The Conversation with Dr Robert Livingston
Graham Allcott 0:07
This is Beyond Busy. I'm Graham Allcott. I'm the author of a number of books including the global bestseller How to be a Productivity Ninja. And I'm the founder of Think Productive. We work with some of the world's leading companies to help people get stuff done. But more importantly, to help people to make space for what matters. Beyond busy is where I explore the often messy truths and contradictory relationships around topics like work life, balance, happiness and success, and explore with interesting people what makes them tick. In short, this is where we ask the bigger questions about work. My guest today is Dr Robert Livingston. Robert is a social psychologist based at the Harvard Kennedy School, and is one of the world's leading experts on the science underlying bias and racism. He's also the author of the book The conversation, how talking honestly about racism can transform individuals and organisations. And in this episode, obviously, as you can imagine, with someone with such a long history, in this field, we talk about biases, we talk about what we can learn from black lives matter what you can do in your workplace, we share some of Roberts various different models. And I think you're gonna find this a really accessible, interesting, fascinating conversation. This is Dr Robert Livingston. I'm with Dr Robert Livingston. Firstly, just congratulations on the book, the first thing I wanted to ask you about, which I thought might be quite a nice frame for this whole discussion is your press model. So you want to explain the press model. And then we're actually just going to use that for just how we structure the rest of this.
Dr Robert Livingston 1:48
I guess to preface my explanation of the press model, I'll tell you a little bit about why I wrote the book and what the primary endeavour of the book was, because that's integral to explaining the model. Yeah, um, you know, I've been doing a lot of research on racism, discrimination, particularly in the workplace for few decades now. And what I noticed, among the popular books out there is that there are quite a few books that are a thesis. So there's a main idea that the author is trying to garner support for. So there's a wonderful book called cast by Isabel Wilkerson, where the main thesis is that the racial hierarchy in the United States is like the caste system in India. So she sort of makes this thesis that, you know, racism is really not that different from the way in which caste manifests itself and she, she provides compelling evidence for it. So that's like a thesis. And then you have books that are testimonials. An example of that would be between the World and Me by Tallahassee coats in which, you know, he talks about the challenges of growing up as a black man in Baltimore.
My book is a tool. So it's neither a thesis nor a testimonial, I found that what was missing in the literature, or what, you know, people hadn't really attempted to do was to write a book to say, this is how we actually change things. So you know, it's wonderful to write books to say, this is the way things are, and I'm going to provide evidence for it or books to say, This is my story, which it can be very compelling. But I wanted to write a book that would help move the needle on racial equity. And so the purpose of my book was to provide a tool for managers, leaders, organisations that are interested in increasing the level of diversity, equity and inclusion. So that was the mission. That was the arduous trek that I set out on several years ago. The Press model is the result of that investigation into what the literature says about the different steps that are necessary and effective in promoting that change and moving organisations from point A to point B. So the first step to solving any problem, whether it's racism, whether it's substance abuse, whether it's weight loss, whether it's climate change, they all begin with an acknowledgement of the problem. So in my press model, which is an acronym for the five steps, P stands for problem awareness. Simply put, do you know that there's a problem? Turns out that many people don't know that there's a problem when they have problems. So for example, you could be ill you can have cancer and not know it. And that's a problem because that's going to impede your ability to get treatment. Because you don't even know that you No one knows that you have this illness. There are people who don't acknowledge the problem of climate change, and thankfully, it's a shrinking minority. But they don't think it's a real thing. They think it's a natural geological cycle and the planet has nothing to do with carbon emissions. There are people who could be overweight or underweight and not know it, because they have body issues, body image issues. There are people who could be battling substance abuse and be in denial and not know that they really have a problem. Similarly, there are people who don't really think that racism is a real thing. And I'm glad I'm speaking to a British audience, because I lived in England for many years. And the favourite sort of long line of thinking from a Englishman to an American would be, oh, you know, that's an American thing, this whole racism thing. We don't really have that in England, and certainly not to the same extent. So that's a form of problem denial. So the very first step of the model is, do you have a problem? And if so, what is it? And it turns out here in the United States, most white people, and there have been surveys on this don't believe that racism is a real thing. In fact, if anything, they feel that most of the systemic racism is against white people. So already you have a problem, which is you can't agree on whether there's a problem. Yeah, that's necessarily not sufficient. The next step is the R, which is root cause analysis. So once you know that there's a problem, you have to deal diagnose it. So this is similar to a doctor, right? So I gave you the example of a latent illness like cancer where you don't know it. But many times illnesses manifest themselves in symptoms. So if you're experiencing severe headaches, or nausea, the next step for the doctor is to diagnose what's causing your headache or nausea. You know that there's a problem because you can feel it in your body. But the big question is, what is the source of your headache? It turns out that something like a headache can be caused by lots of different things. And it's important to know what's causing it because that will inform the best course of treatment. So headaches can be caused by dehydration. They can be caused by stress and anxiety, they can be caused by Coronavirus, right, and knowing what the particular causes of your headache will give a direct insight into the best course of treatment. So those two steps are what I call condition, it means sort of diagnosing the organism, what's wrong? Is there a problem? And if so, what is it? What's causing it? Yeah, that's necessary, but not sufficient. The next stage is what I call concern. So we've got condition concern correction, under condition is problem awareness, root cause analysis. And then we've got E of the press model, empathy. Do you care? Once you know there's a problem? Do you care, there's a wonderful movie with Nicolas Cage called Leaving Las Vegas, where he's an alcoholic, and he doesn't care. His job is to go to Vegas and drink himself to death. So he's like, Don't try to stop me, I'm going to embrace my addiction. There's no concern at all about solving the problem. Similarly, you can have white people who are not concerned about racism, either they're apathetic because they feel it doesn't affect them. Or they're actually in favour of it, because they feel more racism will increase their status as white people. And so there's no concern about solving the problem, even if they know that there is a problem. So we need to have that empathy. And then the final stage correction has two steps, the SLA s strategy and sacrifice strategy is assuming you know, there's a problem, you know, where it comes from, and you care about it. Next question is, do you know what to do to solve it? And that's a function of the root cause analysis, because if you know what's causing it, and sort of gives you some insight into how to fix it, one of the MIS diagnoses that organisations make and root cause analysis is that they think that racism to the extent that it exists, is the product of a few rotten apples or a few bad actors, rather than acknowledging that it's something much more systemic. And so they think if they fire that one bad cop, or two bad cops or five bad cops, that they've somehow gotten rid of the problem of police brutality, rather than acknowledging that part of it is the machinery of law enforcement and how it was designed to operate, right? So you want to make sure when you're looking at strategy that you understand the cost, because that's going to tell you the best approach. But then the final stage is sacrifice. Which means once I know what to do, am I willing to actually do it? And in my opinion, that's the biggest of the five. Strategy is usually easy. That's the easiest, and quite frankly, organisations want to skip straight to strategy to say, okay, Doctor lose and tell us what to do. It's like, no, that's the easiest. It's almost like someone who wants to lose 40 pounds and says, tell me what to do. It's not mysterious. It usually for most people involves some combination of eating less and moving more. I can give you any number of cookbooks, gym memberships, all kinds of strategies, that would really work. But the question is, are you willing to do it? And I say sacrifice because nothing worth having is completely free. But I'm going to put sacrifice in quotations because it doesn't cost as much as people assume. There will be some investment of time, there will be Some investment of energy, there will be some effort, commitment, maybe resources that are necessary to move the needle. But there has to be some willingness to do that. So that's kind of a quick overview of the model, and how it sets the stage for the book.
