Humanism Now | Secular Ethics, Curiosity and Compassionate Change

47. Victoria Mattingly on The Human Side of DEI: Transforming Workplaces Through Data-Driven Inclusion

• Humanise Live | Hosted by James Hodgson • Season 1 • Episode 47

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“Inclusion is the behaviors that result in others feeling valued, respected, seen and heard.”

Dr. Victoria Mattingly (Dr. V)—industrial-organizational psychologist, CEO & founder of Mattingly Solutions, and co-author of Inclusalytics—joins us to show how rigorous data and deeply human connection can coexist. We unpack practical, measurable ways to build cultures of belonging—at work and in communities—where people can thrive as their authentic selves.

Connect with Dr. Victoria Mattingly

Topics we cover

 ✔︎ Defining inclusion with outcomes: behaviours that make others feel valued, respected, seen, and heard
 ✔︎ “Inclusalytics”: merging workplace inclusion with analytics to measure belonging
 ✔︎ Why the platinum rule (treat others as they want to be treated) surpasses the golden rule
 ✔︎ The difference between mentorship and sponsorship—and why sponsors accelerate equity
 ✔︎ How executive sponsors can empower ERGs without overstepping
 ✔︎ Allyship as active behavior, not identity
 ✔︎ Three characteristics of effective partners in allyship: self-awareness, trust, and action orientation
 ✔︎ Capturing positive behaviors—why we should measure allyship, not just discrimination
 ✔︎ Using AI and language data ethically to advance inclusion

Resources & further reading

  • Pre order: Act Like an Ally, Work With an Ally – Victoria Mattingly – Mattingly Solutions | Kindle
  • Inclusalytics: How DEI Leaders Use Data to Drive Their Work – Victoria Mattingly & Sertrice Grice – Amazon | Goodreads


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Music: Blossom by Light Prism

James Hodgson:

Welcome to the Humanism Now podcast, a weekly show for anyone interested in humanist values, secular ethics and spreading curiosity and compassion. I'm your host, james Hodgson, and today we're exploring how humanistic values can play a crucial role in the future of work. Our guest today is Dr Victoria Mattingly, better known as Dr V, an expert in crafting workplace inclusion programs that are both scientifically grounded and genuinely human-centered, moving beyond policies and metrics to the real lived experience of the people who power our organizations. Dr V is an industrial organizational psychologist, renowned keynote speaker, ceo and founder of Mattingly Solutions and co-author of Inclusalytics how DEI Leaders Use Data to Drive their Work, and she's now the driving force behind their forthcoming book that reframes allyship as a two-way partnership. Dr V integrates rigorous behavioral science with real-world pragmatism, helping organizations measure inclusion, practice, allyship and, crucially, connect on a human level. Dr V, thank you so much for joining us on Humanism Now.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

Thank you for having me.

James Hodgson:

So I think this is the first time on the show that we've done a proper deep dive into the future of work, dei and matters around inclusion, and these are obviously things which are very important amongst humanists when we meet and we talk, and I really like your approach that you take both a scientific, data-driven approach and couple that with the humanistic, the individual person and getting to know the individual. So I just wanted, if you could introduce this term, inclusalytics, which I can see on the book behind you there for those watching on video. Is this a term which you coined and what does it mean?

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

yeah, so it is a term that I coined with my co-author. And what inclusalytics is? The merging of workplace inclusion and analytics. So how can we turn what we tend to think of inclusion as this abstract kind of squishy concept and with my PhD in organizational psychology, I've been trained in measuring these types of constructs in a scientifically valid way. And so it really starts with the definition of inclusion.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

I define inclusion as the behaviors that result in others feeling valued, respected, seen and heard. So, from a measurement standpoint, we need to measure both how people are being treated and, of course, according to the individual recipient of those behaviors. Right, because we always like to think, oh, I'm inclusive, I'm an ally, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that those around you see you behaving in inclusive ways. And then also measure how people feel. Do they feel like they belong, do they feel like they can be their authentic selves at work?

