CQSP S2EP13 From Chiang Mai to F1 & Inclusion with Marsha Ramroop

What a conversation, Marsha always manages to include seriousness, professionalism and fun into every conversation. Before we wrap this episode, let’s reflect on a few key takeaways from my conversation with the incredible Marsha Ramroop:

1. Inclusion Starts with Behavior, Not Identity
   Marsha emphasized that true inclusion isn't about categorizing others—it’s about examining our own behaviors. This teaches us to Start with introspection to build more inclusive environments.
2. Cultural Intelligence is the “How” of Inclusion
   Through the Cultural Intelligence (CQ) framework, Marsha showed us how behaviors can be intentionally shaped to drive better outcomes in diversity and safety. CQ really does bridge the gap between intent and impact.
3. Safety Without Inclusion Isn’t Really Safe
   From PPE fit to fire door accessibility, Marsha unpacked how exclusionary design can undermine safety efforts. In short If your safety practices aren’t inclusive, they’re not effective.
4. Storytelling as a Tool for Change
   Drawing from her journalism career, Marsha shared how telling unheard stories can shift perspectives and reshape organizational culture. Giving voice to the unheard is how empathy and change begin.
5. Designing for Inclusion = Designing for Everyone
   Whether in architecture or policy, inclusive design benefits more than just marginalized groups—it creates better systems for all. Inclusion is not a nice-to-have; it’s a design principle for progress.

Transcript

Greg: 0:00

Hi, everyone welcome to another episode of the Culturally Intelligent Safety Professional, a podcast aimed at providing a platform where by safety professionals can develop a pathway to enhance their cultural intelligence capability which will help them function more effectively when working in a multicultural situation. I'm Greg Dearsly your host and I have a range of guests lined up to talk to this year. We have people with experiences across leadership, psychology, health and safety, education and of course cultural intelligence. All of our guests come from a wide range of different backgrounds across the diversity spectrum, including from different organizational context. In this podcast you'll hear stories aimed at helping you the listener enhance your cultural intelligence. You'll gain an understanding of how you can create trust when working in diverse environments and quite frankly, that's all the time no matter how homogenous the place you work at might be, it's still full of diversity, people with different backgrounds, experiences and beliefs, all built on their figured world For this episode, we head to London and chat with author and ex journalist and sports editor for the BBC no less, Marsha Ramroop. Marsha is a global award-winning organizational inclusion strategist and founding director of Unheard Voice Consultancy. She's also the author of Building Inclusion, a Practical Guide to EDI in the Built Environment. Marsha originally had a 30 year career in Broadcasting, including, as I said, 20 years at the BBC and while at the BBC, she led inclusion efforts across the Midlands and developed a pioneering inclusive recruitment pilot for presenting staff and inclusive reporter scheme. She wrote and was lead facilitator behind the diversity and inclusion charter for Formula One, goodness me which was delivered through the Royal Academy of Engineering. She's joined me this year on the CQ Fellows Program, and there's heaps more that I've left out of that introduction and outstanding cv, but Marsha, welcome to the show. Yes.

Marsha: 2:23

Thanks so much, Greg. I'm really looking forward to this chat'cause you and I have started to have conversations about so many little bits and things and I have a feeling we're going to be using this podcast to continue some of those conversations about health and safety and inclusion and the built environments. I'm looking forward to it.

Greg: 2:40

Nice. Nice. But before we get into all of that really important stuff we were in Thailand, Chiang Mai, to be exact. Yes. What was it? Three months ago, two months ago. I can't believe it's been there. March. Beginning of March. Yeah. And as part of the process that when the, and the thing we were on, we got introduced to the Amazing Race. Now most people will have heard of the Amazing Race and understand what it's all about. And this was no different. We got a set of instructions. We had to go and find a thing a local sort of identity location, and then answer a whole bunch of questions. Or observe some stuff that was going on in Chiang Mai. So I just wanted to reminisce about this and be interesting to see how much of it we both remember. I both remember.