Graham Allcott 10:16
And one of the things he talks about in the book, which I read, which actually was probably the thing that landed most with me was, I was found myself in about chapter four and chapter five or something, and you knew, you're kind of saying, you probably want to get to some strategy and some solutions here. But patients like Hang on, like, let's just spend more time, you know, really understanding the problem. And I think, I think that was just a really interesting. You know, it was a really interesting thing that you did in the book that sort of that that really sort of lit that light bulb up for me in thinking about, Oh, no, hang on, we need to go much deeper in terms of the understanding those root causes before you can actually start, you know, putting out nice statements on social media, or hiring two or three black members of the board who they're, particularly to try and redress that balance in a way that actually is, you know, sometimes, you know, can be done in quite a disingenuous way or does in a way that doesn't actually change. Like you say that, you know, that more much more systemic set of symptoms. So, yeah, like, so I found that really fascinating. And I wanted to also just come back to the thing you started with at the beginning, which is about the difference between the UK and the US. So you have worked actually really close to where I'm standing right here in in in Brighton in the UK, and the University of Sussex, you've also worked at Harvard. So you've experienced being in two quite white places, as a successful black academic, and I just wondered what your thoughts were about the similarities, as well as maybe some of the subtle differences between racism in the US versus UK.
Dr Robert Livingston 12:06
So I'll talk about the similarities. And then I'll talk about the subtle differences. So I was an embodiment of the similarity between the US and Britain. And what I mean is, when I was at Sussex, I was the only black professor at the whole university. Wow. So you know, that's how many Um, so when I say professor, I mean, a member of the professorial. So, you know, there were lecturer senior lectures, readers, you know, there's different levels, I was the only professor at Sussex, and one of about four, in the entire country in all of the UK, I think there were only four lakh people who occupied the rank of Professor. And so I could feel that I could constantly feel it, you talked about being in a white place, I was often the only black person in the room? And to answer your question, it was probably out of maybe 150 or 200. So we're talking less than 1%. And in the country, much less than 1% because I think there are 1000s of professors and maybe only four. And you can get the absolute most recent statistics on this because my statistics are old, this was six years ago in 2015. And I moved to Sussex in 2012. So so there are definitely parallels in terms of hierarchical structure. There are wealth disparities between people of colour broadly construed in England and and white people, their educational disparities, all the sort of basic sociological indicators that you would see in the US, you see in Britain, to a greater extent or lesser extent, depending on which region of Great Britain depending on which region of the United States, but basically, overall, that's pretty much the same. So we've got the structural, then we've got the psychological, that is also the same, which is in England, like the United States, there is the perception that black people and brown people more broadly, are not as competent as white people, um, that they should occupy a position of lower status than white people. So you would get resistance right from, you know, people I would consider to be subordinates, because they just aren't comfortable working for a black man. And that's the same in England as as in the United States. Because I think, you know, colonialism and and all of the theories that that, you know, around eugenics and racial inferiority, a lot of those came out of England in the 18th century and the 19th century. So the attitudes are pretty much the same. If you dig deep, where I think it differs is, race is the first cut in the United States, meaning it has been the most significant social indicator. In our system. For 400 years, it was more important than class, it was more important than gender it was. So race. And when I say race, I don't just mean physical parents, I mean, ancestry, you could look white, and have a great, great, great, great grandfather who's black. And that still puts you into this category, where you don't get paid for your labour, you are not able to vote, you're not able to socialise with whomever you choose. You don't own anything. In fact, you don't even own your body, the most basic possession, someone else owns your body. And I think that rigid system based on it's really a zero tolerance policy in terms of ancestry says, You know, I don't care what you look like, I don't care. You know, if you have this one drop, then you are in this category, I think has created a very unique situation in the United States where race takes primacy over everything else. Yeah, I think in England, it's consequential. But it's maybe not the first cut. I think class because of your history, yeah, plays a much bigger role. And I would sometimes find situations in England, where class would Trump race occasionally. Because that seems to be the first cut. And I was sort of outside of the class system being an American. But you have the elocution with the elocution classes that teach you how to speak, we don't have socio Lex in the United States, like people can't peg you and put you in different kinds. So in England, there's a whole complex system of class that maybe overshadows a bit. But it's a compliment to race.
Graham Allcott 16:56
Yeah, it feels like the class thing in England is, it's interesting, because I, I feel that it's it's definitely inherent in so many situations. And I sort of say that, as someone who, you know, grew up, I was the first person to go to university and my family and I kind of felt like I've sort of transcended my own background, a little bit, but I still I still feel it. And I still feel, you know, sometimes that my voice is not quite fitting in in the room and stuff of that as much as I sort of tried try and emulate the more Queen's English are sounding voices. I'm still a boy from the Midlands, you know, and so I kind of feel that a bit more. But it's funny that like, even though that's probably like you say, the first cut in England, like no one talks about it, it's just a completely unsaid. The whole system is just by subconscious thought, rather than actually putting things on the table and debating it and talking about it and trying to change it. There's very little, actually, in terms of trying to change it, which I guess maybe might bring us nicely onto this conversation. And I wanted to share something with you, which is that I, so I, I felt like I really wanted to be prepared for for this conversation. And I texted about 10 or 11 sort of people in my network and said, Hey, what is what's the barrier to having the conversation? Right? And what was really interesting is to the people that I texted, were black women. And their responses, one of them responded, basically saying, Why are you asking me dude, like, ask why people's I'm asking why people. And the other one is some I know very well, who takes me back saying, I'm tired, you know, I'm just tired of having to talk about this and explain this all the time. So it was interesting that it's a conversation that obviously needs to happen, but it's also a conversation that, you know, if you're black, you've had it so often with people that it there's a there's a kind of a kind of tiredness, you know, kind of fatigue that sets in around around some of that just emotionally, but also that the the vast majority of the white people that I asked just didn't respond. And I thought that was interesting. And the ones that did their main answer around the barrier was I'm worried about saying the wrong thing. And worried about offending and you know, that like that was that was the main answer that I got back from two or three people. But yeah, I was interested. You know, I was quite surprised by, you know, candidly about how some of those people didn't respond. And so you've got this thing in the book, which talks about the three kinds of animals, that that kind of characterise the different ways that people approach this, you've got ostriches, and sharks and dolphins, and I thought maybe that might be a nice thing to share with people because that feels like it'd be interesting if you're watching this or listening to this to think about, like where where you might react It's where you might sit on them on this question.
