220. What role does governance play in effective decision-making? (f. Shona McGlashan)
Curious about what makes a board truly effective and how governance drives organizational decisions? 💬 Delve into the expertise of Shona McGlashan, a master in governance, as she shares insights on fostering inclusivity, leveraging diverse boards, and prioritizing mental health in the workplace. Join us as we explore the foundations of exceptional decision-making and leadership with Shona's inspiring journey as our starting point.
Episode transcription
Phil
Pondering what makes a board truly effective.
Lauren
Questioning how the right governance can drive organizational decisions.
phil
Our guest today, Shona McGlashan, is a master in the art of governance, helping to craft the conditions for stellar decision making. I think this applies for your small business, even.
lauren
In our conversation, Shona, who's a genius, imparts her wisdom on fostering inclusivity, the dynamics of diverse boards and leveraging personal experiences to shape leadership.
Let's listen.
Why don't we actually start with your story? mental health journey. I know that your motivation to workplaces be more focused on their human well being of their workers is really, really important to you. And you have some personal stakes in that, that kind of like inspired this part of your career. So could you share your mental health journey in the workplace?
shona
Yeah, of course. Basically for me, this started back in 2006, 2007, when I was pregnant for the first time. And I, what I now know, but I didn't know then, was that I was experiencing very significant, severe, and undiagnosed postpartum depression or anxiety and depression during pregnancy as well. And I didn't understand what was happening to me.
I was, to the outside world, I appeared very happy, very in control. Everything seems to be going fine. Had a, you know, happy, healthy baby. Was doing fine, was interacting with my friends. But underneath, I was really, really struggling. I was feeling a very intense kind of self hatred, self loathing, lack of self confidence, a lot of anxiety and intrusive thoughts.
And, and I didn't understand that I was actually unwell. And part of that was about ignorance because the stigma around mental health and mental health disorders means that people don't really talk about them. And I think people talk about them more now than they did then, which is kind of 16, 17 years ago.
So I was, I was very ashamed of how I felt. I didn't want to tell anybody because I felt if I told anybody they would They'd be like, yes, you're a terrible person. You're a, awful mother, we should take your child away. You know, I lived for over a year with undiagnosed and untreated mental health disorder.
And that was, as you can imagine, uh, quite a dark time in my life, even though, you know, there were lots of things that brought me little sparks of joy, including my baby. I wouldn't want anyone to think that that wasn't, you know, there wasn't joy and delight in it, but there were also some very, very dark times.
And basically I recovered slowly through the passage of time, but then a couple of years later became pregnant again. And this time with a little bit of distance realized that I couldn't make it through that again without help. And so this time I asked for help and I was very lucky that I got help. I got help from a reproductive mental health facility at the BC Women's and Children's Hospital here in Vancouver, where I saw a psychiatrist through the whole of my pregnancy for about 18 months afterwards. So I've lived through both undiagnosed and untreated, diagnosed and treated mental health disorders. And so I know the real difference that it makes when people are able to access help and resources and care.
It was dramatically different. It was like night and day. So for me, the work is personal because I don't want anybody else to have to go through that feeling of not understanding what's going on with them, not feeling safe to reach out for help and not getting the resources and support. But after I recovered the second time, I really kept it on the down low for years and years.
I felt like this was an episode from my past. I didn't want to revisit it. I didn't want to think about it again. I certainly didn't want to talk about it. And it took me quite a long time to start feeling comfortable about talking about my own mental health, you know, in my life more widely. But when I did, the first time I did, I was an executive and retailer at that point and told the organization about what had happened with me and just got this outpouring, absolute outpouring of love and support.
And a lot of people then coming to me saying, you know, this has happened to me too, or this has happened to somebody I love, how can I help them? And that's when I really started digging in and training and learning how to build those capabilities. Voice for myself and for workplaces.
lauren
And the work you do is so important because I imagine, and I say this as someone who's had like anxiety and different things over the years, when you're hired for a job that is using your mind somehow, it can feel very, very vulnerable to say, my mind needs some help right now.
Like, I'm feeling anxious, so I'm going to cancel all my calls today. That doesn't feel like very natural. I used to work in the corporate world in America, and even taking a sick day would feel weird when you're physically unwell. Do you find that in your workshops, is that something that you've experienced, like people feeling uncomfortable about talking about it or perhaps feeling like their workplace will think differently of them?
