's difficult to do so. So again we're introducing little measures to change. And I'll give you an example of what I mean. So, um, one of the most effective things that I've introduced into a leadership team is a bias monitor. So they've decided they're going to have a dedicated person who, uh, whose job is, um, in any meeting that they have together is to look out and spot and name any assumptions and any biases that surface. And the point wasn't to shame anyone, it was just to notice these things out loud. And they've been doing that and they've been doing it for years. And here's what happened over time. Instead of needing that one person, one designated person to call out the biases and the assumptions and they've started it all to do this. So they started to pick it up because they've started noticing those assumptions, they started noticing the biases, and then they started stepping in when somebody got interrupted. And they all make sure that no one gets talked over or overlooked, um, and even speak up for each other. So yes, that psychological safety does need space to develop, but you can do it in a very structured way by introducing one tiny change, how we work, or in this case a bias monitor. And then it sort of sends ripples through the team and then these leaders then take it into their respective teams and then they do it. So they lead by example. So yes, allyship. But I was talking about, also about the individual leaders making small commitments and um, changing the one or two things that they want to change in the structure, in the way that they do it. And then by example, by um, allowing others to follow them, that's really helpful.

Speaker A: I mean, if we pivot slightly and then think about kind of the most common initiatives that you see that look good on the surface, we hear a lot about them, but change very little within an organization.

Speaker C: Yeah. So I would say that that is more what I call the awareness training, uh, something like unconscious bias training. Any kind of training that sounds interesting, um, is interesting, is fascinating to learn actually. Logically, uh, is imprinted on you, but then doesn't necessarily give you something practical to take into the meeting. So for instance, on Tuesday you had a workshop on, let's say unconscious bias. On Thursday you're in a high stakes meeting, agenda's running over, you need to make a call. Nothing that you learn on Tuesday is going to be available to you in that moment because NOVA gave you, no one's given you the tools to implement it on Thursday. So they have a mirror for the Tuesday classroom, but no specific tools. So that's what I mean is any kind of awareness training that's very aspirational doesn't, um, really embed. Um, and some of those initiatives tend to look great on paper, and they are very interesting. They also look like diversity and inclusion training, but they don't translate into the real thing. And that's why I think, you know, more of the structural nudges that you can incorporate the little ones into meetings, into decisions, into how you make the promotional process or the hiring process. Those are the ones that actually impact culture.

Speaker B: And these are some great examples, Reena. So thank you so much. Um, I mean, you're talking about nudges, which are the simpler D and I approaches, which, uh, cannot often be more effective than the complex ones. Um, are there any more that really stand out for you?

Speaker C: Yes, yes. And I do think, I want to say I don't want to put down the longer, more complex inclusive leadership programs because absolutely, they have their place. And it's very important to bring that up and incorporate, even if it's just an inclusive leadership module as part of the program, because all of it is good leadership in the end. But the simpler things, um, that I've seen. Ah, I'll share another example for you with you that somebody told me about, um, some of the work at the BBC, and they did some work with their leaders on inclusive leadership in one of those programs. Um, and as part of the programs, all the leaders were required to take the hybrid implicit bias test, which in itself isn't that unusual. But what they did with their results was quite clever. And what they did is before these leaders then, um, came together for any significant decision, whether it was a hiring call or a promotion or a strategy discussion, the team would spend five or 10 minutes going around the room and, uh, reminding each other of their identified biases from the iat, from the Harvard Implicit Bias Test. Um, and they did it out loud before the decision so that those biases were front of mind rather than quietly operating underneath the conversation. And that was all they did. It took five or ten minutes. Very simple. And it worked because the leaders were conscious at the time of what biases might get in the way, and they were moderating them. It's not a workshop, um, that happened three weeks earlier, but an actual intervention on the day just before, or a decision or an exercise where bias would definitely, um, harm if it were part of it. And that's the pattern I keep seeing is these structural questions that become part of your habit, part of how you lead. Questions like whose Perspective is missing from this thinking or who will ultimately be impacted by this decision and how. Those are the ones that tend to be the real eye openers. And they're simple, they're repeatable. Once they become part of your toolkit as a leader, you can implement them in any way. Um, but it's just, you know, just maybe creating a little sort of list of those nudges that can be rolled out at any time at an appropriate, uh, moment. And that gradually just changes how you lead and how you see things and how you think about problems in general.

