When Melody Moore took a courageous leap, leaving behind a tenured NHS position to start anew in Canada, little did she know the journey would transform her into a DEI luminary and an inspiring voice for change. This episode peers into Mel's riveting narrative, tracing the pivotal shifts that launched her from healthcare to a champion of diversity, equity, and inclusion, now sharing her insights as a consultant and author. Her story is a vibrant tapestry, woven with threads of leadership, self-discovery, and the profound belief in the impact one can have on the world.
As Mel's tale unfolds, we tread the path of integrating identity and experience into the professional realm, touching on the nuances of LGBTQ+ experiences and the solo voyage of single parenthood. In a candid exchange, I share my own strides as a single parent in the corporate sphere, alongside the lessons of empathy and efficiency parenthood instills. We then venture into the heart of my upcoming book, exploring an innovative team model that marries the best of high-performance strategy with the tenets of DEI, setting the stage for organizations to harness a culture of intellectual humility, psychological safety, and a continuous growth mindset. Join us for a conversation that reimagines the essence of inclusion, directly at the intersection where personal journeys meet professional aspirations.
📔 Melody Moore recently released a book called "The Inclusive Team: How to Build and Develop Inclusive High Performing Teams" and you can get it here: https://amzn.to/3T5hmMj
🎧 Check our podcast audio here: www.dialglobal.org/podcast
📱 Join our Membership to access our DIAL Global Community Network app https://community.dialglobal.org/share/ljg71bsbWLspcnU-?utm_source=manual
📩 Contact us at hello@dialglobal.org or www.dialglobal.org/contact-us
🌐 Visit us on www.dialglobal.org
When Melody Moore took a courageous leap, leaving behind a tenured NHS position to start anew in Canada, little did she know the journey would transform her into a DEI luminary and an inspiring voice for change. This episode peers into Mel's riveting narrative, tracing the pivotal shifts that launched her from healthcare to a champion of diversity, equity, and inclusion, now sharing her insights as a consultant and author. Her story is a vibrant tapestry, woven with threads of leadership, self-discovery, and the profound belief in the impact one can have on the world.
As Mel's tale unfolds, we tread the path of integrating identity and experience into the professional realm, touching on the nuances of LGBTQ+ experiences and the solo voyage of single parenthood. In a candid exchange, I share my own strides as a single parent in the corporate sphere, alongside the lessons of empathy and efficiency parenthood instills. We then venture into the heart of my upcoming book, exploring an innovative team model that marries the best of high-performance strategy with the tenets of DEI, setting the stage for organizations to harness a culture of intellectual humility, psychological safety, and a continuous growth mindset. Join us for a conversation that reimagines the essence of inclusion, directly at the intersection where personal journeys meet professional aspirations.
📔 Melody Moore recently released a book called "The Inclusive Team: How to Build and Develop Inclusive High Performing Teams" and you can get it here: https://amzn.to/3T5hmMj
🎧 Check our podcast audio here: www.dialglobal.org/podcast
📱 Join our Membership to access our DIAL Global Community Network app https://community.dialglobal.org/share/ljg71bsbWLspcnU-?utm_source=manual
📩 Contact us at hello@dialglobal.org or www.dialglobal.org/contact-us
🌐 Visit us on www.dialglobal.org
Hello and welcome to the Diverse and Inclusive Leaders podcast. This is the show where I speak with the most inspirational and thought-provoking leaders of today and unearth their unique stories of diversity and inclusions, help inspire, educate and motivate others to make the world a better place. Talking of motivation, we're joined by the fabulous Melody Moore, as well as known as Mel. Mel is insanely curious. She is a DEI expert, she knows a huge amount about leadership and coaching and has over two decades worth of experience supporting organizations and leaders in being their best selves.
Speaker 1:She, too, hosts a podcast. It's called the Secret Resume. She's author of the Inclusive team and we're going to be talking about her book launch, which is in January 2024. Mel's background spans working for organizations like Cornferry, the NHS and a number of other global consulting firms, just to name a few. Welcome to the show, mel.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I don't think I've ever been described so nicely, so thank you.
