Sejal Thakkar: The world's first Chief Civility Officer, channelling her childhood challenges to develop company cultures built on dignity and respect.

Sejal is on a mission to educate and empower people to create a world where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.

Sejal is a former employment law attorney, a 2X TEDx speaker, and the Founder and Chief Civility Officer at TrainXtra, a woman/minority- owned training consulting firm, where she helps leaders create positive, safe, and respectful workplaces through customized training and coaching.

Sejal is also the Chief Culture Officer of Nobody Studios, a venture capital firm that aims to create 100 compelling companies, guiding them from ideation to full-scale company validation. She is responsible for cultivating a people-first culture at Nobody Studios.

I knew a little of Sejal's story and mission from her TEDx talks and was keen to introduce her you to you. I hope that you find her as inspiring as I do.

Connect with Sejal:
LinkedIn: Sejal Thakkar
Website: TrainXtra
Email: sejal@trainxtra.com

Watch Sejal's TEDx talks:
The Pain, Power and Paradox of Bias
Go from Longing to Belonging

Thank you to our sponsors:
ASKE Consulting
Email: hello@askeconsulting.co.uk

Aquilae
Email: cvm@aquilae.co.uk

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If you enjoy listening to our guests career stories, please follow CAREER-VIEW MIRROR in your podcast app. 

Episode recorded on 30 October, 2023.

Transcript

Sejal Thakkar: 0:00

Oh my God, there's so much that we can do to make these cultures and workplaces better. Here this whole time I've been focusing coming in, how do we clean up the mess? But now I was starting to see Wait a second, how was the mess getting there. And what are we doing right? What are we doing wrong and I want to get on the other side. The whole other side. I want to help prevent these messes from happening in the first place.

Aquilae: 0:25

Welcome to CAREER-VIEW MIRROR, the automotive podcast that goes behind the scenes with key players in the industry looking back over their careers to share insights to help you with your own journey. Here's your host, Andy Follows.

Andy Follows: 0:57

Hello, listeners, Andy here. Thank you for tuning in. We appreciate that you do. We're also very grateful for our guests who generously join me to create these episodes so that we can celebrate their careers, listen to their stories, and learn from their experiences. In this episode, we're celebrating the career to date of Sejal Thakkar. Sejal is on a mission to educate and empower people to create a world where everyone is treated with dignity and respect. Sejal is a former employment law attorney, a two times TEDx speaker, and the founder and chief civility officer at TrainXtra a woman minority owned training consulting firm, where she helps leaders create positive, safe and respectful workplaces through customised training and coaching. Sejal is also the chief culture officer of Nobody Studios, a venture capital firm that aims to create 100 compelling companies, guiding them from ideation to full scale company validation. She's responsible for cultivating a people first culture at Nobody Studios. I knew a little of Sejal story and mission from her TEDx talks and was keen to introduce her to you. I hope that you find her as inspiring as I do. Hello Sejal and welcome and where are you coming to us from today?

Sejal Thakkar: 2:10

Thank you, Andy. I am coming from San Francisco Bay Area. And I live about 25 miles east of the city in a town called Castro Valley, California.

Andy Follows: 2:23

Wow, you're very welcome. Thank you very much for joining me in what's your fairly early morning, I guess. And can we start as I do with all my guests right at the beginning, where were you born? And where did you grow up?

Sejal Thakkar: 2:35

So this is a cool little fun fact about me, Andy, I was actually conceived in India, and born and raised in Chicago. So my parents immigrated to the United States from India in the 70s. And so I grew up with a unique blend of both the Indian and the American cultures. I'm

Andy Follows: 2:55

looking forward to exploring that with you right now. So were you their first child, or did they have other children already when they emigrated?

Sejal Thakkar: 3:02

Yeah, so I was the first one. I have two siblings, but I was the eldest.

Andy Follows: 3:07

Okay. And whereabouts in India, were you conceived.

Sejal Thakkar: 3:11

They were in Gujarat, and in a town called Amdavad. And so it's so cool to know that I was actually conceived there. So when I think about like, Wow, talk about like marginal person actually being conceived there. I'm like, that pretty much puts my picture in the dictionary, I think

Andy Follows: 3:30

it's a pretty tight window, isn't it? And what prompted them to move.

Sejal Thakkar: 3:36

So my mom's sister was married to an engineer who worked for one of the federal agencies as a civil engineer. And so they sponsored by folks, and they've actually sponsored, a lot of our family members, we've had like almost close to 70 people that were sponsored by the initial group, so they sponsored my family. And just like most immigrants, right, they wanted a better future for their family. And so my parents moved out here, we stayed with them for a little while before we started our own journeys in the United States together.

Andy Follows: 4:09

That's wonderful. And you're already sparking memories of a number of my guests and listeners who had a similar experience. And they I'm sure they will be looking forward to hearing your story. And they've said sharing their story has inspired other friends and family members back in India to perhaps do something similar. So you've all I've heard, I had the privilege of listening to your TEDx talks, and some other media that are easily accessible on the internet, if people want to find out a little bit more about you. So I know that you had an interesting childhood growing up with your heritage in Chicago. So can you tell me a bit about what that was? Like? Please? Your

Sejal Thakkar: 4:50

Yeah, you know, I love what you said about how other guests have shared their stories and how it's helped people because that's, I've had the same experience with my story and The more that I talk about it, the more I get that positive response, either it's, you kind of feel like you're all alone, right. And so, my childhood, when I think back to growing up, it was it was a balance, because my parents were as traditional as they come. You know, I mean, they just moved here I was born, they were basically working a week after they got here, right. And so, inside of our home, it was like you were living in this rich, Indian, traditional household. And I loved all of that. And then you step outside of the home. And I'm also loving the American culture. And I'm embracing that. And so that cultural duality is something that I talk a lot about now, because it had a lot of its benefits. You know, because again, I am proud to be Indian, you know, but it also had its own set of challenges as well. And so growing up with a lot of sort of, you know, trying to reconcile the American experience with my parents expectations. And so that's a huge part of my story. And that's a little bit more of what I talked about in my second TEDx talk. But all of that was then even got more emphasised or pronounced, I would say is the right word for it. When we moved to a neighbourhood when I was growing up, it was a predominantly Italian neighbourhood, and we were the only Indian family there. And so we can talk a little bit more about both of those. But that duality is interesting, because that's what my two TEDx talks really wanted to highlight was, you know, the differences in the cultures and the differences in those experiences.

Andy Follows: 6:39

Thank you for sharing that. And I just want to stay in this part of your childhood for a little while. So I'm thinking this is fascinating, because you were born, as you say, you were conceived in India, but you were born in the US. And you were living in this little environment, this pod, if you like, of very Indian culture within your home, but then stepping out the door, you hadn't lived anywhere else. But stepping out the door. You were in the United States. You were in Chicago. And were there many Indian families around you in this before you went to the second place? No.

Sejal Thakkar: 7:11

So when we when I was first born, we lived with my aunt and uncle who sponsored us here. So for a while we were with them, but not too long. And my dad, you know, my dad had when he was in India, wanted to go to law school. So he had started law school in India. But as soon as they moved here, they were basically working in a factory. So my uncle actually had jobs lined up for them before they even got here. And so not speaking any English, not knowing anything about America, but they were sent right away to start working at this factory when they were born. So right away there. There were I think, from the stories that I've heard, there were a few Indian families that were working also at that factory. So there were Indians, and we have a huge, you know, cast. As far as like the family that I belong to, we belong to this whole cast of other families. So we have a massive, like, 500 families that I would see every weekend, we were, you know, again, that whole rich Indian heritage was a huge part of my upbringing. So there were Indian families around on weekends and religious festivals and, and gatherings. Absolutely. And so I really got to experience all of those traditions in that culture growing up, it was beautiful.

Andy Follows: 8:28

Were you able to travel back? Did they have the opportunity to travel back to the homeland?

