The current backlash against DEI creates an uncomfortable choice for organisations—or at least it appears to. Defend everything that has historically carried the DEI label or distance the organisation from inclusion altogether. Neither response is particularly useful. A more productive starting point is to acknowledge something that critics sometimes get right: Not every initiative conducted …
Many organisations, despite the backlash on DEI, are doing more on inclusion than ever before. There are leadership commitments, awareness campaigns, employee networks, training programs, events, communications and carefully constructed action plans. And yet, after all that activity, a difficult question remains: What has actually changed? Has access to opportunity become fairer, are promotion and …
Why the next workplace inequality may not come from biased algorithms—but from how organisations implement AI. For the past two years, organisations have focused on an important question: Can artificial intelligence discriminate? The evidence suggests it can. Research has shown that AI systems can reproduce or amplify bias embedded in training data, system design and …
For years, unconscious bias has been explained through a simple story. The human brain receives more information than it can fully process. It therefore uses shortcuts to make rapid judgements. Some of those shortcuts draw on stereotypes and associations outside our conscious awareness. These hidden biases can then influence our decisions. There is some truth …
Many organisations have matured their talent systems over the past decade. Performance frameworks are embedded, calibration routines are familiar, and leadership competency models are widely used to anchor expectations. Yet one topic continues to generate discomfort in executive conversations: the idea of “high-potential” talent. For some leaders, the term carries the implication of exclusivity, a …
The AI Adoption Gap Between Women and Men Needs a System Lens Generative AI is moving fast from novelty to infrastructure. Investment is accelerating. Boards are paying attention. AI capability is increasingly seen as central to future competitiveness. But the more important question is not simply: who has access to AI? It is: who is being enabled …
Transgender Discrimination Law in Transition The United States Supreme Court’s yesterday upheld laws in Idaho and West Virginia restricting girls’ and women’s school sport to athletes who are biologically female. The ruling focused on Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 which prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities that receive …
The latest swathe of resignations of senior leaders at KPMG Australia ( Tuesday, 23 June), including its chairman following allegations concerning the misuse of confidential client information, represent far more than another corporate governance failure. They are the latest reminder of a lesson that organisations repeatedly seem destined to relearn: trust is both the most …
Racially-motivated violence recently in the United Kingdom has once again exposed deep social tensions that many democracies are struggling to address. The public outrage surrounding the death of Henry Nowak, who was handcuffed by police while fatally wounded after being stabbed, has raised serious questions about policing, public trust, accountability, and equal treatment under the law. At the same time, the brutal …
What leaders must understand about AI adoption Artificial intelligence is transforming more than workflows. It may be changing the way humans think. Recent work by neuroscientist Dr Hannah Critchlow raises precisely this issue. In her recently- published book, The 21st Century Brain, Critchlow explores how rapidly changing social and technological environments shape cognition, emotional regulation, behaviour and even the long-term development of human …