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

And when we measure these behaviors and these feelings, we're able to actually capture what inclusion can look like in organizations, to identify spots that people might be lacking and also identify spots where people are doing really well. So we can focus training efforts, change management efforts, culture change efforts on those specific areas. So yes, did coin the term. Fun fact at least in the States you cannot trademark a book title, but you can trademark a line of products and services. So my company, mattingly Solution, does inclusolitic services for organizations, so we were able to trademark that term as well.

James Hodgson:

Smart way around that as well.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

No, thank you.

James Hodgson:

So it sounds like you're really bringing together the quantitative with the qualitative, and I think most people, when they think of inclusion and the EI initiatives, they probably think it's focused much more on the qualitative aspect, and I can see how that's still, as you explained there, that's still very important. It's not just, it's not a box ticking exercise. It is how you present and also a lot of this is about feelings and how people feel. So how do you introduce hard metrics when we're talking about some of these more qualitative or feeling-based measurements?

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

Yeah, absolutely so. I really like to see where the organization is at when it comes to their people analytics in general. So most mid-sized to large organizations do an annual engagement survey and that's where you assess. You know how employees feel about their work. You know. Are they committed to the organization? Do they have people they can rely on? You know, do they have a good supervisor who supports them in their work?

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

And what then turns this engagement survey data into inclusion data is then slicing it by demographic groups. So are men and women and those who are non-binary? Are they having different experiences in the workplace right? Are people from different ethnic groups, people from different sexual orientations? And we are at an advantage in the US, where we are legally allowed to ask those types of questions and measure those types of variables. It gets trickier whenever you get to different countries and different areas in the world because there's certain restrictions around using demographic variables and measuring those identity groups, and so it's really just seeing what are we able to measure from an identity standpoint. What data do we currently have on hand so we can use those quantitative metrics to demonstrate what are these differences between different subgroups within the organization, to once again figure out what to do about it and employ some sort of intervention to close that gap.

James Hodgson:

And so what are the some of the common mistakes that you see? You mentioned earlier that many people express that they are themselves inclusive, they feel like they've created an inclusive environment, but sometimes that doesn't match the reality of the situation. So what are the common oversights points that people miss, where perhaps they're not creating as inclusive an environment as they might think?

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

Yeah, so this goes back to that definition of inclusion, right? So inclusion are the behaviors that we can do that result in others feeling valued, respected, seen and heard. And so I think where people go wrong is they think about the golden rule instead of the platinum rule. So the golden rule is treat others how you would want to be treated, whereas the platinum rule is treat others as they would want to be treated, and so what's really missing a lot of times is that relationship, that connection between the includer and the includee, between the ally and what I like to call the partner. We need to come together, across our differences, to figure out what truly does this person need, what truly will make them feel valued, respected, seen and heard, and how can I make sure that I enact those behaviors rather than the behaviors that I just think are inclusive.

James Hodgson:

Could you give some examples there of powerful changes that people have adopted where, as you say, perhaps they've had to act against their initial instincts in terms of how they would like to be heard, to shift towards, as you mentioned, the rule of actually adapting the workplace or adapting their own behaviors to allow space for other people?

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

Absolutely. A common example I've seen of this is whenever executive leaders join on to employee resource groups as executive sponsors. So for those who don't know, employee resource groups are essentially affinity groups as an organization. So a women's group, a different generational group, lgbtq plus group right, so people can come together and not just commune as that identity group but also come up with ways. You know what challenges are they facing in the organization and what are ways they can help solve those challenges.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

And so whenever an executive sponsor comes in, typically they're not a member of that group. So so whenever an executive sponsor comes in, typically they're not a member of that group. So we have a male sponsor coming into the women's group. We have a straight sponsor coming into the LGBTQ group. We have a neurotypical sponsor coming into the neurodivergence group and it opens up their eyes in a way that they hadn't considered before. Right, because the higher we get up an organization, the more homogeneity we have, the more we're like everyone else in that executive team. Right. So to be able to come in as that sponsor to really hear and learn about the perspective and the experiences of people who belong to a group to which you don't belong and then to have that executive power and leverage and authority to do something about it and to advocate for that group and maybe come up with a new policy or get more resources or provide more opportunities that those who aren't at that executive level would be able to do.