Sejal Thakkar: 8:33

Absolutely. I went back several times when I was younger. And actually, after I was first born, I was actually I went to Indian was lived there for a year with my grandparents, so that my parents could work and get everything situated here. So I was born. And I think six months after I was born, I went to India, and I lived there with my grandparents for about a year.

Andy Follows: 8:56

Right. Yeah, I'm just curious about having the context, you know, having that you so that you're living in this family environment that's very different from what's happening elsewhere in Chicago. But going back, you get some of the context of what it was like in India itself. Then you said you move to an Italian community. This sounds absolutely fascinating. So tell me what that was. And you were the only Indian family then, were you?

Sejal Thakkar: 9:21

That's right. Yes. So we my parents, you know, my dad worked for the factory, I think for they worked for a couple of years. And my dad realised that he was an entrepreneur, and he didn't really want to work and answer to anybody else. And so he decided he was going to just own his own businesses. And that's how they started to get into the convenience store. You know, owning convenience or so my parents owned a series of convenience stores when I was growing up, and when we moved to that town called Elmwood Park. Back then they had bought a convenience store in our family home was actually at attached to that one of the convenience stores that they own. So you could just say, Andy that I literally grew up in convenience stores. I mean, I, as I was preparing for our conversation today, and I was thinking back so far, because I haven't thought about my childhood like that, and so long I, I have vivid memories yesterday of, you know, remembering what it was like to help my parents after school to stocking the shelves, you know, like running the cash register, interacting with customers. And so I just, I saw my parents working so hard and tirelessly, tirelessly to provide for our family, you know, and so when I look at my life now, and I'm like, setting all these ambitious goals for myself and my family now, it just brought back so many wonderful memories, as I was thinking about our show here today. So thank you for inviting me, because it just it reminded me of my childhood and took me back there that I haven't gone back there in a long time.

Andy Follows: 10:55

I'm so pleased to hear that. And that is one of the absolute joys of recording these conversations is the reflection that it causes for my own triggers for my guests ahead of the conversation during the conversation. And then after the conversation, it's it's really rich and very fulfilling for me to be able to be part of that. So thank you for doing the reflection, I'm glad that you had lots of happy memories. And I'm picturing you. This is a recurring thing, I noticed that when my guests start sharing their stories, I suddenly my head is flooded with these images, like a movie of you in that store, you being the little girl, you helping you doing all these jobs. And I always ask my guests and I don't need to ask you because you've already answered it. I already asked them, you know, sort of what sort of roles did you have sight of, you know, what influences and you clearly saw some really hard working people in your parents, you saw the retail environment serving customers? And so far, that sounds really good. I know, though, that there were some challenges with being in the minority in that area. And that has, I'm sure it had an effect as well. So what were some of the less good side of it?

Sejal Thakkar: 12:01

Yeah, you know, it was it was difficult, again, being the only Indian family in a predominantly Italian neighbourhood. You know, I dealt with harassment, bullying, I mean, it was made pretty clear that we were not wanted there, right. So I had school and like I said, Our home was attached to the convenience store, which was a block away from our elementary school, you can literally hear the school bell from my house, and I would leave once the school bell would ring and run across it was like kitty corner to where we lived. So what would happen is, there was no escaping who we were or there was no hiding, because all the kids would come into the convenience store before school during lunch after school during the weekends. So they would see my dad, they would see my mom who had these heavy, thick Indian accents, dressed differently, talk differently, had a different culture. So it would be taken out on me and my brother who's four years younger than me in elementary school, right? So it started off as a lot of comments, you know, calling names, making fun of our culture, whenever we would wear the Indian clothes, you know, being made fun of with wearing the traditional clothes. And one of the reasons why I did my first TEDx talk, which really talks about that part of my childhood is I really wanted to raise the awareness that there is no support for immigrant children in those environments. You know, there was nobody to talk to, I mean, aside from my dad and mom, who are really just doing what they can to provide for the family, who really don't understand the impact of having to go through that as a child in school, you know, you could talk to them, but they weren't really there as a support or as a network. There was really nobody at school. I mean, that's not to say I didn't have friends who were Italian or friends who were not Indian, I did, but you couldn't really get the support you needed as a child, especially as an immigrant child, you know, and dealing with that duality and all those things. So it all started at school. And then it started to escalate as I got older, the bullying and harassment. At the beginning, when I would first deal with it, I would just walk away, stay quiet, you know, start using my words. But as that continued to escalate and really started to reach our home, I vividly remember having a group of these kids that were targeting our house, right. So they were, you know, vandalising our home, they were throwing eggs at it, there was toilet paper being TPWD on our home, it was very hurtful, you know, going through those experiences, and I think I tried my best, but I noticed, you know, very early on that my inner voice was starting to get really loud. You know, there was a lot of anger. There was a lot of rage. I was just acting out, you know, there were physical altercations that were happening at school. I was I just wasn't sitting back and taking it anymore. I was I was acting out of speaking out. You know, I got suspended from school a couple of times. So it just, it got it, there was a series of events that were happening. And then then there was a series of events that happened in a small period, a short period of time where my rage, my inner rage just got out of control, you know, and that's where I was having a lot of conversations with my dad about, you know, what I was feeling inside. And I realised that I was heading down this dark and destructive path, and I needed to do something about it before I ended up hurting myself, somebody else or you know, ending up in jail or whatever. I mean, I was going down that way. So it wasn't, it wasn't the best childhood, you know, both inside the home and outside the home. So that's one of the reasons why I talk about my story is because I know a lot of other Indian, you know, children in similar situations, whether they were born there and moved here, or whether they were born here, like me, having gone through a lot of the similar experiences.

Andy Follows: 15:52

And it sounds like that rage was just coming from within you, you weren't modelling it, you weren't copying any behaviour, your your parents weren't as angry as you were, they've made a choice to come, you hadn't made a choice to come, you were just landed in this, you know, you're born into this life. Yeah. And it sounds like that was a very natural rage that was just coming from inside of you, you weren't prepared to just accept this, you were going to fight back.

Sejal Thakkar: 16:23

That's true. And then, you know, another one of the huge challenges that kind of compounded, all of that was there, I was struggling to find that balance between helping them in their businesses and their stores. You know, especially during the busier time periods, like before school, during lunch, after school, we were expected to be there to be helping out during the weekend, you get a lot more traffic, right. And so, you know, finding that balance as a child as you're kind of growing up, and you're dealing with all of that stuff, but then having to find that balance, you know, looking back on it, that's where I really learned the value of multitasking, you know, hard work, you know, and and also just where I knew inside, that education was my way out, you know, that, like I have to do well in school. And so I just sort of escaped, just throwing myself into the books, right? Like, that was my escape, I'm going to work hard, I'm going to do my best I can in school, I didn't really do a lot of extracurricular activities, I didn't do sports, I didn't do the music. I didn't do any of that I just spent all my time studying. Because I knew I didn't want to work as hard. As my parents did the physical labour or having the convenience stores, I really had no desire to ever open my own business, because I just knew how hard it was for them. But all of those experiences really was what ignited that fire me to go to law school. Right. And so I threw myself into the books as much as possible, but finding that balance was tough.

Andy Follows: 17:52

Yeah, it sounds incredibly unfair that you pushing back against the bullying that you're getting ended up getting you suspended. You ended up in trouble, which seems totally unfair. But what point though, did you work out, hang on a minute, I don't want to work as hard as my parents do. And you said earlier, your your dad wanted to do law. And he'd started studying law before he emigrated. But he'd obviously had to put that to one side and decided no, his route was going to be entrepreneurial. So at what point in your adolescence, I suppose did you think hang on a minute, I need to lean into my studies, I need to keep out of trouble. And I need to use education as my way out of this situation.

