How Arup are shaping a better world with Loraine Martins, OBE

Jacqueline Conway  00:00

Was it like, five or six weeks ago we spoke? Was it something like that?

Loraine Martins  00:03

Yes, yeah.

Jacqueline Conway  00:05

Have you been since then, towards

Loraine Martins  00:06

the beginning of May? Yeah, yeah. All right. I mean, it’s incredibly busy. I don’t know if it ever will not be busy, but it’s been, yeah, just very, very busy at the moment, just finalizing our strategy, making changes to the shape of the team, yeah, and doing stuff really. So yeah. Fully fully occupied.

Jacqueline Conway  00:31

Very good. Fully occupied. Well, Lorraine, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. Really delighted to have you here and keen to speak to you personally, and also interested to hear more about Arup, which is an organization which I have admired for a long time. So it would be great to start by, perhaps you just telling us a little bit about yourself, kind of who you are, a little bit about your background and how you come to be in this role as Global Equity and Diversity and Inclusion director at Arup.

Loraine Martins  01:09

Brilliant, well. Jacqueline, honestly, thank you so much for inviting me to join the podcast. So I’ve been at Arup since October 23 in what is a kind of new role as the Global Equity, Diversity and Inclusion director, and the role really is about giving us a kind of cohesive narrative and strategic direction for our work around EDI in particular, and is kind of building on some of the work that we’ve done regionally across different parts of the business and setting the direction for the Future. So Arup is an engineering sustainability sustainable development organization. We’re about 79 years old, so we’re named after our founder, OVAE Arup. We’re very values driven business. So you know, our mantra and desire is to shape a better world, and we do that through the built environment. You’ve got something like 20,000 employees across five regions. So that’s UK, India, the Middle East and Africa, Europe, the Americas, Australasia and East Asia. And I guess our approach, in a sense, is about building one Arab so not necessarily one as a kind of global takeover, but more as a kind of consistency of sets of principles. That would mean that we are shaping a better world, not only for our clients, but also for ourselves in terms of how we work and the communities that we serve. So yeah, having been here for a brief sojourn and having accepted the Mission Impossible, which just to try and create a strategy that gave us the North Star, I’m really looking forward to the next part of that, which is about implementation and delivery. And I came to Arup. I’ve known Arup a bit, a bit like you. Have kind of been an admirer of Arup for for at least, I don’t know, 12 or so years. I came into contact with Arup when I was working on the construction of the Olympic Park. And so I met people in Arup who also working on it. I, at that time, was head of equality, inclusion, jobs and skills for the Olympic Delivery Authority. And so we were responsible for building the stage, and I know you had my colleague Steve frost speak before, who was responsible for the actual shows, for the actual games. So I worked on the other side. You know, building a city within the city, and Arup were one of the delivery partners. And when I left the Olympic Delivery Authority, I did some freelance work with Arup. In fact, they sent me to do some work in South Africa and other parts, to do some stakeholder engagement work, which was fantastic, but I didn’t join them. At that time, I joined Network Rail, where I was the director of EDI for Network Rail for 10 years. That hadn’t been the intention Jacqueline, I’d started again, much to kind of help Network Rail set out its store for EDI, which was new to to Network Rail, and new, I think, to the rail sector generally, and really building on what I’ve learnt in terms of working on the construction of the Olympic Park, it wasn’t too much of a stretch to kind of take that learning into an environment which was around the infrastructure of our country. So I. Did that for Yeah, started off with the first strategy, wrote The second strategy. So by the time two strategies in, I was like, Oh, my God, I’ve been here 10 years. It might be time to change. So I went and did a kind of freelance, not freelance. I joined a consultancy firm called Nichols, which is a great boutique transformation, a strategic transformation consultancy that also works in infrastructure and in in that relationship, I rekindled my connection with Arup. So Arup were my client, and they did say, at the first time of reestablishing our relationship, you’re going to join us, sir. And I said, Oh no, no, no, I’m very busy here. But I guess over the course of our exchanges and getting to see the organization, I’ve been in a privileged position to kind of, you know, see it and say, Actually, this is, this is a great place to be, because it’s values driven, because of the work that we do, because the levels of creativity and innovation and intellectual rigor, it’s just been a really fantastic place to be in. So, yeah, I’m here, I think, eight months into, into my sojourn and setting the direction of travel for the next period. Yeah,

Jacqueline Conway  06:19

lovely. Thanks for that. And I’m keen to sort of pull on the thread of this goal or mission, of shaping a better world that Arup has. And what, what? What does that mean? I mean, how does that manifest itself in multiple ways in Arup?