James Hodgson:

Yeah, that's really powerful, and I guess there's an element as well of overcoming this idea of feeling like you don't want to overstep. If you're not a member of that group, enter it with. It seemed like you're taking a liberty to join that space. So is there a lot that's involved in sort of encouraging more people to put their names forward and also encouraging them to an open invitation to say you are here as a sponsor, as an external member, to learn and listen?

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

Yeah, so there's this really interesting research on allyship that wanted to explore. What are the reasons that people choose not to be allies?

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

And it's not because people are discriminatory, sexist, racist, it's not because they're against DEI or allyship in general. It's not because they're apathetic and don't care. The number one reason why people choose not to be allies is exactly what you just said, which is they feel like it's not their space, they don't want to overstep right. There's this women's group. I'm a man, I don't want to. It's not my place. I don't want to give them their space. This is their community, and the way to counteract that reluctance is to just actively involve people, actively invite people to come do this work and with the ERG example, it is very much a best practice to pull in an executive sponsor for the success of that ERG right. So there's a nice built-in invitation for that executive sponsor role.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

When it comes to more informal opportunities for inclusion or allyship, if you recognize that you are from some sort of underrepresented or marginalized group, you're the only you can seek out someone who can be your ally, to be your partner in helping overcome the challenges you might be facing as a member of that underrepresented or marginalized group.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

And so it's just asking, and I want to empower those who want to work with allies, who need more inclusive leaders and inclusive behaviors on their team and their organization, to feel empowered to ask for that help, ask for that support. We've got to swallow our pride a little bit because, especially here in the States, we're always socialized to do it ourselves and pull yourself up by the bootstraps and all that. But if we take a moment and say, hey, I could really use your help with this. At the end of the day, most people want to help people and just giving someone that opportunity to help and be inclusive and be an ally is one of the best things you can do to encourage more of this behavior, more of these actions within organizations it must reveal so much as well, because you don't know what you don't know, but also for the members of the group.

James Hodgson:

They might find things which are obvious to them aren't obvious to the ally, to the sponsor, and then actually, that allows the space to go. Okay, these are things which need to be explained, these are things which need to be understood more, and so I know your recent work has focused on allyship with the upcoming book Act Like an Ally, work With an Ally, and you've got this focus on having this two-way relationship which goes into allyship. So if we could perhaps start with what does it mean to act like an ally?

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

because an ally is not someone who you are. It is not an identity you can assume. You know. It's not something you could slap on your social media or stick a flag on your desk or whatever and call yourself an ally. You should never call yourself an ally.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

An ally is what you do specifically how you leverage your power, your privilege, your status to help people from marginalized groups to which you don't belong. And that final piece is so important. I could be a great coach and mentor and sponsor and cheerleader and advocate for someone who's just like me, but that doesn't make me their ally. The beauty of allyship is whenever we work together across some sort of identity difference and the person who's in the ally role leverages their in-group status right. So we have male allies for women, we have straight allies for LGBTQ, we have neurotypical allies for neurodivergence and so on, and so to act like an ally, it means doing the behaviors that are going to benefit that person or group that you are trying to serve as the ally. So, going back to the point I made earlier, there needs to be some sort of communication, some relationship, some partnership, so that ally can make sure the actions they take are truly going to benefit and help the recipient, which I call the partner.

James Hodgson:

So, if I understand correctly, this is shifting the idea away from thinking that if I'm supportive of these groups, I respect their rights, I'm not discriminating against people, that that's sufficient but shifting towards more of an active process of saying this is something which I allyship, is something which I do as an act which is undertaken and has to be expressed publicly. Right.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

Exactly.

James Hodgson:

And so what are some of the methods and techniques that you recommend to people in order to express or practice their allyship?