Sejal Thakkar: 18:33

Yeah, it was like seventh or eighth grade. So seventh or eighth grade was when I was starting to get suspended from school, you know, that's where it was starting. And my dad would always tell me that you know, us he would joke around, it was like a running joke in our house, like you ask all these questions, you're going to be a lawyer. That's what I wanted to do. And you're going to do this. So the seeds were already planted. And as I started to figure out that physical altercation wasn't going to solve my problems and learning how to better respond to these kids and navigate through some of these situations. And it wasn't pretty, you know, there were a lot of ugly moments in that and going through that journey, but, but I knew, I would say by eighth grade, I was pretty sure I was gonna go to law school, at least that's what I had outright set the intention had been saying it to everybody got through high school, and it was a note, you know, again, when I started college, it was already firm, like, Okay, what do you what are you going to major in, because you're going to law school, you know, and so, by the time I got to college, I already knew so I said, I'm going to major in accounting and finance. And that's because it's going to get my brain thinking in the ways that I want to think about being a lawyer, and I was already gung ho. So I knew pretty early on that this was what I was going to do. And like I said, it became my escape. So it was almost kind of just like, you know, you disconnect from your current situation and you're like, I'm just gonna do whatever I can control and all I can control is where I want to go in my life. What is it that I want to do because I knew I didn't want to be an entrepreneur like my pay I knew that but I wanted to also make a difference. So there was a social justice aspects of me very early on, you know, I remember situations where I was being bullied, or there was other kids that were being bullied, you know, one of one of the individuals I'm still in touch with to this day, you know, he was he was a redhead with freckles, you know, and he was getting bullied and even back then, you know, we'd be defending each other, we'd be standing up for each other, you know, and I mentioned that in my first time, that's tough. I go, I remember the name of that one person that was standing up for me, you know, when I was going through that, and that was, he was the one I was talking about. But even back then I knew that I wasn't gonna just stand around and let this happen to somebody else. Like I needed to be involved, I needed to make a difference. And that's when law law school got even more interesting to me, because then I was like, Okay, this is one way for me to advocate for people who are dealing with similar situations. And so all of that combined made law school a no brainer for me.

Andy Follows: 20:58

Yeah, so education was going to be the way out. And law was going to be a way for you to advocate for other people in similar situations, so that it doesn't happen to them. With my guests, it's often this is gonna sound so silly, but they either fall into two camps, as people who knew at an early age what they wanted to do, or at least, they had a really clear idea what it was they thought they wanted to do. And there are those who don't. And turns out, that doesn't stop people being successful. Either way, it's just a different way of finding their way through. You're one of those who had the benefit of having an idea, a clearer idea, something to push for fairly early on. What was life going to be like? Were you thinking when I've got my law degree, when I'm qualified as a lawyer, I can picture was that driving you? Or was it more I know what I don't want, which is a really also very helpful thing to know, you know, what we don't want is useful to us. So you knew you didn't want to be working as hard as your parents? Was it more I know, this is the way forward? I don't know exactly what the end results gonna look like. But I know that this is the direction and I'm not sure if that's a good question. But does it prompt anything Sejal in terms of a response?

Sejal Thakkar: 22:03

Yeah, no, it's exactly I would say that was it. I knew the direction I wanted to go. But I didn't know exactly what I was going to do. You know. So I went to undergraduate school at University of Illinois at Chicago, where I got a degree in accounting, I was a dual major in finance, and decided at the end that you know, what I don't want to finance because I know I'm gonna go to law school, right? So why just enjoy it, take the pressure off, and go, but even back then, when I went to law school, I didn't know like, is there a specific area of law I want to focus in on or not I, I graduated from law school, still not knowing exactly what kind of law I wanted to do. So I graduated from Northern Illinois University in 2000. I decided I had been waiting to move away from Illinois, I wanted to move and I wanted to get some more warmer. So literally, on the day of my law school graduation, I had my car packed with all of my things. My girlfriend, who was going to be moving here with me to California, had her car packed with all of her things. Her brother and my brother and the two of us, we got her, I got my law degree, we went to lunch with my folks. And then we just started driving to California, because the Monday after so the graduation was on Saturday, but the Monday after was when that Bar Review course started. So I didn't want to miss that class. And I'm like, I don't care what happens. I need to be at that first bar review course. So I moved out here. So all of that happened. And I still didn't know exactly what area of law I was going to focus in on. I had an idea I knew I want I liked corporate law. I liked you know, constitutional law. There were a lot of areas I dabbled in, I did a family law internship and really figured out that's not what I want to do at all. You know, I did I did a few things to experiment where I was like, no criminal law, not for me family law, not for me, you know, I was I was kind of like, taking things that I didn't want to do. But I didn't know exactly the area I wanted to do until I moved to California. And during when I was studying for my bar exam, I started working as a hearing representative for a company that would provide representatives where you don't need to be licenced yet. But you represent employers and unemployment law hearings. So that's where I was representing these companies in cases where somebody had filed an unemployment lot claim, and they were denying it. And so there was an appeal filed. And so I would step in to represent the employer in these appeal hearings. And that's where I was like, I like this. I like being in the employment law area, because it's a small enough universe where I can actually make a difference. So it started to kind of become a little clearer. But it wasn't exactly what I wanted to do until I got a couple of appeals hearings that dealt with harassment and discrimination. So now somebody was being discriminated against, or her harassed or retaliated against after they filed the complaint, that really piqued my interest. And that's where I was like, This is what I want to do. But I want to move from being as an administrative that, you know, unemployment law here, and these are considered administrative hearings, I want to move into a civil law area. So I was kind of starting to figure things out. And then the journey still continued. It's still, it's still took a couple more years till I landed that one job where I'm like, This is what I want to do.

Andy Follows: 25:29

Yeah, I love this example. I'm so glad you're sharing it of you having to go and try things. Yeah. For most visit, unless we go and try stuff that we've never experienced before. We're not going to be able to really understand the nuances of it. And you were, you were going like, like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, you are going trying different environments and working out Oh, no, this is more interesting. This piqued my interest a bit more. And it makes so much sense when you're experiencing people who had in harassment cases of course, that's going to strike a nerve for you, I guess we have the advantage of knowing what we know about you already. Let me take a moment to tell you about our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by ASKE Consulting who are experts in executive search, resourcing solutions and talent management across all sectors of the automotive industry in the UK and Europe. I've known them for almost 20 years, and I can think of no more fitting sponsor for CAREER-VIEW MIRROR. They're the business we go to at Aquilae when we're looking for talent for our clients and for projects that we're working on. ASKE was founded by Andrew McMillan, whose own automotive career includes board level positions with car brands and leasing companies. All ASKE consultants have extensive client side experience, which means they bring valuable insight and perspective for both their employer and candidate customers. My earliest experience of working with Andrew was back in 2004, when he helped me hire regional managers for my leasing Sales Team at Alphabet. More recently, when Aquilae was helping a US client to establish a car subscription business. ASKE consulting was alongside as helping us to develop our people strategy, and to identify and bring onboard suitable talent. Clients we've referred to ASKE have had an equally positive experience. Andrew and the team at ASKE are genuinely interested in the long term outcomes for you and the people they place with you. They even offer the reassurance of a two year performance guarantee, which means they have skin in the game when working with you. If you're keen to secure the most talented and high potential people to accelerate your business and gain competitive advantage, do get in touch with them and let them know I sent you. You can email Andrew and the team at hello@askeconsulting.co.uk or check out their website for more details and more client feedback at www.askeconsulting.co.uk. ASKE is spelt ASKE. You'll find these contact details in the show notes for this episode. Okay, let's get back to our episode. Quick question when you left for California, were your parents happy? Because you were really sort of doing great with the law? You know, that's the dream is to have a professional child or were they thinking Hang on a minute, that's a long way away?