Marsha: 3:32

I've got a cheat, I've got a cheat in front of me. I've got my phone with some photos and the videos on it so I can remember what was this thing I did three months ago. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, incredible.

Greg: 3:44

I was talking to Dannie the other day and and asked her about the'cause she was on a different group to us. And so the first thing that one of the first things we had to do was find a food that nobody in the group had eaten before. Dannie had, and her team brought back some chips that they shared with, they were Thai chips or crisps or whatever that they shared with the group. We weren't quite so generous. I don't think we scoffed our food on the run we

Marsha: 4:13

did, although it didn't go very far. It was one we were a little bit stingy as well because there were four of us and we got one cup of from, I love you, ice cream and tea. Or something like it was called. Yeah, I love ice cream. Tea Love me. Ice cream. Tea.

Greg: 4:32

Yeah, that's right. Or

Marsha: 4:33

tea ice cream. And it was like bubble tea and ice cream in a cup. And who would've even thought about it? in 37 degrees. We were just looking for an ice cream, really, weren't we? But the fact it had bubble tea in it. And actually I think one of our number had never had this sort of tapioca it is tapioca, isn't it? The little balls that were in bubble tea?

Greg: 4:55

I don't know. I

Marsha: 4:56

dunno. I dunno. I'm making that up, but I it looked incredible. It looked like one of those swirly ice creams in, yeah. In, in, in a cup. And the sauce on it was tea, but it if you were just to look at it, it might look like, I dunno, chocolate, a thin chocolate. Yeah. Yeah. And then the berries on it weren't berries. They were the tea balls that you get in bubble tea. So it looked like it might be, I don't know, blueberries or something. Yeah. So that's the way that it looked. And then we all had a bit of a a slurp and a taste and it was incredible. And it was really, and actually I don't think it could probably last about two seconds. All of that. Gobbled it all down.

Greg: 5:39

Do you remember? So there was a question. We had to. Meet with somebody who lived in Chiang Mai and ask their perspective of what life was like in that town. Do you remember that guy?

Marsha: 5:54

That guy was incredible. He he'd been there for quite some time. I can't remember how long. I remember him, I've got this vague recollection actually. He had, said it was like a really good place to live. And he was, he clearly looked very. Comfortable in Chiang Mai and he was driving a little he had a little moped. You remind me a bit more about that conversation. Not,

Greg: 6:21

no, that's the other guy. That's the guy that didn't live in Chiang Ma. He was an expat, the guy on the moped. He was an

Marsha: 6:27

next pi. Oh, the old fellow you are talking about the other guy. The guy at

Greg: 6:30

the bar. Yes. The guy that was nailing bottle tops to the bottom of the stall at the bar.

Marsha: 6:35

Yeah. Yeah. Again, I can't really remember that conversation. You're gonna have to remind me about

Greg: 6:39

that. He lived out town. Outta the main town. But thought Chang Mai was really good'cause there was work there and and really enjoyed working there. But it was like, he was at work, this guy, he was only about 25 and he was at work fixing the old bar stool. And and there was, I think the bar might have been open or the, I don't know if it was a bar or I think they were hoping we were gonna buy

Marsha: 7:01

a shrink and we just stop their staff member from working for about five minutes.

Greg: 7:06

We were still slurping a milk cream as well, and didn't quite a

Marsha: 7:08

drink. But he was great. He was lovely. I've got a, I've got a picture here with him. Yeah. Like you say, he was about 25 a young thai man with short hair and a big smile and a peace sign and yeah we chatted to him for a little while and it was. That's the thing about Chiang Mai. People were generally really open, friendly, and wanted to help. And it was happy. It was a happy place. Yeah. Yeah.