Shona
Yeah, definitely. I mean, a lot of the stigma that people don't want to talk about their mental health is, you know, there's a fear of being judged. There's a fear of being seen as weak. There's a fear of, you know, not getting promoted or not getting the exciting projects because people think you can't hack it.
And so for me, one of the things that, you know, and this is a small thing, but it's significant, I think, is if I can show up as somebody who is saying, look at me, you know, I'm hopefully you're going to see me as capable and competent and successful and generally speaking, cheerful, right? But that's what somebody with a mental health disorder can look like.
That's how people with mental health disorders can behave. Like I can do a good job. I do do a good job because I'm taking care of myself. I mean, sometimes it feels a little bit self aggrandizing and I don't mean it in that way, but to be somebody who can stand up there and say, look, you can have success.
You can have workplace success. You can have life success. You can have happiness. If you're successfully treating your disorder and looking after yourself, then you can have all this. And I would say, you know, I was able to do this from a place of quite a lot of privilege because the time that I started talking about things, I was already at the executive table.
I already had a history of good work performance. You know, I was trusted, all those kind of things. So nobody should feel forced to kind of stand up and put their hand up and say, Hey, it's me. But for those of us that can, I think it's, it is really important in that kind of de- stigmatizing piece.
phil
That makes sense. I remember when you found us, and I'm so glad you did, by the way. Likewise. There were flavors of your brand, or flavors of your job, actually, that were new to me. This idea of governance. Like, we had worked with people in diversity, equity, and inclusion. We'd worked with some clients in that space, but this idea of governance was actually relatively new to me. So can you kind of explain for people that, like me, that are actually not as much from the corporate world? I've never worked in corporate. What does that mean?
Shona
Yeah, so that's kind of my professional trade, right? So I fell into the mental health and well being and EDI space through kind of personal interests.
So I'm actually, you know, a governance professional. What it means essentially, and I'm going to quote one of my friends and competitors, uh, another governance consultant called Matt Fulbrook, who's, who's awesome. Governance is about intentionally creating the conditions for good decision making.
And so generally what that means in the, in the corporate or organizational world and large not for profits or whatever, is organizations will have a board of directors who are making decisions about the strategy and the direction of the organization, who are hiring and evaluating and assisting and eventually replacing the CEO.
But the board and the leadership team need to work together collectively as a combined kind of leadership team to advance the mission and the purpose of the organization. So what I do is help those groups work together effectively. And there's, there's a lot of misapprehension, but governance is really all about writing policies or obeying Robert's rules.
But it's, those things are, are certainly exist. But really what's important is who are the people around the table? How are they empowered to have great discussions? Do they have the right information at the right time? And do they have the right culture to work together to advance the mission of the organization?
lauren
So, as part of governance, I feel like your job is to ultimately help groups find a way to work together to get the most ideal outcome possible, particularly when it comes to decision making. It immediately made me think of clients that we've worked with in the past, like mainly corporate clients, where there's a lot of cooks in the kitchen on their side.
And then we are also trying to do our work on our side and stay within scope. And we're trying to mutually agree and mutually come to something that's like visual, like a brand where there's not really any right or wrong answer. And I've learned a lot over the years of like different techniques and ways to help us get to decisions quicker, but I don't even know if that's right or not.
So I just am so curious to know, and especially in a creative capacity, where again, there's not really a right or a wrong answer, what are your techniques for helping a group, like, arrive at a decision quicker in a way that makes everyone feel, like, satisfied?
Shona
I think, you know, what really helps, certainly if you're getting a board and a leadership together, team together to discuss these kind of things, what really helps is a lot of clarity going in.
Does everybody understand why you're talking about this? Why are you talking about it right now? And what are the different roles? So, if I was putting a brand, like a new brand rebrand in front of a board of directors, I would want to be really clear like we're not looking for judgment on the aesthetics here.
We're asking you to sign off on the general direction or our creative thinking. We want you to understand how we're thinking about our audience or how we're thinking about our stakeholders or customers. So creating that clarity going in and at the same time, not kind of coming down with a hammer on people because people obviously will want to talk about the aesthetics of a brand, right?