Speaker 1:Absolutely not true. I know that you are a bit of a superhero and known very well to myself and the team here at Dial. It's really fantastic to finally have you on the podcast. Really just to unpick the journey and talk about how you came to be where you are today, because it has been a really impressive learning curving journey that you've been on. So take us back to where it all started.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think what you were trying to say nicely was been a long journey. So, yeah, I started. I did start my career in the NHS and that really came out of a passion for doing the right thing. I think there was a real sense. I was in my early 20s and I really wanted to make a difference and I think that's probably been a theme through my life is wanted to have an impact and make a difference, and I think at that time it was a sense of wanting to make a difference in the public sector NHS sense. But I think over time that's really evolved into really wanting to make a difference to people and helping people be the very best version of themselves and therefore helping organisations be the best version of themselves.
Speaker 2:Because I think when you are young you start off with that I want to change the world and it's going to be massive and I think that actually where I've come to is thinking that actually just making a difference to one person, two people, three people, has that massive ripple effect. So you have that impact, but it might be through really supporting a leader who happens to lead a thousand people and therefore you actually have an impact on those thousand people. You just can't see it. You have to trust that you're doing it. So yeah, that's where I started. Do you want me to tell you a bit more about how I got to here?
Speaker 1:I would love that. And just coming back to one of your points there, I really love how you describe the fact that the wider population, society and organisations are critical. But you're absolutely right in saying that the impact starts with the individuals. If you can have that support, you do so very well through your mentorship and your coaching to really support those key individuals and allow them to elevate the empowerment. And this ripple effect you talk about has a profound effect through the wider roots, branches, leaves of organisations and thus society. Yes, tell me about the early days. Having always been this curious, did you expect that the career path would take this route? Because, of course, you're an expert in psychology. You studied organisational psychology at York and Manchester.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's the answer. And I think it's really interesting when you, when I meet young people who are early on in their careers and I always say that you know, I don't, I don't think hand on heart that most people that I've met who are later in their careers have followed a particular route. Lots and lots of people have kind of meandered or taken advantage of opportunities and absolutely I had absolutely no idea, I never even thought of being a consultant, which is what I've been for the past 20 odd years. But when I started it was very much in the NHS. I then met a man and fell in love and moved to Canada, which was kind of a hiatus. So I was kind of on this career trajectory in the NHS. I was at Wales and then I moved to Northwest London and then I moved to Canada for a couple of years.
Speaker 2:And that was such a pivotal moment in my life because for two reasons. One was I took a step down career-wise and I was working as someone's EA, basically PA, and being somewhere where I didn't have the career anymore really made me realise how important that was to me. So I was sort of late twenties by then. I really realised that it was very a core part of me and my identity was the work that I didn't. It's very important to me. The other thing was that I worked for this guy who was so inspirational. So at that point I'd done a psychology degree. I'd hated it. I really didn't enjoy it at all. It wasn't what I thought it was gonna be, was not for me at all, and I kind of left it alone and went and worked as a manager in the NHS, a general manager. I'd done an HR qualification at that point. But I worked for this guy and he was really, really into leadership. He was the operations manager for 10 ski resorts. So I lived in a ski resort in Canada, Worcester, and he was really into leadership. He had all the books and all these great magazines like Fast Company and all these things I'd never come across before Harvard Business Review, stuff like that and because I wasn't particularly busy, if I'm honest, I used to spend time reading these things and he'd be like oh you know, Mal, can you review these things and tell me? And he had all these books and he really, really ignited this love of leadership and I realized that when I'd been in the NHS what I'd loved was developing people. And so when I came back from the, great love became no longer a great love and I came back to the UK and that's when I went and did my masters in occupational psychology and I thought this is, I wanna pursue, this idea of people development. That's what I realized was a real passion for me.