Dr Robert Livingston 20:02
So there's a lot there, let me go down the different points that you made in turn. So I absolutely agree with the reaction of your black colleagues that, you know, this isn't their job to educate white people on racism. In many ways, it's my job, which is why I wrote this book. So read the book before, your job is not to explain all of this. I'm a scholar, this is what I get paid to do. My job is to explain it. And then their job is to read it and learn. So to get to the point that, you know, some of your white colleagues made about being worried about saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing. It's a skill. And it's a skill that you can learn. And there are books out there that will tell you what the right thing is, the wrong thing is or that will get no illuminate, you know, these blind spots that you may have. But the question is, do you care? Right, it's back to the press model, the empathy, the concern, do you care enough to spend, as I mentioned in the Book One day, reading this so that you can increase? And, you know, the simple answer may be they don't care. And this becomes an excuse, because silence is complicity. Not having a conversation doesn't really affect white people, right? In many ways, the status quo is tilted in their favour. So if the whole point of the conversation is to move the needle towards greater equity, and I don't have the conversation, because well, you know, I can't I don't know what to say. And in parentheses, and I don't want to learn what to say, because it's awkward, or because it's time consuming, because it's uncomfortable, then, you know, that sort of perpetuates what's always been and there isn't as much of a direct investment, I guess, for people who are on the winning side of that. So I just want to say that, um, but but I would say, then there's a book that's written by two of your compatriots, it's by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson called the inner level. And it's a wonderful book about how greater inclusion and equality and social justice affects the quality of life of everyone. And it's a compelling case, I'll just sort of recommend this book, and you can read it because they provide really, really convincing data that, you know, the richest of the rich will benefit from greater social justice. So you know, if I gave you a crude example, you know, I have a friend who lives in Bogota, Colombia, where the gap between rich and poor is really, really big. And they happen to be on the rich side. And because this was someone who was, you know, one of my students way back when in a Master's class and invited me to Bogota to show me the country. It's stunning, how the rich people live in Colombia, many of them barricaded behind fortresses, literal fortresses. And he told me that when he was a teenager, they were kidnapped, uncertain, was a group of people from his school that were kidnapped. If there were a greater distribution of wealth and greater social justice, the rich folks wouldn't have to look over their shoulders, when they walk down the streets, they wouldn't have to have armed bodyguards, like, That's no way to live. And maybe they've grown used to it. But for me, it was striking that people have to actually live that way. So I mean, that's just, you know, simple example of how greater justice can improve the quality of life for everyone means you can walk outside, you have more freedom, if you distribute wealth in a more equitable way. So that's what I would say about what people have to gain from the conversation, then I understand those barriers, but I don't think they're insurmountable barriers. And because of that, I think it can often be used as an excuse to not engage. Hmm,
Graham Allcott 24:03
yeah. And you're thinking about the ostriches and sharks and dolphins. So the ostriches are the people who are burying their head in the sand.
Dr Robert Livingston 24:08
Yeah. So linking what I just said to those three metaphors, um, you know, there are people who don't want to have the conversation, because, you know, they don't want to know the truth. They don't want to face the truth. That was like what you said, you know, regarding the class system in England, everybody knows it's there, but it's almost like breathing. It's become this natural thing to do, that you don't even acknowledge it keeps the society alive, like a breath, but you're, you know, 99.9% of the time not even conscious of the fact that you really just became it's become this naturalised thing. And I think when you want to make certain people face it, they become like an ostrich and say, I don't want to and they bury their heads in the sand sharks. So hostages are ignorant, and it's often deliberate ignorance, meaning you don't want to know you don't know and you don't want to know and That's comfortable, that situation keeping your head buried in the sand, sharps. Often No. And they're often the architects of systems that perpetuate oppression. But their job is to consume, as long as is there at the top of the food chain, then they're happy to go on about their lives, you know, consuming other fish, pretty much. So their job is to remain at the apex predator to remain at the top of the food chain. And they know about what's in the ocean. And sharks have more senses than we do, they have a lateral line, they have a sixth sense of seven since like, they're completely aware of their world, but their goal is dominance. So it's not ignorance, its dominance. And in order to be dominant, you often have to be very aware of how the system operates, so that you can manipulate it. And then there are dolphins which many people fall into that category, which are, you know, mammals that are friendly, that basically want to join the pod or the group or be part of a larger community or collective. And, you know, sometimes they bump beaks with one another, but, you know, their their intentions are good. And so, you know, I basically wrote the book for dolphins. And, you know, there's a part I don't know if you've gotten to chapter nine, where I talked about the three types of people pro socials, individualist and competitors. Yeah, I think they map on to this dolphin, shark, ostrich sort of trichotomy. Yeah, divide people into, there was
Graham Allcott 26:41
a thing, maybe we'll get to it, where you're talking about the sort of thought experiment where you receive money and someone else receives money. And I just thought that was really interesting. So maybe we'll come back to that one. But that line about the dolphin thing where Yeah, sometimes dolphins dolphins are inherently cooperative and community focused in their outlook, but also you do bump beak sometimes. And, you know, you muddle along, and don't always get it. Right. So I think it's, you know, sometimes I just loved the way you put that, because it's I think sometimes that's a really important sort of reassurance for people who consider themselves to be allies is like, yeah, like we that's, we have to just be brave enough to, to be uncomfortable in some of those situations and to learn and to kind of question our own, you know, biases all the time, you know, so I just thought that was really interesting. Which brings us on to Ted. So, Ted, I think you changed his name, right? But I did. So you were teaching a class around and it was was it was two full days. So right?
Dr Robert Livingston 27:46
No, he had me come to his city for two full days. But the class that I taught was a week, a week,
Graham Allcott 27:51
okay? So he's, he's sent on this class with you. And then and the class is going to look at racism and biases. And he started by saying, Oh, this is going to be like, dump on the white guy, kind of time. And then he goes on this incredible journey. So you do want to just tell his story real quick.