Greg: 7:37

Yeah. A couple of more things that, that, that stuck in my mind. Remember

Marsha: 7:42

the Museum of Broken Relationships? Yeah. I, in Incre, you know what? I meant to go back there and I just ran outta time. I I took a photo of the what the museum was about. It says, the Museum of Broken Relationships is an ever evolving collection of objects donated by the people around the world. All of them symbolizing the end of a relationship. They're all displayed anonymously using the personal narratives of their former owners as the only text, and it was conceptualized in Croatia in 2006 after the demise of the relationship of its creators. The museum continues to thrive through traveling exhibitions organized from its original permanent base in Zagreb the capital of Croatia. And that's incredible, isn't it? Last

Greg: 8:31

thing we expected to come across, wasn't it a museum?

Marsha: 8:34

Exactly. In Chiang Mai Yeah. And

Greg: 8:36

then there was the old guy on the motorbike. He was from the US. And he lived for nine months in Chiang Mai. He was a religious guy, wasn't he?

Marsha: 8:44

That's right. Yes. Lived and

Greg: 8:46

then he went back to the US for three months before nine months, a year.

Marsha: 8:51

Yeah. Yeah. Nine months in Chiang Mai. He lives nine months a year, and, but he, and then three months at home and he, but he'd been doing that for 20 years or something. Is that He

Greg: 8:59

had children in both countries. And yeah he loved it. And then the last memory I've got was we'd finished, we'd answered all the questions. The amazing race was over.

Marsha: 9:10

Yes.

Greg: 9:11

And we got accosted by a group of three or four school students who were out on a tour of Chang Mai doing exactly the same thing. Yes. Looking for tourists to say, what do you think of Chang Mai?

Marsha: 9:28

Which is hilarious. And you very kindly responded to them. You took the role of spokesperson for the group.

Greg: 9:36

Yes. I'm probably on YouTube somewhere. Yeah.

Marsha: 9:39

That was like a, an excellent kind of full circle moment being asked those questions in that way. Yeah. And of course we were more than happy to give our time because people have done the same for us.

Greg: 9:51

Indeed.

Marsha: 9:51

There were some cynics in our group when we got back and told them that story though. Weren't they concerned that like we might have been being accosted or yes. Being conned or something

Greg: 10:02

like that? I think they were. I think we very genuine.

Marsha: 10:05

We did. Yes. I think we did a visual and these things. And actually, funny enough, to some extent there is, there, there is like these biases that we use to, to assess people just on, on site. And that can work to our advantage and sometimes to our disadvantage. But these young people who I took a video of were in their school uniforms. They looked very done. They're studious. They looked like studious students. And yeah were very much, involved in asking these questions and nodding away.

Greg: 10:38

Yeah.

Marsha: 10:39

Yeah. Best them.

Greg: 10:40

No, that was cool. It was a cold trip and yeah, just just learned a whole bunch of stuff and it was a good way of getting out into the community and just seeing life as it is in a different country. It was a really good little icebreaker, I guess was, it might have been day two or was it day one? I can't remember now. I think

Marsha: 10:58

that was the fir first thing we did really as a agreed afternoon one, even though we'd met, yeah, we'd met online, of course, as a group. And it's such a good idea in terms of if ever looking for a way to, to get groups, to get to know each other, give them a task to achieve together. And I suppose a competitive element between the groups added for that bonding experience. It was a really good idea. And I think I dunno, did anyone win? Was there a winner?

Greg: 11:25

I don't. A prize.

Marsha: 11:27

Oh yeah. Damn.

Greg: 11:30

But also I think, we often think about and say this in the sort of the cultural intelligence space, don't we that just'cause you've got your passport's, got a thousand stamps in it doesn't mean you are necessarily culturally intelligent because if you've gone to all of these places around the world and spent all of your time in the tourist spots, that ain't helping you very much. And we were trying to engage with locals and go to local sort of shops or weird museums. And and. Just get a feeling for what it was like for everyday people in Chiang Mai. It was cool.

Marsha: 12:07

Yeah. I think Chiang Mai is certainly being in the center of Chiang Mai, I think it is quite a touristy place, but if you look properly, you can see real life if you like. Around it. And really observing her. People interact with each other. Thai, local Thai people interact with each other. Is really, it's a really worthwhile thing to do when you go traveling. Not just to stick to, the hotel and the the tourist attractions, but to really get off the beaten track and even just some side streets, you can see real life definitely worthwhile.

