Garrick (00:01.806) Hello and welcome to this episode of the Curious Advantage podcast. My name is Garick Jones and I'm one of the co -authors of the book, The Curious Advantage. And today I'm here with my other co -author, Paul Ashcroft. And we're delighted to be joined by David Carney. Hi David.

Paul (00:13.456) Hi there.

David Carney (00:18.403) Hi Garrick, Hi Paul. Pleasure to be here.

Garrick (00:21.198) Welcome to the Curious Advantage podcast, David. You're a seasoned business transformation leader. You're a principal, one of the world's largest professional services firm. You've got over 30 years of experience in consulting, working with senior executives of the world's largest organizations, boards of directors of Fortune 500 globally. You're one of those guys, right? Can you tell us a little about your journey and how you ended up where you are and how we got you?

And then also, how is it we're talking to you about diversity and that topic and inclusion, because that's really what we're curious about today.

David Carney (01:02.467) Yes, yeah, I'm one of those people to be sure. And I've loved it. Yes, I've loved every minute of it, but I've loved almost every minute of it. There's a reason why 30 plus years in, I'm still enjoying it. And the reason why it's.

Garrick (01:05.55) You

Garrick (01:20.6) It's amazing. I mean, I've known you for a number of times because we were at university together, which I'm very proud of. And you captained my rowing boat, which is a long time ago. But I have very fond memories of that and that relationship over a long period of time. But there are some astonishing points in your journey which kind of lead us to this situation about your expertise around curiosity and diversity. And I'm really keen to talk about...

those experiences and your journey and also what we can learn, what we can take away from all you've experienced at these high levels of large -scale global organisations tackling the changes that have been coming on in the world and what's required. What's different between now and what was in the past?

David Carney (02:13.091) Sure. Yeah. Is there a question in there or?

Garrick (02:19.47) That's sort of more of a statement. No, I think here...

David Carney (02:21.985) Thanks for watching.

Garrick (02:24.29) I mean, here's a question. Let me get to a question. I guess the question is, for us, what role does curiosity play, yes, in promoting diversity and inclusion within large organizations? But for me, I'm going to go back a because I think that's putting the cart before the horse. Why is diversity and inclusion, hang on, the question is, do we want to ask questions about your journey first and then get into, and I apologize for being a little bit off script here. Can I ask you about your journey first and then?

get into that. All right. So David, can you tell us a little bit?

David Carney (02:55.203) Sure, absolutely. Yeah. So, during.

Garrick (03:01.102) David, can you tell us... Sorry.

David Carney (03:01.955) I, going back to the beginning, right. My journey, going back to the beginning, grew up in a, in the suburbia USA with two parents, one, one of four siblings, two boys, two girls, one off to, you know, local, what we would call public school in the United States or, just, you know, normal private school in the UK.

Garrick (03:06.848) Yeah.

David Carney (03:30.915) and found my way to Harvard. With respect to diversity and inclusion, I had a big surprise when I went to university. My parents were meticulous in making sure that my two sisters, my brother and I, were treated extremely fairly, age adjusted, to the point where they were very

thoughtful about making sure that the opportunities and the expectations they had of my sisters were the same they had as of my brother and me. This is back in the 70s and 80s. When it came to things like holidays, they were very thoughtful about even giving gifts, right? Just making sure that things were equal. Maybe the younger got more gifts, but they were smaller and less expensive, but I got a bike maybe because I was the oldest.

or something like that. It was equality and, I mean, we didn't use the words diversity inclusion, obviously, but the point was, you know, everyone, you know, we don't treat men and women different. I went to school and my, the cohort I hung out with was about 50, 50 boys and girls, same thing. And then I show up at university. University was Harvard.

My parents couldn't afford it. And so we, I got a scholarship with the U S Navy and they paid for my tuition. And I show up there and it's 90 % men, 10 % women. And in almost every respect, the Navy treated the women. This is the late eighties.

Times have changed, obviously. They treated the women as second -class citizens. There's really no better way to describe it. I'll give you an example. Every memo that went out was written in the masculine. A midshipman, he will this, right? We expect midshipmen to do the following things, and he will always be truthful and loyal and yada, yada, yada, right?

Garrick (05:45.324) Hmm.