Dr Robert Livingston 28:08
Sure. So um, and Ted, I would actually, you know, I'm gonna come up with a fourth animal that I think, you know, describes Ted, Ted, Ted was a bat was blind, but it wasn't by any deliberate means. He was a bat that was later given a really good pair of glasses, then now. We're sort of going down a rabbit hole with these metaphors. But he wasn't an ostrich and he wasn't a shark. I think he was a dolphin, but a blind dolphin that ended up in my class by accident. He had wanted to sign up for a class on leadership, he was the mayor of a city in the suburb of a large Midwestern city. And, you know, he thought he was signing up for class on leadership. And there was a clerical error that put him in my class. I didn't find out about this until later, but I could see from his face that he was very uncomfortable even on the first day, and and he was tall, he's about six foot five. So he stood out. And, you know, he just he just sat there and he listened. He was polite guy from the Midwest. And he thought to himself, I'm gonna make the best I can of this week. He You know, he didn't throw a temper tantrum and, and so forth with Harvard, he just stayed in the class. And he said, it transformed him. And he's a very religious man, and he feels like it was divine intervention that put him in my class, by accident, but basically, he learned about systemic racism. And he learned how to have the conversation. And he learned how to interact with people who are different because he experienced more diversity in this class of 60 people than he did in his town. That was 99% way. Right. And so, you know, it just it showed me the power of people to change with the right information, the right investment, the right incentives, and he had the right model. the right values. He can't he was, you know, a deep dolphin, you know, he cared about the community. And he was able to then embark on the journey towards changing the system using his power as a mayor, and as a tall white man, to then become an advocate and an ally for racial racial justice. And he did that by sort of, you know, having conversations with people and learning information that he didn't know, which then changed his behaviours.
Graham Allcott 30:36
Do you think there was so obviously, part of the thing there is just the the the sort of opportunity that's presented by the volume of time, right, like, if you've got a whole week, you get to go really deep into subjects and stuff. But do you think there was like, a particular moment for him or, or a particular topic that you covered that really transformed that from? Perhaps him having a view that was like, Well, I don't feel like I'm proactively racist, so everything's fine to him kind of recognising that more systemic element of racism?
Dr Robert Livingston 31:10
Yeah. It was a lot of a discussion around white privilege. Because when you're a fish, the last thing you notice is the water around you. And he was in a very homogeneous fishbowl, right? And so, you know, it's hard to know that you're tall, unless everyone around you're shorter, right? If you lived your life in isolation, and you never saw another human being, you would know if you were tall or short, or anything else. But there's, you have no context. And so I think he had no context really to understand white privilege, because he lived in such a sheltered homogeneous environment. And that was what did it for him. And, you know, one of the metaphors that I use, because, you know, he would push back, and he would say, Well, you know, I had hardships, and this is maybe what you'll get to later when we talk about the difference between individual privilege and institutional privilege was that all of his focus was on individual privilege. And he had no insight into institutional privilege, or how it gave him a leg up. You know, if we go back into the metaphors, again, the birds, he's thinking, I'm an eagle with really strong wings. And it's true, he is an eagle with really strong wings. But whether an eagle can soar or not, is not just a function of the strength of the wings, there are also updrafts and air currents that carry birds. Yeah. And being wide provides an updraft or an air current that will enable you to soar. Right, your wings are part of it. Yes, that's, that's necessary, but it's not sufficient. And there are other Eagles that have wings that are just too strong. But without those up traps, and air current, they can't soar. And it took a whole week for this to sink in. Like it was a gradual thing. And I always run my classes, you know, with kind of an inquiry approach rather than an advocacy approach. In other words, I asked questions, and I say is this the case, let's look at the data, let's talk about it, rather than trying to shove facts down people's throat that never works. And so he sort of was willing to embark on this path of discovery. And he learned things about the world that he didn't know before. And with him being you know, quote, unquote, a child of God, once he knew that he couldn't stand by and do nothing, once his eyes were open once the bat was given glass was given glasses, and he could see that he said, I have a moral obligation to do these things that I didn't know at my ripe age of 52, or however old he was. I didn't know this was the case. And now I do know,
Graham Allcott 33:51
we need to see how many more animal metaphors we can get.
Dr Robert Livingston 33:54
We'll have a whole Zoo by the end of
Graham Allcott 33:56
it. There was another you talked about there about asking questions, and you describe in the book. So I guess we're kind of getting on to more of the root cause stuff here and some of that more like, you know, systemic issues around racism. And you talk in the book about you're doing this class with this bunch of, you know, predominantly white labourers and you ask them about the top 500 companies in America and how many of the CEO is a black? Let me just ask you that question. So that you can then tell the answers that questions the audience. So yeah, how, like, of the current five top 500 companies in America how many CEOs have that?
Dr Robert Livingston 34:40
You want the truth or what they guessed the answer would be?
