Frustration

More frustrating examples this month of people requesting speeches & contributions for free. But the really frustrating thing isn’t that I lose precious hours in email exchanges and introductory calls to discuss plans before the no budget situation is revealed… (although that is pretty frustrating, especially when I’ve made it clear upfront that this isn’t something I will be doing for free). No what is REALLY frustrating is the constant proof that too many people and organizations see gender equality as nice to do charity work, rather than as something that is a key business issue and opportunity that should be a priority strategy for business growth.

Would a company expect an expert to come in and train them on a business topic such as marketing, pricing, or sales negotiation for free?

No, they would not.

But they would for equality & diversity, despite it being consistently proven to drive significantly stronger business performance.

They don’t get this of course. But then if they did, we wouldn’t have a gender inequality issue and we wouldn’t need to keep talking about it would we?

So... deep breaths and on we go…