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

So it does start with what we talked about earlier, which is that listening and that getting into that community or building that relationship with someone who's different than you, and truly understanding what their lived experience is, the challenges they face, the areas that they could use support, and so there's a listening phase. Listening is action, right, I think when people think action, they think it's got to be loud and big and these huge gestures. But listening, active listening, is an action. So active listening is listening to truly understand, not listening to respond. If you're an active listener, your responses should be questions, dig deeper into what that person just shared with you, or maybe a little recap. Let me get this straight you just said X, y, z, right? You're demonstrating that. I'm really trying to understand what you're saying. There's also an act of unlearning that allies need to do. So now that I've got more information, I've taken it upon myself to research. I don't want to burden people from already marginalized or underrepresented groups to educate me, right? So I'm going to go online, I'm going to do research. I call the Google. If you Google something, you get an answer. Do not burden an individual from that group for that answer, right? So do your research.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

And then there's an element, as I said, of unlearning. So I think we all want to believe, especially if we belong to a number of majority groups, that these days of discrimination and exclusion are behind us. But that's not the way it is. We do not live in a fair, equal world. Here in the States there's this graphic, I see, all the time in the history of the United States, you know racism or slavery existed. You know the majority of our existence as a country, right. And then we had segregation. We had, you know, everything before the civil rights in the 60s, and we know now we certainly are not living in a racist free country over here, right. So it's. It's that unlearning of like oh like. We're not all equal, you know we're not on a level playing field.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

And then, once you go through that you know, education and unlearning phase, you know, through that partnership, through that relationship with the group or individual you're trying to serve, you take the actions that they need. So that could look like very different things. For example, if you're trying to be an ally to someone in an organization, you can be their sponsor, and sponsorship is actually a lot more effective than mentorship, whereas mentoring is an ally action for sure, you know, working with someone being their sounding board, providing advice, sharing experiences, wisdom. But a sponsor actually uses their leadership and their political power and authority to pull someone up in the organization. So speak for them when they're not in the room. Talk to them, to other leaders, about their so high potential. They would do a great job. Let's give them this high profile assignment, you know, let's bring them to this networking event and you're really like using your resources to help pull this person up in the organization.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

So that's some workplace examples. You know, when it comes to like community or you're thinking about how you can be an ally to friends, you know it really comes down to that active listening piece and then stepping up in ways that they could use that support. So it could be meditated. Where it's like I'm trying to fundraise for this group that I belong to, can you share the fundraising info? Can you join our run walk for this cure, for this issue? That matters a lot to my group, but it doesn't affect you. You know. It's just doing the thing that would be most helpful, most beneficial to that person you're trying to serve.

James Hodgson:

Yeah, and thank you for bringing it back to communities as well, and there's so much you mentioned in there, I think, particularly around we can't be complacent, we can't think that these problems have all been solved. And, yes, certainly so. I guess with the, our audience is mostly involved in community groups, although I'm sure everyone will be able to use these examples that you've mentioned in their place of work as well. But I can see definitely parallels for using these techniques within community groups, such as we have within the humanist community here in the UK, and there'll be plenty of other groups around the world. But I'm interested and I know you gave a few examples there but I think it's a really important definition that you mentioned the difference between a mentor and a sponsor in terms of actively sponsoring someone within a group. Could you just give a brief definition of or how you would differentiate between the two and some of the key activities that a sponsor might undertake, say, within a community group as well as within an organization?

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

happens behind closed doors, whereas sponsoring happens in more of a public community setting, whereas mentoring is that giving advice and, you know, guidance and support on that one-on-one basis. Being a sponsor is whenever you actually identify. You know I have some power in this situation. You know I have a really strong network. I'm really well connected. I'm already in this Maybe it's a political role of some sort, right, and so you can come in and leverage that platform, leverage that network, leverage. Don't have the same opportunities, right? So I'm going to make this part of my personal mission, part of my work, to get this group the resources that they need, because I'm in a position of power, and so it's really that, you know, rebalancing of power that makes sponsorship as effective as it is.