Loraine Martins  06:44

That’s a brilliant question. So I talked in the instruction about the Arab being a values driven business, and in what we refer to as the key speech, which was written by OVAE Arup, who was both an engineer and a bit of a philosopher, talks about the kind of purpose of work, and that you know you want to do useful work for useful gains and to influence the kind of environment you’re in, because that’s actually how people derive value. And so we we talk about shaping a better world from the perspective of we influence the built environment and how it’s physically shaped and how it’s how it’s used. So in doing that and being really committed to sustainability and the environment, how can we utilize our skills and innovation and all of our acumen to make that come to fruition? So as engineers, and if we’re thinking about sustainable development, we will think about our impact on the environment, and that environment is both physical, but also for the people that interact with that environment. So how do we make sure that we’re we’re liaising and working with our clients and communities such that they own the kind of end product of what we’ve developed, and therefore, through that ownership will derive even more value from from the assets that we leave or the facilities that we we leave. So if you think about creating better access to to water, provisional better access to transport. How can you make that such that it impacts everybody, as opposed to an exclusive group of people who might utilize that? So our challenge is to think about how we integrate that in everything that we do, integrate that in the products that we do. We devise into integrate that into the discussions and exchanges we have with our clients, and integrate it in our kind of exchanges with ourselves. So it’s one of our key kind of foundations. It’s also informed by the sustainable development goals that the UN has established, and so that gives us a kind of backdrop to saying, actually, how are we fulfilling those, those sustainable development goals, and how are they manifesting in what we do? So I think that’s how it that’s how it lives. And I guess our challenge is to build that consistency in that manifestation of what we do. And our challenge to our clients as well is, you know, so how are you doing? How are you engaging with communities who might traditionally be excluded from, from those exchanges, or who may be excluded inadvertently, because actually, you hadn’t considered the kind of impact. So I think, I think we done some really great things in that space. And it’s a, I think, a growing area, not only for Arup but but for everybody who’s working in the built environment. Yes, does that make sense? Absolutely,

Jacqueline Conway  09:52

it makes perfect sense. And and of course, there’s what resonated for me, is that that i. Dear of shaping a better world that you are, the conversations that you’re having around that externally would be equally important internally and in the role that you’re having. So how does the role that you have come to occupy have a really direct link to that foundational mission of shaping a better world.

Loraine Martins  10:25

Oh, that’s, that’s absolutely brilliant. So it has particular relevance because it’s, it’s about helping us articulate, as I talked about, a little bit, that that North Star. So you know, the kind of direction of travel that we want to go in. So if we want to shape a better world, we need to have the commensurate talent and access to expertise and budding expertise and future expertise by being an inclusive environment that welcomes difference, that builds on innovation. So without that, without that, actually we’re going to be less innovative, less creative. So we know that we need to make sure that there aren’t any impediments to access to us as a business for potential future talent and expertise. So that’s the bit about how we attract, retain and keep our people. And then there’s a bit about shaping a better world in terms of the culture that we have. So, you know, how are our behaviors commensurate with shaping a better world? How inclusive are we? How respectful are we? How do we challenge in really constructive ways? What is the shadow that our leaders cast in the environment? What are the ways in which we can get the best out of our clients, and again, it’s thinking about things like psychological safety, thinking about the composition of your teams, thinking about how you engage with with each other, that creates that environment in which people can thrive and be themselves and feel that they can challenge and offer new solutions that we may not have thought about. So the culture has to be right in order to shape a better world. And then it manifests itself also, as we just mentioned, in terms of how we engage with our clients. And some of our clients will be ahead of us. And, you know, kind of stretching our our capacity to kind of shape their and influence and deliver their ambitions and other clients will be less au fait or less experienced about delivering inclusive environments. So how can we help doing, doing that and create, you know, enable our clients to do better and to marry in with our our our values and our mission, and then the final output then is that the impact on the communities. So thinking about the physical accessibility of a space and how people use it, and engaging them in shaping that space also helps us to deliver a better world, and that for our engineers is a really tangible thing. So it’s almost more tangible than saying how we interact. It’s like, actually, this physical thing that I’m doing has a direct impact on a whole raft of communities. How can I make sure that that impact isn’t adverse and actually enables, you know, as wide a participation or ownership as possible? So our strategy is for EDI in particular. It’s called from EDI to belonging, and kind of sets out the direction that we want to get to, and attests to shaping a better world through our people, through our culture, through our clients, and through our communities, and that’s how we kind of woven the story, the story in. And I’d like to also say Jacqueline, it comes also through in developing the strategy, we interviewed all of our trustees, all of our group board, all of the leadership board, the officers to the board, we have connect networks, which are commonly known as employee resource groups. We interviewed all of all of those cohorts to get a sense of what the aspirations and vision was for us in terms of delivering EDI how we would know what success would look like, and therefore creating ownership of the direction of travel. And all of you know, you speak to different people now, they will all say, Yeah, we’re here to shape a better world, and it looks like this. And so the strategy really has enabled us to have a kind of single version, a narrative of what that looks like if we’re delivering equity, diversity and inclusion, and moving towards an environment where belonging is that is, is much more palpable and felt by everybody that that is connected to Arab lovely