David Carney (05:58.915) Which struck me as really odd having come from the family I came from from the school environment I came from and I could just made a mental note, you know, if I ever could have run the student battalion, we're gonna change all of this There were other ways to women weren't allowed to serve in combat after graduation They were allowed to serve on supply ships. They were allowed to serve in administrative jobs But they weren't allowed the you know

fly a combat jet or even be deployed to a submarine or a surface ship with ammunition on it. Which I just found kind of curious why. And I kept asking, I probably asked too many questions. In fact, I was told I asked too many questions. But that was the beginning of the journey for me.

Paul (06:56.336) David, can I ask how long were you in the Navy for?

David Carney (06:59.587) So that's an interesting question. For the four years of university, I was kind of, if you will, in the reserves, right? Half in and half out, there were courses and activities to do during the academic year. And then every summer, there was a, you went on active duty and you actually served and got experience in kind of surface ships and submarines in the Marine Corps, which in the United States is part of the Navy.

Paul (07:04.24) Hmm.

David Carney (07:29.347) in marine, naval, naval aviation, just to get a sense as to what you might enjoy. And at the end of that, that four year experience, I went and took an academic leave of absence with the Navy's full blessing and permission and went to Oxford to go get a master's with that's, which is where I met Derek. And that's where we learned how to row and have lots of fun together. In.

Garrick (07:54.254) Thank you.

David Carney (07:59.171) The last years of university and certainly at Oxford, it became very clear to me that I was gay. And in the last years of college, it was pretty easy to kind of, if you will, be gay, openly gay with my friends, but that was an impossibility in the Navy, right? The regulation at the time was direct quote,

Paul (08:24.558) At the time, right?

David Carney (08:28.259) homosexuality and military service are incompatible.

David Carney (08:35.075) The problem is for me or was for me, I got the Oxford and all of a sudden I didn't have to lead this double life. I didn't have to live in two brains anymore, right? that's right. Today I'm in uniform, so I'm straight and you know, you know, and tomorrow I'm not, don't have any Navy responsibilities. And so I'm going to hanging out with my boyfriend. And that, that caused me, it brought me to the realization of, of, well, first off,

you know, so much for sexual orientation, diversity or inclusion in the US military. But at Christmas break, I went back to my commanding officer and I just said, with whom I had a great relationship. And I said, here's the deal. I've recently come to the decision. I'm, you know, I'm gay and I want to very much serve.

in the Navy, I wanted to kind of take my officer commission and go serve five years in the submarines and submarine fleet in that, in that Corps. And he looked at me, he swore, because he hated the policy, pounded the table and said, you know, this is just, this is, damn it. He actually used stronger words than that. He said, but I have no choice. I have to, I have to dismiss you. I have to discharge you.

I said, I know, I figured that was probably the case. So, so short answer to your question, I didn't spend that much time in the Navy, just three different summers. However, I enjoyed it a lot. And at the end of that conversation with my commanding officer, I then needed a job. I was graduating Oxford and no longer had a place to go in the U S Navy. And.

I'm not sure why. I can't remember why I chose the world of management consulting, but I said to myself, listen, it's two years. I'll build a lot of skills. Maybe I'll have some fun. I'll learn something about business. I'll learn something about different clients I serve. And I'll learn something about serving clients. And that was the next chapter.

David Carney (10:58.179) in my journey.

Garrick (11:01.166) This is a question for you, David. Sorry, Paul. Do you want to talk about, I mean, don't have to if you want. Do you want to talk about how your case became pivotal in the shift of US policy? Well, that may be too strong.

Paul (11:01.328) Yeah, and I think, I mean, you talk about...

David Carney (11:16.035) I'm happy to if you want to play this podcast.

Garrick (11:19.854) Yeah, however you want to frame it, but can I ask you a question like this? David, I know that your case then had a huge impact on policy within the US military. And of course, it was one of many, but do you want to talk a little bit about, tell us that story about what happened and how that became pivotal?

David Carney (11:43.459) Yeah. Yes. So I mentioned that at Christmas break, I, holiday break, I went back and came out to my commanding officer. I returned to Oxford in about, I don't May or March or something, sorry, March or April. I received a letter from the Navy asking me to acknowledge my indebtedness to the U .S. government to the tune of, I think it was $55 ,000 or something.

which was the sum total of the tuition that they had paid. I had never heard of this happening before. I called around to a few folks who'd also been discharged for being gay or lesbian, and they'd never heard of anything like this. I called my commanding officer, and he had no idea what I was talking about. This memo would clearly come from somewhere higher in the high.

somewhere closer to the Department of Defense. And I had no idea what to do. It was impacting my credit rating. There was this outstanding debt. It was larger, $55 ,000 back in 1990 was a lot more than I had. And I found some pro bono representation in legal representation.

