Braids in the Boardroom... with Rachel Shorter

I'm so glad you brought that up because actually like we ask a question at the end of every pod and the question today is directly linked to this because we actually interviewed Latoya Lacey from Estée Lauder a couple of months ago.

And if you check her out on LinkedIn, as I just have, she's wearing a braids.

And I, you know, I bet you if I ask her, she probably wasn't a few years ago.

But Latoya sort of said that point as well.

She said, you know, there are some rooms that are supposedly inclusive and there are some rooms that are supposedly diverse, but actually they're not the same thing.

And she knew when she was comfortable in a room.

Yeah.

And she knew when she wasn't comfortable in a room.

So I suppose the question to you is, what's the difference in your head between that sort of inclusive room and the diverse room, as well as challenging what diverse room is?

I would say an inclusive room is a room where...

You you don't necessarily see yourself in that room, but you feel comfortable in the room because you feel like you're part of it.

And there's no I don't want to use the word issue, but there's there's just there's a comfortableness about it.

That's how I would describe as an inclusive room or have an inclusive culture.

You are embraced for who you are and nothing else matters.

Whilst I feel like a diverse room.

is you tend to see yourself within those rooms.

So I would tend to see other Rachels or other women that look like me or other different races.

That's how I see diversity as such is that I see myself in those rooms whilst inclusive is I feel part of it.

I feel included.

I feel like who I am, what I look like won't ever be affected or hinder me from being anything other than great.

That's how I see the two.

And I would say you can be more comfortable in an inclusive room.

You can be sitting in a diverse room and be totally uncomfortable

because

you don't feel included.