Speaker 2:And then I kind of fell into consulting. I didn't really know what consulting was and I kind of fell into it and have been here ever since. So that was 2001. I started working for OPP, which is now the Myers-Briggs Company, and that was quite niche occupational psychology. And then after five years I then went to the Hay Group, which then became Cornfairy, and that was much broader and that was fantastic in terms of taking me out of that sort of perhaps more narrow way of thinking into really understanding organizations and really working with a huge range of people who had a lot of experience of all different aspects of HR and people consulting. So, yeah, that's how. And then, yeah, a year ago, just over a year ago, I decided to go and do it for myself and I left and have set up Liberare Consulting. Yeah, just over a year ago, oh yeah, and I'm loving it.
Speaker 1:Well, mel, that is some story and huge congratulations with the success of the business and the upcoming book that I know we're gonna dive deep into very soon. But some of the things that really stand out is almost these pivotal inflection moments of personal lives and how they intersect with the rare. You mentioned that sometimes there's this almost meandering towards and away from opportunities and, yeah, I think much is the same for a lot of successful people. You know you wonder why or how that will lead to something which is bigger. But when you take a moment to step back and look at how far you've come up the mountain, it makes sense as to why you did the psychology, why you ended up going into uncharted territories, having that international experience. But then all feeds into the fact that this is important the identity of what you do, the support and the help for others, the diversity of the experience, but also bringing together what is, you know, the personal loves in life, you know, as well as driving that forward and utilizing that ultimately to help advise and educate others ultimately.
Speaker 2:It's interesting because I think you're right. A lot of people you know it's my podcast. I said the secret resume.
Speaker 2:What I get people to do is look at those pivotal moments and often it's, you know, for me it was when I went off the beaten track that have been the most pivotal. So it's not the you know, it's not the kind of following rigid career path. It is where I've gone and done something different. So the other pivotal moment was I became a single mum 12 years ago now, so a long time ago, and that caused me to make more of a sideways shift in my consulting career. But what that did was really broaden my experience.
Speaker 2:So I'm really a huge fan of having a breadth of experience and it gave me some great opportunity to get into just understanding some different things, such as diagnostics at a much deeper level, but also marketing, and that has then sort of led me to do so the books called the inclusive team. I've developed a diagnostic because I kind of had that experience of taking that sideways move. But what also I think is that being a single parent developed my love and passion for D&I and that's really how I got into D&I, from coming from a sort of learning and development coaching background, I then, you know about five or six years ago now, really kind of got into getting involved in D&I and, like I say, that being a single mum is probably what really pushed me into that.
Speaker 1:Take my hat off to yourself and to all the single parents out there. As much as I admire parents, those who do it alone need to have another level of expertise, quite frankly, and I just think it's tremendous doing that and also juggling with the career and picking up on perhaps some provocative points. Here actually is the whole concept and the notion of diversity, which to me it simply means difference. We've had many a conversation like this recently when talking about everyone from clients and individuals. Diversity means different things to different people, and the notion that I see a lot in the press at the moment it gives me deep, unsettled concerns that we have a perception of what diversity means and that it is almost one faceted or one dimensional. For us to believe that it is purely about race or gender or sexuality, for example, seems such a naive thing, given the fact that the world is moving so quickly and actually, unless we're asking these questions, we would never know that you are a parent, let alone a single parent, who has experienced many other things throughout life.
Speaker 1:Yeah take on that and this evolution of diversity, because it can be quite polarising at times.
Speaker 2:Definitely, and I think what's interesting is this sense that it's. A lot of diversity is not visible and we tend to focus in on the visible aspects, but being something like a single parent is invisible Often. For instance, disability people's disabilities are invisible. Someone in the LGBTQ community you might not know that about them. A lot of my friends will talk about coming out all of the time because they're constantly having to come out to people that they meet. And it's the same with being a single parent.
