Inclusive Growth Show

Why Inclusion Needs a ‘Why’: Grounding DEI in Organisational Values

• Toby Mildon • Episode 157

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Are your inclusion efforts grounded in a meaningful 'why'?

In this engaging episode, Toby Mildon speaks with Sarah Bettman—an executive coach and DEI strategist—about the importance of aligning equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) with organisational values, leadership integrity, and cultural dynamics.

Sarah’s journey from paramedic to DEI expert brings a unique lens to privilege, systemic bias, and leadership responsibility. She shares stories and insights about how leaders can build inclusion into the DNA of their organisation by slowing down, listening deeply, and understanding power dynamics within systems.

🎯 Key Takeaways:

  • Why identifying your organisation’s “why bother” for EDI is vital
  • How privilege shows up systemically and how leaders can responsibly address it
  • The role of emotional intelligence in inclusive leadership
  • Creating safe, slow-thinking environments for deeper DEI conversations
  • Practical steps for building DEI strategies that reflect real organisational needs

🎤 Guest Highlight:

Sarah Bettman is a leadership coach and DEI consultant who works globally to help organisations, especially majority groups, shift mindsets and align inclusion with their strategic and cultural goals.

Send us a message

If you're enjoying this episode and looking to boost equity, inclusion, and diversity in your organisation, my team and I are here to help. Our team specialises in crafting data-driven strategies, developing inclusive leaders, designing fair recruitment processes, and enhancing disability confidence. With a blend of professional expertise and lived experience, we're ready to support you on your journey. Reach out to us through our website. 

If you want to build a more inclusive workplace that you can be proud of please visit our website to learn more.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Inclusive Growth Show with Toby Mildon. Future

proofing your business by creating a diverse workplace. Toby Mildon:

Hey there. Thank you ever so much for tuning into this episode of the Inclusive Growth Podcast. I'm Toby Mildon and today I'm joined by Sarah Bettman who is a coach and consultant and we're going to be talking everything about equity, diversity and inclusion. So, Sarah, thanks ever

so much for joining me. It's lovely to see you. Sarah Bettman:

It's

great to see you and thank you for having me. Toby Mildon:

Obviously I just gave you a really high level, very basic introduction there, but can you just tell us a bit more about your professional journey and what led you to working within equity, diversity and inclusion? Sarah

Bettman:

Yeah, so I'll go way back in that. I think I was exposed to difference at an early age. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. My playmates were of diverse cultures, cultures and identities. The experience of sexual orientation, gender identity was something I was exposed to early on. So I think proximity, as we in the spaces talk about is a really important part of learning about difference and understanding that people do things differently than I might. Fast forward to after college, I became a firefighter, paramedic. And I think that steeped me further in this understanding that a gang member in the back of an ambulance was just a 20 year old kid. Like there's more to this story. You might look at a beautiful house and walk in and find out you've got someone with hoarding tendencies. And what you see on the front is different than what's inside. So again, planting that seed that what you see isn't always the whole truth and a curiosity about what's on the back end. So I started with a fundamental curiosity. But again, fast forwarding. As I got certified as a coach and got into leadership development in healthcare, I started to learn about the language of diversity, inclusion as health disparities in a large health

system here in California. Sarah Bettman:

And when I started to understand the language, I started to see it in the work I was already doing with team dynamics and understanding systems. So that's an approach that I play with, that there's the macro system of the world, macro system of the United States. They're are privileges associated, biases associated. But then when you also get to the departmental level, there's other power dynamics at play. They're not always demographic. So one of the things that's important to me, for me as a practitioner is I'm looking where the power dynamics and it could be role, it could be background, it could be the college you went to and it could be demographics and those are all play in an environment. So it was through that I started to understand thought leaders practices and was able to get deliberate about how I did the work. Moved from that hospital system to a consulting firm which I'm actually working with again that did inclusion work globally. That concept again of systems and culture was different. Doing women in leadership work, say in India versus China versus Latin America versus the US are all very different conversations and the influences for those dynamics and disparities

are different. Sarah Bettman:

And then went on to build a diversity inclusion strategy for a large Fortune 500 that went from a women's group to elevating that to a strategy and then expanding that to other identities within the organization to create a DEI strategy and department with a chief diversity officer now has a whole department. It's in their public records. And then fast forward to today. I'm back with that consultancy now focused on the advancement of women, but with the understanding that the work we do on behalf of women applies to all different differences, whether it's identity based differences, cultural or even just systemic differences within

an organizational culture. Toby Mildon:

Cool. I love your breadth of experience and I know from previous conversations that we've had that you talk about the importance of understanding the why behind organizations inclusion efforts. Why do you think this is kind of an often overlooked step and

what happens if they do overlook the why? Sarah Bettman:

You have to know why bother. I was on a previous podcast and the interviewer asked me why should companies be inclusive? And I said I don't think they should be. Partially because we all know organizations that are either grounded in a belief structure, many religious belief structure that isn't fundamentally inclusive, their version of religion is non inclusive and those organizations are rooted in those values. I don't think think they should be pro inclusion because their fundamental why bother is rooted in a grounded perspective that is not inclusive. So I think it's important. I'll use an example of Patagonia, a company here in the United States, pretty well known around the world. It's so embedded in who they are around the environment and climate change that if someone challenged them to stop doing climate change, they couldn't. So having that why bother and having it be so clear, it's why we do things, it's how we do things around here grounds you in the ability to

stand by the work you're doing. Sarah Bettman:

So I'll give you a great example. One of my clients, architecture engineering firm the why bother for the CEO, it was in the values. But for him it was, I don't want any of our employees to have a bad experience working here. And so we have to understand the different experiences and make sure we're not perpetuating them in specifically in the United States in industry that is fairly male dominated and male centered. So the why bother could be simple as that is I just want to be a great place to work for all my employees of different identities. But the thing is, and why it makes it hard, I believe is

it requires time and work. Sarah Bettman:

And so I use the analogy of long term relationships. When you're in a long term relationship, you don't meet someone and it's awesome. You meet someone, it's good enough and then you learn about them and they're different. And it's like I have to look in the mirror when husband gives me feedback, then boyfriend, your partner gives you feedback, those things you say or do hit differently than you think they were supposed to. But because you want to be in good relationship and get the best out of the relationship we all look at ourselves in the mirror. We slow down, we consider our choices, we consider our words, we consider our actions.

Sarah Bettman:

And for leaders that tend to have a bias towards results orientation, a bias towards action, getting things done, that slowing down is really fundamentally important. And it sometimes feels hard to do, plus sometimes there's shame associated. So avoid... It's easier to do tactics. I always say you have to earn your way to strategy and tactics. That earning is the emotional intelligence work, the leadership development and frankly the culture work. And sometimes that feels less important than true action that can be measured. It's my belief, it's absolutely fundamental and absolutely important because when you move to action and don't understand

why you're doing it, you can't stand behind it. Toby Mildon:

I love that. And I don't know if you've ever come across her work, but I use a lot of the techniques created by Nancy Kline in the Thinking Environment. And one of her sayings is the quality of what we do depends on the quality of the thinking that we do first. And so she really stresses the point around just taking our time have a better quality of thinking. And as you were talking, I was also thinking of what Simon Sinek talks about in his book Start With Why. And he says that finding your why is a process of discovery rather than invention. Your why for equity, diversity and inclusion already exists. It doesn't need inventing, but you just need to go digging for it and then make it clear and cascade that throughout the organization. Sarah

Bettman:

Yeah. And create... I believe there's a lot of people who fundamentally want to be in good relationship. There's a great video of then AT&T CEO during Black Lives Matter, talking about a story that his friend and colleague, a black man, had been invited to speak at a local church about his experience being a black man. And this AT&T CEO attend. But watch the video later. And he was shocked by what he learned. And he realized that even though he'd been in relationship with this man, they had eaten together, they had prayed together, they had whatever their life, what he thought was intimate life experience. The white CEO was never the person that the black man could share the realities of being black with. And that's hard work. And he talks about the shame of learning that and the shame of kind of having to understand that you can't fix what you see and you can't see what you don't know. And he was grateful to that experience, but also the conversation that opened up with that colleague to learn and grow. And I think that sometimes going slow and looking in the mirror

is hard. Sarah Bettman:

What I point to, for anyone who's seen senior leadership, you've done this many times. You've been challenged, whether it was simply introvert versus extrovert. Or action orient, type A. When you have people that are more thinkers or more people driven, they're... In order to be a great leader, we have to do a series of emotional intelligence checks and slowing down to decide what kind of leader do we want to be? How do I want to be remembered? The problem is we do that within the realm of what we understand and what we've been exposed to. And if we haven't been exposed to some of those deeper experiences and some of those why bothers? I might do a why bother that really is centered around my identity and my reality and not have an opportunity

to go to why bother at a deeper space. Sarah Bettman:

And I'll give you a great example. Many years ago, I went to Nepal, and Nepal's relationship with trash was way different than any other country I'd ever been to, because they have to pack out the trash and we had to pack out our batteries. Not even just from the Everest region, Khumbu region, where we were, but out of the country because they had no way to dispose of trash and they didn't want us tourists

contributing to already a trash problem. Sarah Bettman:

That fundamentally changed how I saw trash forever to this day. How I see batteries, how I see plastic bags how I see trash. So how do we create those experience without having to send someone to Nepal and be steeped in that? And I spent a lot of time like why was I impacted and what was the experience that led me to a behavior change because that's the place we have to play. And because you can't measure that on a spreadsheet, you can't measure that in the ways that you might measure tactical things that happen in an organization

that feels harder and many times gets skipped. Toby Mildon:

Can we talk about integrity and systemic privilege? Because how do you think organizations can balance addressing the systemic issues that they're having to operate in whilst at the same time respecting the unique dynamics within the teams

within the organization? Sarah Bettman:

Yeah. And I want to be clear. As much as I play in this space, I don't think any of us would claim to be experts. We're all trying to figure out... We're talking about human relationships. So we wouldn't be talking about this if we had this all figured out. So I want to be clear, this is my perspective. It's different than your perspective, might be different than someone else's, who knows. And ideally it's our joint perspectives on this and our looking out for it that brings us together. So I don't want to sit here pontificating as, this perspective is the right one. But this is what I've come to. So I predominantly work with the majority groups in the organizations I work with. And believing that they need to do a mindset shift and get of their hearts and minds before they do this work. So I want to be clear, that's where I come from in this conversation. So part of it is just helping them to see what privilege

is. Sarah Bettman:

And I use an analogy or a phrasing of if an organization in the United States organizations were made by whom? White men. That was the workforce that was available when corporations were made. So if an organization is made by a certain group, who's going to be made for, well, white men and then what will all be the systems and processes be on behalf of? White men and similar. If it's an organization that was made of all women and there are certain tribal communities that are matriarchal and such... And there is a more feminine aspect to the organization, if I dare call it that. So to help them connect the dots, to understand that because this, the majority group is male, the decisions will be made on behalf of men. And so the processes will also

be on behalf of men. Sarah Bettman:

Once they start this through line, no judgment. So we dispel that. Yes, white male privilege is a thing systemically, but once you see it and understand it, you can fix it. And one of the things that's important to me is in organizations you have more ability. So in the system of the world, there are dynamics that to me, give me chest pain as I think of trying to change it. But in an organization, you can change it a lot faster because then you can start to see, oh, maternity leave, it seems generous, but actually in the United States, maternity leave, women are technically on disability. So there's an economic impact to them, meaning they aren't earning during the time they're on leave. So that impacts their benefits, that impacts their bonuses, that impacts things that would help forward

them financially. Sarah Bettman:

So organizations that now understand that have changed their benefits and tried to change it so that a woman is not docked for part of my administrative system, say hi to everyone for going out and having a baby. On the same sense, the younger generation, men want to be engaged with their children, so there's flexibility there. But you have to start with understanding that privilege and then being a willingness to understand those different experience. And if that's true, what might be the impact? So if it's true that women speak up in meetings but still don't get promoted at the same rate, or women work as hard as men and don't get paid. So I think this week when we're recording is equal payday for white women, the number of months they'd have to work to equal the pay last year of men, which sadly, it's even further into the year for

African American women in the United States and Hispanic women. Sarah Bettman:

So when companies understand that, they tend to say, not in my house, I don't want that to play out. And then they use that privilege to create opportunities to open doors and to say, okay, if I sit here and I can control how I... How this environment is, then I'm going to change it. And it's an iterative process, but it's very much going back to that relationship piece. How do you connect it to things that are real meaningful? Take the sting in charge out of this concept of privilege. We all have privileges stealing from Arnie Mendel's kind of concepts about rank and privilege. And in some ways, we all have power in our systems. In the macrosystem, maybe not, but in our microsystems. Yes.