Speaker A: That's really, um, really helpful and a good call out for, um, the Harvard, um, bias test there. For leaders who maybe are feeling a bit stuck, what's the easiest place or where's the easiest place for them to start? Um, thinking about being more inclusive, but also maybe, um, they want to make their teams more diverse. What would be your suggestions?

Speaker C: This is quite interesting because what I've noticed over the years, and I find actually very encouraging, is that a lot of leaders already inclusive, they just don't see it as inclusion. So these are leaders who think about their stakeholders before they're making a call. Um, the one who regularly asked them, the team, what are we not thinking of? Um, the leaders who say, um, I want you to come up with a counter argument to my recommendation. I need to know that we've thought about everything. That's inclusion at work, uh, and that's diversity of thought being deliberately activated. But it hasn't been named that way or made intentional. So the first thing I try to do is, um, with leaders who are stuck is to help them see what they're already doing. That is inclusive. That is a great habit to have and take forward and then ask them to bottle it. By which I mean make it conscious, make it consistent, build on it, you know, make it something that becomes your brand. Because once you realize that you're already doing something that's natural, um, it stops feeling like a foreign language and it starts feeling like something you can actually develop. Um, and that changes how other people operate. Then the other thing, the second thing that, um, every leader can do, and it's very easy I think if you want to make a difference, is to commit to something small. It doesn't need to be big, um, but it needs to kind of make a difference in, let's say inclusion or psychological safety. For instance, you could start every meeting with a check in at the beginning of the meeting so you actually know where people are before you dive in. Um, or you can Try and carve out some time for the team to get to know each other a little bit better. Because that is what creates psychological safety. That one time is not going to be enough. But the more people know each other, the more people can trust each other. Um, the more it becomes, um, that bond, that trust becomes a little bit. Gives you the safety that you might need to share something uncomfortable in the room. The other thing I say sometimes is ask AI to generate a set of questions that you can ask consistently before any significant decision to uncover any blind spots or assumptions, like a simple stress test, um, that then becomes a habit, or like a little reference list. Um, and like I said before, these little things that you do, these little commitments for yourself, um, they send ripples through the team and the organization. And when they're practiced consistently, they actually have the power to change culture. Little things like that, small, uh, commitments kept actually changes culture. And there's one other thing, um, and I've done that with some leaders, and it was almost like a light bulb moment for them is to take a quick personal inventory. So a lot of leaders think of themselves, as I mentioned, as allies and as inclusive. M. But then I challenge them. I ask them, can you look back at some of, uh, your previous hires, last few years? What patterns do you notice? Same with promotions, same with strategic decisions. How many of them didn't go as planned and why? And that kind of honest backward glance tends to surface a few hidden biases very, very quickly. Um, and once you see the bias, once you understand that it was there, once you've identified it, I think it's a lot easier to address them because you can't change what you can't see. But once you've seen it, it's difficult to unsee it.

Speaker B: So I think you've given some great examples there of, uh, for leaders who care but feel stuck. Um, so that. That's great. I think I'd just pick up a couple of things. One is around the AI piece, uh, we did. We've done a couple of, um, episodes with Zoe Walters. Um, one, the latest one was around AI. So, uh, yeah, please do. Listen, if, um, you're out there thinking, what can. How can AI help from a HR perspective? Um, because there's a lot of conversation at the moment around is there bias built into the AI programs, um, and platforms that we're using? So interesting that you're talking about that as well as managers and leaders can lean into that. So, uh, not a bad thing. But I guess just a word of warning that it potentially won't give you exactly what you need. Um, the other thing that I really like that you were talking about was about that being intentional. And that's so important that we can't leave things to chance and we can't just hope things happen, that we have to be very intentional and leaders have to be intentional. The problem with that though, is that our leaders have a lot to do. Um, and how do they build Deni into their everyday decisions without it just becoming another thing?