Speaker 2:I did a workshop quite a few years ago now and I'm very, very open about being a single parent Sorry, my dog is trying to join in. I kind of consider it to be part of my brand and it was a branding workshop. But very much at Cornferry people knew I was single parent. It was seen as a really good thing. I was a senior client partner and I was a single parent and that was very much seen as a positive. People would tell me that they saw that as a positive. But when I did this workshop and it was for the civil service department loads of people came up to me afterwards and said they were single parents but they never told anybody and I just thought it's really interesting. They were frightened of being judged as not being committed or not being ambitious. So yeah, I think it's. I completely agree with you that we need to be very mindful and very broad in our definition of what diversity is, because it's not just the obvious things.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, it is the unobvious and going deep below that surface and that skin level. As you know, I am a parent and you know, I have to say, it's been one of the biggest changes as well. As you know, dealing with grief actually as well this year, but being a parent, everything that you've ever known is thrown out the window and you become another level of efficient in terms of prioritising things. And so when you talk of the fear of being judged which certainly historically that is the case in the classic male, female gender role stereotypes within the organisation, but you know to your point the benefits and the positives that this bring, those are skills that are almost unteachable unless you have done that. To be a parent, let alone a single parent, the levels of efficiency and the levels of empathy and being so flexible to everyone else's needs, I'm sure a lot of the time putting yourself last is. You know that's one of the biggest challenges that I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's actually so. I'm studying something called being me therapy. It's developmental trauma therapy, but just in my third year final year of that and that's been one of my big learnings has about not putting myself last, and so that's something that I've been really trying to work on. For me is you you know they talk about, you know you can't. You know in an airplane you've got to put your own oxygen mask on first before you can help someone else. And I think that, yeah, being a single parent, but also just my kind of nature, I'm an older sister I've been very responsible, so overly taking responsibility for things has been a real yeah. So actually saying no more has been my challenge to myself for the past few years, because you can't, you can't do that forever.
Speaker 1:That makes entire sense. And when you have the levels of personal accountability and professional accountability, that desire to say yes and to make people happy is very, very, very real. But subsequently it can, as you say, have that impact on you. But because you said you will do something, you will do it and you end up in a state of play where you're starting yourself in that oxygen that is so desperately needed to keep going at it with rigor and tenacity. So let's pivot into a book, mel, because I'm so excited. I've only booked my place in January with bells on, really excited to join you and some of the most leading professionals in this space celebrating what has been a real labour of love. I've followed your posts on LinkedIn as you've been writing, and you've been doing all of this yourself as well, which I again have done. A book before myself did have some support, but oh, my goodness, it is another job into itself. So give us some of the teasers. What can we expect to see from January?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like it's just like everything that I think about D&I just splurged into Into the book. So the book came about, one. I have always wanted to write a book always. I always knew I would. I always knew it would be nonfiction, because I haven't got a fiction type brain. I don't think I'm full of awe of people who can write fiction books because I'm just like how do they come up with that?
Speaker 2:But what happened was I came up with this idea of an inclusive team model and it came from my observation that we focus an awful lot on individuals. When we talk about D&I, we talk about a lot about unconscious bias or conscious inclusion training that's an individual thinking about themselves. We talk about inclusive leaders a lot, but that's an individual as a leader. So we're kind of putting a lot of heavy on us, on individuals, but most work happens in teams. So why aren't we thinking about how the team collectively creates an inclusive environment? So it came from this observation that no one was really talking about this and I felt like it was a gap. I've done a lot of team development in the past and what I've done is I've kind of merged together, thinking on what it means to be a high performing team with inclusion, because I think a lot of high performing team models were not necessarily developed in the last sort of 10 years or so, which is when D&I, I think, has really started to come to the forefront, and so they were kind of missing inclusion. So I've kind of brought together these two elements and that really fits with my view of diversity and inclusion, which it should be integrated, that we make it too separate and actually we need to integrate it into our day to day operations in an organisation, so integrate the two together and then create this sense of collective responsibility and ownership for creating, and so it should really be called the inclusive high performing team. But it was a bit long. So we're going with the inclusive team, which is a bit snappier but it is very much a it's not just focusing on. There's a very heavy dose of inclusion throughout all of it, but it's not just focusing on that If people work with this model.
Speaker 2:So I've got the model and the book is about the model. It's about the different clusters and sub clusters in the model and then there's a whole section on applications. So facilitation, dealing with resistance, but also then organisational level. So there's a really good book called Cascades, by a guy called Greg Sattel, which I came across when I was writing my book, and he talks about creating a movement and how you create a movement from having lots of small groups of people, you know, aligned to the movement and then connecting them. And that's kind of how I loved the book, because I thought, yes, that's what I was thinking as well. You have lots of teams so, you know, you create a more inclusive environment by working at a team level, connecting those teams together and creating a movement for an inclusive culture and an inclusive, high performing culture at that team level.