Graham Allcott 34:44
Yeah, yeah. Why don't we do that one first do the What did they guess? And
Dr Robert Livingston 34:48
part of what gave me the inspiration for the title of the conversation was that I spent time getting to know these blue collar workers before we dove into discussions around race and That and other situations that I've had before, like I was talking to police officers, I give them lots of data, they would look at me with blank stares, one black police officer would bring down in tears and talk about the discrimination that he faced. And then they're all ears. And I started to learn that social relationships were a portal for banks to enter. Without the social connection, you would have a slammed and locked door. And so building a relationship, developing rapport with people sort of allowed them to listen to you more than they would if you didn't have a relationship. So with these guys that are called the fellows, you know, I spent a whole day talking to them about fishing, you know, I'm a fisherman and, and they formed a connection with me, they said, Oh, you know, he's not some uppity Harvard professor who, you know, doesn't, you know, he's like, you know, he can relate to us. And that made them more comfortable with me. So once we got past that comfort zone, I could then ask them questions that would delve into this racial topic. And so I asked them the question, you know, have you heard a fortune? 500? They say, yes, the 500 largest companies in the US, Amazon, Walmart, General Motors, I think, yeah. How many CEOs are there in the fortune 500. And a bunch of them raise their hand and I call on one person. And he said, 500? And I said, Great. We're good. So far, so good. Now the next question is going to be a bit more difficult out of those 500. How many of you think are black? And again, people raise their hand, which I don't know, they would have done if we hadn't had this extended icebreaker. And I called on the first guy, and to my shock, his answer was 100. And I said, No, no, I'm trying to keep a poker face. The next guy called he said, 120 Nope. Next guy. 150. And at this point, I'm losing it. Because I'm, you know, is this a joke? Am I in a parallel universe? And I think someone read my facial expressions, and the foreign answer was, Oh, you guys are way too high. I think it's around 75 or 80. And I never got an answer below 50 gramme, and the real answer at the time was five, not 15, not 55. And today, the answer is three. And in the UK, you know, 1% of the Fortune 500. That's black and in the UK. Um, you know, it was 1%, as well, I think at the time, it was a TMT, john, who was the CEO of the crew. So when I showed them the five because the competition got really interesting, I put up on the the slideshow five, and I can hear this, ah, you know, this is rumbling across the room. And people are like, I don't believe that. And one guy said, that's fake news, you know, and he started laughing, they just didn't accept the data. They said, you know, we just don't believe it. Like, we think it's closer to 100. And so again, back in the inquiry mode, you know, I didn't call them idiots and say, you know, that's why you didn't graduate from high school, you know, I said, Okay, well, well, let's, let's, let's look into this a little more. And when you come back tomorrow, we'll talk about it again. But I said, you know, when you go home tonight, Google fortune 500, you'll get the names of these companies, I can't pull the wool over your eyes, I want you to go on the website. And they're made, you know, kind of try to make a little fun or made a joke out of it. I said, you know, click on the photograph of the CEO, if they have so much as a deep golden tan like they've been in Florida for the last week, go ahead and check them off as being black, we're gonna have loose criteria here. But put it down as a black man, if they got a deep Golden 10. They got high cheekbones, and pretty features check them off as being a woman because they guess there were 300 women out of the Fortune 500. And even those loose and ridiculous criteria, I want you to come back tomorrow and tell me if you get anywhere close to 150. And they didn't, they came back. And they discovered something because I put them on a mission of discovery. I didn't try to you know, force the facts down their throat, because they would have regurgitated and they came back as a doctor, right? They were all white guys. And I said,
Yeah, so let's talk about why you thought, you know, 20%, or, you know, 80% of we factor in women of the Fortune 500 were women and people of colour, when really it's 90% white male. And they told me because when I turn on the TV, I see Obama, Jay Z, Oprah, all these rich and famous black people. And I live in a trailer. And another guy chimed in and said, Yeah, and also these companies are very gung ho about diversity, they have all these policies, you know, I just figured they'd hire the first black person they came in contact with, you know, wouldn't even have to have a home could be homeless, they dust him off, put him in a suit make him see. I mean, they were exaggerating, but they're like, you know, no one's looking for us. And I said, but look around the room. What do you see? Because the room was 99% white males, the CEOs are 90% white males, like, despite your theories, what is the data telling you the CEO? What is he of your company? Is it a black woman? No, it's a white male. So that was a moment for them to say, huh. And I think I had moments like that with Ted, where people accept these deep narratives that they haven't challenged. And then when they're gently pushed to challenge these deep narratives, they're like, you're right. This one Makes no sense. Like, how was I thinking that before?
Graham Allcott 40:03
You talks about something at the end there, which, again, I found really surprising in the book was, like the letter says a couple of things. One was, you talked about the level of the percentage of people who acknowledge racism against black people before Black Lives Matter. And after, and I was quite surprised that the needle move, but only really slightly, even despite that being such a huge, you know, media story and campaign for such a long period of time. And it only had this tiny movement, but also that a lot of people thought that the main racism was against white people. And that was I probably one of the things that I took away that I was most shocked by. So is that is that because of what you're just saying that there's this kind of sense that oh, we solve racism? And then now there's like this push for diversity. So it's actually I'm being oppressed as a white person? Is that kind of where that attitude comes from?
Dr Robert Livingston 41:05
No, I think it comes from people confusing. fairness, with entitlement. So let me give you a story, a metaphor, and this was not going to involve animals, it's going to involve people. You know, this is a story that I tell of Betty, a mom who has twin daughters and you know, bakes a batch of butter cookies. So Betty's butter cookies every Sunday, and she has a daughter named Zelda and a daughter named Francis. Francis is her favourite because she looks more like Betty and the other daughter because they're, you know, dizygotic twins. In other words, they're not identical, so they look different and Francis's, her favourite Delve is not so as a result, because Francis is her favourite, she gets Francis for cookies every day. And she gives Zelda zero cookie. So we've got the alliteration here, Francis for Zelda zero z in the app, so you can keep track. This goes on for years that Francis gets four cookies and Zelda get zero and Zelda loves cookies just as much as Francis, but she doesn't get any. The parents at the school find out about this cookie policy, and they're outraged. And they confront Betty. And they say How could you treat your kids this way, and Betty feels guilty. And she decides to change the cookie policy. So now, instead of Francis getting four and zero to getting zero, she doesn't give them both to each that would be fairness. Instead, she changes the cookie policy by giving Francis three cookies and Zelda one cookie. What's interesting about this situation gramme is that instead of having one unhappy daughter, which before it was Zelda because she got zero cookies, Francis was perfectly happy getting four cookies. Now you have two unhappy daughters. Zelda is unhappy because one cookie is still not fair. But Francis is furious because she feels deprived. Even though she's getting three cookies, she was used to getting four cookies. And this feels like she's being mistreated. By getting three cookies. where I'm going with this is that up until very recently, white males in the US were getting four cookies. What I mean by that is they had 100% of the Fortune 500 CEO positions, they had 100% of the US presidential positions, they had 100% of the US vice president position, I can go on and on up until 2008. And up until 2024, the Vice President and the president right. So when someone's used to getting four cookies, even though it was never fair, when they go down to three cookies, and in the case of us, it's not even three cookies, it's like three and a half or three and three quarter cookies. Like it's I mean, you can dig deep into this metaphor. But that's gonna lead to outrage, because what they're used to is all the cookies, and if any cookies are taken away, they feel deprived. But that translates into to answer your question is now on the victim of racism. So Francis feels like she's the bit. So really, it's Zelda who's been abused all these years, if we think about it, but now Francis is saying, I'm the one who's being abused. Yeah, because they took a cookie away from me. And that's the best way I can explain it to you. And shortly without getting too technical and jargony. That's the Francis felt entitled, there was never fairness in the situation at all. But there wasn't teittleman entitlement can be based on history, because there was a history of four cookies, right? And so with entitlement, you get used to something, and that's what you've come to expect. So now, if we translate this to organisations, white males have come to expect that whenever there's an opening for a senior position, it's like breathing. They don't say this, but they suspect it's going to be a white male. And then when a company comes in and says, No, we're going to re allocate these cookies and it's going to be a woman. They're furious. They're like, How could you do this to me? how, you know, despite the fact that from a fairness standpoint, like I said, the CEOs are 90% of Fortune 500 positions. In the US, white men are 30% of the population 30% women are 50% of the population, and they are 5% of the CEOs. So I mean, we're not talking about small disparities, we're really I mean, if we went to the cookie example, it would be 10 cookies versus zero cookies, like I'm under estimating the vastness of the disparity. But yet that will lead to moral outrage when you challenge the status quo, and therefore people's entitlement.