Sejal Thakkar: 28:17

I think that was a little bit of both. You know, I think if we were to go back to my parents, and say, if you could have scheduled could have taken a different route, what would you prefer her to do? I think they would have preferred me getting married and having kids and being that family, you know oriented person more than choosing to go the professional route, I think. But on the other hand, my dad was super proud of me for going to law school because it was what he wanted to do. I was leaving his legacy I saw so much proudness on his face whenever he would talk about what I was doing. So I think that their expectations, you know, slowly adjusted to, I'm doing what I'm going to want to do and you know and make these decisions. But yeah, so it's kind of confusing, you know, because I always felt like they were proud of what I was doing. And as I've sort of grown in my career, I know for sure my dad, you know, my dad passed away in 2012 When my son was born, but by that point he had seen a lot of my career grow. And he I know that he was super proud that I got to do something that he didn't get to do now.

Andy Follows: 29:22

That's wonderful. That's what I was thinking I was thinking it would be a conflict just because of maybe this is a generalisation but certainly recognising that Indian families stay together and very supportive and you don't go disappearing everywhere but also that pride you following in his footsteps or doing what he he wanted to do rather living his legacy. And you said you spent another couple of years kind of fine tuning, getting really clear on what you wanted to the direction wanted to go in. So what was that?

Sejal Thakkar: 29:52

Yeah, so you know, the thing about when you when you get into administrative law, so I did unemployment law for a couple years, and then I was trying to think You're out how to get into the civil law arena. And in that meantime, I had a wonderful opportunity to do another area of Administrative Law workers compensation laws. So I dabbled in there for a couple of years, still trying to figure out how do I get into the civil arena, right, but, but it got me a really good experience in doing depositions doing discovery work, and really getting some of those skills, fine tuned, until I was able to figure out a way to get into civil law. And then so. So it took about three years for me to get the position where I was now doing employment law as a defence attorney. And that's another area that I just want to highlight for people that are listening is that I think, when you've heard my story now, I think most people would imagine, based on what Sejal has gone through, and you know, the bullying and the harassment that she's gone through, that most people would probably predict that I will be representing the employee in these cases, and I actually ended up doing the exact opposite. So I spent, you know, once I started working for that law firm, you know, that was in 2006, to 2000. And I would say 12, or even 15, because I was still practising law, after my friend came for a little bit from home, I ended up representing the defence, I was a defence attorney. And I was primarily representing managers. So now I was representing people who were accused of treating other people badly, who are accused of harassing other people who were accused of discriminating. And so it was a really interesting journey to be on that other side. And, you know, now I'm representing those folks. And I'm seeing this prejudice from a whole different perspective. And so we could talk a little bit about some of the things I learned when I was doing that work. So

Andy Follows: 31:44

Yeah, let's I'm absolutely fascinated by how you went about that, and how are you able to cross the divide, as it

Sejal Thakkar: 31:53

So a few things started to happen during that time, right. So I loved what I was doing. But I found myself conflicted pretty early on and doing this work. Because if I were, or swap sides? ran across situations where an employee had been treated unfairly, right, I felt that the situation should be addressed properly, right. And so I found myself educating managers and employees on how these issues should have been handled, rather than litigating them right or wanting to litigate them. So I knew that it wasn't the right fit. But it was helping me hone in on a lot of the skills that a defence attorney would need, which all came to all come to benefit me now in the work that I'm doing right. So. So I loved being in front of jury, I love to argue in cases and brother Judge, I love that whole persuasive aspect of being a defence attorney. I love the resolving conflict. I love negotiating. I love educating, coaching. So there were a lot of things that I was doing that I really enjoy. But I knew it wasn't the right fit. And then

Andy Follows: 32:55

so did you let me jump in? Or sorry? Did you have to defend managers where you thought they'd done the wrong thing?

Sejal Thakkar: 33:03

It's not about having done the wrong thing, right. But they could have done it better they could have had they had the proper training, and education or the information that they would have handled it differently. And, and that's what I started seeing a lot of.

Andy Follows: 33:16

So I'm thinking you have to really understand them, the first thing you had to do was understand what's gone on here? And why have they treated this individual in the way that the individual is saying they've been treated? And so because of your role, you are forced to seek first to understand, as it were your party who you're representing, and then you are learning so much, then

Sejal Thakkar: 33:40

well, well, first and foremost, as a lawyer, you're a Fact Finder, right? So you have to understand the facts. And once I started doing that, I mean, when I started doing this work, you know, I really went into it with this notion of I'm going to be seeing a lot of evil, malicious people here, you know, that are harassing other people. And they're, they're discriminating and they're creating these toxic work environments. That's what I was seeing. And I did see some of that don't get me wrong. There were environments where I was like, I can't even believe and this happens to me to this day, where I work with companies. I'm like, I can't believe it got to this point, how is this happening? Our culture is even getting to this place. But when I first started, I was really expecting all of these evil people, you know, and as I started to uncover the facts, and really get to know the managers and supervisors and cultures I was working with, what I realised was there was a lot of people who, who were trying to do the best that they could they were well intentioned people, but they were misguided, right? They were a product of their own environments. They weren't good leaders. You know, a lot of a lot of them had gotten promoted up to these positions, but they didn't know how to lead people. They didn't know how to manage people, and they were just thrown into these positions. A lot of them didn't even want to be in those positions, but because of the money or the status or the prestige they were taking In these roles, and now they didn't know how to have conversations or how to resolve conflict or how to manage people, which then would go on for so long. Let's say for example, you know, I always use this one example, in my trainings that I do my workshops right now where, you know, a lot of these cases that I was saying, were dealt with managers who were good people. So for example, let's say you have a manager who's well intentioned, but maybe they've got a couple of people on their team there aren't doing their job well. Right. So they're well intentioned. They want to help this person do their job better. So occasionally, they yell at those two employees to try to motivate those two employees. Right? Again, all they're trying to do is get these employees to do their work. They're trying to manage performance. How do we gotten in right when they first started yelling at those people? Because I think most of us would agree that yelling in the workplace at your subordinates is unprofessional is not appropriate behaviour. But how do we gotten in at that point? How do we coach that manager properly had we pointed out their behaviour in a respectful way, and confronted that head on that behaviour, then the manager would have been accountable. And if we do this, right, shouldn't be changing their behaviours or not be working at this company anymore. If they can't do what they're supposed to do, we hold them accountable. But many of the people that I was dealing with, were never even confronted about their behaviour. So it had gone on for so long. That now it became the normal way for them to motivate these employees. And pretty soon it looks like intentional discrimination, intentional harassment, right. And so I was seeing a lot of this stuff going on, where I kept coming back to had we dealt with it properly to begin with, we would have never ended up in court. Right. And so I was learning a lot of these things. And then I was also at the same time learning about the fact that wait a second, I've got my own biases as well. We all have unconscious biases. And so I was learning about my own biases, as I'm trying to do my job professionally. And be objective in a lot of these cases at the Fact Finder and trying to understand and represent these folks that wait a second, I have to deal with and manage my own biases, so I can be more effective. So I was having these sort of realisations as I was doing this work. And that's where it kind of led to my next pivot that we'll talk about.

Andy Follows: 37:34

Okay, before we do thanks very much Sejal. So you went into that environment thinking you are going to find uncover a lot of unpleasant people with bad intentions. And instead, you identified some more systemic issues really that had you nipped them in the bud earlier, and we wouldn't have been in court, how we how did you go about identifying some of your own biases?

Sejal Thakkar: 37:56

As far as education about unconscious bias goes, I didn't learn anything till way later into my legal career. We'll talk about how frustrating that was, because I was like, why aren't we taught about this information earlier? So the actual education didn't come till way later, but just from my own, learning about and listening to my inner voice, which I said, I started doing a lot earlier in life, right? Recognising that I will get a case. So here, here's one of the cases that I worked on very early on, where I was like, what is that you cannot think this way, you need to address this. So. So I had a case early, early on one of the first few cases I worked on, where I had an Indian woman who was being harassed by a white male coworker in her in her job. A lot of the packs that she described were bullying type behaviours that I dealt with early on as a child. So here we go, you know, here's where you see that mirror right there in front of you. And so, I was sitting there and again, most people would imagine thinking about me in that situation. And they would be like, of course, she's gonna want to, you know, represent her not represent the manager. And it was such a stark realisation. The minute this woman opened up her mouth, and she had an Indian accent. I realised I had a negative bias against her because of her accent. Now, think about that.