And then how do we change it from there? Sarah Bettman:

So I don't know. I kind of got random all over because privilege is complex. But the key is you got to be able to see it first. And once you see it and take the sting out of it, that certainly feels like has been the case. That's important. Oh, one piece. And sorry, this is ending up the longest answer that's ever

been created ever. Sarah Bettman:

But I do think we have to separate macro privilege from individual privilege. So systemic privilege from individual. So start to see the system. Because when I teach about privilege, I'll hear men say, but I fought for everything you had. Absolutely you did. And you also did that in a system. So for me, who was middle class upbringing, two parents and such, individually you had less privilege than I did. But systemically, you as a white male in the United States, I'll speak US centric for this, had other privileges and things available that were easier to you than I did. So let's not debate on who had it worse. Let's just peel apart and get very clear about those differences. Because what we might find is the magic is in the things I've seen because of my privilege and the things you've seen because your lack of maybe economic privilege. When you come together, what we create is magical, but we have to dispel the angst around it and the mighty mouse fighting around it and start appreciating that. Yeah, some of us have privilege

and don't and how do we use it for good? Toby Mildon:

Yeah, I mean, in the EDI space, privilege is definitely one of the topics I think gets people most defensive because like you say, people say, well, I worked really hard to get that university degree that enabled me to get a great graduate job, etcetera, etcetera. And nobody's denying that, but it's like a colleague of mine draws the distinction between earned and unearned privileges. And the example that I normally talk about in my workshops is, for example, I was born in the UK, which meant that I had access to free healthcare, free education that has enabled me to have a good quality of life. Whereas if I compare that to, say, my colleague who's got the same disability as me, he was born and grew up in South Africa, he didn't have access to the same life saving healthcare or spinal surgery that I had for free. His family had to find a lot of money to pay for that surgery. And the educational system wasn't as inclusive in South Africa as it was for me growing up in the UK. So again, he had difficulty completing education. So we're of similar age, we're both white, we both have the same disability, but our lives are very different simply because of where we were born. Neither of us had any control over that. And that's the difference really between earned and unearned

privilege. Sarah Bettman:

Absolutely. And I think a lot of people talk about this, but I think it's so simple is right handedness versus left handedness. The world... You are privileged if you're a right hander because you don't have to think as much as a left hander when you go sit at dinner, when you buy golf clubs or things that are meant for a certain hand. Everything's designed for a right handed world. And I think the importance of that is it takes us... No judgment. But we've all sat at spaces where we have to have conversations both based on disability. Can you get into the space? Where do I sit? Whether it's that or handedness or frankly here in the United States, safety because of immigration status, that's starting to become thing. Sarah

Bettman:

I don't have to think about any of those things. The energy just to go out to dinner I have to expend is, oh, let's go here, it's great, it'll be fun. Let's just sit down. And if I'm not conscious of how others engage in the space or will be treated in a space or even their ability to access the space, it won't be the same experience for them and it won't be fun. And where I'm energized by the experience, they're drained. And finding those connections for people that make sense to them and are relevant to their day to day. Because one of the things I think is really important with this work is don't trust what I'm saying, go do your

own research. Sarah Bettman:

All I'm asking is that you understand there's more to this story than you think. And when you spout off like one liners or concepts and ideas, I'm asking you to pause for a second and consider if that's actually true and then look at the others, the individual's experience, to say, wow, if that really happened, how is it true? And when you do that, you start to see it. I actually had a person who took one of my leadership academies through Inclusive Leadership and he said, I can't not see bias everywhere. And I'm like, I know, that's the point. Because now you can see it. Now you can see privilege everywhere. Now you can do something about

it. Toby Mildon:

Yeah. Talking of leaders, if the person listening to us right now is in a leadership position or they have influence over leadership development, what would you recommend are the first steps that they should take to start meaningful conversations about inclusion within their own

organization? Sarah Bettman:

Yeah. The more senior the leader, I would say, is, look at your culture, look at your values, and the why bother? So getting back to that, defining the why. Why bother having this conversation? A why is important. It could be strictly tactical because it's a talent play, or it could be like, I just don't want to be a crappy place for my employees to work. I want my employees to love working here. It really can be that simple. But notice that's heartfelt. A lot of the organizations I work with, they could be dismissed because it's just a bunch of white dudes and it's a bro culture. But a lot of the organization I work with, there's a lot of heart. And once they get it, they're like, not in my house. I don't want anyone to experience bad things working for me. I want them to live a great life and want to use this to contribute so it doesn't have to be strategic, tactical, huge. Just simply, why bother doing this? Just like Patagonia, why bother fighting for climate change? They're very clear. Because when you're clear on the why bother, then you can stand for and be willing to learn things.

That can sometimes be hard. Sarah Bettman:

The next step is create experiences that enroll people in the conversation. So when I started the DEI program for that Fortune 500, I just taught unconscious bias, my version of it. I can speak to it. It's not the end all, be all greatest. But what happened is every time after, I'd have three to five people coming up to me saying, I want to get involved or I want to learn more. And I would just collect those people and that ultimately

became the creation of 10 resource groups in two years. Sarah Bettman:

And the key being, I didn't create the resource groups, they did. Because they were engaged and excited. And then I was elevate... Able to elevate the voices of these employees who were engaged to the leadership team so the leadership could hear them and start to realize there's opportunity here. There's ways we can do better, there's things we need to look at. So start the... Create opportunities to start the conversation. For me, training was easy access, but it might be just a conversation. Okay, what do we need to know? What's important? What are you experiencing?

Sarah Bettman:

And depending on the safety of the organization or the relationship, that'll be different. So start the conversation. And then the key to that is understand what's really going on in your organization so that you're solving real problems. Early in the days of kind of after George Floyd, everyone jumping into the pool for DEI, a lot of companies signed up to these organizations that did global metrics and benchmarking, which I think is valuable. But for a starting organization, I think they can put the company at risk of taking action that isn't meaningful and addressing real problems in their organization. So get clear what your problems are. Solve those. That creates an inertia that ultimately you can go to those benchmarking organizations and either capture the work you've done or start to see the opportunities. But don't start there. Be clear what your issues are. And that clarity only comes from the people within your organization. That's really important. It's not a leadership team sitting in a room looking at engagement data and saying, this must be the problem, I'm going to

fix it. No. Be in conversation. Sarah Bettman:

Because that relationship building, which will be the final point, this is not about DEI and increasing representation. Those are the lags, measures and outcomes with the resource groups that I created in our organization. It was about building relationship and proximity so that if leaders had a question about the identity, they could go to that group and ask, what should we do? For example, during COVID that group we had a network for parents. And recognizing that parents were really struggling during especially early days and also early career professionals, the leadership team went to those resource groups to say, what do we do? And it led to some benefits and activities on behalf of both groups that was helpful and frankly they were asking on behalf of other groups. So let your people, the brilliances in the organization guide you. But what's key is are you building quality relationship? And I'll go back to where we started. If you're in a long term relationship, your goal is to be in good relationship. And ultimately, if you're a leader, your goal is to be the leader that people want to follow, which fundamentally means being in

good relationship and knowing a thing or two about the person. Sarah Bettman:

The one thing I will say that has been a big shift that's important to note is post COVID, I think the understanding of the greater life that people live has become more available. There is a generation where you just come to work, you do your work, I don't want to know anything. Leave your life at home, walk through that door and just do the work. But when we're all sitting on the phones and my cat's jumping up and the babies are screaming and whatever's going on and those walls between work and life just got much thinner. So if there are leaders out there who are feeling like this isn't how I led for the last 10 years, you're right. But the new generations in the workforce, the post COVID world, are asking for something different of their leaders and the availability of context, I.e., now the whole life context is much more normalized post

COVID than I think it was before. Toby Mildon:

So what does inclusive

growth mean for you? Sarah Bettman:

Well, the number one is just knowing there's no there. It is a journey and it is a progressive journey and it is one that you're always continuously learning. So I think that's the fundamental piece. I think it's a curiosity and creativity about me being better in relationship with other and difference. And that may be demographic, but it could be culturally, it could be regionally. Here in the United States we have very different experiences, frankly, politically right now, and me being curious and understanding why they might think the way they are to be in that good relationship and that requires emotional intelligence. That requires me slowing down

and doing the things we've talked about. Sarah Bettman:

It is in order for me to lead this work, I need to be in the work and doing the work. And I don't claim in any way, shape or form to be perfect. I'm going to say the wrong words, I'm going to say silly things because it goes back to some of this is so ingrained in us, whether it's nature and nurture, we could debate for days. But the inclusive growth is just being open to the conversation, open to feedback and curiosity and learning. Because honestly, I mean, I've always learned stuff from you when we've had our discussions about your experience that I can, I can never understand fully.

Sarah Bettman:

I can only be curious and then trust that if you tell me something is for you, then I will know it and I will honor it and respect it, whether it's accommodations, assistance or just being able to pronounce your name correctly. And so to me, inclusive growth is that growth piece is so fundamental that it's just all... We're never going to get it right. And just like being in a long term relationship, I love my husband, been with him 10 years and we don't always get it right. So if I can't get it right with the person closest to me, I can't assume to get it right in the world where there's complexity. But the behaviors I choose to do to stay in good relationship with him is the same relationship behaviors I can do out in the world to be in good relationship with others and the final piece around inclusive growth, especially here in the United States, where it feels like we're so divided. When you come together at the human level and in that curiosity you build that proximity that makes you want to be curious and work on behalf of a person

that's different than you. Sarah Bettman:

And that takes back to that organizational piece, that big piece of slowing down and not, not taking the top line, the top line comment, the top line headline, the top line, whatever talking point in an organization, but going deeper and curious, like, what's behind it? Why might that person think it? What's the context? I loved your story about your. Your friend. Two very different contexts between South Africa and the UK and the curiosity of why that is

and how that impacts a person is essential. Toby Mildon:

Cool. Thanks, Sarah. I love your perspective on that. Now moving on to the final question. Inclusivity can only happen if we do something about it. If we take action, what is one simple action that you would like the person listening

to us right now to take after they've heard our conversation? Sarah Bettman:

Yeah, I think it's as simple as asking two questions. What excites you? So let's assume we're in a work environment, but you can use this outside. What excites you? Why do you come to work here? And what keeps you up at night? Because if you're able to get quality answers out that, out of those two questions that seem benign and easy access, you can start to have all the other conversations.

You said one, but I'm going to just add another. Toby Mildon:

You

can squeeze in the next one. Sarah Bettman:

Squeeze another. You already know I talk too much. Is be willing to learn and consider if that's true for the other person, what's the impact? And so whether it's reading thought leaders that are different than you, reading articles, reading across the world's perspectives, take a responsibility to learn and don't put that on your friends and colleagues of the identities you want to learn about, especially for us that are white and of the majority group. Go other spaces to learn and grow and understand that it is. And please do not go to your colleague or friend that is of a different identity and ask them to teach you. Just know that is true. So if they approach you to share something that's related through their lens of difference, that you're able to receive it and frankly,

just say, tell me more. Toby Mildon:

Well, Sarah, thanks ever so much for joining me today. It's been, as always, great to catch up with you and just learn from all of your experience and wisdom.

Thank you very much. Sarah Bettman:

Hey, thank you so much for having me. I love our conversation. I'm still waiting for you to come out

to San Francisco so we could get that meal. Toby Mildon:

I'd love to. I'd love to. And thank you for tuning into this episode of the Inclusive Growth Show with myself, Toby and my guest today, Sarah. Sarah has shared with you lots of inspiration and wisdom, so hopefully you've taken away something useful that you can start applying to your organization. Feel free to share this episode with a colleague or a leader in your organization if you think it would help them to create a more inclusive culture in your business. Until next time, I look forward to seeing you on the Inclusive Growth Show, which will be coming up very soon. Take care. Bye bye.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to the Inclusive Growth Show. For further information and resources from Toby and his team, head on over to our website at mildon.co.uk.