Greg: 12:42

Yeah. So we probably should get a little bit serious, although not. It doesn't have to be Not too serious. Totally serious. Come on, Greg. Come on. But I'm really interested to hear about your journey into cultural intelligence A BBC journalist in sports, was that sports all the time or,

Marsha: 13:02

no, it was, it is actually news really. I fell into sport at a later point, which I'll happily tell you about. I mean my, dream as a teenager when I was about sort of 13, 14, was to work in radio. I tell the story how ultimately it was just because I liked the sound of my own voice but surely not, as I actually got my got going with my career, I realized, oh, actually this isn't about me at all. It's about. Those unheard voices and how do we facilitate other people's stories and give those the best possible airing that, that we can. And so already you can start to see how the two, journeys of journalism and inclusion start to come together. And when I was at the BBC and I was working as a community journalist, I used to run media literacy projects and support people with, literally, back in those days it was little MP three players and little video recorders and getting people to record their stories and then taking the laptop the weighing laptop that it was in those days. Yeah. To their community centers and sitting with them and helping them edit what is it? How is it that you want this story to be told, which is the bit that you want in, which is you want out? And and those stories would then live on BBC platforms and it was really meaningful work and there was some really rich content came from that. But I, this sort of stuff was easy for me. I didn't find it, it was challenging to go into communities and to to meet. I was super curious and wanted to explore people's lives that were very different from my own. And I learned a lot about real life that was very diff literally very different from my own when I was doing that and as I made my way,'cause I was also quite an ambitious person, made my way up into leadership and management. Of course I wanted to do more of that and trying to decentralize the news agenda from those who believed this is what the top story should be today, rather than actually listening to the people that were supposed to be serving about what was important to them. That was a very difficult sell. Can you believe it? Trying to get my colleagues in news to to rethink the agenda and what should be saying, and certainly how we should be saying that. For example, every so often there would be a monitoring, diversity monitoring and the team would know it was coming and they would do this thing where they'd do this really tokenistic thing where. Oh no Monitoring's coming up next week where you need to make sure we've got like a gay person at breakfast and make sure we have a disability story in afternoons and make sure we've got, the Muslim experience in drive time and I hated that. I absolutely, I would like no no. Yeah, no. We, not only should we do be doing this all the time, but who, just because someone's a Muslim doesn't mean that we are just gonna be talking to the about them, their faith all the time. Their business people. They have opinions about, planning, like what, let's just incorporate people from their from their own perspective. Of course. On in, on every story. Yeah. And I couldn't, I dunno why this was so difficult to get into people's heads about not only how straightforward it was, but just how to really open up giving this on her voice. I started looking around. So why is it that we know we need to be doing something about diversity? And we might even know what we want those outcomes to look like, but the how is warped. It's just we are not doing it right. Why is it that people just don't get it in the way that I do? So that's when I started searching and scrambling around looking for an answer. And I, that's when I came across David Livermore's leading with cultural intelligence. Oh yeah. Yep. And I I ordered that and I read it and I, oh my gosh. It was like, boom. Mind blowing, this is it. This is an excellent framework. The how we're going to move people forward from knowing that why they want to do things through to the what they want, the this to look like. It's the how we're gonna get them there. And I I myself didn't, I tell this story actually in the preface of my book, Building Inclusion that I have never perceived identity in the same way as some other people do. Be grouping people together in that way. I've always seen people as having multiple identities. We're all layered in lots of different ways. And just because someone looks a certain way doesn't mean they're gonna behave in a certain way. And so I never looked at inclusion through the eyes of identity. It was always through behaviors, who am I what do I do? How do I do that? And inclusion for me is all about, it's not about other people and their identities. It's about us and our behaviors. And that it's cultural intelligence became a really clear, how do I do the introspective piece of work to support others to be more inclusive? And that's how I started using it. And I you mentioned the, inclu Inclusive reporting program that I did, and I, one of the places I ended up working was BBC Radio Leicester, which was just after they won the premiership, I'm afraid. So I missed that moment. They, that happened in 2016 and I started in 2017, but they still riding high when I started there. However, as you can imagine, a place like Leicester or you may not know, but Leicester in, in in England in the English. East Midlands is one of the most racially diverse places in the country. So 50% not white, which is unusual for the UK. So there are a couple of cities now that, that are like that, but it had massive Indian immigration East, east African Indian immigration following the distress of what happened in Uganda and in Kenya in, in the 1970s. There were a huge amount of settlers and that there is a lot of racial diversity in Leicester and that racial diversity was not reflected either in our content or in our staff. And there were even some staff members who worked in BBC local radio in Leicester, who had never really gone into some of the Indian communities. And they were fearful. They were worried about saying the wrong thing and doing the wrong thing. And I used the cultural intelligence framework drive knowledge, strategy, and action to weave them into how can they approach their reporting more inclusively. So that was a program that I led and the feedback on that was incredible. The the staff saying how much more confident they felt and what they could do differently in terms of. How they were gonna report differently and think differently about the content. So that was great. The sport element actually was when I was at BBC Radio Derby, when I become news and sport editor. It was just tagged onto the news agenda. And I was working with some incredible people who, just were passionate but also knew when they had to step back from their love of especially the game. So here in Derby the main football team is Derby County. But we also cover Burton Albion. We, they, not we, that was like 10 least and years ago. Oh my goodness. Yeah, they cover the. Burton Albion as well as Derby County. And then there was like cricket and I got to go some to some incredible games. When the West Indies were doing a friendly, playing friendly over talk to Brian Lara that's a Trinidadian. I'm a Trinidadian, so that's incredible.