Graham Allcott 45:27
And that's why I think you've got to really bring onto the table rather than having it as an undercurrent under the table, just the whole notion of not just privileged but privileges, right. So that's where multiple different privileges that we have, I saw a job advert the other day, and as I often do, I have no intention of applying for another job right now. But sometimes I read these job ads, just curious to, you know, read what organisations that I really respect and admire are doing around their hiring and stuff. And one of the organisations that I read this job at the other day, and at the end of it, it said, We're particularly looking for underrepresented groups to apply for this role. And even though I had no intention of applying for this job, I find myself going her well, what if I wanted to apply just having this tiny little moment of just feeling like, oh, I've just been affronted by that. And then immediately my next thought was like, Okay, so that's a reminder of my privilege, all the time that I even get to kind of feel that and notice that because what that says is, there's an awful lot of other, you know, job ads, which I could have read, and I haven't even noticed the fact that that bias has gone the other way. Right. So but I do think there's something really interesting around that, that like, even though I'm really conscious of a lot of these issues, I still found myself just having this tiny emotional reaction to it, even though I know logically, like, that's totally brilliant, what they're, like, it's kind of one of the routes that we need to go down. So if you've got any thoughts on them, like how do you approach that when you're in a room full of angry white people who are angry at some of those, you know, where they were they kind of confusing equality with oppression in some of those situations.
Dr Robert Livingston 47:16
The other layer to this is people have different values. And some people don't want equality. Yeah, equity, they want power, they want to dominate. And this is back to the sharks thing. So if you come to a shark, and you tell them about the four cookies, and the zero cookies, they're gonna be like, great. That's the way it's supposed to be. Because they operate on a model of greed. They're not trying to strive for a to cookie allocation for everyone. That seems like communism to them. And what they want is the Game of Thrones, where the last person standing is the person who wins. There are people who live their lives that way, they think there should be predator and prey, they think that people should be exploited. They think that, you know, so to them. Life is a game of dominance. And, you know, social justice is for suckers. And, you know, we've seen this in our last administration, I won't go into names, but, you know, it was on full display, like, you know, the curtain was pulled back that this is how some people live their lives. And they approach governance, even though we shouldn't be surprised by that. But I think it's up to the majority or institutions to decide, because there's, for me, and I think, for you, as a white person, you will always be in a dilemma. It's a moral dilemma. It's a dilemma of power versus justice. Yeah, because in many ways, racism is very good for you. Deep down, you don't want it to go away, because it's giving you all kinds of goodies for cookies, right? So of course, you want four cookies, rather than two cookies. But at the same time you look at your sister, in this case, your brother, brothers is human, your your human brothers, humanity, and you see the suffering and you see the indignity. And you're like, gosh, I feel bad. I feel guilty. Here's the white guilt, I feel guilty for having four cookies. So it's like, What do I do? I love having four cookies, because I love cookies, but I hate the feeling of guilt and the indignity to my brothers or my sister that this causes. And so I don't really know what to do. Well, what determines what you do is the relative value that you put on social justice, these IV power. If you really love power, and social justice is not that important, then you'll eat the cookies and your guilt will diminish. You'll say this is just the way the world is sorry, if you had four cookies, you wouldn't give me an either. So that's the rationalisation. Right? So you would say I'm just doing what anyone else would do. If social justice was more important, you would forego your urge or impulse to consume and say here's to, but you're constantly being pulled, I think most white people but this is part of the conversation. We have to talk about this as white people are simultaneously being pulled in two directions. And thank you for the honesty. You're simultaneously being pulled in two directions, like saying, hey, I want all the cookies. Why? Why is this cookie off limit to me off limits? To me it shouldn't be. And on the other hand, you know, you're an intelligent guy that the world is set up to give you way more cookies than the people who are in that job advertising. But I
Graham Allcott 50:17
suppose it's also like, you know, that was like a millisecond of an emotional response versus my rational response to it is totally different, I just think is sometimes there's a bit of a conflict between those two. And there's definitely been situations where I remember a couple years ago, I think it happened two or three times I was put forward to be a speaker on diversity on these panels, right? And, and I've got, like, my company's got a really brilliant female MD. And so I'm just like, responding back these emails just going? Well, I mean, do you really need another white guy on the panel about diversity? Elena would be amazing to talk about this, as you know, a really brilliant female leader. So there's a couple of times where I sort of stepped down from things very consciously, you know, to sort of try and make that point, but like, I guess, I wasn't looking at that opportunity and thinking this is what's going to pay my bills, right. So if it was like one of those situations where like, that's the only thing I'm going to get paid for that month, would I have thought the same? I don't know. And this is the thing everyone has the, you know, everyone has an economic position. Right, and, and a sort of a need to, to sort of put food on the table for their family, which I guess might lead us on to the whole idea of self interest versus benevolence. So how do we how do we encourage people to be more sacrificial around this, presuming that they are dolphins and they are proactively seeking change?
Dr Robert Livingston 51:46
So I'm going to answer that question. But I can't help but follow up on what you just said about this, the sort of economic, because that's one aspect of it. But a bigger aspect, I would argue is the ego. There's something gratifying to people about being powerful, that transcends any real need, that a lot of it is an ego based thing, which we could get into later in the book. But But how to get them to, to sort of be more equitable. I think there's at least three different strategies that you can take, I think you can take carrots, we'll call it carrots, sticks, and better angels, better angels is the strategy that I use with Ted. So with better angels, it's like if someone's values are consistent with equity, equality, social justice, if they're a dolphin, that often and not always, but But often, with the right information and the right appeals, you can get them to change their behaviour. So that's the better angels approach. But that only works for about 45% of the population, I would estimate, there's another 55%, where you have to use characteristics for people who are sort of self interested, you know, you have to sort of tell them, what's in it for them. So this is back to that book, the inner level to say, you know, what, if you spread the money around, you won't have to walk with 20 bodyguards every day. And they're like, okay, that'd be cool. Now, let's, you know, have tax reform or something, right. But they're really doing it for themselves and to improve their own lot, rather than something for other people. But that's fine, because other people are benefiting.