Jacqueline Conway  14:51

and so you’re talking about, then, the engagement with those really key stakeholders at senior parts of the. Organization those, whether it’s trustees or group board, what role in an ongoing way? Because it’s one thing to ask, isn’t it the beginning of a process, but it’s another thing for them to, in some way embody. You know, their sponsorship is the way that they show up every single day, the way that they have different conversations. So I’m wondering what else from having engaged them they see as their responsibility in getting alongside the agenda that you’ve just outlined, particularly as it relates to the EDI space.

Loraine Martins  15:38

Yeah, so I’ve been really impressed with the level of engagement and indeed ownership of the EDI agenda Arup. And which is not to talk Arup up, but to say that, you know, there’s a real desire to be excellent at whatever we do, and this is one of the things that we really want to be excellent at. And so the role of all of the trustees and the board, and, you know, I’ve kind of encountered that in their in speaking to them, is that they want to lead and be seen as leading the agenda. They want to augment their own skills be clearer on their own skills and their own behaviors and their own interactions such that it can be seen. And which is not to say without where, without flaws or falls, but to say actually, we do very clearly want to be better in this space. And what we’ve also said is that the accountabilities are really for everyone. So whilst we you know, we concentrate on the leadership, and we know that the leadership sets the tone, casts a shadow for the environment, we’re also saying that everybody’s going to be accountable for creating this environment. So the frameworks that we have enable and can enable that exchange and interaction that says, actually, this is an area where we need to do better on let’s start to improve. And we’re using the kind of say, using in the most positive way, our leadership as part of the trial to enable that to happen. And an example of that would be we’ve asked all of our trustees and board members to undertake inclusive hiring training so that they are integrating those principles in their hiring when they’re hiring individuals, we’re undertaking an inclusive leadership assessment, which we’re piloting with the board, and so they will get some feedback on their skills and their areas for strength and their areas for improvement, again, with a view to saying, actually, you know, we do it, then we can actually commend it to others and encourage others, because we are actually leading by example. So it’s, that’s the direction of travel and and the board haven’t bought at doing that. They haven’t. It hasn’t been a fight to say, you must. It’s, you know, there’s a real willingness. And I think that’s what I found quite refreshing. So the discussion hasn’t been about why we’re doing it. It’s been, how can we do it most effectively, and also what, what can I do? And that makes for a really good, yeah, a good environment in which to begin our next iteration of this journey towards belonging. Yeah,

Jacqueline Conway  18:39

lovely. I want. So I love all of that, and I want to pick up on something you said earlier that’s just sort of rattling around in my head. I’ve got a real curiosity about it. And so you’ve you’re in five regions and five geographies so that, so you’re all over the world. And you talked about consistency. And of course, it’s really important to have some consistency in some things. And yet isn’t part of what Equity Diversity and Inclusion is about, is also accepting the difference of those places, the fact that you know, what we’re not aiming for, assuming is, is some sort of homogenization, but, but you’re but, so how, how do you grapple with, you know, having enough consistency or consistency in the places that it matters, and allowing for a space for the kind of beautiful uniqueness that happens in different places.

