Fearless Diversity

Tearing Down the Wall: A Fearless Diversity Look at Fairness Three kids, a wall, and those famous different-sized “equity” boxes. Helpful metaphor or the reason that to so many leaders and colleagues think the boxes look like unfairness? In this episode of Fearless Diversity, Rachel and Simon start with that much-used cartoon and end up somewhere much more interesting: how do we remove the barriers to people’s talent and empower them to achieve to the extent of their potential?   Are those “equity” boxes giving people the perception of an unfair advantage? To create greater opportunity shouldn’t we be taking the wall down altogether? And what does that look like if you’re a CEO, HRD, regulator or team leader trying to recruit, promote and manage fairly without getting lost in culture-war noise? Rachel brings her psychological-safety and trauma-informed leadership lens; Simon brings his unique approach to diversity rooted in goals and outcomes rather than gestures and politics. Together they unpack quotas, merit, the “tyranny of low expectations”, neurodiversity, and why pointing and punishing rarely changes anything.We ask how we can (to quote the great black American profess Glen Loury “acknowledge racial disparities without invoking the language of white supremacy. And … pursue equality without promoting guilt or resentment”? If you’ve ever wondered:When does equity become unlawful?How do we support people who meet the skills threshold to succeed?How do we challenge racism and sexism without turning everything into oppressor vs oppressed? …this one’s for you. Smart, practical, occasionally spicy and definitely more useful than another slogan on a slide.How woke and anti-woke erase blackness We must see race, but not be ruled by itBy Glenn Louryhttps://shorturl.at/78pWr

In this special Fearless Diversity episode, we press pause on the culture war and lean into a quieter kind of courage: listening.Rachel and Simon are joined by Jacqui Gavin BEM, a trans woman, former civil servant and long-time equality campaigner, for a deeply human conversation about growing up as Scott in 1970s Scotland, beginning transition as a teenager, and what it means to describe being trans not as an identity but as a process.Across the hour, they explore:The nine-year-old who “wanted to find the girl” and the 21-year-old stepping out with fear and liberation to live as a female.Why Jacqui calls herself “female with a trans history” and how she still lovingly carries Scott with her.What both sides of the sex and gender debate get wrong about each other, and why Jacqui sees herself not as a fighter but as a bridge-builder.Letting children be children, respecting women’s boundaries, and learning to “earn your place in the world” through mutual respect, not demands.This is not a shouting match about policy. It’s three people, in a conversation, talking honestly about fear, dignity, belonging and how to stay human when the world is loud, angry, and certain.If you’ve ever felt confused, anxious, or silenced by the noise around sex and gender, this gentle, thoughtful episode is an invitation: you’re allowed to just ask.

“A crisis of trust at the BBC” The BBC is weathering one of the fiercest storms in its modern history. The now-infamous Prescott memo, an “egregious” Trump edit, open rows over coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict, and bitter battles about sex and gender have left Britain’s national broadcaster facing accusations of bias from every direction.But is this just another skirmish in the Beeb’s long and noisy war with its critics – or has something deeper gone wrong inside the corporation once trusted above all others?That’s the question explored in the latest episode of Fearless Diversity, where psychological safety specialist Rachel Cashman joins broadcaster, writer and veteran BBC contributor Simon Fanshawe to ask what the turmoil really reveals about power, leadership and culture inside Britain’s biggest media institution.Drawing on Simon’s decades writing and presenting BBC programmes and Rachel’s work with leaders under intense scrutiny, the pair dissect the growing crisis from every angle.They explore:·      What the leaked Prescott memo uncovers – from the Trump editing debacle to the shifting coverage of Gaza, Israel, and the gender debate.·      How cost-cutting, centralised editorial “hubs” and tight internal controls may have narrowed the breadth of voices and opinions on air.·      Why two things can co-exist: that many have had fulfilling, proud careers inside the BBC while serious questions about its impartiality and internal culture remain unanswered.·      The chilling effect of reported instructions not to question the board – and why any “don’t ask” culture is a red flag in modern leadership.·      How institutions truly lose trust: not when they admit mistakes, but when they spin, minimise or defend instead of confronting uncomfortable truths.Rachel unveils her FEARLESS crisis framework – a model for organisations in trouble – and applies it directly to the BBC, suggesting bold steps the broadcaster must take to rebuild its credibility.Simon, meanwhile, delivers the uncomfortable verdict: that the deeper failure is one of journalism itself. The Director-General, he argues, must act first and foremost as editor-in-chief – and ensure editors lead with impartiality, serving the audience, not their own opinions.Together they make the case for renewing the BBC’s founding purpose: that public service broadcasting still matters, that opinions should never become the story, and that courage and transparency are the lifeblood of any institution hoping to retain public trust.For anyone steering organisations through controversy, managing reputational risk, or simply trying to make sense of what’s happened to the nation’s broadcaster, this is an unmissable listen.