James Hodgson:

And so do you also recommend measuring with analytics the impact of a sponsor.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

Impact of an ally for sure, and sponsorship definitely falls under that umbrella. I was working with one global tech organization and they were building out an allyship strategy for their company and we were talking a lot about measurement, and the measurement in year one was like will these leaders sign up for this allyship program? Right, it's just sheer participation. Rates was the metrics, and I think we forget, like that's data too, to be able to say 90% of our leaders at this level band, you know, join this allyship program. That's really powerful. In the beginning, just the sheer participation. And then we wanted to get an impact measurement. You know what is the actual impact of allies on underrepresented groups in this organization? And I was adamant that measurement come from the recipients of allyship, not from the leaders themselves.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

There's a lot of reporting systems out there where you can anonymously report to HR or some sort of other third-party reporting agency whenever discriminatory behavior is happening in an organization. Imagine if we use that same technology for when allyship actions happen in an organization. Right, I'm going to report that my leader stood up for me, my peer made the space for me to share my points in a meeting, someone went out of their way to share their mentorship with me and guide me. Someone corrected someone else when they got my name wrong or got my pronouns wrong, right? So how can we measure allyship from the perspective of the people being benefited from allyship and put some weight behind that measurement? So if a certain group doesn't have 40 allyship reports by the end of the year, they're not going to get their full bonus this year? Right? Like, how do we really tie it to compensation? Tie it to what matters to truly incentivize people to be enacting these behaviors?

James Hodgson:

I love that. It sounds like such an obvious point when you mention it. We don't track these um positive acts in the same way that we, or there isn't the mechanisms to flag them and raise awareness of them in the same way there is for the negative acts, particularly within the workplace but in any organization. So that's, yeah, a small change that can have a huge impact and actually you're tapping into people's competitive spirit there, especially if you tie it to benefits as well. But you mentioned a few times there that you've also written in this book the other side of the relationship and advice for the beneficiaries of allyship, which you refer to as partners. So what makes a good partner in an allyship?

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

Yes, I found that there's three core characteristics of a partner that are really critical for successful allyship. So the first is self-awareness. So if an ally comes to you and says, hey, like I want to help, I want to be your ally, I want to do what I can to support you. What do you need? That partner needs that self-awareness to say this is what I've been experiencing, these are the challenges I face and I need X Y, z from you to help me overcome them Right. Or I need to brainstorm with you. You know, like, what I'm going through and what we could do together to help deal with these problems and overcome these problems. So that self-awareness piece is really important.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

You know, I've often heard this response to allyship as in like, well, you broke it, so you fix it. You know, don't burden me with coming up with the solution, right, you're the one in power, you fix it. But that doesn't leave the ally with anything to do and it runs the risk of that ally doing something that might actually cause more harm than good because they don't know what they should be doing right. So a partner needs self-awareness. A partner also needs trust and needs to be able to give some grace Allies are going to get it wrong when it comes to inclusion DEI allyship. We're never going to get it all right. What matters is, when we get it wrong, we apologize and we change our behavior, moving forward right. So if your ally gets it wrong and you help them see that and they apologize and change their behavior moving forward, you as their partner need to give them that grace that you can move on from that situation. Cancel culture doesn't fit in allyship. Now, by all means, if your ally keeps messing up, apologizing and not fixing their behavior, or worse, they don't even apologize and they get defensive, that's another situation. Maybe you shouldn't work with them as their ally anymore. But if they make a mistake, if they do something wrong and they fix it, you know you need to give them that grace, that trust that they do have their best intention in mind. Sometimes impact over intention doesn't work out very well, but that doesn't mean we can't trust them to do well moving forward. So there's an element of trust. An ally certainly need to help grow and build that trust right. But the partner needs to be trusting enough of that ally to be able to bring them in and have those conversations with them and trust that they're going to do the right thing.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

And then the third characteristic of a good partner is action orientation.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

So imagine you have this ally and they put their neck on the line to help get you this promotion. Or you know high visibility assignment. Or you know, maybe you're a chair of a committee that an ally advocated for you to be on in the community organization and then you don't deliver and then you don't step up into the role or you don't take advantage of the opportunity or you don't take action. You know, when the allies set you up for success and I remember one of the allies I worked with many years ago he told me he's like the only reason I invest all this time and energy into you is because you actually go do something with it. It's really rewarding to me as your ally to see you succeed and to see you run with these opportunities and take advantage and grow and turn it into something even bigger than it was when I helped you get it in the first place right. And so, to summarize, self-awareness, trust and action orientation are three really important characteristics to being a partner in allyship.