Speaker 1:I'm a mega-cultury geek so I was on the edge of my seat as you were explaining that. You could probably tell I'm zooming from the right angle.
Speaker 1:But that sounds super exciting and, just picking up on some of your points there, inclusion is a lot more complex than people think All of the different nuances, all of the different sectionalities that we've been talking about. So when you talk about this integrated approach and collective responsibility with accountability and ownership, it makes entire sense. Not only are we observing a historic movement over the last decade and going into the next decade where diversity means different things to different people, but also this accountability has been quite disparate. You and I and those, I'm sure, listening know that often diversity is focused on an individual who has that responsibility in that title, where actually this is something that needs to be embedded across the entire stakeholder pool, from the board to everyone across the C-suite Diverse procurement right the way through to diversity in marketing and advertising, talent recruitment, so on and so forth.
Speaker 1:And so how you explain this, with not only the desire, the passion, the key moments that matter, the stories, but also having the diagnostic, the data, the integration with the approach and having those pieces that align with one another, it makes for something which has real credibility, weaving all of those different strands together, one of the things that often frustrates me and I still occasionally hear it is when people say, oh, you know, that's kind of the light and fluffy stuff and so on and so forth, and you think, well, actually, how could business ever happen if it was not through the social connectors, that social connectors that can either bring us together or that can divide us? And so where you talk about this cascade and coming back to really a point about the ripple effect is really deepening those layers of connective tissue to then cascade. Not just the moments of matter yes, of course those moments matter, but the deeper, longer term web of sustainable interventions, yeah, I think it.
Speaker 2:To me it goes down to this idea that inclusion is for everybody and it's everyone's responsibility. And actually, you know, you could, you could call this model something else. You could call it a high performing team model. You know it. If, if I there's, I think there's an awful lot of fear and antagonism around D and I, often people feel threatened, it gets very tempers flare or, you know, emotional, let's say, and I guess what I'm trying to do with this is actually take some of that out of that and just say this is a really great way of us operating as a team. It's a high performance model and so much of that is actually about being inclusive, but it's maybe not labeled as such.
Speaker 2:In this model I said this you know, there's elements of intellectual humility, psychological safety, this growth mindset. You know there's all sorts of really positive things kind of built in and baked into this model and really it's just about getting the very best from the team, the collective intelligence, diversity, and then, you know, just talk about diversity of the team, but it's about how do you get the best, and we people often talk about this. That's really what inclusion is. It's about getting the best from that diversity and and this really is just about saying, well, how are the team collectively responsible for that? So that you know that each chapter of the book talks about the different cluster there's five clusters talks about some of the neuroscience you know, just a lot of the, some of the research around, why these things are important. But then there's a section which talks about, well, as a team member, how do I make sure that we develop this in the team? Then there's a section about as a team leader, how do I make sure, and a lot of that's about reinforcing the right behaviors. And then there's two exercises per cluster.
Speaker 2:So a team leader, a team member, could pick up this book. That's the whole point is, anyone would pick up the book and use it if they wanted as exercises. They can download and they can do it for themselves. And then, if they you know, maybe for more D&I professionals, l&d team professionals, I'm developing an online course that they can use and then they can access a full diagnostic, which is a, you know, 50 item diagnostic that can get a team report. So they've got that data to really help them. There's a kind of a light version as part of the book and then there's a full, you know, with a full report that helps people really choose where to focus, and that online course will have a whole load more exercises that people can access. So it's kind of a layered level thing, depending on people's interest as to how much they get into it.
