“When it comes to creating that inclusive culture, frankly you’re either leading the way or getting in the way – because neutral doesn’t exist”
In Episode 25 I am joined by Devi Virdi, Group Head of Diversity & Inclusion at Centrica, to discuss how cultural intelligence is key to inclusive leadership, the importance of collecting employee data, and ‘the power of truth’.
Devi’s DEI journey is one flavoured by many different cultures, and journey is definitely an appropriate word. Devi has worked for most of her career in the travel and hospitality sector, working across various sectors and functions including HR, sales, marketing and operations. It was during a leadership role that Devi looked around the room and realised – no one else looked like her.
It was this feeling of ‘onlyness’ that initially empowered her to stand up and make a difference. We speak on what it is like to experience these complex feelings of being the only, and why it inspired Devi to become a change agent. She realised that many of their teams didn’t resonate with the cultures they operated in, and this highlighted the need for greater cultural intelligence.
Devi has a great passion for cultural intelligence (or ‘CQ’), and she elaborates on why she thinks it’s so crucial for leaders to understand, and why it is a key trait (along with many others) needed for inclusive leadership. She brought this passion to her role at Centrica and it led to establishing a ‘Shadow Board’ - providing diverse mirrors to the Centrica Board to help them better understand the diversity present in the company so they can strive for better inclusion in their decision making.
Part of understanding the employees at Centrica better includes regular data collection on their characteristics and experiences. Devi shares that asking the right questions is crucial to understanding what your employees need, and investing to meet this. We then talk about how to create the right environment to allow employees the safety to be able to answer these questions fully and honestly.
To finish our conversation I ask Devi what she thinks DEI will look like in 20 years’ time, and she answers that she believes it will lie greatly with further advances in technology allowing for greater inclusion, but only if these technologies are made with inclusive thought and voices.
Links:
Devi can be found on LinkedIn as Devi Virdi
More from Centrica can be found on https://www.centrica.com/
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