James Hodgson:

I can see that you've then got the two sides of the agreement, of the contract that's in here. Both parties have to bring these actions, but also these attitudes, towards the relationship in order to get the best out of it. And you reminded me there, I think, of a debate that I hear quite often as well, which I'd be interested to get your thoughts on. I think oftentimes those in a discriminated group or a minority group will say well, it's not their responsibility to educate those from outside that group on why things are more difficult for them, the impact of the discrimination. But it sounds like from what you were explaining there that there has to be some level of understanding, that there is going to be a knowledge gap and that there's a way to. The two sides have to come together to try to bridge that. So I just wondered do you have any thoughts on that area of disagreement?

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

Yeah, so it's a fine line, right? There needs to be a period of self-education, right? I am a white person and I want to understand the experience of the Latino population here in America. So, before I go out and try to make a Latino or Latina friend and try to be their ally, I'm going to spend time self-educating. I'm going to find books written by Latino authors. I'm going to look through research and see you know what type of research is out there about the unique experiences of Latino population.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

I'm going to there's an organization here in Pittsburgh called Casa San Jose, and they support the Latino population here at Pittsburgh. I'm going to go on their website, see what resources they have, right, so I'm going to do as much as I possibly can before I even consider reaching out to someone from this group, and then I can come in with some baseline knowledge, foundational knowledge, and so any additional questions or, you know, conversations I want to have are coming from a well-informed place. I'm not asking someone to educate me on the entire Latino experience, right? I'm just now forming a relationship, a partnership, with someone from a group that I've done a lot of research on, but now I want to learn about your unique experience, your individual experience. You know, I read this Is that what you face, and I saw this research. Does that resonate with you? How does that play out in your life? Rather than tell me all the things about being Latino here?

James Hodgson:

So do your research, be informed, but also don't come with too many assumptions as well, and be willing to learn about the individual lived experience. I think that's fantastic advice. Coming back to dei generally, this topic's been around for many years now. I think it's now more widely accepted than it was, but I imagine there's still a lot of cynicism when we talk about diversity initiatives or inclusion initiatives. And so, as a behavioral scientist or someone who studied this, what is the research that you would point to? Tangible effects, the data-driven impact of taking actions to positively improve your inclusion within any group.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

Yeah, there's so many recorded, well-researched benefits to workplace diversity, equity and inclusion. One really good example is innovation, and it makes a lot of sense from a logic standpoint because if we have a room full of people with similar perspectives, similar life experiences, we're missing out on ideas and perspectives that we wouldn't have otherwise if we didn't have different people in the room. So, for example, years ago, facebook was working on their 3D headset and it was an all-male team and it just wasn't coming together quite right, like in their user experience trials and test trials. It wasn't comfortable, it wasn't staying on. Someone had the idea of like, hey, let's get some women into this team, let's see, you know, if they have some different ideas to help out. And, funnily enough, the technology used for bra straps was actually utilized for these headbands, so they were a lot more comfortable, they connected more easily, it was a nicer fit. Also, you know they were initially testing these headsets on bigger heads. Men are bigger than women, right? So to actually, you know they were initially testing these headsets on bigger heads. Men are bigger than women, right? So to actually, you know, have smaller faces and heads and, tested on, it was actually a more inclusive product as a result.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

So innovation is really important and I need to call out it's not just diversity that leads innovation, you need the inclusion piece to. You can't just throw a bunch of people in the room who are different than each other and say, okay, innovate or work together or be a team or, you know, solve this problem. You know they need to have the skills and the tools for you know, making people feel valued, respected, seen and heard, being able to pause and actively listen to different perspectives, create that psychological safety where people feel safe to bring up maybe divergent opinions or views, and that's really where the magic happens. So you can't just have the diversity, you need the inclusion as well. Other examples of the benefits of DEI you know you're able to attract a bigger talent pool, especially when it comes to Gen Z and millennials. You know DEI those types of values and principles are non-negotiable for a lot of people from younger generations. Right, you're able to keep people around longer.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