Greg: 21:05

You're just name dropping now because I've seen a photo of you with Christian Horner. Yeah. Oh, yes, that's right. And Christian Horner didn't look particularly happy about having to have his photo taken, but

Marsha: 21:18

That was, yeah, that was as part of the so the Royal Academy, this is just a couple of years ago the Royal Academy of Engineering after I left the BBC, I just started working full-time on in Unheard Voice, my own consultancy which is rooted in cultural intelligence, bringing inclusion to organizations. And it is a really long story how I ended up doing it but the Royal Academy of Engineering hired me to support facilitate and write with Formula One and the Formula One teams A DNI charter. And of course I don't do things by halves. I was never going to do anything tokenistic. And it is rooted in the behaviors of cultural intelligence. How do the behaviors and culture inform how you deliver the policies, procedures, and practices across how you attract a diversity of people into the sport? How you treat progress and retain that diversity, how you create. Inclusive design, product services and work with the supply chain for the sport. And then how do you engage with users, customers, fans, sponsors, partners and other stakeholders. Engage with them inclusively. So those four pillars attract, retain, create, and engage which are. I suppose a bit of a signature of mine. They're in Building Inclusion are very prominent in the d and i charter Formula One. But as part of that whole process it involved a lot of stakeholder relationship management, which involved going to Red Bull, which was incredible to talk to Christian Horner about what the charter was about and what he would be signing the team up to. And you go into the the reception of Red Bull and the place is absolutely festooned with thousands, literally thousands of like trophies, silverware. It's mind boggling. Mind boggling. How many medals? Trophies. It's unbelievable. I didn't show you that picture. I should, I, I should show you that sometime. But it was, and then having it, good sort of 60, 90 minute conversation where he challenged me and I challenged him back and and, in November, 2024 all 10 teams, formula One and the FIA signed a commitment to delivering on the principles of that charter.