On November 1st at about 7o’clock a man, now identified as Anthony Williams, is alleged to have stabbed eleven people on a train from Doncaster to Kings Cross. The grainy footage showed that he was black. And up went a racist balloon. Long before anyone knew anymore about him, the tweets were out. He was a terrorist, an asylum seeker……and from others that he was “British born”. This week Rachel and Simon unpack how fear, social media dynamics, and confirmation bias turn these tragedies into fuel on the fires of the culture-wars. How transparent should the police be about reporting the ethnicity of alleged perpetrators? Why do people prefer to confirm their own prejudices – literally to pre-judge – before waiting for the facts? What does academic research tell us about how easily swayed we are to see racism, sexism by or, in the other, view terrorism or issues with immigration and assumptions about race? How does jumping to those conclusions poison our ability at work to interrupt distorted narratives and creating the safety, clarity, and accountability that real dialogue requires form us to get along or work together.  And what can a chippy in North Leeds give us about how to do that?  Advisory: contains discussion of racism and violent incidents. Ongoing legal proceedings are referenced without speculation.  Sonia Sodha’s column My column for @TheNewWorldmag on what lies behind the rise of racism in politicshttps://shorturl.at/JpBWh Simon’s article about Kate Clancy in the New Statesmanhttps://shorturl.at/wRqpC Is Britain becoming more violent? - A look at the dataBy Fraser Nelsonhttps://shorturl.at/MZHdL Leeds chippy batters down faith barriershttps://shorturl.at/DEtE3 Kate Clanchy - Uncancelled at last Four years on, are we any wiser?https://shorturl.at/0qNjO Kids, critics and the courage of Kate ClanchyBy Victoria Smithhttps://tinyurl.com/3e25u8nsRutgers researchInstructing Animosity: How DEI Pedagogy Produces The Hostile Attribution Biashttps://tinyurl.com/28hjwmp2

When HR leaders become the organisation’s emotional shock absorbers, who absorbs the shock for them and how do we keep culture lawful, human, and high performing?In a post-pandemic world of blurred boundaries, rising neurodiversity needs and intensifying polarisation, HR leaders are being asked to carry it all: grief, grievance, and the governance. In this episode, we explore how to move from process-heavy firefighting to relational leadership and creating genuine psychological safety (not a “corporate cuddle”), maintaining accountability, and staying squarely within the law.What do people want from their jobs in 2025 vs. what the job requires, we ask: how do leaders regulate fear, rebuild trust, and re-set the contract at work? If you’re holding pain, policy, and performance all at once, this one’s for you.With deep respect for HR leaders and a mindset for legality, proportionality, and public interest. We separate psychological safety from well-being, agency from entitlement, and accountability from punishment. And we’ll offer practical moves to help HR step out of constant rescue mode and lead as strategic partners without become trapped in procedure. 

CRISIS OF TRUST: HOW TO FIX WHAT'S BROKEN IN BRITAIN'S BOARDROOMS, BEDROOMS AND BEYOND Trust is in dangerously short supply these days. From politics to once-dependable institutions and even within close-knit teams, confidence is fast evaporating. Trust is easy to lose and hard to earn. It’s built over time but lost in an instant - whether in personal relationships, businesses or in the corridors of power. In this week’s episode, Rachel and Simon discuss and debate how we built it, lose it, regain it and cope with it - starting with the individual. Want people to trust you? It’s all about being the same on the inside as you are on the outside. “Trust starts in the mirror, not in the memo,” as Rachel puts it.  When it comes to relationships is honesty is non-negotiable? Or can we carry a certain amount of mistrust? In business too, is trust all? Effective leaders know how to be straightforward with staff and the public, take personal responsibility for decisions and engage in authentic and transparent dialogue.​ Does building trust in teams or organisations demands honest self-assessment, clear purpose, and a willingness to engage constructively with conflict? And when trust is lost in politics, rebuilding competence is what’s needed. Not to be confused with PR or reputation management. The public expects politicians to act not spin. From the Post Office scandal to grooming gangs, from Ratner calling products ‘crap’ to BP CEO pretending the spread of the oil spill is negligible, trust in public bodies crumbles when facts are swept under the carpet and victims’ voices are denied. Ordinary people can cope with uncertainty, but they won't stomach dishonesty or hypocrisy, and when leaders bury the truth, it's not just the direct victims who lose faith - the whole public suffers.​ Key takeaways ·      Self before system: inner alignment beats performative signalling.·      Rupture is inevitable; repair is a skill (truth + accountability + consistency).·      Don’t confuse comms with credibility; behaviour is the message.·      Values work only when tied to observable behaviours and consequences.·      In high-stakes issues, be trauma-informed, not optics-led. Practical actions for leaders ·      Schedule one “repair conversation” you’ve been avoiding; name the rupture and propose a path back.·      Replace one all-staff email with 10 targeted 1-1s that rebuild credibility.·      Translate your values into two columns: “Looks like / Doesn’t look like” and use it in PDRs.·      In contentious debates, separate transparency (honest facts) from disclosure-dumping (deflection).·      Adopt “listen to hear → reflect → respond” as your process for dialogue.  BOSTON CONSULTING TRUST INDEXhttps://shorturl.at/zmmzQREBUILDING TRUSThttps://shorturl.at/XOVT7