Because it's human beings. That's what we go to. And if I can give you an example, I'm the vice chair of a board of a theater company and the board has many responsibilities, but none of them involve oversight of the artistic programming. We don't get to say, hey, listen, I really think we should do Hamlet this year, right?
That's not the fourth responsibility. But that said, we're all very interested in the artistic vision and the artistic work because that's what led us to the organization in the first place. So to have that kind of, we're going to hear about it, we're going to learn about it, we're going to be involved with it, but we understand, we have clarity that we don't have decision making power here.
We had decision making over here, you know, strategy, budget, all those kinds of things. We do not have decision making over here. So clarity really, but also allowing people to chat about things that interest them.
lauren
Right. And I think you make a really great point about. First, clarifying the why before you even get to the what.
shona
Yeah, ideally, when you're going into those meetings, everybody knows for every item on the agenda. Why are we talking about this? Why are we talking about right now? And what is my role? Is it to provide feedback? Is it to provide advice? Is it to make a decision? Or is it just to learn and understand in order that I can make a decision in the future?
lauren
I don't know if this would be the type of person who would be on a board. But I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this. Do you have any techniques on how to work with someone who is indecisive?
shona
Oh, that's, I mean, individuals who are indecisive, in some ways, it doesn't really matter because it's a collective decision making body.
A board that's indecisive is challenging, right? A board that can't reach a decision or wants to punt decisions into the future. And I know when you say, I just want to take a bit of a sidebar, though. You say, I don't know if this is the kind of person that should be on a board. Honestly, I think one of the things that doesn't serve as well in the corporate world is that people don't see themselves as prospective board members.
When people think, and in truth, in the corporate world and in major organizations, not for profits, whatever, large, by and large, board members are, you know, they're overwhelmingly middle aged or older. They're white, they're male, they're straight, they're able bodied, all those kind of things. And one that's a lot of the work I do is trying to help other people see themselves as potential board members.
Because boards and all these organizations are taking massive decisions that make fundamental differences to our society and community. And so everybody needs to be part of that conversation. So one of the things I'm doing is trying to say like, if you're a millennial, if you have opinions, think about sitting on boards.
Think about what you need to learn to get there, because those groups have so much to contribute.
phil
I was recently asked to consider, or I was asked if I would consider, Being on a board. I'm not on a board yet.
lauren
What did you say?
phil
I felt humbled, and I felt like I wasn't qualified to do it.
shona
Not true.
Yeah, I know. I never even expected to even talk about this, but that was an experience that happened a few months ago, and I thought, are you sure you're asking the right person? And it was a client. It's a client of ours. And I thought, are you confused?
shona
So, what's your mental image of a board, right? When you think, oh, that's not me. I think of, like, fancy people that are more qualified than me from the corporate world. One of the first things I said to you on this podcast, our listener can vouch for it, because I just said it, I said, I'm not from the corporate world. I don't know how that works. I know that if I went and worked for a corporation, I'd probably be fired within a day because I don't like being told what to do.
And I think entrepreneur was a good path for me.
shona
Well, board is perfect for you then. Because the board gets to tell other people what to do. But no, this is the challenge, right, is that people see this and they think of all these people in suits and ties sitting around a table in a, you know, 22nd floor of a skyscraper somewhere.
But no, what, what boards are really for, they're about, you know, shared experience, thoughtful guidance, advice. And so somebody is asking you to come on a board. That's because they want your insights. And so I can give you a really concrete example and I'm on another, I'm the chair of the board of pain BC, which is an organization that exists to support people living with chronic pain and to help the healthcare system with those people.
And we want the sense of we are, the majority, but whatever. conditions for board members is we want the majority of our board members to be people who live with pain or are cures for people with pain. So people are bringing that lived experience to the table. But as well as that, we want people that reflect the community of people that live with pain.
And a couple of years ago, we looked back and we realized, no surprise, that we were skewing quite old. You know, I was one of the younger members of the board and we, we said, you know, we need more younger people to help understand that demographic. And we went out and we did a recruitment drive. And what we said to people was, what we want you to bring is we want you to bring your lived experience, your energy and your enthusiasm, we can teach you the governance stuff.
That's okay. But we want to hear from you. And so we brought on some incredibly well qualified, enthusiastic, dynamic, younger members of the board, and they have brought so much to the table. In my very, very, very early fifties, I feel like I still remember what it was like to be kind of, you know, young and poor.