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, well, that's been the ongoing problem, right. Because like I said, um, earlier on, and all of this may have also documented, is that, you know, we have a lot of great leaders who want to do the right thing, but when it comes down to the decision, they don't. Um, and one way that I've been addressing that with leaders is to not call it D and I and not have D and I conversations at all. And that maybe is also the silver lining of everything that we've been experiencing in the last few, um, years about diversity and inclusion. Fatigue is that people perhaps started speaking less about dni, but now we need to learn how to, you know, make it part of our everyday. So when we don't talk about diversity and inclusion. But obviously I'm still here, I'm still working, and I'm still very keen to make sure that it's part of the everyday. What we talk about is decision quality, for instance, um, about how decisions that maybe crumbled six months ago or six months after the decision was made were made because they were, you know, they were made through a very narrow frame. So I tried to introduce ways in which the everyday operations would have benefited, um, from more diversity intelligence, if you will, an open and outsider mindset or an inclusive design. And that's what I'm talking about, you know, creating psychological safety. So looking at what are you doing every day that isn't working as well as you needed to, especially because now there's pace, there's pressure, there's no time because we're much more prone to defaulting to our comfortable, comfortable spaces. So how do we tweak or what can we introduce into the process that will make it better, uh, uh, make decisions stronger? And that's what we have, um, built, um, recently and we're rolling out to our clients right now, which is, um, a product that we call a decision lens. And it's a set of M. Structured questions, um, that leaders ask themselves, um, about dni. And if I may, I just quickly walk through its structure, um, so There are three lenses to it. One is um, to look at who should be part of this decision and isn't. Um, so ah, a quick look at the room. So looking at who's the stakeholder, who's going to be impacted by that, are we in fact do we have all the brains in the room whom um, we need in order to make a holistic decision that isn't going to fall on its legs later on because we haven't thought about this? So that's the first part of the decision lens. The second part of the decision lens is to understand how to maximize or capitalize on the knowledge and the different perspectives that you've now accumulated in the room. So how do you use every brain there? That's the psychological safety bit. And again there are some prompts in the tool, in our decision lens tool that encourage that kind of contribution and challenge. And then the third part is what we call um, creative solutioning and that's um, thinking uh, about how um, diversity intelligence allows you to pull two completely different concepts, abstract ideas to create another third solution that could be the one that you need. So looking at, okay, this might be a different product but, but do we know anybody who's dealing with the same issue in a different industry, um, or do we have um, a similar uh, product worked on in a different department? So trying to pool again using this idea of diversity of thought and looking at other disciplines, other sectors, um, completely different um, uh, uh, concepts. Um, so an idea of that would be looking at um, the um, disruptors of the world. They've done that very well. If you think of Uber for example, cabs and phones, completely two different concepts. Creating a third one, Airbnb, you know, um, one that is my, my personal favorite is um, wheelie suitcases, luggage and wheels put together to create some, a solution. And that's sort of the mindset that we are trying to develop in the decision lens by giving people prompts. So we don't talk about dni, we don't talk about it as something that sits on alongside um, we're talking about how can you use diversity intelligence to get to better results, to get to better decisions, decisions that you will not later have to regret that have surfaced any assumptions or biases before the decision's done and before um, resources are allocated.

Speaker B: So Reena, we've talked a lot about the D and I conscious leader. You've ah, given some great examples and some great nudges, uh, and things uh, for us to go away and think about actually um, and what we can do within our own organizations. Um, we always ask the same question of our guests, the same final question. So what's that one thing that you'd like our listeners to do following your, um, episode?

Speaker C: So this is what I would love for everybody to do. Um, and it's, um, genuinely the simplest thing I know that works. And it's really. For instance, this week, notice who does not speak in your meetings. And then change the structure. Don't change the people. Change the structure. Don't pull someone aside and encourage them to contribute more. Don't tell the room to be better listeners. Change the structure. Go around the table before the debate opens up. Send the question in advance so people can come prepared. Create one moment where every voice has to land before the loudest one shapes the direction. Break out into pairs to get everyone's ideas and then debrief into the big group. So do something that changes the structure of how you operate, um, in this one moment when you notice that someone isn't contributing as much as you'd like them to. Because I find inclusion isn't necessarily about courage. A lot of it is about architecture. And architecture is something that you can change tomorrow morning before your next meeting, without a strategy or a budget or a consultant. And that's where I think it should all start. Brilliant.

Speaker A: Reena, thank you so much for your time today.

Speaker C: It's a great pleasure. Thank you so much for asking me to come on the show.

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