Andy Follows: 39:27

I am thinking about why do you think that is? I have no idea

Sejal Thakkar: 39:34

Because I was harassed as a little girl because of my parents accent. Okay, and so I had internalised a negative bias towards Indian accents and hadn't even realise it till I came face to face with it in my professional journey. And I was like, wow, you have a negative tendency towards this individual because of something you've gone through in your lives. experience, and now it's coming out and could negatively impact this person. So I was starting to see things like this where I was like, I can't do that. And so I was already starting to put into place strategies for myself, some of those that I described in my first TEDx talk, without even realising that this was unconscious bias. And these are strategies to mitigate your unconscious bias, I was just doing it because I wanted to do a good job. And I wanted to be professional in my interactions and make sure that I don't disadvantage this person because of their accent. So that's an example of when some of these hidden biases which are normal pop up without us even realising. So it doesn't mean that I'm a bad person. It just means I'm a bad person, if I react to that bad bias, and now don't represent her or, or don't do a good job in this case, because I haven't done the work to recognise these hidden biases.

Andy Follows: 40:59

So it's not your programmed reaction, if you like that we need to worry about it's the reaction after you've had time to think about it, what do you do, and you're showing great self awareness at that time to recognise, you must have felt yourself flinch, you must have recognised that you were having some kind of reaction, and then you processed it and worked out what it was, and then just for our benefit, so what were some of the strategies then that you were able to put in that you, for those who haven't listened to the TEDx talk?

Sejal Thakkar: 41:27

So I'll tell you what the strategies I started putting in without the formal education behind it, right, but the power of the pause, noticing and paying attention to that, you know, that negative reaction that I'm having to somebody, without even really knowing that in that situation, I had just met this woman. So I didn't really know anything about her, except when she spoke and I heard her accent, right. And so noticing that, wait a second, I'm making all kinds of assumptions, in her case, negative assumptions. bias could be negative or positive, but starting to pay attention to both. Why am I feeling favourable towards this person that I'm just interacting with for the first time, and just really starting to become more of that observer of my inner voice? And then just practising the pause to say, Okay, you're having this reaction? Why? Why are you having this reaction? Why are you making assumptions about this person? Is it because of the way they look? Is it because they look differently than me? Is it because they're acting differently, and really just starting to analyse why I was behaving those ways. Now, given that I've been on the receiving end of bias, I want to be the last person to treat someone differently, because of some characteristic that they may have. So I was starting to come to terms with okay, we all have hidden biases, no matter what they might be, my biases might be different than your biases. But we all have them, and starting to understand that some of those are more conscious. And some of those are more unconscious. And so just doing that work and doing it on my own, practising the pause asking why, you know, why are you having this feeling towards that person, and then doing something about it, you know, again, having these unconscious biases isn't a bad thing. It's only a bad thing when you don't recognise them. And now you're doing is saying things on the intentionally, oftentimes, like the supervisors, most of them weren't going out trying to harm other people. But they were doing insane things because of their hidden biases that they haven't been confronted about before.

Andy Follows: 43:34

I think that's really helpful, thank you. And this idea that biases can be positive as well. Or we might attribute positive characteristics to people, or look upon them more favourably again, because of unconscious bias. And I think it'd be fun exercise to next time we meet somebody new, we say we know we make an impression of them very quickly in the first few seconds. So to pause, as you say, into some point very shortly afterwards to ask ourselves, okay, so whether we liked this person, or we disliked this person, can we put our finger on? Why is it the way they're dressed? Is it their? how they look? Is it their accent? What is it about them that is allowed me to put them in either a positive place or a negative place? So you mentioned that and so all this then led to you pivoting as you got more and more information, you gain constantly sort of circling upwards and refining your understanding of what you wanted to do. And so it led to a pivot tell us about the pivot.

Sejal Thakkar: 44:32

The pivot really came when my son was born, right. And at this point, I made a real significant, conscious choice that I wanted to be at home and raise my son, right. And so at that point, I was working for a law firm and I said, you know, I want to figure out how I can do this while still being at home. So I started to make that transition from the law firm, to starting something on my own. Now, it wasn't necessarily that I wanted a full on consulting practice at that point. And I was just like, I need to find a way to make ends meet while I figure this out, right. So I didn't again, didn't really have the plan mapped out, I just knew the direction I wanted to go and did. So, you know, luckily, I had cultivated some strong professional connections in the legal industry. So I was able to do some of this work from home. At the same time I started looking at like, okay, what are some other areas or avenues that align with where I'm at now, you know, I, I started doing a lot more teaching. So I worked at a couple universities where I taught as a professor on employment law topics. And that's really where I started to feel like I really enjoyed doing this, you know, it's kind of like the university setting or the teaching setting, replace the arguing my cases in front of a judge or jury. So I was still kind of using the same skills, but just using it in a different environment, you know, and so that really piqued my interest. And then I started doing workplace investigations as another thing, because I could do that from home. And so I started doing these workplace investigations. And now I was really seeing these organisations from the ground up and everything they were doing nuts and bolts of how they were making decisions and what was going on. And that really started to expand my mindset of, Oh, my God, there is so much that we can do to make these cultures and workplaces better. And so here this whole time, I've been focusing coming in, how do we clean up the mess? But now I'm starting to see Wait a second, how was the meth get in there? And what are we doing right? What are we doing wrong, and I want to get on the other side, the whole other side, I want to help prevent these messes from happening in the first place. And so I started learning a lot about that piece of it and seeing it again, from a different perspective than the legal perspective, I was now starting to also see the business side of it more of the business, how these decisions are made, how these people are hired, how they're promoted. So I really got to understand the nuts and bolts of organisations and so forth. And then I also decided to just start pursuing my passion, you know, so I was doing a lot of your compliance, anti harassment trainings, I was doing some of that when I was practising already. So it was a natural transition for me to go into organisations and start training their managers on anti harassment issues. So I started doing a little bit of that. And then I was super passionate about diversity, inclusion training, you know, that's an area that I was really passionate about. So I started learning about diversity inclusion, started incorporating that into my trainings. And that's really where I started to see, wait a second, the kind of trainings that we're offering to organisations is missing a lot of key components. There's no bridge between what's being offered and what needs to be offered. And so I started identifying certain areas where there were major gaps in the training specifically that organisations were offering to their teams. And so as I was going through this journey, I'm trying to figure out which direction where I really wanted to land, I started doing a lot of networking. And like talking to a lot of mentors, LinkedIn was really, really important in my journey. During this time, I was reaching out to people that were doing things. This point, I was a single mother, you know, and I was living in the Bay Area It was super expensive, is I was starting to kind of get going on finding out where I wanted to go, I got forced back into taking on a full time job just because I needed to make the saw I needed to bring in the solid income and I needed to make sure I can start saving for our future and take care of my son and I so I went back to work full time for about two and a half years at the University of California in San Francisco, as a complaint resolution officer and I learned a lot. It added some valuable insights and experience to my journey. But I wasn't happy. I was missing out on my son's childhood. That's where I really wanted to be, you know, and so I tried going back and, you know, and I just wasn't happy. And so finally 2017 I went for it. You know, I took that big leap of faith and started my own company.

Andy Follows: 49:07

Excellent! We'll talk about that in a second. I'm thinking you were very brave to do that you'd already tried and the catalyst for you wanting to do that was the birth of your son. And to do that as a single parent, in what anywhere is tough, but in an expensive area, like the Bay Area must be phenomenally so. What helped you make the decision to let go of a salary and set up completely on your own.