I don't, you know, those board members are bringing like a visceral understanding of what it means to live in a high cost of living city in their twenties, right? They understand how people are talking about employment on TikTok. They're bringing all this value that we couldn't otherwise have gotten.
phil
It makes perfect sense.
shona
And so it's really important that we're, that we're bringing those people into decision making bodies that are making decisions for the future.
phil
It's almost more important that the person is passionate about the topic that the board is form related to than it is about knowing all the like, the like specific things of like governance or order.
Like I watch, like, I don't watch that much TV, but if I'm watching like a movie or a TV and it's like, really in depth crime stuff, I'm like, God, I don't even know what they're talking about, or like in court, all these terms. Like, I'm like, how do they, I don't even know what all that stuff is, but that's an instance where you learn.
shona
It can feel very unwelcoming, right? They can feel very kind of stiff and corporate and scary. And one of the things that, so in the theater company that I'm on the board for, like I'm so starstruck when I meet the actors. I'm kind of like, I can't talk to them, they're artists, but they feel the same about the board, which is such a, you know, we're just regular people too.
So helping people understand, like you can learn the governance piece. And I think one of the things I say to people, and I'd say this to you, Phil, like if somebody invites you to be on a board, are you interested in it? Do you feel like If you got an email on a Friday saying your board package is ready, you can read all this material, would you feel excited to open it?
Because that's how I feel with my boards. I'm like, oh yeah, I really want to see what's going on. Or would you feel, um, Oh no, now I have to spend the weekend digging into the financials and that it's really boring and I hate it. In that case, don't do it. But do something, you know, particularly for most people, most people will start out their board career in the not for profit sector.
Go find, and they're desperate for good board members. Go find something that appeals to you if it's, you know, literacy or politics or the arts or healthcare. Like there's so much need for good people to bring their thinking and their perspectives and their lived experiences to that space.
lauren
Do you just email them and say, Hey, can I be on your board?
shona
I mean, you can, you can do, yeah, absolutely. Often boards will recruit. They will send it, you know, for their mailing list, they will send out annual pieces. But yeah, fine to email the CEO and say, hey, I'm, you know, I love your organization. I don't know if you're looking, you know, when you're next looking for board members, can you let me know?
For me, I really wanted to be on the board at Bard on the Beach. And I basically went out and told everybody I knew that I wanted to go on the board, be on the board at Bard on the Beach. And eventually, eventually, somebody's like, I can introduce you to somebody on that board. And there I am.
Lauren
Yeah. Bard on the Beach is fantastic, by the way. I don't know if you've heard of it, Phil.
phil
What is that? Tell us what it is.
shona
So it is Western Canada's largest Shakespeare festival. So I don't know how well you know Vancouver, Phil.
phil
Not very well. I've only been twice. Right.
shona
Well, it's beautiful. And just, we have a park, uh, called Sinaqua, Vineyard Park is it’s kind of post colonial name, which is right on the waterfront. And so every year we build a festival site there with two fantastic tents, like very comfortable inside. It's, it's very Instagrammable. It's not at all, um, rustic.
phil
My type of tent.
lauren
Yeah. Yeah. It's not like a sad picnic tent. It's like a full blown cool tent.
shona
Yeah. It is wonderful, you know, and we put on usually four productions. This year, we're doing Hamlet and Twelfth Night in the main tent, and we're doing Comedy of Errors and Much Ado About Nothing in the smaller tent.
lauren
Oh my God, I love Hamlet.
I love Hamlet so much. I have to go.
shona
Yeah, no, you have to go. It's going to be excellent. It's really going to be fantastic. And so, so from kind of June to September, we're putting on these excellent Incredibly high quality, Shakespeare plays, you know, totally comparable to stuff you would see on the West End and in just this beautiful, beautiful setting.
lauren
Yeah, right on the water. It's like stunning.
shona
It's very cool. It is. It's very fun.
phil
Sold. I'll see you there.
shona
Yes, absolutely.
lauren
So obviously, being on a board is about serving the bigger organization or cause. But what are there any perks or like any things that you get from being a board member?
shona
Well, there can be I mean, in corporate corporate board members have paid.