Graham Allcott 53:23
There's an illness in the US, by the way, who argues exactly that. So he's a he's a white billionaire in the US. But his argument is like, I can't this system is rigged in my favour. But if it keeps being rigged in my favourite is going to be riots on the streets. So it's in my interest to tear part of the system down. I don't know if you remember who, who that is. I remember seeing a couple of interviews with him a few years ago, but
Dr Robert Livingston 53:45
is it George Soros is it
Graham Allcott 53:48
wasn't George Soros? Yeah, I just wanted to because it felt like at the time, there was a lot of coverage about it. But yeah, like, it just proves that there are people in all you like you can take this as a self interested view, right. So he's actually trying to get to have a safer position to himself and not end up living in Bogota, in Colombia kind of thing.
Dr Robert Livingston 54:06
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then there are the sharks who need sticks. They won't cooperate, no matter what, it's just not in their nature. So the only way they would cooperate is if there's some danger to them, right. So So there don't need to be incentives. Like if you say, if you don't do this, you will go to jail. Like if you continue to be corrupt, you and your family will go to jail, then then they may stop it be grudgingly even then begrudgingly. And so I think, you know, we need to have policies that create a straight jacket for would be bad actors, the sharks, and then we need to have carrots and cookies and pies that would coax individualists into doing things for their own interests, but for the greater good and then we need Sort of a gospel or instructions or lessons that will enlighten people who have the right values, but just don't quite know what the problem is or what they can do. So, to answer your question, I think it's going to take a diversity of approaches to reach different people, because I think different people are motivated by different things. Yeah, it's not a one size fits all. Most people, I think, and a lot of people, when I go into organisations naively think that everyone wants diversity and inclusion, everyone wants everyone to feel included, right. And then it's just, they don't know how to do it. And that's extremely nice. There are, and I would say, most people, because I told you about 55%, and that's kind of backed up by data. Most people either don't care, so they can take it or leave it. Or they care. Because they don't want it. So they either are actively against equality, or they're indifferent to equality. Only about 45% are these people who really want equality and are willing to choose that over the other two things. And so I think you have to be mindful of that when you start to design as a leader strategies for creating the kind of environment or organisation that you want, is that it's not going to be well, let's just put everyone in an anti bias training course. And they're going to come out enlightened, and they're going to start doing the right thing.
Graham Allcott 56:29
Yeah, I don't know if you saw recently there is there's been a big controversy in the Labour Party in the UK about anti semitism. And they were taking steps to, they had this whole big review. And, you know, they they sort of concluded as part of this review that the Labour Party was structurally structurally anti semitic. So the leader Kier, Starmer, is asked to his, you know, it's kind of taking forward this whole plan around trying to change this. And one of the things that he has instigated is that all members of the Labour Party's staff team will go on this, like anti bias training, basically. And so this journalist is like interviewing him about it. And he's like, how long is the training? And guess Tom was like, Well, I think it's two hours long. It's like, Oh, so you think two hours is just gonna solve this thing? So I suppose that really just, you know, speaks to what you're saying there that? What I suppose one of the things that really, this book highlighted for me is that we've got to have that conversation really, from a less naive starting point and start from this position that actually, there's a whole bunch of people that are either feeling invested in the system, or just not just actually not that motivated to change it and in the place of ignorance, right. And rather than kind of assuming that it's all going to work itself out, because everybody wants it. Right,
Dr Robert Livingston 57:53
right. And I think it's important to change the norms. Humans are like sheep. And when we get signals from other humans, that certain types of behaviour will give us praise or scorn. We're very good at changing how we do things. This is the foundation of morality, is belonging. That's why people do the right things. Because if you know, we were back in the prehistoric days, and you get cast out of the tribe, it would mean certain death. So we're sort of wired like wired to want to be part of the group, and to avoid becoming pariahs. And I think one of the most potent weapons that leaders have is the ability to create norms again, going back to the US situation, that's one of the things that he wrote it in the last four years was the norms around saying and doing egregious things. It's not that the country became more racist, is that people became more emboldened because the social norms change that were before a check to people's behaviours. And so I think that's what the rest of us can do. And individualist the ones who you know, will do it out of self interest that then becomes a part of the self interest is I'm going to do with the other people want me to do and no one admits this, because everyone thinks they're so you know, independent. We've got 70 years of data that shows that they will conform their behaviours to others expectations, that having the right norms tilts that other 35% of the population that's individualistic, and then you're only left with about 12% that are sharks. Now 12% can't do very much in a democracy, right? If you can get 88% of the people on board, then you've neutralised them.
Graham Allcott 59:35
I feel like we've not really talked about Airbnb and, and the work that you've done with them.
Dr Robert Livingston 59:41
Well, here's the thing. I can't really talk about work that I've done with specific organisations due to confidentiality agreements. But I can talk more abstractly about work that I do with organisations and how I get leaders to address this problem. And I can also talk if you want Graham about individuals really quickly and things. Because some of the listeners may want to know, well, you know, what can I do to change things? I would say the first thing that's important for people to realise and I'm going to start it individuals and they go up to organisations, is that what's really important is not your attitudes, you know, not what you think or not, whether you have unconscious biases, but it's more important to understand how your behaviours either support or help to dismantle a system. So you know, I always tell the story of, you know, the racist taxi driver in New York, who doesn't like Muslims is driving along, there's a Muslim couple that standing in the rain and Nicole hailing a cab. You know, he took my anti bias class and wants to be less biassed, what what should he do? Well, here's the thing, the Muslim taxi driver can't really control the negative feelings that he has towards, you know, Muslim people. That's kind of this rule. And it's difficult to override, just my conscious, you know, will, but he can pull over and say, Good afternoon, ma'am, sir, where can I take you and he can be polite, and he can be friendly, and he can wish them a good day. And as far as they're concerned, there hasn't been discrimination, because there's a difference between prejudice which is negative feelings and discrimination, which is negative behaviours. So he had high prejudice, but low discrimination. But here's the beauty of that, if he gives enough rides to enough Muslims, and he talks them about their children, going to school, you know, drama with family basic human things, then he will gradually change those attitudes will change your process of reconditioning. In fact, one of the biggest factors in regulating and modifying prejudicial attitudes is contact. So I say that to say that even if you can't control your feelings, you can control your behaviours. And I would urge people to, you know, sit down and think about three things that you can do every day to promote anti racism. So that's, that's for individuals in my book, you know, there's like 20 things that I talk about, for people who want to know, you know, what they can do individually. As far as organisations in places like Airbnb and other organisations that I've worked with the single biggest thing, so so there's three levels of interventions, individual approaches, which I just talked about a little bit cultural, or social norms, which I talked about with humans being sheet, and then institutional. So we've got the individual level and intervention, cultural level, an institutional level, which I consider to be policies, practices and laws, one of the biggest things that leaders can do and what I advise leaders on is how to change their policies in a way that will create new structures that will lead to greater diversity, equity and inclusion. Because we've talked about Graham, that diversity and people like you're not going to convince everybody, but if there's a rule, and they have to follow it, or their job is on the line, then you get the ostriches, the dolphins and the sharks all doing the same thing. Because the sharks don't want to be beached, because they die if they get cast out of the sea. They need it, they need the ocean to live to live. So then you've got all three of those creatures pretty much doing the same thing because you have a policy. And so the question is, how do you? How do you change policies in a way consistent with the law that promote the outcomes that you want to see. And I can give you one example, which is a company called massport. What they were upset about, this is a company in Boston that owns billions of dollars of land that they leased out to different companies. And all the people getting rich from these projects were white males who were doing these big development projects. And it's because the way that they selected the winner who got to build a new hotel, you know, the Four Seasons on their, you know, two acres of land was based on who had the money, who had the team and who had the most beautiful design.