Loraine Martins  19:50

That’s like the $64 million question,

Jacqueline Conway  19:54

just a nice, easy one.

Loraine Martins  19:55

It’s beautiful, and it’s what attracted me to. In Arab. So I think there are some core principles, core values, that ought to remain true wherever you are in Arab, regardless of the geography or or the legislative framework. You know, treating people with respect, with care, with those things remain true wherever you are in Arab so if we’ve kind of agreed those things, then that’s actually the kind of backdrop to creating consistency and how they manifest in different environments. Is as much to our capacity to have what we talk about as one of our inclusive leadership traits, which is around it, cultural humility as it is about anything else. And when we talk about that, we’re more conscious now I think that there is that, you know, we could have a dominant culture which is westernized, potentially UK because we emanated out of the UK, and yet we are in all of these different environments. So how do we create a space where we are learning about our own culture and how that impacts other cultures, and equally, learning about other cultures so that they it’s so that we recognize, you know, culture is not a fixed thing. It’s, it’s something that ebbs and flows and changes, and because some cultures may be more vocal than others, or there may be different levels of respect for hierarchies in others, it doesn’t, it’s not a pejorative. It’s, it’s simply different. So we’ve got some work to do to get to that cultural humility, which I think is good work, and it’s good for us as a discipline, because it makes you reflect on your own culture. And when you’re you are being the dominant culture actually, is that appropriate? And there’s small things, I think Jacqueline that manifest that. So you know timings of meetings. If you’re highly UK centric, then your timing is in the ascendancy. But actually, if you’re more inclusive, then you can vary the times that those meetings happen if you’re working virtually. So there’s small signifiers that we can all give that indicate that we are respecting of different cultures based on the kind of core principles of respecting each other and, you know, guiding each other and wanting to shape a better world. So that’s the kind of theory, and we’ve got some frameworks that sit behind that, but I guess that’s a that’s an iterative process for us, because I don’t think we’re used to looking at from a western point of view. We’re not used to looking at our own culture and saying, Actually, we are the dominant culture. What do we need to do differently in order for that to change? And I think that’s what’s quite exciting, because it’s then it gives better. Whether I’ve gotten heard is parity amongst different cultures. They you know, they’re just different. They are not lesser or better. They are just different. So our capacity to reflect on our own influence and our own behaviors and how that might manifest on others is really important, and one of the ways that we’re beginning to think about that is we’ve got a development program, which we call the accelerator Arup program, which is for what we call global ethnic minority majority colleagues. So they can be black, Asian or minority ethnic colleagues. We chose that cohort of sort of mid, mid managers, because that seems to be the area where there’s the greatest blockage, and part of what we’re doing in with that cohort, as a pilot is has been looking at the different cultural experiences and histories that the global majority ethnic colleagues bring, juxtaposed to that of their leaders who are traditionally white and or male. So actually, it’s been a really great learning experience, because the dominant culture in terms of our leadership, a learning actually, actually, I think I might have interpreted that differently, because the perspective that I’ve come from is solidly mine. And actually, how can I open up my own appreciation skills to access more that the kind of talent that I have with me. So it’s ongoing work, but I’m trying to offer that as a response to actually, how do you do it? It’s iterative. You have to have some humility about your own culture and space and and own that and a willingness and openness to accept other cultures for what they are, backed up by a set of principles that say, actually, this is the fundamentals, regardless of where you are in the world,

Jacqueline Conway  24:50

and some of those things will happen in a space that’s quite personal for people. So you if you start to shift your perspective about. Are others, whatever that others might be, and you start to be more open and welcoming and and, you know, you make a shift that that’s quite subtle. In some ways, it can be quite difficult to know how are we doing. So, I mean, how will you know how you’re doing?