Garrick (13:00.654) So what?

David Carney (13:12.643) We, with their help, we wrote letters to the Secretary of the Navy, US government. That didn't work. We had 35 or so, 32, 33, 35 members of the US Congress write letter to the Secretary of the Navy. Again, not responded to. And at some point, the Legal Aid Service,

decided that the next best step was to put it on the AP Newswire, make sure it got published in as many newspapers as possible, and embarrass the Navy. And that's exactly what happened. It made the New York Times. It made my hometown newspaper. It made a rag in the United States called the USA Today, which was pretty much free if you were living in it. If you stayed in the hotel, it was underneath your door every morning.

It made a lot of the London papers because I was living in Oxford. And I remember coming back one day. I'm sorry?

Garrick (14:16.11) And I think they published your photo as well.

David Carney (14:25.731) I think they probably did, yes. There weren't that many midshipmen first class David E. Kearneys at Harvard University. I actually made my sister's university newspaper and I hadn't come out to my sister yet. So she's, you know, one morning over coffee she's reading and she's like, my gosh. It's pretty clear who it was. The, to the,

Garrick (14:48.268) Wow.

David Carney (14:56.643) the Secretary of Defense at the time, and this is under the first President George H .W. Bush, was a man named Dick Cheney. And Dick Cheney, above all else, is a smart politician. And he picked up the phone and he asked the Secretary of the Navy, we've since learned.

Why are we going after a 23 year old for $55 ,000 and why is it on a page a 17 of the New York Times? Get this out of the newspapers now.

Garrick (15:29.006) Hmm.

Garrick (15:33.132) Hmm.

David Carney (15:34.499) And they did. And I got a letter that said, sorry, administrative snafu never should have happened. You know, we apologize. You know, you owe us nothing. But this happened about eight or nine times over the course of about a year. Fast forward to 1992, there's a US presidential election, and there's a guy named Bill Clinton running for US president. And he was the first candidate.

to try to bring together a gay and lesbian constituency in, it was part of the voting constituency he was trying to cobble together. And not only made it a point to say in campaign events, you know, I have a vision and gay and lesbian men and women of the United States are part of that. But one of his first executive orders in 1993, when he,

shortly after inauguration, was to integrate the armed services in the United States. That got quashed by Congress, and there was a compromise called Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the idea being that anyone serving shouldn't come out through the armed services, and the armed services shouldn't be asking and shouldn't be doing things like...

Garrick (16:39.15) Hmm. Hmm.

David Carney (17:03.139) going to the local gay bar, taking photographs of licensed tags on the backs of cars, license plates on the backs of cars, and then comparing them to everybody who was in the Navy in the area and then kind of launching a witch hunt. So that all kind of stopped. And while, like you said, it wasn't just me, there was about eight of us with stories like that, but it prompted political change.

Paul (17:31.792) And not just for you say, gay and lesbian people serving, but also at the same time as if my history is right, around 1993, women, you mentioned women at the time weren't allowed in active combat duty. You correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand also, but then you tell us that was part of it, but women were then approved to serve on combat ships, for example, around the same time.

David Carney (17:53.347) That was a slower, more step -by -step approach, Paul. There were certain combat positions that were opened up. I want to say surface ships first, eventually naval aviation. I could have the order of that wrong, but every few years there was more and more opening up. Only a couple of years ago were the first women

allowed to join the submarine corps. I want to say about three, maybe four years ago. And now the US armed services is what I call kind of fully integrated. It's OK to be gay, lesbian, trans, any one of the letters in the LGBT universe, right? And women in all positions as well, too.

Garrick (18:41.838) Yeah.

David Carney (18:53.091) And for an even longer time, since the 1950s, the U .S. Armed Services have been integrated kind of from a racial and ethnic perspective. And in fact, some of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a Black Admiral, or General, rather, from the Air Force, right? Prior to that, the U .S. Secretary of Defense is a Black.