Greg: 23:39

For those listeners that aren't Petrolhead Christian Horner is the team principal at Red Bull Racing and husband to Jerry Horner ex Spice Girl. Just a bit of useless information. Yeah. For people that are listening. But he is been in that role for 20 years or something, hasn't he? He's been around and obviously more recently it's been a bit controversial, but yes, that's the story for another podcast. So safety and I think you've got a little bit of a soft spot for safety. We don't need to go into why necessarily, but I think you've got a soft spot for safety. And I guess I'd be interested in your views on how, if you think about construction and engineering, safety's obviously a critical component of those environments. What impact does understanding cultural norms have? On creating good understanding of risk, good management of risk and team cohesion, which you've touched on at various points in the last five or 10 minutes.

Marsha: 24:44

It's crucial. It's massive. I ended up in the built environment a bit by chance, I had left the BBCs working my own consultancy and following the murder of George Floyd which we just recently marked, the five year anniversary of, a lot of British organizations did a bit of introspective work and found themselves wanting in terms of how they were approaching issues of racial justice and generally inclusion. And the Royal Institute of British Architects was one of those organizations, and when I saw their role for the inaugural director of inclusion, I thought it wasn't so much that. I needed that job. My consultancy was off to a good start, and I knew that I was, I was busy, but I wanted that job and I wanted that job because I believe that if I could influence the creation of inclusive spaces, I could influence the creation of an inclusive world. A very no, not ambitious at all. But fundamentally coming into the sector opened my eyes to so many things. And when I started working in architecture and looking at the, it doesn't work on its own architects obviously work with the wider sector. Looking at. Who was involved who had decision making opportunity, who was setting the agenda, who had a chance to thrive. who was even getting a look into to work in any of these sectors. It just wasn't the mix that represented the actual environment in which everyone lives. It was any particular demographic. And the other thing that, of course the background to, to the. The shadow, over the built environment sector was the 2017 fire in in the Grenfell Tower in which 72 people lost their lives. And with all of these things combined safety it was one of the key facets and thinking what is it that this sector needs to do in order to be truly inclusive of all those who exist in it let alone work in it. And I started to look at issues of ethics, innovation, sustainability as well as inclusion and and safety was up there with all of that. And culture is an underpinning principle, culture and behaviors to how we approach these things. And if you don't have, an understanding of people's different needs, not only in order to deliver safety, but to receive it. Then, we're going to struggle in being able to do it effectively. Cultural intelligence as a behavioral framework is very useful to support individuals and organizations with how to deliver safety culture in an inclusive way. And currently working with some colleagues here in the uk around something called the Equitable Safety Initiative. And the thinking behind this is if you don't make safety information or training education and implementation inclusive in and of itself, IE. The right size, PPE instructions in different languages mindful of different needs. For example, how heavy a fire door is if someone is, using it. And due to their many years of work their arms aren't as strong as they used to be, or, yeah. If you're not mindful of these things, and actually are you creating safety in the first place? And the answer is probably no, you are not. And then so then. Are you being an eff effective health and safety professional? And then are you being effective in the outcomes that you want to create in the world? It's key. It's key. Obviously all of these things are very multifaceted and you have to look at them through that overarching perspective and underpinning principle of inclusion. But if you apply it across those four pillars, how you attract people to the health and safety professions, how you treat progress and retain those people. Then how you are creating health and safety outputs in terms of that, products, those services the impact and then how you are engaging with the users and a variety of users, customers, clients, communities. Then you have an overarching perspective and underpinning principle to safety. That will be far more inclusive, but it has to be informed by the better culture and behaviors that can be informed, again, by the cultural intelligence framework.

Greg: 29:42

I guess it's not all on the safety guy though, is it? It's a, it's an inclusive, to use that word process, that has to include the designers and the architects and the engineers and the development companies and the landowners and all of that sort of stuff.

Marsha: 29:56

Yes. And I think really importantly on that point is, everyone on that scale recognizing that there are other people who have expertise that is worth listening to. One of the things I discovered about architects is that they can be incredibly egoistical and believe that they hold the whole they need to know everything and do everything and aren't always particularly collaborative, they really believe in their own self-worth, which is fine. But recognizing where that ends and where other people's begins would be really important for the architecture profession in particular, to let go of some of that ego. So that design could be done better.

