One of the most interesting conversations I had at UKREiiF didn't happen during the panel discussion. It happened afterwards.
A woman turned to me and said, "Why is everyone so worried about saying the wrong thing?"
The question got me thinking.
Before the discussion, Women in Architecture UK asked LinkedIn:
"When talking about gender, do you ever choose to stay silent because you're worried about saying something that might unintentionally cause offence?"
Whilst 55% said no, 45% said yes - almost half.
Lee Chambers, CEO of Male Allies UK, shared another statistic that caught my attention: 41% of men believe EDI has gone too far.
Whether we agree with that view or not, both the survey and the stats point towards something worth paying attention to. There are people who feel uncertain, frustrated, blamed, cautious, or simply unsure how to have the conversation.
In my line of work, I am interested in our capacity to receive feedback, and I sum up the problem as this:
The quality of feedback we receive is only as good as our capacity to receive it.
Discussion host Danna Walker spoke about increasing our capacity for feedback and focusing on impact, behaviour and language rather than the individual. I suspect this is where many of these conversations begin to break down.
Most of us like to think of ourselves as fair-minded people. Respectful people. Inclusive people. So when somebody points out a bias, a blind spot, or an unintended impact, it can feel like a challenge to who we are.
We defend ourselves. We explain. We justify. Or we quietly disengage.
Yet if we can't let our view of ourselves be questioned, it becomes very difficult to learn anything new.
Perhaps that's why so many people worry about saying the wrong thing. Not because they don't care. Not because they don't want inclusion. But because these conversations sometimes ask us to examine parts of ourselves we'd rather leave unquestioned.
The future of inclusion may depend less on having the perfect words and more on developing the capacity to stay engaged when we feel uncomfortable, challenged, or wrong.
This is a human skill. And increasingly, a leadership skill.
Perhaps the question isn't whether people care enough to have these conversations. Perhaps it's whether we're helping them develop the skills to have them well.