Garrick (19:05.826) Hmm.

David Carney (19:22.691) General from the US Army. Total wise.

Garrick (19:25.102) And this idea of

Paul (19:25.594) Yeah. And as you say, as you fast forward from 1993 through to, you know, 2010 when finally the, you know, the don't ask, don't tell was, was repealed. And then, and now today, where, as you say, I, you know, as we sit here for three white men, but a much more inclusive society, both in the military, but also in professional services, you know, some of the large firms, they have women leading those firms and so on.

What are some of the lessons that you've learned from a leadership point of view, a management point of view in that transition as an organization is shifting to a more diverse and a more inclusive organization? What are some of the big things that you've learned?

David Carney (20:11.875) Yeah, that's a great question. The early on, a lot of the conversation was almost a moral or ethical one, right? What's the right thing to do? And then very quickly, and I've seen this in my in my own, my own firm, it became it attracting more diverse candidates attracting a

broader array of individuals and doing that in a way that actually kind of does attract more and high quality talent became the business imperative. Management, we had a large professional services firm, we're in the business of hiring, developing, and deploying people to serve our clients. And the volumes of individuals that we need are just

Garrick (20:53.558) Hmm.

David Carney (21:11.299) very high at any professional services firm, law firm, accounting firm, consulting firm, or like this. And attracting, once we've finally figured out how to do that, you don't go send me to the African -American Students Union at a university or graduate school and try to attract, right? We get.

I might go, right, but I'm certainly going to go with others, other successful colleagues who are black, right? And it took us a while to figure that out. Then we realized that attracting was relatively easy compared to the need to retain people because if people arrive, and this is true, again, in all professional services firms, they arrive and there's not a network of support.

Or if they're one of the last people staffed onto an engagement or onto a client matter in a law firm because they have a name that sounds a little weird, maybe the person responsible for staffing that individual is like, you I'm not, you subconsciously is thinking, I'm not sure I want to bring somebody on with a name that's unfamiliar.

I'd much rather stick with the, you know, with the Matt and the Sally and the Kristen and the, right? And even if, even if they got early onto an engagement, the, then the question became, do they feel comfortable? Do they feel like they can be their authentic selves every single day? Or do they feel like they're having to live in two heads and they need to kind of learn how to speak?

David Carney (23:08.513) If you're a woman, do you need to learn how to speak man or you let just the law to speak woman, right? Because it takes a lot of energy to be bilingual in that metaphor. And that, so that became, yeah, so that became a business imperative too is the retention.

Garrick (23:11.628) Yeah.

Garrick (23:23.31) I think -

Garrick (23:31.886) I really want to ask you a little bit more about this business imperative because I think we're coming to the conclusion that openness and inclusion and diversity is not only morally required, but is actually good for organizations. It's a better way of being in an organization and you get better results. Not any value, but I want to bring you back to the point you made about being your authentic self, about the ability to be...

one's authentic self with one's colleagues and get rid of all the languages and all the covering, which is a word you and I have used before. How covering used to be a thing with people with tattoos, for example. People would cover them up in the business role. And these things have changed. But that point about an openness and being your authentic self is actually better for organizations. What would you say to that?

David Carney (24:36.643) so we've, we've talked about it's, it's better because in the war for talent and attracting talent, it's if, if, if, if, if, if a candidate sees that an organization is, is diverse and inclusive and there are people there who look like them, they're more likely to come. And we've talked about.

Garrick (25:02.572) Hmm.

David Carney (25:04.769) Kind of if it's easy to be one's authentic self in the workplace, then they're more likely to stay. But then, then it, it almost, it takes a next step too. And especially professional services firms where you're in the business of working with clients. If I were to bring an all male team to help serve a client.

that is roughly 50, 50 men and women, right? And we're proposing on this business. They're watching us. They're generally thinking, what was it about David or David's thinking or lack of thinking, right? The joke that decided to bring an all -male team was a good idea, right? I know I've been on the opposite side of that equation where...

where I was trying to hire a boutique firm and to help us with a particular challenge. And our strategy around the importance of diversity, equity, inclusion is no secret. All you need to go on is just go on our website and you'll, you'll, you'll see how important that is to our core values. And they showed up with seven men, seven white men and started to present.