Loraine Martins  25:21

Yeah, I think it’s that’s a combination of things Jacqueline, so, you know, we’re trying to build a culture of feedback so that you can genuinely and consciously give people helpful feedback in the moment that was really good when you asked me that question, or actually, when you asked me that question, if you’d asked it in this way, I might have answered it slightly differently. It’s a skill, an underdeveloped skill, that a lot of us have anyway, regardless of where you were, but developing that enables you to know where you are. So as a leader, I you know, I’m not a hero. I’m gonna I’m gonna be sufficiently vulnerable to say, this is what I’d like to do. How is it landing permission to help me be better and create that environment in which, you know, others can say to you, right? Actually, that didn’t quite work for me. Could you think of that? And similarly, when I’ve done something well as a leader, actually, yeah, you know, that landed really well. Thank you. So it’s, it’s, it’s changing some of our ways of interacting and helping people to know that actually, these are the things that can assist each other in growing to create that inclusive space. So if you come from a culture that’s not used to giving that feedback, then you recognize actually might see in a different way, which is, actually, there’s a there’s a kind of manifestation in ideas coming out in a different way to how they might have traditionally been expected to come Hopefully, I’ve explained that clearly. But you know, you you encourage that exchange and that sharing so that you do know that you’re doing well, and then you had the harder ways of doing it, which is, over time, integrating these requirements into our appraisal processes, into our development plans, so that you are, you know, very intentional in measuring and saying, actually, well, Lorraine, you said you were going to engage with a range of different people. Have you done it? Oops, no, I haven’t. Okay. Must do better. Oh, yes. Have done it? Fantastic. Then you go on to the next iteration. So you get a combination of the kind of soft stuff, which is, you know, how we interact with each other, how we enable each other to recognize who’s not in the room, which voices are the quietest voices, how we’ve engaged checking people did that work for you was that, you know, was that in that interaction positive? How could I do it differently and better through to actually, in your development plan, Lorraine, you said you were going to do these things X. Amount of them been done. So let’s, let’s crack on and do those that haven’t been attended to. Yeah.

Jacqueline Conway  28:05

Okay, great. I’d like to shift gear a little bit and zoom out a little bit from our app and talk about this EDI space more generally. So we’ve, we’ve had a couple of people on the podcast who’ve been speaking about this, and one of the things that others have spoken about is the sense that, I mean, it’s a long journey, so you’re playing a long game, aren’t you, in some in some ways, and what that’s like to and where you think you know have Have there been wider shifts? Are you seeing that you know, as you step back and look out that we are moving in the right direction, and where does it feel like the focus needs to be now and next, rather than perhaps where we have been?