Sejal Thakkar: 49:33

By the time I took this full time position, I already knew training was my passion. I had already figured that out and I was already growing that as a side hustle, right? I was already starting to do that. I was already starting to get clients and one of the reasons I went into that full time role was because there were opportunities to do training, as well as more workplace investigation. So I looked at it like okay, at least I can continue to build on my skills and make the money And then figure continue to work on the side hustle to see what I can get back out there. So I, I kind of had that in my mind. That's really where I learned about unconscious bias, right? That's where I got the formal training for the unconscious bias piece. So once I learned that, me there is no unlearning, you know, and again, I'm not a specialist in that area, I know enough to do the work that I do. But just that basic level that I learned there, I knew as soon as I learned that I'm like, this is a huge problem. This is a very big problem when we have leaders and supervisors and people that are interacting with each other in the workplace that don't understand unconscious bias. And so once I learned that it sort of just gave me a brand new direction that I wanted to go. And during that time, I started thinking about, okay, if I did start my own business, with this new knowledge that I've learned that backs up what I've already been sort of learning and the way I wanted to approach things. Now they have the science and research behind it, that gave me more ammunition, right to really start pursuing that, I made the decision sort of off the cuff. Because I was coming down to the holiday season, I had a birthday. And it was one of those moments where you have that kind of conversation with yourself. And you say, if you're going to do this, do it now go for it, you know, and I balanced everything, all the emotions, I had everything I was feeling about being away from my son, what I was learning the impact that I wanted to have. And I just went for it. I didn't have a plan. I didn't have my business plan mapped out, I didn't have my website, I didn't have any of that done yet. I just again, I just kind of have the way that I want to go. And let's figure this out, you know, and have a belief in myself. And so, again, networking and building those strong connections really helped me during this time, as I worked on getting my training programmes together. As I got my website together. As I started speaking at more conferences, it all started slowly starting to come together, right. So the first few months were a little scary, you know, but I had built up enough of a safety net, where I felt comfortable to say, Okay, I realised that I need to put in the effort right now. And the only way I could do that is if I don't have a full time job, because otherwise I'm just gonna be half in there happening here. And I'm not gonna get to go where I want to go. So it was a little scary at the beginning. But luckily, I'm still standing. So

Andy Follows: 52:22

And how many years is it now Sejal?

Sejal Thakkar: 52:25

I started my business in 2017, January, February 2018, I was starting to get clients and I was attending your local, you know, mixers, your chambers, I was speaking at Sherm conferences, I was starting to do all of that. And it slowly started to build, right, I was getting work from mentors, that were already doing this work. And so they were like bringing me in to do their work, you know, help them with their work. So it was all just sort of hustling all at the same time. And then, right, as I'm getting ready to take off, like, I'm literally at the top of the mountain, I've climbed the mountain ready to go, and then COVID happened. And I was not ready for that. I mean, nobody was right. But I was doing I was the person that was out there, preaching in person is the only way to do these trainings. This is what we want to do. So I was flying everywhere in person doing these prisons, I was not set up for virtual at all. And so when COVID happened, I had to again, decide, is this what I want to do? And do I want to do it virtually or not? Because I was really all about doing these in person. I put myself on a probationary period, you know, where I said, Okay, I'm gonna give myself six months to try the virtual thing. Because I do this for impact, I want to make a difference. And I felt like if I if I'm not getting the same kind of feedback, if I do these workshops virtually, then I need to figure out what the next plan B is, because I'm not good is not going to give me what I'm looking for. So there's so many pivots.

Andy Follows: 53:59

It's really interesting and great of you to share that you were convinced at the time that the best way to do this was physical. I forgot to mention another aspect that you've discovered, as well as realising that you have to go and try things in order to know what they're like, which you've been doing throughout your career, you discovered that actually being at university gave some of the same feelings got you to use some of the same skills create the same sort of sense of flow, I imagine that you got when you were in a court environment when you had your students. So that's another great example of how sometimes the things that we love doing can pop up in unexpected environments. So there isn't just one place where we can find those states. So that was really great to hear. How were you finding because we know you're doing this we know the reasons we know your whole story. Now we know where you're coming from. We know that you want to make an impact. You've got very purpose driven reasons for wanting to help These organisations have the right you know, uncover their unconscious biases have systems in place that prevent this sort of behaviour happening. What did you find They latched on to the organization's was it great say Joel's gonna stop us getting expensive lawsuits against us or everyone's always talking about the return on investment with training. What did you find work best for getting people to realise that this is not just a nice to have, we're not just doing this so that people from different backgrounds can have a nice day at work and not get bullied, how were you capturing their imaginations in terms of the return on investment?

Sejal Thakkar: 55:38

I think it really helped because I have my legal background and the work that I've done, right, so I know how to connect with these leaders. And I know what they're looking at, which is usually the bottom line. So I knew I had to get their attention by pulling at the bottom line, which I could do, because I can say, I have represented you in court. And here's how much it costs$125,000. So you either pay for it on the back end, along with not just the dollars that you're paying, but x y&z your brand, your reputation, your morale, your turnover, your decreased productivity, the quality of your work going down, I can make that business case pretty easily. And having represented them It came with it gave me a certain amount of credibility, right? Because I've done that. When I started my company, I already I already knew that the way that I wanted to go about it was focused on civility at work, because I started noticing major shifts that were going on in workplace cultures, right? So when when I started my company, I gave myself the title of Chief civility officer, I love giving myself these creative titles. And I remember looking, I did research at that time on LinkedIn, and said, has anybody else is there a single person on LinkedIn that has that same title? And there was I even had mentors come to me, at that time, this is 2017 come to me and say Sejal, are you sure that we want to call yourself the chief civility officer because that can wreak rub people the wrong way, just reading the word civility, and people can have a lot of different interpretations around it. And I was like, No, I know exactly. But that's what I want to do, right? Because again, I had been working with organisations I've done this, from this is based on my observations, right. And so the area that I wanted to focus in on, right, whether you call it civility, whether you call it Respect in the workplace, whether you call it unconscious bias, I knew the end goal was that what I had seen that was killing workplace cultures over and over again, was that organisations were waiting too long to address behaviours that were happening in the workplace. And they weren't being very clear about what was appropriate, what was not appropriate in the workplace. And so I knew that I wanted to focus in on helping to train not just manager, it's good. It's not just the managers responsibility, it's also the employees responsibility. So I wanted to empower everybody within that organisation, so that they can do their part, to create that psychological safety. And so a lot of that work came from helping people understand diversity and inclusion and helping them understand that look, we are going to have people that we're going to work with that are different than us. And so how we might interact with those people, what we think is unnatural, or appropriate for us may not be natural and appropriate for those people, right? So it's not to say, I'm going to cancel this person, we're going to blame this person. But how do we empower that person so that they can understand their own biases, they can understand how to improve their interactions with the people that they're interacting with? Right. But the other part of that was, what I again, a huge gap in what I was seeing was that people were seeing these behaviours, I call them uncivil behaviours, right, like, You're rude, unprofessional behaviours, you're bowling type of behaviours that are so anything short of illegal behaviour, so anything less than illegal behaviour, but still inappropriate behaviour for the workplace. And I also include microaggressions, into that category. And so I was seeing all of these behaviours happening in the workplace, and people knew that it was happening, but they weren't doing anything about it. And so this was a huge gap. Because here I was doing your anti harassment training. And the advice we were giving people there is to pump it up to HR, or pump it up to your manager and let them deal with it. And I'm like, wait a second. We should be teaching these people how to deal with these situations themselves. What do they say? How do they respond in a respectful, professional way? And So all of that is why I landed on civility as my main focus. Because if we do this, right, and we empower people with the scripts with the tools, so that they can intervene, that's when we can start putting people on notice. And once we put people on notice, now people are accountable. And we can hopefully mitigate those lawsuits from happening, right. So it all started to become very clear in the areas that I wanted to focus in on, which again, when I think back to my childhood, all the things that I wish I would have known, right, like, I now I now understand, you know, at the time, I didn't quite get it. But I now now understand that those kids were a product of their own environment, right? They lacked awareness, they were also ignorant. And I wish I would have known strategies that I could use to help them so that they could have improved their interactions so they could improve their behaviour. But, of course, I didn't know that back then back then I was just doing the best I could to survive the whole situation. Right? So

Andy Follows: 1:01:04

Yeah, that's understandable. So you help all of the employees now, to better navigate these situations, you give them strategies, you get down into the level of detail of what should they say? How should they respond? And you said that the responsibility is on the employee as well as the manager. So what are some of the examples of how employees can respond in these situations? Is it easy enough to Is that a question that works for you Sejal? Are there sort of one or two things that employees can do when they find themselves in this situation?