And we just, we stopped them in their tracks. And after about five minutes, it said, thank you very much. We just knew that if they hadn't gone through, like kind of thinking about us as a potential client.

David Carney (26:50.115) And kind of, you know, reflecting, you just showing up with a team that reflected our values. I mean, they weren't coming into consult on DE &I. They were consult, coming into consult with something completely different, just very core business related, right? So, you know, it's, it even becomes part of the equation in kind of, you know, in attracting business and winning business too.

Paul (27:16.976) What are some of the things that you have? What are some of the problems at the individual level and team level that you've seen emerge? And then how do you encourage teams to solve them either from a leadership point of view or a management point of view? For example, I assemble my diverse team, people from all over the world, speaking different languages with different backgrounds, men and women. Are they going to jail together?

Do I need to work harder to form that group as a team and get the best out of them? Because my, you know, if I was to do that, the reason for doing it, yes, of course it's great to have a diverse team, but actually our belief would be you're going to get better results by having a diverse team because you're going to have more opinions, more different viewpoints, and you're bringing in more experiences, not just because it's nice to have a diverse team, but it comes with challenges as well. Have you experienced some of those?

difficulties when you've been trying to bring these sort of complex and diverse teams together and then how have you addressed those?

David Carney (28:24.899) The

Let me start by saying it's always a little harder with a team that is older, more experienced. I'm part of Gen X, Generation X. The favorite boomers ahead of me are kind of close to retirement now. It's much easier with individuals right out of university who just expect and...

and have had lots of experiences in their university, generally, especially in the United States, which is this melting pot or salad of races and ethnicities. And DE and I has long been a priority. They expect it. And so the challenge for the generation in their 20s and 30s for us, for me as a leader,

is to make sure that that team actually is diverse because otherwise they'll ask me, why is this so boring? Where are the folks on the visas who came in from other countries who are part of our workforce? Where are the, anyway, you understand the point. We've spent a lot of time in my particular organization,

advancing the careers of mid -career and more senior women by creating more positions or oftentimes kind of using gender diversity or racial diversity or ethnicity diversity in kind of the selection process. And there are a lot of white men of my generation who, for whom that's new.

David Carney (30:22.659) And it can feel sometimes like, gee, I was overlooked or someone else got that role because of their gender or because of, or at least in part of their gender, their race, their ethnicity, et cetera. And so I find myself either hearing or being engaged in a lot of conversations about, gee, that's just not unfair or that person's not as qualified as this man over here might have been.

and.

It's a delicate conversation to have with folks of my generation, folks in their 50s and 60s, for whom that's new. Some people, not everybody, but feel like they're losing out and part of that. So, yeah.

Garrick (31:20.494) Yeah, how do you deal with that with that reverse discrimination thing? Is that just another form of bias or how do we manage with that?

David Carney (31:36.195) Phrase reverse discrimination is something that kind of gives me pause. To me, it doesn't bother me that maybe if I'm up for a role and there's a woman up for a role, I might think I'm more qualified for it. She gets the role. Or the...

the black woman or the black man gets the role, it doesn't bother me as much because I think to myself, the last 30 plus years of my career, I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that I got a whole lot of roles for which other people were qualified, just as qualified, if not more qualified, but who were overlooked. Right? And,

Garrick (32:28.94) Mm.

David Carney (32:37.763) And I don't think any one of us, because DE &I is very new and in the United States, there was a murder by police officers in Minneapolis and Minnesota, one of the Midwest states, right in the middle of the pandemic, which really put DE &I programs in large corporations, large organizations on steroids. And so we're still new in having these conversations.

And it's people are even me still kind of getting our heads around. Is what we're doing the right thing to do? Is what we're doing helping the organization is what we're doing promoting people too early. And if we are promoting them too early, are we or just early? Are we giving them.

the support and the coaching that they need to be successful in an organization where there are some people who are rooting against them. There's a Gordian knot in there that I don't think anyone is really truly kind of untangled yet.

Garrick (33:57.004) Mm.

I'm going to do the intro to you. Just quickly. We're talking to David Carney. David has 30 years of experience in advising senior executive teams and boards of directors, typically of large global clients on issues of &A, technology -enabled transformation, and improving shareholder returns. David's a seasoned and practical leader. He is a trust advisor to many Fortune 500 CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, and other CXO executives.

David Carney (34:01.155) I think we're good.