Loraine Martins  29:01

Yeah, at its crude sometimes I describe EDI is a bit like investments. They can go up and they can go down. You know, you make your investment, it can go up and then it can and that’s, I think, a corollary for understanding that, as you said, it is the long haul. We make some progress, and then things feel like we’ve kind of got stasis, if not, maybe potentially going backwards. And I say that in the context of, if we look over the just the last three or four years, where I think there’s been an increased focus on EDI, with the metoo movement, the murder of George Floyd, we saw and covid, even how covid impacted different communities around the world, around the world, it kind of gave us a heightened sense of inequality. Expertise and disparities amongst different communities. And then that’s followed by a kind of retraction, which is actually, oh, we think there’s too much focus. There’s just too much of it going on. And how can we wheel back? And actually, some of the problems are created by immigration, for example, which becomes a bit of a dog we saw for for, yeah, less, I think less, less progressive ways of working. So I think we’re coming in where we’re in the kind of maelstrom of that kind of backlash to the progress that was made, which is always going to be, it’s always going to be iterative. It’s always going to be, you make a bit of progress, and then you go back. I think the more that businesses in particular are embedding EDI into the values of the business and into the the the day to day. This is what we do as business, the more secure, for want of a better word, or the more integrated it becomes as part of what part and parcel what you do. And that confidence can be wavered by the political environment and the messages that are coming from, from from, from political leaders. It can also be impacted by, you know, future employees. So when we were thinking about our strategy, we know that, you know, future generations are really looking at businesses and saying, What are you doing on EDI, we want you know, what are your credentials? What is your direction? What have you said? What’s the demonstration and manifestation of your commitments, and using that to make decisions about which businesses they connect to. So if we, if we’re armed with that, then that’s that’s important. So I think your question kind of asked, you know, what’s the future direction? Having better evidence about what we’re doing and what we need to do is really important. So the data around the demographics, the impact in terms of EDI on attrition, retention, promotions, so it’s fact based. It’s not about altruism. It’s all about actually, there may be, there’s some trends in here that say to us, something’s not quite right. What are we doing about it? And then, and then being, being quite robust, so that that need and use of data, I think, is really important. I think the evidence of, you know, all of the evidence that that I’ve come across, clearly demonstrates that where you have more diverse employees in your in your business, your innovation and creativity increases. So if that’s the case, then why? Why isn’t that something that you’re you’re attending to to make sure that you have that edge? It informs your decision making. It informs, you know, your strategic direction, all of those things I think, are really important, the links with sustainable development. You know, if you want to have, you know, sustain, if you want to sustain the environment, you have to think about who is impacted by the things that you do and how those impacts are manifest. So again, for me, it’s part and parcel of the business, and I think underpinning all of that is the culture. So what culture do you want your business to have? And again, inclusive cultures create. You know, they create innovation. They create productivity. You get that discretionary effort from people who feel that they belong in an environment more so than if they feel that they’re at odds with environment. So it kind of behooves us to one rehearse those things all the time, cyclically, but also then to use the evidence that we have within our businesses to demonstrate what we’re doing to enable us to make, make a better, a better, safer, better world. And it will be iterative, because where times are hard, it feels easier to cut the kind of learning development bit or the EDI bit, because actually, that feels tangential, and I think that that is mistaken, because it’s at that point actually where you do need the creativity and innovation to kind of get you out of the challenges of having less resource, you know, and How you manage that resource. So, so for me, yeah, I guess what gives me resilience is understanding that it really is, you know, something that goes up goes down. It has a fashion. It changes over time. The language is always in evolving. The focus is always changing and and the capacity. To align EDI with the business that you’re involved in, I think helps you to ride those crests of waves and integrate it as part and parcel of what we do. Does that answer your question?

Jacqueline Conway  35:13

It does Yes. It’s beautiful, really lovely answer. And I you’ve mentioned the UN sustainability goals a couple of times, and I’m wondering what I mean. How do you actually work productively with them?

Loraine Martins  35:32

So we have some work that is, that is of clear manifestation of them. So we have a team that works on community engagement, which looks specifically at the different communities that we interact with across the world. So that might be looking at gender, it might be looking at race and ethnicity, it might be looking at social mobility, excuse me, and so we’ve got very specific projects in our community development portfolio that respond to that directly, and then, because of our profiling and promotion of sustainable development, it picks up those goals, where it where, where we’re required. So we report annually on how we’re delivering to those goals and to those aspects that are set out in the in the SDG commitments, and that the ones that I’ve mentioned are really specific in terms of SSC and gender and social mobility, specific to EDI and the others are also around, you know, the environment and education and 17 of them. And I know you don’t want me to tell you all 17, but it’s what we’ve done in adopting them is kind of like laying in our colors to the Mars, yeah, and saying these are the things that we want to deliver on, and by reporting on that, we’re kind of helping to demonstrate our commitment and being transparent on that. Does that help?

Jacqueline Conway  37:12

Yes, yeah, absolutely. And I’m thinking, I’m wondering, if you’ve heard of the inner development goals, which are a set of inner principles. So the way that one would need to develop internally in order to be outwardly facing towards the UN sustained sustainability goals. Because, of course, we can’t do those things externally unless we’re also attending to what’s happening with us internally, our capacity for collaborating, or our capacity for being kind of emotionally resilient, those sorts of things.

Loraine Martins  37:54

I hadn’t actually but I know that we’ve done we’re doing a lot of work on our own kind of skills to help us deliver sustainability and to get us into the space that in terms of our leadership, to drive these things. And one of the things is around psychological safety and how how our leaders show up and engage and create environments in which our colleagues can do their best work and also challenge us. And we’re doing work. We’ve got a program, we’ve got a program on sustainable development, which, again, is Riven with the values of inclusive leadership, empathy Ei, emotional intelligence. So, yeah, so we’re doing that, but I hadn’t heard of the inner development goal. So I’ll go and have a little.