But then they decided to incorporate a fourth criterion called diversity and inclusion. And they waited them all 25%. Now, those same developers who used to go back to the same engineers, the same architects, the same plumbers, electricians, that were pretty much all white males, they are now incentivized to find out if there are women who own architectural firms so that they can get graded highly on this 25% because it's become part of the policy, your grade, whether you get this project or not, is dependent on how well you do the diversity thing. So I wrote a case on this a Harvard case because one of the developers said it was the best thing that ever happened to him. Because what he said is, I'm a person who believes in social justice, I'm not racist. I'm just busy. And before they had this policy, I went back to the same people, the same contractors I've been using for the last 35 years. But when they changed the policy, it forced me to do the research to actually invest the time to see if there were people people of colour who had structural engineering firms and found some momocon. If you look, you'll find them in the US we're big country. Are there women who have architectural firms? Are there people of colour who are plumbers, electricians, and so he kind of diversified the workforce, he, for the commercial space of this hotel, gave one of the leases to a neighbourhood restaurant that was doing really well. But, you know, they didn't really have the capital to go into this exclusive area of town. And he sort of helped with the business model. So he did all these things. And but what he said was, I never would have done them if it weren't for the policy. So the way that the policy was redone, change behaviours, which then changed hearts and minds, because once he did it once, he got to meet all these people. And once he completed the project, he was like, Oh, my gosh, they were great. It even contradicted my stereotypes, because I was, you know, if he's like, if I'm being honest, I was thinking, are women as good as architectures are Puerto Ricans as good as structural engineers. And what I found from doing this is that they are. So now going forward, that's changed the way I've done business. So that's the power of policy change. And that's what I help leaders to understand in terms of what they can do not just to change their companies, but I think the world because I think it's impossible to boil the ocean, but you can boil your pod or your bathtub. And if everyone does that, then the ocean temperature will rise,
Graham Allcott 1:06:20
I just want to say that the book really motivated me to carry on being a dolphin. And to, to bump my nose against it when I get it wrong. And to not be afraid of that. And, and just, you know, just to have that determination to keep to keep thinking about what I can do differently and where my own biases are. So just want to say, thank you so much for writing it. And I would just implore everybody listening this listening to this and watching this to, to go and read it as well. Where can people connect with you get a hold of you and find out more about what you do. People can connect with me through LinkedIn,
Dr Robert Livingston 1:06:58
I find that you know, people find me there. People have found me, you know, from all over the world on LinkedIn, if they want to connect with me more directly through my system, who's listed on my Harvard web page, so you can just google Robert Livingston, Harvard, and I think that information will come up. But I'm always happy to and and I generally write back when people write to me, so people should feel free to reach out if they have any questions. Eventually, I will. This is a busy week or two. But I basically I will get back to you. And then I actually enjoy reading people's questions, comments and reactions. So
Graham Allcott 1:07:41
thank you for being on beyond busy. The book is the conversation. It's been a pleasure. meeting you. Thanks, Robert. Have a great
Dr Robert Livingston 1:07:47
week. Bye. Bye.
Graham Allcott 1:07:49
So there you go, Dr Robert Livingston. And it just feels like a conversation that we need to keep having right, it just feels like, you know, it feels like there's a little bit of fatigue around some of these subjects. And I just don't think that's good enough. And the reason I say that is a couple of weeks ago, I put a thing out on my email mailing list that goes out every Sunday, it's called rev up for the week. And if you want to sign up, you just go to grahamallcott.com/links. And it was all about Basecamp and their attitude to diversity, which I just thought stunk, to be honest, I just thought it was just a really misjudged blog from a guy Jason Freed and an organisation base camp that I've admired for many years and really thought we're at the cutting edge of thinking about how we create really human, flexible, productive organisations. And I just thought they got it wrong. And I said that in my email newsletter, and you know, what I had the most unsubscribes that week than I've ever had, and like significantly more than normal. And it just really made me sad, because I don't think I mean, there's, there's a whole bunch of reasons why people, unsubscribe from newsletters, but I just couldn't think of any unifying explanation for that, other than the fact that people were, you know, just tired of hearing about all this stuff to do with biases and racism, and, you know, and all the rest of it. And as far as I can see, we're not at a point of equality right now, like Far from it. And that to me means that it's incumbent on all of us that care about this stuff, to keep talking about it. So here I am, I'm talking about an hour and it feels like that's something that we need to keep, keep doing and continue to do. And so if that's you, if you feel like other people around you are starting to get bored of listening to the fact that there's structural racism, and we need to do stuff about it, if you've got people who are listening to the government saying that structural racism doesn't exist and you know, starting to I hate that kind of attitudes that I think we need to call it out. We need to challenge it. And we need to be vocal and proactive around this stuff. So I'm going to continue to do that. And yeah, it was it I was really down hard downhearted when I got all those unsubscribed from from my newsletter, not because I want the numbers, but you know, just because it just felt like her people don't want to hear this stuff. But it's really important. And I really loved talking to Dr. Robert there. I mean, just such a, such a great brain on this stuff. And, you know, the the things that he has experienced, as he was talking about there, you know, being the only black professor at Harvard and so on. Yeah, just really, yeah, just just fascinating to hear those experiences as well. And just Yeah, all of that just made me more determined to just keep talking about it and keep the issue on the agenda and keep being proactive wherever we can. So hopefully you feel that way too. And I would love to hear what you think. So if you want to drop me an email, it's Graham at think productive dot code at UK. And we'll be back next week with another episode I should say before we go that we're sponsored by think productive if you're interested in bringing us in to help your organisation to make space for what matters and help your people to do their best work. Then just head to think productive comm find out more there. We'll put links to all of this of course in the show notes over at get beyond busy.com. And we'll see you next week. Until then take care bye for now.
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