Garrick (34:28.526) He holds degrees from Harvard and the University of Oxford as well. He resides in Miami and Manhattan and is an avid cyclist and triathlete. David, your career is fascinating. It's amazing how it's been at this kind of pivotal, how you personally experience these kind of pivotal shifts in society and in business and in large organizations as we deal with issues of diversity and inclusion.

What are the fundamental things you think we should pay attention to if there's a list of a few things that we as anybody who wants to be a leader of people in any situation and be sensitive and aware of diversity and inclusion and the benefits to be had from being what are some of the what would be the things you think we should pay attention to?

David Carney (35:25.795) Yeah, that's a great question, Garak. In the US business environment, I'm less sure about the UK business environment, but in the last year especially, DE9 has become a hot button topic. Part of it is just a suggestion by some business leaders that,

Their words, not mine. This craziness has gone too far, right? There are some suggestions from the political right, right? This is, we are, we're being unfair to.

Garrick (36:01.87) Hmm.

David Carney (36:14.499) to those who were privileged in the, you know, kind of, you know, for the first kind of, you know, over the last hundreds of years. There's a lot of conversation on university campuses right now about this too. There are a lot of university presidents being fired, dismissed from their roles because it's become such a political hot topic.

My suggestion or recommendation would be to get out of, try to extract or change the conversation from the emotional to the practical. What are we trying to achieve for this organization? We want this organization to be as high performing as possible. Does that mean we need more women? Does that mean we need more diversity along other dimensions, racial, economic background, geographical diversity?

Is that's going to help us accomplish our mission, whether that's serving clients at a professional services firm, whether that's selling to customers in a product firm. What's going to work most practically for the business? It becomes a talent strategy question. And I think the more we can get people to focus on the practicalities and less on the emotion.

Garrick (37:38.062) Mm.

David Carney (37:40.259) feelings, the better decisions we'll all get.

Garrick (37:45.678) Hmm.

Paul (37:46.256) I really like that. I think you're also talking about making an organization more resilient as a system because it's more resilient because it has more variation in it. It's better able to deal with with change and more different scenarios.

Paul (38:02.414) Another thing, we're on the Curious Advantage podcast, so we have to talk about curiosity, David, and I'd like to for a moment if we could. So one of the things that has changed, I don't know if at exactly the same timeline, but certainly over the past couple of decades, they say, so is the idea that curiosity is also important, that it's okay in organizations to try and experiment and to hopefully safely fail to learn.

What's your experience of curiosity, its importance in an organization, but also any overlaps in a mindset or a way of bringing about a more diverse and inclusive organization?

David Carney (38:51.203) I like that question, Paul. The...

The story in 19, roughly 1997, 98. There was the US government opened a lot of the they we gave a lot of business visas to Indian nationals. And all of a sudden, my office went from my cohort of colleagues went from.

having kind of standard Anglo -Saxon first names and last names to names that I couldn't pronounce, right? And so I had to become curious and darn fast if I was going to pronounce anyone's name correctly as to, you know, how to take a name on the piece of paper and then, and then, and then learn how to pronounce it, which required asking a lot of questions, just curiously. And so I, even to this day, I ask people, so,

if I'm not completely sure. So how would you prefer I pronounce your name? Right. The.

In that same vein, I had dinner with a colleague of mine who was born and raised in India. And we were talking about another colleague of ours who wasn't at the table with a very long last name. And I was asking my colleague, how does he pronounce his last name? And my colleague at dinner,

David Carney (40:32.237) went on to say, well, it's pronounced this way, which probably means, given that name, he comes from this particular kind of corner of South Asia. And because that name is associated, I had no idea that there was an association like that where he could probably guess. And his guess was right, by the way. So now I'm curious.

about what's the geographical connection in South Asia with various names. But I also have to be curious about, especially as a leader in my firm, if you're a woman in this profession also trying to be also a mother, also a spouse, who

probably doesn't share, maybe, I don't know, share the responsibilities of child raising and running the household 50 -50 with her spouse. I don't know. Some of my female colleagues have husbands who are executive support assistants, right? Or spousal support executives, they call them. Or state -owned parents. But I'm very curious to know how...

You know, like what's that like? I'm curious to know if they're in a team of largely men, if we're speaking man and if there are things we can learn by speaking woman. Meryl Streep has a great quote about this, about kind of every woman knows how to speak man, but not every man knows how to speak woman by very few men.