Speaker 1:I like the layered approach and I like the approach that says, actually, this is about high performance. I think it's easy for people to say they want to do diversity and they want to do it collectively, but actually there are then the nuances and the efforts required with working with a diverse team, and it's not that we can just embed diversity and then say, hey, do you know what we are done now? Because you often end up in a worse place, and so I can see the absolute critical need for this and you know, you've made that business case perfect like the fact that this is something that is also highly business savvy, highly commercial, makes sense in terms of high performance for anyone that wants to become a better leader, because, as we know, diversity increases profitability, is a lever for economic growth and prosperity. Mel, thank you.
Speaker 1:I for one am very excited Until January, when the release of a party will happen as well. Before we wrap, I would love to do a couple of little lightning round questions. I will give you 30 seconds to answer each of them. Hardest one first Equal to success.
Speaker 2:I think it's probably two things. One is having a great tribe both in and out of work, so people who are fabulous around you is that's the only way forward, frankly. So the other is ever since I did my first coaching course where I learned how to coach, which was 20 years ago now, I've really focused on my own personal development, and I don't mean just skills development, I mean me as a person. I've done a lot of development.
Speaker 1:That's where this therapy courses come from as well, so I think that's really helped me help myself Mel thank you, and that humility, I think, has clearly been a real secret to your success, if you don't mind me saying. I think how you do that is just and how you articulate it is really quite beautiful. And final question If you could go back in time and speak to your much younger self, before babies, before career, whilst you were considering, I guess, the art of the possible in terms of the future, what might you say to the young Mel?
Speaker 2:I think it would probably be say no more. And which sounds odd because I've taken up a lot of opportunities, but I think sometimes I've done that at the expense of my health. So yeah, say no more.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I don't mean no more, I mean say no more often.
Speaker 1:I think that will resonate with a lot of people. I've often heard people say just say yes, and I think there is a lot of merit in venturing into the unknown. But when you put together what you've said with what you've last said around making sure you look after yourself and having that gas mask on not having the emotional bandwidth to be able to take stock of where you want to go and the direction personally you feel is right for you, makes it very difficult if you want at times saying no, because sacrifice himself would be the biggest sacrifice of them all, and I think those are incredibly wise words, mel. Thank you ever so much indeed.
Speaker 2:You're very welcome.
Speaker 1:Well, all that is left is for me to summarize. And really, where do I start to summarize? Well, it's been an absolute joy speaking with you. You have this incredible calming therapeutic effect, and whether this is because you have such a wonderful personality, whether it is also because you have studied psychology, trauma, integrated that in leadership and coaching, I'm not sure, but it is resulted in a highly enjoyable experience.
Speaker 1:Some of the real key moments that I've taken from this and I hope that many others will as well is that, mel, don't worry if you feel you're meandering within the career, because actually having faith that the pivotal moments have a reason in the broader spectrum of your life and your own personal progression, having those different experiences, opening your mind up to different geographies, following love, following your passions all of those absolutely key but also being very proud of what it is that you stand for in your own identity In Mel's case, certainly the invisible diversities of single parenthood, the challenges and the joys that they have brought, as well as the fact that work is a big key defining piece of the person, and actually that is great.
Speaker 1:Utilizing that to then transcend the experience and really send the lift back down. I think it's something that has really come to play. And then, finally, knowing that diversity can have a profound effect on high performance, how can we utilize this broad spectrum of collective intelligence, team environments, which often can be quite emotional, and use that energy to put into sustainable long term interventions and plans for success? I hope I've captured some of the key pieces there, mel.
Speaker 2:Absolutely brilliantly done. I'm amazed that you did that so well. That was really good, excellent work.
Speaker 1:Thank you. My name is Lady McKenzie Della Summer, founder and CEO of Dark Global. You've been listening to the diverse, inclusive leaders podcast with the fantastic Melody Moore. Make sure you look out for her book. The launches in January. I've already put myself in the waiting list to get myself on some of my buys. That you do too. If you've been affected by any of the issues today, please make sure that you tell someone, or you reach out to the team or I please leave as a recommendation. We would be so, so grateful. We've hit over 60,000 downloads now on our podcast, which we're tremendously proud of, and you can see us on Apple, spotify, any of your favorite podcast channels, or visit us directly at wwwdarlglobalorg forward slash podcast and we'll look forward to seeing you very soon.