And they're paid a lot. You know, if you were on the board for, I don't know, Telus, you're going to get a lot of money.
laurbn
Are you serious?
shona
Oh yeah. Yeah. I don't know literally what Telus gets, but average corporate board is something in that, you know, low, low hundreds, 110, 000 Canadian, something like that for corporate boards.
Now I don't sit on corporate boards and of course there's some that pay a lot less.
lauren
Do you get dividends or bonuses? Like where does it can do, yes.
shona
You can get, yeah, you can get most, for most corporate boards, there'll be some kind of combination of cash compensation and, and shares or options compensation.
And it's all declared. You can see if you, any publicly listed company, you'll be able to go into their annual reports and see how the board members are compensated. And for corporate boards, it can be a lot. Generally speaking, though, for most people, if you're starting out in not for profits, not for profit boards are not paid.
In fact, in BC, they cannot be paid, but you know, like any volunteer work, there's the joy of the work. There's the learning, there's the growing, there's the contributing to something that is important to you. You know, a Bard on the Beach, I'll get to go to dress rehearsal, things like that. So there'll be little things, but in the not for profit sector, you do it for the love.
lauren
And learning and growth, right? Feeling of contribution. And also probably for the connections too, I imagine that you meet a lot of amazing people who are into similar causes as you too.
shona
Absolutely. Yeah. Wow. So cool. It's a great way of volunteering and I think young people don't see it as a place that is welcoming for them and I really want to change that.
lauren
Can I ask how much work is required of as a typical board member? Is a monthly meeting and then also emailing and correspondence between?
shona
It's depends very dependent. And in the corporate world, you would not like somebody could take four could sit on three or four boards and that could be full time like that's that they have no time for something else, depending.
But in the not for profit world, you know, you're usually looking at you know, five or six board meetings a year and the preparation time for that and some committee meetings as well. Of course, if you have, you know, I'm, I'm the chair of one of my boards, so there's that, there's more time there because I'm preparing for meetings, I'm spending time with the executive director, I'm doing other kind of, I guess, representational work as well.
But it can be, it can be a very manageable commitment.
lauren
Wow. Being on a nonprofit board would probably be extremely fulfilling.
shona
Yeah, I find it fantastic, really. And you get to see inside an organization, so there's an awful lot of learning and growth as well. Yeah. And boards should be hiring to create a collective skills and experience for their organization, which will be different at different times.
So boards want to think about skills, you know, financial organizational business strategy, not for profit communication skills, and lived experience. You know, age, identity, cultural background, uh, geographic distribution. There's a lot of different things and there's no one perfect way to build a board.
And what a board needs at one time will change depending on what the strategy is. So at PainBC, we, we know that we want our board members to have lived, like relevant lived experience. But we also know we want to have different geographies, different people in small town B. C., rural B. C. versus urban B. C.,
Different ages, different cultural backgrounds, people who are working within the healthcare sector, people who are clients of the healthcare sector, so that we're bringing all these different perspectives. And we do know that the more diverse the decision body, making body is, kind of the more robust, the more sustainable, the more innovative its decisions are.
So you don't want a board that's filled with people You know, 9 or 11 identical people.
lauren
Of course. But I imagine that probably happens a lot.
shona
Yeah, I mean, less and less so. Yeah. There's definitely progress being made.
lauren
Especially with people like you leading the charge.
shona
Well, I'm trying, I'm trying. I'm not the only one. There's a lot of people out there trying to make this happen. And it's, and it's, it's, it's happening slowly.
lauren
Well, let's use this as an opportunity to shift gears and talk about Inclusion. Yep. So you have about a billion certifications in creating inclusion at work. I would love for you to share why having first name and last name on contact forms is actually not inclusive.
shona
Yeah. Yeah. This is a really good one, Lauren.
lauren
What am I thinking? favorite Shona tidbits. This came up when we were doing some work on the website.
shona
Yes. Having a website forum that asked people to fill in one place for their first name, one place for their surname is not inclusive because not everybody has two names.
That's a Eurocentric approach. Uh, lots of people have one name. So tell Salem, for example, who is a counselor in the Squamish nation here in Vancouver, or my aunt, Jaya Lakshmi, right? They have one name. How do they fill in that form? Some people have three names. So just have a form with name. Allow people to enter what they want.