Paul (42:20.4) I love what you're saying here, because also, I mean, we often talk about asking better questions, you know, a good practice in flexing your curiosity muscle is to practice asking better questions. And the sorts of questions you're talking about there is not necessarily how can we get better at this? Or why don't we try that? But also really finding out about the individual that you're working with and being quite paying quite a lot of attention to understanding that the person that you're.

Garrick (42:21.198) Yeah.

Paul (42:49.072) you're gonna team with, right? And therefore what they can bring and what's their context and what's their situation.

David Carney (42:54.627) Two benefits, yes, exactly, there's two benefits to that I found. One is if I'm genuinely curious, that the other person, they understand, they hear how genuine I am, right? And they're a little bit more likely to follow my leadership as a result of that, right? They was really curious about me. But secondly, most importantly, I also learn, right?

I learned that if I phrase things in a different way, that I will probably, the woman I'm working with might understand what I'm trying to say or might understand what other men are trying to say, or might be more receptive to the idea just because of the way the words I use, the way I interrupt or don't interrupt.

So I learned something too about how to improve the interaction dialogue and the effectiveness of our working relationship.

David Carney (44:01.635) So, and then I'll come some questions. I'll come to being curious.

Garrick (44:06.83) Do you have any questions for us, David?

David Carney (44:12.115) Yes. What sparked the idea of the book? I'm being curious. Derek, I've always known you to be a curious. I didn't expect so curious to team up with Paul and Simon to put words on paper.

Garrick (44:18.478) Yeah.

Garrick (44:25.87) I know.

Garrick (44:30.094) writing the book, it was, it really came out of us worrying about how do we, what are we going to teach the next generation of young people when the world seemed, you know, the digital world seemed so narrow and the bandwidth of information seemed so narrow. And that was a starting point about learning. We were talking about learning and curricula and things like that. And as we got into that research, we discovered,

that curiosity came up time and time and time again, until we got to the point where we realized that, okay, if you're curious, you keep the bandwidth open. Being curious and being actively curious, which we say is about having an attitude of wonder, but a spirit of exploration. That idea that if I want to know something, I go out and I find out about it and I learn from the real world.

more than just wandering in my mind. And then we, of course, got into the idea that, okay, so there are things to learn about curiosity and context and what language is important. And then that shifted into ideas of, we need communities of people to help us learn and take us through. So we're working with experts and being open to other people's ideas, you know, creativity, construction, and the one that I find really powerful, the idea of criticality. And that idea that,

we've got to learn to open our eyes. And this is why I so value the conversation with you today. It's so pragmatic and it's based on like, listen, this is the real world we work in and here are organizations facing real things with real people. And how do we set aside our biases? How do we set aside some of the things we may not know that we've been taught over time so that we can be open, as you say, and ask questions. And then of course, it all comes down to confidence. So we kind of found these kind of areas that we...

we really understood as the kind of clumps of information that really play into what it means to be curious going forward. And out of that came the book and the stories that supported as we looked for how do we apply this and how do we make this real. It's been an amazing adventure. I've learned a lot personally. I like to think I'm a curious person and I'm a man of the world, but when you start to ask yourself real questions,

Garrick (46:58.893) you very soon realise where your boundaries are or things you didn't know. And it's been very challenging. For example, leadership. How do I lead young people who have access to so much information and world experience and not be the kind of the boss, you know, top down, the guy with all the answers? How do I change that idea completely? And that's been my part of my journey.

David Carney (47:29.347) That's great.

Paul (47:29.584) Yeah, I would add to that. The book's called the curious advantage because I think what we discovered is for humans being curious creates an advantage and also for organizations being curious creates an advantage much like David, you were saying being more diverse, being more inclusive seems to create some kind of business advantage, right? There is actually business value in doing it. So I think what we were then exploring as well, if there's something that you can,

seek advantage from, if it's a good thing to do, is this something you can get better about? Is there a way of actually, you know, improving your success rate at being curious, essentially? And I think we found the answer is yes, you can. And that was really interesting to explore as well. Well, you spoke to a lot of people and they say, I'm really curious, but then they don't really go anywhere with that. So we're wondering where people fall off the journey and how and how they can, how they can be more successful.