Greg: 30:41

I believe there's an organization here in New Zealand, I dunno a lot about them called the Diversity Agenda, who works specifically with engineers and architects around issues of diversity as well. It's, a, I guess a bit of a movement. And so your book. It was only released like a couple of months ago. Have you written a book, Marsha? I

Marsha: 31:00

have you not heard Greg? I've written a book. It's called Building Inclusion. Yes. You take every possible opportunity to talk about it. The book was published, actually. I can't believe it. How long ago it was actually published. Official date of publication was the 30th of August. There was a bit of hiccup with publication, and so it was actually available for people on the 12th of September last year, 2024. And it is a practical guide of how to deliver on the behaviors and the culture. And the policies, procedures and practices across how you attract, retain, create, and engage for the whole of the built environment. But it is a little bit more broad than that because I, myself, I'm not an architect, not a planner. I'm, I'm formerly a journalist and so what I say to people is that I'm not gonna tell anyone how to do what they do. I just give them a new lens so that they can do it more inclusively, because our behaviors are human and our organizations are run by humans, and our systems are human made. And so when humans input more inclusively then the outputs are more inclusive and can be consciously inclusive. And so what I say the book is about is if we're not consciously building inclusion into our world, then we are unconsciously building in exclusion. And so the book is to help people to be conscious and intentional about how to build inclusion into our world. And yeah, starts with that behavioral piece. It's all about understanding bias, why we. Why we are biased and how the cultural intelligence framework can help. Some conversational frameworks to support with those necessary conversations. We need to have. How to say no, how to deal with things called microaggressions, where those small snobs and paper cuts if you like, that people who are discriminated can against, can face. Regularly how to deal with those. And then going on to some of those policies, procedures, and practices. Some are considered to be HR policies and then some are organizational ones. And then. How design can be done, inclusively, resources available to help people with that. And then supply chain inclusive approaches to procurement. And then engagement, how to work with people externally and challenge as well, your clients, even around how they can be more inclusive and what can happen and the benefits that. That happen when you do, and the disasters when you don't. And the case studies people who are actually doing this stuff well and what you can learn from them and take that away. And after each case study, I've used the cultural intelligence framework to do what I call a behavioral analysis or because every case study may feel like I don't work in that sector, so how is that case study relevant to me? But what the behavioral analysis does is it asks a few key questions that you can, that case study prompt. To help you as an individual and as an organization to think how can I do inclusive recruitment? Oh I don't work in this particular sector, but these are the kinds of questions I can ask around drive, knowledge, strategy, and action. Therefore capabilities of cultural intelligence so that I can look to do this thing more inclusively myself. It's a great book everyone.

Greg: 34:24

We can put a link to it in the yes. In the transcript. Yeah.

Marsha: 34:28

Thank you so much.

Greg: 34:30

Excellent. And I can't believe that time has has flown past. I wanna put one, I guess question or ask you for one more bit of feedback. Put yourself in the shoes of a health and safety professional. Is there a couple of really practical things, either from your book or just from your own knowledge around what safety professionals can do to enhance their own cultural intelligence to be able to better serve the diversity of workplaces that they no doubt work in? Wherever in the world they might be.

Marsha: 35:08

Yeah. Couple of things that the first thing I'd say is that those working in health and safety do so because you really believe in what you do. You want to keep people safe. And so I would challenge you to use that motivation that you have to keep people safe to recognize who you are not keeping safe. So just in the first instance, make a list of, I don't know, the top 25 people that you work with and then start to examine what are the influences that you have in your own life that you are thinking about. And recognize where the gaps are in, in that list, what demographics aren't involved, and then seek to fill those gaps around a different demographic needs because there, this is where demographics is important. Because different living experiences have different impacts in the world and therefore need to be catered for in particular ways. And where you feel that you can't keep people safe because of course you can't cater for the tallest person and the shortest person necessarily. Make sure that you have some kind of provision in place, be it some kind of. Know, what mitigation you need to, depending on the context to make sure that those people know that you've thought about them. So that's just a couple of things. And then you'll see that once you start to to, to peel back those layers that you just get, become a better health and safety professional as a result.