Sejal Thakkar: 1:01:36

Well, I mean, look, it boils down to an employee's going to not respond in the way we want them to, unless we create that psychological safety, right. So it is a multi tiered approach, right, starting with what your core values are. And helping organisations get really clear on what their core values are, how we define them. So for example, I'm an advocate, I'm going around telling all the organisations that they should make civility a core value in their organisation. If you do that, then it starts with defining what civility means. Now, we have some people with civility means 10, people are gonna give us 10 different answers, right? So the first step is to creating psychological safety is clearly defining that and it's, it has to be a shared understanding, we can't just shove our core values down anyone's throat, right? So if we're gonna make civility a core value, what does that mean for our organisation, and every organisation has different people. And so how they might define it might be different, right? But once you define what civility if we're talking about civility, once you define what that means, then it means clearly communicating that core value to your all your teams. So people understand what is appropriate behaviour, what is inappropriate behaviour, right? So you want to give examples of those behaviours that are happening in the workplace. You know, I just did a workshop two weeks ago. And I use an example in that workshop that I've used over and over again, in my career, because I've seen it over and over again. And the CEO jumped on during the training and said, You know, I would really rather use examples that are more relevant to my organisation. So in his mind, he was saying, this isn't something that's relevant here. And I said, Okay, I'm using an example that we see happening over and over again, and I could cite hundreds of cases to support that this happens more frequently than you're saying it happens in your organisation. But the point I made him was it just because somebody hasn't filed a complaint in your organisation, doesn't mean it's not happening in your organisation. So in order for us to know whether it's happening or not, goes to the core of what I'm talking about is we have to have that psychological safety created. So somebody does come up to them, right? So then it's about empowering people to recognise that look, if it's happening to me, what should I say in that situation? What should I not say? Do I say something right? When it happens? Do I say something in a meeting where let's say somebody makes an inappropriate comment in front of our team? Do I say something? So this is all very fact specific. So in my workshops, we go to different scenarios, and we talk about different ways to deal with it. There is no one right way of responding as a bystander, it's going to depend on whether there is psychological safety. It's gonna depend on what the roles are of the people what the facts are of the situation. So I don't prescribe any here's what you should do, but I do give a script I do say okay, if somebody makes a comment that is inappropriate for you, because of your lived experience, right, like we all come from different cultures. So in some cultures, some behaviours are deemed natural, whereas another culture is it may not be so natural. So if that happens, we don't want to assume that other people As soon as trying to harm us, which is our natural default, we always assume negative intention by people, especially with something that makes us feel bad. Right? So the first thing is to say, let's not make those negative assumptions about that person, let's just have a conversation with them. And here's how you might start that conversation. Here's what you want to consider about when you have that conversation where you have that conversation. How do you document that? So there's a lot that goes behind it, it was blowing my mind that people weren't even given the basic tools to start these difficult conversations. And then the other piece of it was we were putting pressure on the managers or HR or the lawyers, instead of empowering everybody to be a part of that solution, right. And so, in my workshops, what I talk about is a lot of different topics. But really sort of normalising these conversations that a lot of us aren't exposed to in our careers, and making it okay to understand that this is a journey. This isn't something we do with one workshop, you know, no matter how great of a facilitator, I might think I am, I can't change our culture in the day, this is something that's going to be ongoing, we have to continue working at, right,

Andy Follows: 1:06:12

You're shining a light on what's happening and is happening in lots of workplaces, as you say you're normalising it, let's not be embarrassed about it, let's just get it out there. And let's start being better able to identify it. And let's understand the complexities of it in terms of the roles involved and the nature of it. And let's take some of the emotion out and think it might not be personal, it could be circumstantial, or let's understand. First, you're giving people some words to say and some approaches and some thoughts around when's a good time to do this, and how and you're making it the responsibility of everybody, not just the manager, it's that we're going to make ourselves better, we're going to notice this, and we're going to flush it out over time, by behaving more respectfully more civilly with each other. Fantastic. And I think that even if you could say which I would say, the benefits of bringing, you know, harnessing diversity, and inclusion, the benefits you're going to get in terms of innovation, in terms of better understanding your broader customer base by bringing in an understanding and leveraging a more diverse range of employees. Even if you can't get excited by that on its own, you do have this argument lever. And if we don't do it, we could find ourselves paying out a lot of money for someone. So let's be on the front foot and fix the system. First. It sounds really good Sejal. So if people want to work with you, if people want to contact you, how should they do that?

Sejal Thakkar: 1:07:43

I'll just make a point real quick before it's just something that you just said. So everything that I described, you know, was when I started my business in 2017, everything I learned everything that that areas I wanted to focus in on, but then you see what's happened over the last few years. Right? So chief civility officer, not a single title on that, you know, there was a couple of people that were sort of speaking on that topic that had written a couple of books on civility at work, but not a lot of work in that area where it was prevalent, right? You you'd have to dig it out and look for it for these words to be used in the workplace. But look at what's happened since that, right, we've noticed a key things going on in the world. I give it the term, the phrase, the Civility revolution. Since I've started my business, especially after the pandemic, right, we've got a growing awareness of workplace incivility that's happening across the globe, not just in the United States, but people are becoming more aware of the negative and harmful impacts that workplace incivility has. In the workplace. It's right, we've noticed also a genuine shift and people who are out there wanting to make a positive change like myself, right. And there's a demand for people to want more inclusive and more equitable work environment. So I'll just share, like three main observations, right, that I've seen is there's really been a shift in values, not just the employers, not just the founders, not just the leaders, but employees are increasingly valuing civility as a fundamental principle, that means that we are not willing to tolerate any behaviours less than being treated with dignity and respect. So we also started noticing that, especially after, you know, the pandemic and the George Floyd situation that happened, where people are now saying, you know, I don't want to put up with incivility. I don't want to put up with bullying or harassment. I want to belong to the organisation where I work, so people are demanding accountability, for behaviours. And now we can, I mean, you have so much information at your fingertips. But you can also post so much information about your experiencing at your fingertips, so things that used to happen a turn Really, within closed doors are no longer staying within closed doors, employees are talking very openly about the environments that they're working in. So that puts the accountability on the employer even more now than ever before to make sure they're creating healthy work environments, right. And then, again, you have the whole broader diversity, inclusion movement that's happening. So civility is really from my perspective, where I come at it is if we nail civility, which encompasses all of that stuff that you and I have been talking about dismantling biases, fostering inclusivity, creating environments of belonging, psychological safety, I feel like we address a lot of those diversity inclusion issues that are really kind of giving a negative I did, there's a negative bias, even just using the word diversity now, you know, so it's, it's kind of created this thing. All of that being said, I feel very positive about where we're headed, right. So I'm committed to doing continuing to doing the work that I'm doing, because I have seen how it helps organisations, right. So if anybody wants to get more information about my workshops, my training programmes, I'm on LinkedIn every single day, I spent way too much time on there. So you can find me on LinkedIn, you can go to my website, there's a description of all the programmes that I offer, but everything I do, Andy is customised to my client, because like I said, every organisation is different. And so I tailor all of my workshops and programmes for organisations based on their needs, right, and the people that they have.

Andy Follows: 1:11:31

We'll put the details in the show notes to this episode, Sejal, this isn't the end of the conversation, because we've got a couple of other things I want to invite you to talk about. But I just want to say how much I support what you're doing. And I think, for me, it seems a no brainer, that if we can create civility, if we can create these environments, it cannot be bad for the organizations it cannot be bad for the bottom line. And it certainly isn't bad for the people who work there for the employees. So it's excellent what you're doing, you're also involved in a very fascinating organisation, that's putting together 100 100 companies you want to create, tell us about.