Garrick (48:11.406) You

Paul (48:25.552) So that's been brilliant to explore.

David Carney (48:27.811) Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, thank you very much for writing the book. In my particular firm, we spent a lot of time talking about the art of inquiry.

David Carney (48:42.083) How do you, because there's different ways to be curious, right? Or different questions you might ask. You think about like a police investigator, for example, right? They're asking, they're curious, but they're curious for a very specific reason, but they ask very different questions than say, a mental health therapist, right? Who's asking questions and they're curious, but their curiosity is almost more to help the rest of us come to realization.

Garrick (49:02.946) Yeah.

David Carney (49:12.643) which might be different than say a physician who's trying to diagnose a situation, right? Different than an investigator from the police force, different than, right? Exactly, and who knows? Maybe there's a second book there, like the different ways of being curious.

Garrick (49:22.638) Yeah, context is everything.

Garrick (49:32.014) We like practical. We love being more and more pragmatic. And how do we apply this? How can we encourage people and organizations to be curious? What's the value in that? And how does that have an impact on teams who want to be constructive, teams who want to be innovative, teams who want to just find better solutions to difficult problems? So there's something there about, I'm a great...

I loved Peter Zanghi's fieldwork guide, which came after his fifth discipline book. And I'm sort of, I've always wanted to publish something similar. Perhaps we'll get there. Certainly we've got lots of plans. But I want to say thank you. I want to say thank you. I mean, it's such a great conversation. There's a broad definition of diversity, which is very helpful. And, you know, how it all makes business sense has been interesting for me. It's so pragmatic.

David Carney (50:15.459) Ha ha ha.

Garrick (50:29.378) diversity inclusion is better for, it makes for better organisations. And I think that's a useful thing to say it's not diversity and inclusion for its own sake, it's diversity and inclusion because it makes for a better world, it makes for a better working world, and it makes for more psychological safety. These are the things that you really make me think about. It enables us to bring the best people for the job rather than who is the best person for the job, no matter what their name might be or what their background is.

And then I was fascinated by how you talked about curiosity and leadership and how as a leader, being curious enables you to ask questions, which enables you to be a better leader of diverse people. I really value that. If there's one thing that you could leave our listeners with, David, what would it be?

David Carney (51:25.539) Sometimes being curious requires living in the awkward.

David Carney (51:35.203) Sometimes there's a question you want to ask. We all know this, right? There's questions we want to ask of people, but not quite sure how the question will be received. Will they be insulted? Will they be embarrassed? Will I be embarrassed? yeah, I should have known that. Sorry, I asked that question a year ago and I completely forgot the answer. And then there's a...

potential for awkwardness when you hear the answer. It might not be the answer that you expected and or wanted to hear. And I'd argue that that's okay. Like that living in that awkwardness is part of the journey of being curious. It's a necessary part. If we only ask safe questions and we only ask questions that we know the answers to.

Garrick (52:17.262) Hmm.

David Carney (52:34.979) That's a lower degree, a lesser degree of curiosity than a curiosity where we're willing to take the risk of asking the awkward question and or receiving the awkward answer.

Garrick (52:49.582) That's an amazing thing.

Paul (52:49.616) Do you get better at it the more you do it, David?

David Carney (52:52.899) I get more awkward doing it, which I guess might... That's a bit... Would be better, exactly. Don't feel the awkwardness.

Paul (52:56.014) You get more awkward, you get bolder.

Garrick (53:02.062) That's a brilliant way to finish it. Exactly. Don't be afraid of being awkward. So wonderful. Thank you.

Paul (53:03.024) Brilliant.

David Carney (53:07.843) Wonderful. Paul and Garak, thank you very much for being curious about my story and being curious about how I think about leadership in my profession. Or rather, thank you so much for being curious about how I think about diversity in my profession. So I've enjoyed the time.

Garrick (53:19.086) And thank you for being so open, David. Thank you.

Garrick (53:27.726) We really, really grateful. Thank you for being so open. Really appreciate it very much. And it's great to hear from your experience. You've been listening to Curious Advantage podcast. We're curious to hear from you. And if you think there was something useful or valuable from this conversation, we encourage you to write a review for the podcast on your preferred channel saying why this was so and what you've learned. We also appreciate hearing our listeners thoughts and having curious conversations. Join today at hashtag.

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