Greg: 36:44

Right back to the, when you first started talking about that and the first thing that came to my mind was a rhetorical question that somebody raised during a presentation I was at six months ago, and it was What percentage of your employees put your yourself in a leadership role or a health and safety role, whatever. What percentage of your employees is it okay to not communicate with effectively? Now we know what the answer should be. But then if you then go and think about the people that you work with, what's the reality of that situation in terms of that question? How, what, who's missing out, to your company name, who are the unheard voices that, that are not being heard? Because. Maybe you've got some blinkers on and either don't see them or haven't considered some of the things that you've talked about. Yeah. Interesting. It was just, it was a question. Great question. It was, and I'll tell you what the subject matter was, neurodiversity which, if we, I guess if we think about cultural intelligence. It's an invisible aspect of difference. You can't tell if somebody's dyslexic or a ADHD or whatever it might be. And yeah, I thought it was a, just a really very thought provoking question.

Marsha: 38:05

Very thought provoking. Such a good question. I think I might steal that one. Coming up to a workshop near you.

Greg: 38:16

Hey, Marsha I when I came, I was thinking about this podcast, I thought, oh yeah, we're gonna, we are gonna talk about architecture and building inclusion and we did a little bit of that. But it's been a blast which I probably should have expected. Of course. Always

Marsha: 38:32

good to talk to you, Greg. Thank you so much for this invitation, and I really hope that your your good listener is I is inspired to go and to have a look of not only a cultural intelligence and building inclusion, but their own behaviors. Because although that introspective piece of work can be uncomfortable, when you lean into that discomfort and learn and grow, it's such a powerful tool to support inclusion for others. Nice.

Greg: 39:00

Nice. What a great way to end. Thanks so much for your time and it's time for your what, second or third cup of tea of the morning. Although that's trying to fifth coffee.

Marsha: 39:10

That's what, there you go. I'm wired ready for the day.

Greg: 39:13

Excellent. Excellent. Cool. Hey, thanks for your time, Marsha.

Marsha: 39:17

Take it easy. Thanks so much.

Greg: 39:22

What a conversation Marsha always manages to include seriousness, professionalism, and fun into every conversation she has. Before we wrap this episode, let's reflect on a few key takeaways from my conversation with Marsha. Inclusion starts with behavior, not identity. Marsha emphasized that true inclusion isn't about categorizing others, It is more about emphasizing our own behaviors. This teaches us to start with introspection to build more inclusive environments. Next, we talked about cultural intelligence being the how of inclusion. Through the cultural intelligence framework, Marsha showed us how behaviors can be intentionally shaped to drive better outcomes in diversity and safety. CQ really does bridge the gap between intent and impact. Our third takeaway, safety without inclusion isn't really safe, from PPE Fit to fire Door accessibility, Marsha unpacked how exclusionary design can undermine safety efforts. In short, if your safety practices aren't inclusive, they're not effective. Next, we talked about storytelling as a tool for change and drawing from her journalism career. Marsha shared how telling unheard stories can shift perspectives and reshape organizational culture. Giving voice to the unheard is how empathy and change begins. And finally. Designing for inclusion equals designing for everyone. Whether in architecture or policy, inclusive design benefits more than just the marginalized groups, it creates better systems for all. Meaning inclusion is not just a nice to have, it's a design principle for progress. So we've come to the end of this episode, thanks so much for listening. I hope you found something valuable that you can take away that might enhance aspects of your own cultural intelligence. I'll add the transcript from the episode to the show notes. If you'd like to talk about cultural intelligence, get in touch with me via LinkedIn. I'm posting content regularly, so keep an eye on your feed and comment if you see something that resonates. If we aren't connected, send me an invite. If you want to hear more about CQ, you can follow and subscribe to this podcast, I would really appreciate it if you did that, and keep an eye out for the next episode. Ma te wa..