This week, Simon & Rachel get gloriously uncomfortable.It’s a rollicking debate with sharp edges, full-throttle disagreement in part, and one very live question who’s it actually worth arguing with anymore? Simon’s just back from the Battle of Ideas, where he shared space with people he vehemently disagrees with and has mixed feelings as a result. Rachel, on the other hand, reckons the whole thing’s just too right-wing for her vibe, recognising she may be reinforcing her own biases, and worries about the reputational risk of legitimising certain viewpoints. So, it’s a conversation of the wrestle with our own tensions about who to talk to about when and when.  Is the real dividing line today Left versus Right or liberals versus authoritarians, on both sides?And what if, whisper it, the Right might actually be right that Britain’s true clash is between the elite and the people? New research from More in Common and Arch 10 reveals just how out of touch the progressive and public-sector “elites”, including many driving diversity and inclusion, have become from the wider public, especially on sex, gender, patriotism, and free speech. Battle of Ideas had everything: a panel on the Supreme Court judgment, disbelief that trans people even exist, a tweet labelling DEI “a virus,” and yet a surprisingly diverse audience and a bromance brewing between Simon and Andrew Doyle in over Simon’s taste in coloured couture. In the end, the duo agrees on one thing: it’s time to move past the culture wars.What we need are Fearless Diversity gatherings with rosé, civility, and the courage to disagree well. Who wants to join us? Fearless Diversity where nuance still has the mic.RESOURCESArch10 “Two Britains”https://shorturl.at/TC89q More in Common – “Progressive Activists”https://shorturl.at/eLwW6Battle of Ideashttps://www.battleofideas.org.uk/Ben Cooper (one of the KCs who represented in the Supreme Court) explainer on the Supreme Court judgement in For Women Scotlandhttps://shorturl.at/0QRCX

Fearless Diversity: Identity, Civility, and the Courage to Disagree At a time when public debate feels less like dialogue and more like a contest over whose feelings matter most, Simon and Rachel take a breath, and a stand, for nuance, empathy, and civility. Because identity whether shaped by sex, gender, class, ethnicity, or belief has become both the lens through which we see the world and, too often, the wall that divides us. In this episode, they explore what happens when politics becomes a battle of tribes rather than a search for solutions. From the far-reaching debates at the recent FiLiA conference, Europe’s largest feminist gathering, to boardrooms wrestling with diversity data, the same question runs through it all: how do we honour difference without hardening into division? Rachel argues that class still defines how women experience both oppression and opportunity, and Simon challenges the orthodoxy of identity politics itself. Together, they unpack how leaders can use diversity data not as a flag to wave but as a lens for understanding asking, what are we really trying to learn here? Because perhaps, in an age of permanent outrage, the most radical act isn’t shouting louder it’s listening better. If you enjoy listening to us, please do like and share Resources:FILIA. https://www.filia.org.uk/Fire Service Black Members - National Conference 2025 https://shorturl.at/A92tVBlack Excellence in Governance https://shorturl.at/lHFn3

Recorded on Tuesday 7 October 2025, this episode confronts the murders at Heaton Park on Yom Kippur and the sharp rise in antisemitism in the UK. We name the harm plainly and we hold the line between free speech and incitement.We don’t posture; we do the hard work of sense-making. We explore why silence from institutions and politicians corrodes trust, how slogan-chanting lands as eradication to Jewish citizens, and why leaders must support protest rights clearly and also enforce the law on incitement consistently, not selectively. We acknowledge parallel harms, including arson at a Sussex mosque and the daily experience of British Muslims facing prejudice. But we don’t take refuge in the false comfort of “whataboutery”.This is a practical conversation for people who run things CEOs, headteachers, council leaders, community organisers. We offer three commitments you can enact now:1.              Curiosity with backbone: seek understanding across difference without surrendering facts. Try to find agreement not just disagreement.2.              Even-handed moral clarity: condemn antisemitism and Islamophobia without purity tests or exemptions.3.              Local dialogue, real guardrails: create forums where disagreement is safe, and incitement is not.4.              In everyday conversation commit to civility – only ever try to explore and at best convince but not to win. Not virtue. Not theatre. Leadership. We have the conversation you want to. Please do listen, like and share.