Sejal Thakkar: 1:12:12

Super cool. So you know, when I started doing my TrainXtra work, I was doing a lot of advocacy work on LinkedIn, you know, I really felt like this is this is where I want to be. And I really was thinking like, I'm never going to work for anybody ever again, right? Like, I just love being on my own and talk about the whole, like, never wanting to own your own business. Now, I never want to work for anybody else. And then, as we talked about earlier, when the pandemic happened, my business disappeared overnight, I was not prepared for that I had never done a virtual training before, I didn't even know how to use Zoom. But luckily, I again, I had a connection that I was working with collaborating with and they were all set up to go. And they were like, we can use it a facilitator, like Do you want our team? Will you come and do some trainings with us. And so as I was doing that, I decided I was gonna do a lot of podcasts because I knew I wanted to keep my story, talking, keep talking about my story, keep talking about why I want to do what I want to do. And so I just started doing a lot of podcasts. And one of the podcasts I did, the host asked me a question. At the end of it. They're like, what if you had an opportunity? What if What if somebody came to you and said, Hey, I'm building this company from scratch, and culture is super important. And we want you to come join our team? Would you be interested in that? And I never thought about that, you know, I never really had that thought in my head. And my answer was sure, I would love to do that. You know, that would be an incredible opportunity. And literally two weeks later, Mark McNally, the CEO of a venture studio called Nobody Studios reached out to me. And he had heard some of my podcasts or were connected on LinkedIn and said, Hey, by the way, you know, I love what you're doing out there with culture and culture is huge. At this point, he was still in his garage, right? Like he was still in his garage. It hadn't even gotten off the ground yet. And, and I was blown away by the fact that he reached out to me at such an early stage because mind you I had been knocking on startups doors, saying, Get me in now before you hire people. Before we do this, let's get everybody on the same page. And they were all given me. So many excuses about we don't have enough people, we don't have the money. And this is our honour. It's a priority, but we'll call you later. And so when he reached out to me, first of all, I was immediately drawn to him and his wife for wanting to start the venture studio. Our commitment and our passion was aligned right off the bat with that. And and so when we started talking, I'm like nobody's studios. What's that all about? And I start, and then he's like, oh, yeah, by the way, I'm not just building one company. My goal is to build 100 companies from the ground up and so I was just immediately like, I want to be a part of this. Yeah, I got it. Be a part of it. So I've been, I'm a founder on one of the startups that we're building in the company right now to startups actually. And then I'm also consulting with them as their chief culture officer. For the last two and a half years, I've been with them now. And it's such an exciting opportunity, because I really get to be involved with coming up with these strategies from a proactive standpoint, making sure we're doing what we need to as a global venture Studio to create a people first environment. So it's a really a wonderful opportunity. And I'm just so excited to see where we go with this in the future.

Andy Follows: 1:15:34

Congratulations on that Sejal and it makes so much sense. And I love it as an example of something you've never thought of. And someone pops a thought into your head. And it's like, well, yeah, of course, that would be cool, of course, to be able to put the systems in place and get their culture right from day one. Yeah, I thought I didn't want to work for anyone else. But if you're gonna put it like that, then yeah, I mean, so I love it as an example of how we, we kind of think we're sorted. And then someone will just tweak something a few degrees and present something to you. And you think, Well, no, actually, I was wrong. I am interested. So I wish you all the best with that as well. Is there anything I haven't asked you that's missed, we've missed an opportunity to share something you wanted to share?

Sejal Thakkar: 1:16:20

Yeah, I would just I literally, I would just talk about, you know, I talked to you about my first TEDx talk, you know about what I what part of my story I really kind of wanted to highlight, you know, about my childhood there. But I do want to draw everyone's attention to my second TEDx talk, because it kind of builds on the first one. In the first one I talked about, really, this idea of what I've gone through from the childhood being on a victim side of bias, and learning about the power of unconscious bias and how we can overcome that. And that's really my first TEDx talk. That's where I set up a framework called the hat framework, which you and I talked about holding up asking why and taking action. But then I on the second TEDx talk, very important. Part of my journey is having grown up in that environment, and always feeling like I didn't fit in, I didn't belong, you know, and feeling excluded a lot as a child, but also in the workplace in the, in my career, and having worked with individuals who also felt like they didn't belong in organisations, how do we deal with that exclusion? How do we deal with that pain from being excluded? And how do we come out of that stronger? How do we use that pain and turn it into our power? And so I build off of the first one about, okay, you know, here's what I'm doing to help people not discriminate, not harassed. But here's what I'm doing to help people who have been harassed or discriminated and felt excluded to how do I empower you. And that's really about my journey, and kind of how I got through those experiences of pain. And I give another framework, I love these acronyms, right. It's another framework around the word power. And I really want to give some strategies to people to help them what I call with a more new, inclusive power, so inclusive going within to kind of get yourself out of those situations where you're feeling left out, and what you can do to kind of really kind of come out on the other side. And that was just such a powerful, powerful talk. So I just want I just want to highlight that and really did love for people to take a look at that as well.

Andy Follows: 1:18:28

Thank you. And we'll put the links to both of those in the show notes to this episode. And it's wonderful to see how your, your thinking has evolved your learning, we jumped backwards and forwards where you've the stuff that you only found out years later, like the unconscious biases you only found out about them in those terms, years after you experienced them. At the same time, you're able to then put models together and you're able to find ways to help people with the challenges that you faced on which undoubtedly people are facing right now. In organisations across the world. They are facing this discrimination and lack of civility and what a marvellous purpose you're on to help with that. Thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure. Sejal talking to you thanks for taking the time out to sit with me and share what you're doing is is much appreciated.

Sejal Thakkar: 1:19:21

Thank you, Andy, for inviting me to be a part of this really had a great conversation and I look forward to continuing to deepen our connection going forward.

Andy Follows: 1:19:35

You've been listening to CAREER-VIEW MIRROR with me, Andy Follows. It's my privilege to have had this one to one with Sejal and to be able to share it with you. Elements of her story that particularly stood out for me were how much her childhood experience informs her purpose. Now, listening to her describe how it was impossible to hide that she and her family were different, where they were living within earshot of the school bell and kids were coming in and out of the company. unions store all the time witnessing her world and how it was different from theirs. The bullying and harassment that Sejal experienced at school that must have been so frustrating and exhausting the rage she felt and how that cause situations that ended up seeing her suspended. And not those taunting hat, recognising where the rage was taking her and choosing to concentrate on her studies as a way out, and the fact that she's now able to frame her antagonists behaviour as being due to a lack of awareness and support to better understand how she saw how hard her parents worked and knew that wasn't the route she wanted for herself. But she still didn't have it all figured out. She knew the direction she wanted to go in and gradually refined her appreciation of what opportunities were out there, where her strengths lay, and what she wanted more of in her career, when she took the decision on the birth of her son to set up her own business, and then when she had to go back to a full time job before having another go entrepreneurship, her being able to leverage her legal experience to win clients and point out to them the benefits of putting the right culture in place, avoiding the risk of expensive legal costs if inappropriate behaviours left unchecked realising that the idea of being able to implement the right culture from the outset in an organisation was sufficiently compelling to go back into working in an organisation again, and how she's using all her life and career experience and passion to make a positive impact in the world. You'll find sage has contact details and links to her business and TEDx talks in the show notes to this episode. If you enjoy listening to my guest stories, please could you do me a favour and share an episode with someone you lead parent or mentor or perhaps a friend of yours who you think would also enjoy listening? Thank you to Sejal for joining me for our conversation. Thank you to our sponsors for this episode, ASKE Consulting and Aquilae and thank you to the CAREER-VIEW MIRROR team without whom we wouldn't be able to share our guests life and career stories. And above all, thank you to you for listening