The Path To Equality: Step 2

In today’s video, Mission Equality co-founder Lea Jovy follows up on the three steps we’ve defined to pave a path to equality in the workplace with a deeper dive into step 2.

The Path To Equality: Step 2 And Why It's Fundamental Transcript

Hello, today I'd like to talk more about step two on the path to equality which is individually and collectively equipping people with the skills they need to lead to and create equality for themselves and those around them.

And the reason that we found this so fundamental as a step on the path to equality is that when you create a workplace environment that is founded upon equality it requires certain things of people because it it actually gives them what they say they want or what they think they want and that is effectively the kind of ultimate freedom to do what they want, to work in a way that works for them and what we call radical personal responsibility. 

But when you give it to people they often don't know what to do with it. They struggle to cope with it. They don't know how to operate within it and they certainly don't know how to thrive. And one of the reasons we believe that is by intentional design the education system in the UK, the US, and many countries around the globe, is not designed to facilitate and teach people how to be independent, how to be self-directed, how to take full responsibility for themselves. It's designed to create people who will do what they're told and who will fit into a system that is also designed to continue to uphold the status quo and benefit the few at largely at the expense and at the harm of the many. And that is by design so we have workplaces full of people who are not equipped with the skills, who are not taught the skills to operate within environments of equality. 

And those kinds of skills are things like being self-directed in their growth and their development and their learning and the impact that they want to have in the workplace and with the jobs that they do. 

It's about taking radical responsibility for oneself and the way that you show up in the workplace, the way that you show up with others, the way that you communicate. It's about emotional management. It's about leadership and leading versus needing to be managed. It's about all the kinds of things that are required when you have the freedom and the flexibility to work in a way that works for you. And you have to be able to identify what that is in the first place and then be able to do it.

So the work we're doing in step two at Mission Equality for ourselves and with others and organisations that we support is we are teaching people through the educational and training programmes that we're building at the Equaliversity to gain, to acquire, to hone, to practise those skills that are needed - that we know are absolutely fundamental on the path to equality and for people to operate within and thrive in an ecosystem and an environment that is founded upon equality for everybody.

Visit the Mission Equality and Equaliversity websites to see our vision for equality and the action we’re taking and supporting to bring an equal world into being.