Turnover is very expensive, losing people, having to rehire. When people feel valued, respected, seen and heard, they're more likely to stay at an organization, and so you don't have those turnover costs. Heard, they're more likely to stay at an organization, and so you don't have those turnover costs. I'm trying to think of other big benefits. I mean, those are the big ones that come to mind, but at the end of the day, I think about leadership. You know, a good leader is an inclusive leader, and leaders create the culture of an organization and sustain it. And so if we have people at the top who are leading in such a way where they're making sure all voices are heard, all identities are considered and, no matter what type of identity you have, you're given the opportunities and resources to thrive, that's going to be a better organization than leaders who don't have that mindset and that lens for how they approach their people.

James Hodgson:

It's amazing that it's even still a question that having diverse experiences, backgrounds as much variation in your team as possible, and particularly a team that represents in some way the audience that you're trying to serve, your target customers. It would not be an obvious thing for teams, but, yeah, we still progress towards the future and I think on that, looking ahead, are there any emerging practices or technologies which excite you in terms of making workspaces or groups more human and more equitable?

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

With AI and language processing and these big algorithms, we have a ton of data that we could be leveraging that truly understand. How inclusive is this organization right? Who's being invited to meetings and who's being left out? From an identity standpoint, what?

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

type of words and language are people using on Slack or Teams or other tools, and how can we make sure we're seeing more inclusive words and less exclusionary words, right? How can we use data to get a sense of how people are both being treated and also how they feel about that within their organization, and how can we do it in an ethical way too? We don't want to be big brother, making people feel like their privacy is being violated. There's a way of collecting these data where we're not identifying individuals necessarily, but we're able to say last quarter we had a 20% increase in inclusive language and a 40% decrease in exclusionary language, or being able to say those. You know group level or function level. You know rollouts of data, report outs of data to really understand you know how are people feeling, how are they being treated in the organization.

James Hodgson:

Wonderful. Well, you can find Dr V's books. We'll link to everything in the show notes and also Victoria Mattingly Consulting. Finally, before we go, Dr V, our standard closing question what's something which you've changed your mind on and what inspired that change?

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

Years ago and as a workplace inclusion practitioner, I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but many years ago, whenever non-binary language started becoming more popular and a lot of people who were non-binary wanted to use they them pronouns, and I didn't understand that, because they them is a plural pronoun, whereas she or he is a singular pronoun. So how could you use a plural pronoun to refer to yourself? And it's not that I didn't use the term if someone wanted me to use it, but I just, I truly just didn't understand. I felt like that could be a better word, you know it, just it just didn't make sense to me. And then I reflected back on my own life and I grew up as as Vicky.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

That was the name I went by growing up, and it was when I was 18 and I was serving in restaurants and every night I would say hi, my name is Vicky, I'm taking care of you tonight. Hi, my name is Vicky. I'm like Vicky. Like I'm not a Vicky, I'm a Victoria, or I'm I'm a V, like I'm not a Vicky, right. And it was really hard to shed that name and, you know, rebrand myself as Victoria. It took me moving all the way across the country to be able to get away from people who call me Vicky so I could have this new name, and I remember how important that was to me, how much that mattered to me. You know how much, to this day, I don't like being called Vicky and people accommodated that for me. They call me Victoria. They recognize I don't like being called Vicky and that's just my name.

Dr. Victoria Mattingly:

I mean, when it comes to gender identity, that's who you are, and so if I can go from Vicky to Victoria, the least I can do is use whatever pronoun you want me to use for you. Right, and I used to not put my pronouns after my name, like on my email signature or on Zoom. And it's not because, you know, I'm concerned someone's going to misgender me. I'm pretty obviously a feminine you know, cisgender woman, but I wanted to create that space and that safety for others who want to share their pronouns. I'm sharing mine, so feel free to share yours. I've taken a completely different approach to pronouns since then. At the end of the day, people should just be called what they're called. It's not causing any harm. Just call people what they want to be called. Thanks again for having me.

People on this episode

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James Hodgson

Host
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Victoria Mattingly

Guest

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