And same for your corporate emails. Do not make people do the first name dot surname at organization. com. Allow people to be more creative because not everybody has two names.
lauren
So fascinating.
phil
I even see this in a small scale with Javi. He has two last names. Like most Latino people, they take the last name of each parent and hyphenate it.
That's very normal. And even I see it gets a little scary filling out like stuff for flights because you have to write it exactly. Otherwise,
shona
Otherwise, you can't get on that plane.
phil
Otherwise, you can't get on the plane. So while I'm saying this, like, we haven't had any issues, but I'm conscious of it every single time I'm booking something and it just says, last name.
And so there's, it's kind of like, do I have to put it in a separate field or like, yeah, it's exactly what you're saying. It's like, there's just. Just create one field. Yeah.
shona
Yeah. I mean, it's complicated when you have CRM and, you know, all your systems. But at the same time, you know, even, yeah, I mean, let's get it right.
phil
It's 2024. Exactly. And also, and personalization, like we know you're not emailing us personally if it's a massive email. So even I'm less harping about like, Ooh, make sure you collect first and last name. I hide last name completely. From my website and I think it just says first name and that could be interpreted like that.
I could also just change that to name. To name. You know. Change it to name. I'm going to do that. I'm just going to change it to name.
shona
Yeah. You're quite right. When I get those like, hi, Shona emails, I know that there's not somebody out there typing out my name. So. So why are we pretending? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
lauren
Yeah. So. What are some ways that small businesses can make sure they're being more inclusive if they don't necessarily have the means to hire an expert like yourself?
shona
One of the things I find is organizations, organizations I work with in the, in the EDI space, and I just want to say it doesn't matter whether you call it DEI or JEDI or EDI, they're all just different acronyms for kind of the same kind of concept.
lauren
Some people call it JEDI?
shona
Yeah, for justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.
lauren
Oh my God. Oh. Well, yeah. I'm sorry, Shona, but that's obviously the best acronym. But you're like, I'm going to, I'm going to do Jedi. I'm going to call it Jedi from this moment forward. So people are often confronted with this kind of boil the ocean problem.
shona
They just feel there's so much I could do. I don't know what to pick. I don't know where to start. And I'm really scared of getting it wrong. And if I get it wrong, I'll be canceled. So people are sort of paralyzed with fear. And what I tell organizations is a couple of things. One is just start, right? Have a learning perspective.
There's a great quote by, and I'm sure I've shared it with you, Antonio Machado, who's a Portuguese, I think, poet, Traveler, there is no path. The path is made by walking, right? So you have to just start and start somewhere that makes sense with your business for whatever that is for you. Is it the products that you sell?
Is it the people that you sell those products to, is it your employee base? Start with what's important for your business. Because you cannot do everything all at once. So just start, know that the journey will change. It will take twists and turns. You'll take back steps, you'll take forward steps, but figure out what makes sense for your business, your strategy, your vision.
And then there's some great, the great work by Professor Lisa Nishi of Cornell about what does, what makes an inclusive organization. And essentially you can sort of boil it down. There's lots and lots of work behind this, but to a place where people feel that they feel welcome, their ideas are welcome, and they feel like they belong, right?
So what's it going to take to get you there? And there's probably a million different ways to answer that question.
lauren
I have a question related to hiring, and I'm gonna preface this with like a little story. And I want to make it very, very clear, this is coming from a place of like genuine curiosity and also wanting to learn.
But it's a little like scary to articulate this because I don't want it to come across in the wrong way at all, and I want to say like it is not. I'm very, very pro, pro Jedi. So, we had a client a few years ago who, diversity was really, really, really important to her, which is fantastic. And it went as far as wanting to exclusively hire people in the BIPOC community for certain roles and wouldn't even look at suggestions for people who were white.
And, I think that's fantastic and awesome, but I can also see why there would be potential issues of like only hiring people for, like, as for their skin color is the first requirement. And I just want to know your thoughts on that, because I can see all sides of it, and it's very puzzling.
shona
So that's not just a kind of moral and ethical question, it's also a legal one.So depending on your jurisdiction, and depending on the job and the context, that may or may not even be legal. So I can't, I'm not a lawyer, I can't give legal advice on that. So first of all, but check the law. Yeah. First of all, there's legal requirements about equitable hiring. So it's one of the challenges I think that the EDI as a kind of a whole has is some people can feel quite alienated by it.