Jacqueline Conway  38:53

Yeah, yeah. I’ll send, I’ll send you some. I’ll send you something just to, yeah, to make that thank you. Yeah. So, um, so I guess then I’m, you know what? So you’ve come in, you, you’re in the process of developing this, this strategy, what feels really alive for you right now? What? What are the areas where your own personal energy feels really up for what you’re what you’re seeing in our up.

Loraine Martins  39:26

I’m really excited by two things, our inclusive leadership approach and rolling that out in in the business, and the fact that we want to link it to our leadership capability such that it then becomes, you know, inclusive leadership is one of the aspects that we expect all of our managers, all of our leaders, to have. So I’m really excited by that, and then rolling out the training and this skills building around that, because I just. Think that that’s going to influence our culture exponentially. It’s just going to have a real positive impact on our environment and how we engage with each other and how we enable each other to be even better. So that’s really exciting, and part of that is also our focus on our safety culture, and we are looking to enhance that. And the element that’s, I think, gathering really great pace in our business is around psychological safety. And so we’re doing some really interesting work about, how do you create psychological safety environments, and how do you enable the culture to be one that is safe and to have a speak out culture such that people feel that they there won’t be an adverse impact on them if they do speak up and speak out. And those two things, you align them. You know you’ve got an inclusive leadership. You’ve got sex. You create a safe a safe culture, physically for and emotionally for our colleagues. And then I guess for me, the output of that, or the the outcome of that, is an environment which is more vibrant and sharing and challenging in a really active, active way, but also it’s confident that if things are not how you want them to be, there is a mechanism for addressing them constructively, and it will be followed through. So those are the things that I’m really kind of excited about at the moment, because there’s a really good appetite. And I think when you come in new into a business, because you’re new, everybody kind of comes to you. My experience at Arab people are really excited to come and find out what you’re doing and create those alliances and allegiances. And it’s just been really refreshing the commonalities that are around the shift and drive in this direction in the business. So those are the things that kind of exciting. Well,

Jacqueline Conway  42:05

that’s just that sounds absolutely wonderful. I love all of that. And I also really love the sense of, you know, we’re not all going to get it right all of the time, but if there’s, if there’s enough safety for people to try, and there’s a sense of accepting people’s motives are positive. Then, you know, because I think that then, then, then that vibrancy that you’re talking about, you know, the the ability and the culture to try things and for it to move and and and be dynamic, is, is is enabled by that, isn’t it? But, you know, it’s when people feel like they need to hold themselves back, or, Oh, I’m wondering if that’s the right thing to see, where we’re self censoring and doing those sorts of things. That is really runs counter to that vibrancy that you’re talking about.

Loraine Martins  42:57

Absolutely, absolutely Jacqueline, and we’re not there yet. So I don’t want anybody listening to this to think that, you know, I’m painting a perfect picture, but it is very much about us recognizing that’s actually where we want to be, and that we know we’ve got pockets of really, really great practice where we can see it and other areas that we want to we want to improve. So I think it’s evidencing that and enabling us to share that more proactively, and living out our values even more rigorously. That gets us to that, to that space. But, yeah, absolutely that. That’s the direction of travel.

Jacqueline Conway  43:33

Fantastic, fantastic. Well, Lorraine, thank you so much. I mean, I think we’ve, I think we’ve got it all. I mean, we can, I can edit some, some things in this, but actually think kind of most of it’s there. But, I mean, I’ll obviously edit this little BIT bit out, but I’ll just ask. Then lastly, if there’s anything that I ought to have asked you, that you would have you had wanted to talk about that, I’ve not asked you. I

Loraine Martins  44:06

I believe you’ve asked me everything that I thought we were going to talk about. She said, I don’t think that there are any gaps. So we we’ve talked about the strategy, talked a little bit about how I got into Arup we’ve talked about the kind of director of travel, what our aspirations are. I think, I think you’ve done a great job. Jacqueline,

Jacqueline Conway  44:26

well, actually, you made it so easy, because I have to say you were so articulate, and your answers were so sort of, you know, fulsome, but also tight, and it was just like, well, that’s great. So I think that’s fantastic. Thanks. Thanks so much, lyrian, so I’ll tell you what happens now, and I’ll just stop the or.