They can feel, well, like I'm not, I'm now not getting opportunities. I'm not being part of this journey. And a lot of the work that I do is helping people understand that actually everybody should be part of the journey. And to my mind, you know, my opinion, you know, my opinion, I've been a feminist for, you know, my whole life.
Feminism needs men. as well as women to move forward. Like EDI needs people from the global dominant majority to be part of the movement as well as people who are racialized. So helping people understand things that things like, for example, when you start talking about privilege, people tend to get, I find people tend to get very defensive because nobody likes to think, oh, you know, I've had it easy.
My life's just been handed to me on a silver spoon because people can have a lot of privilege and still have a very tough life. You know, nobody is saying that because you're privileged, you haven't worked hard. You haven't been talented, but it's that you haven't had sorrow and grief, but the sorrow and grief has not been related to your privileged identities. And so trying to help people understand that it's not a moral failing to have privilege, but it's a responsibility. How are you going to use your privilege to lift other people up into that spaces? So it's not about pushing people down. It's about lifting everybody up.
So this is a kind of roundabout way to not really answer your question, but a lot of the work I do is trying to help people feel comfortable on the journey to be part of it, to be allies.
To realize that they're not the bad guys in this. We all benefit from a world that is more equitable and just and free.
phil
I think that answers the question. I think you did answer the question. The answer is there's no simple answer. There's also no fear in asking the question because it's almost a difficult question to like ask because it looks like you're.
lauren
Well on some side for me we were looking for a photographer and I felt really really really weird by only seeking people based on their skin color as the first parameter when looking for a photographer like and believe me like I am so pro diversity, but it felt really icky to be exclusively looking for people based on their skin color, first and foremost.
And so, I appreciate you, like, hearing me out with this question, because it was a very, it put me in a very weird spot.
shona
It's a tough conversation, and maybe it will help you to give you something that's not really analogous, but a lot of boards talk to you about, like, how do we, we want to get more diverse candidates.
We want to get more diversity on the board. We want to bring in more diversity, but we don't know how to start. And one of the ways to start is by having a diverse candidate pool. Because if you look at your candidate pool and you're like, well, they're all, they're all men, or they're all in their fifties, they're all white, you're missing out talent.
Right? If you look at your candidate pool and they're all the same. Right? There's areas of great talent that you're not seeing. So that's one way to start is by diversifying your candidate pool.
phil
This has been so good. I've learned so much about topics I didn't even know we were going to touch on, but we've covered a lot in a short amount of time.
Where can people find you and get more of you? Hint, let's plug your website. Yeah, they can find me on mcglashan.ca. M C G L A S H A N dot C A. Or LinkedIn. There's only one other Shona McClashan in the world, so as long as you spell my name right, you should be able to find me.
phil
I just feel as a human being and a professional, you're so sophisticated. That's how I think of you and how I describe you. I don't even know if you identify with that, but you really are a very sophisticated human.
shona
Sophisticated would not be on my top 10 words to describe myself, but I'll take it. Thank you. I'm working on taking the compliment. That's one of my, my goals with my compliment.
phil
I just think you're really sophisticated. I've said that to Lauren multiple times. And I think, I mean, maybe this sounds like bragging.
shona
You don't see me sitting here in my joggers.
phil
That, but that's not the point. That's not a measure of sophistication. It's how you communicate. It's yeah, it's, it's how you present. It's what you share. You're very efficient, you know, you don't waste people's time, and I just love it. You never over speak about things, like you're just a sophisticated human. I find it inspiring.
shona
I think my, thank you, and I think my teenagers would, uh, would find it hilarious to hear me so described, but that's wonderful. They keep me, they keep me very humble. And I want to say, I got the role at the fourth play role. So, what I want to make sure, Bard on the Beach, it's this year, 2024 season, it's Hamlet and Twelfth Night on the main stage, and on the smaller stage it's Comedy Bears, and it's Measure for Measure. There's not much you can do about nothing. It's measure for measure.
phil
There we go.
shona
The reason for the confusion. I'm thinking about much to do about nothing because my daughter's studying it in school right now.
lauren
What a diligent board member you are. Yeah. And everybody should come and see them because they're going to be great.
phil
Sophisticated board member. Thank you, Shona. It's been so fun to have you on Brand Therapy.
shona
Thank you. Thank you, both of you.
