A more equitable and collaborative society: my approach to consulting

At the start of the year I became a ‘People & Culture’ consultant and started a new venture called ‘Collaborative Future’. Aside from bringing in a basic income to pay my bills, and having flexibility to look after my daughter, the purpose of my work is to help create a more equitable and collaborative society.

Whether it’s facilitating the occasional workshop, or coaching an entire organisation on their culture and practices, I always maintain that one of my core focuses in any engagement should be ‘Diversity & Inclusion’. I pride myself on ensuring that every job I take on is ultimately about creating a more inclusive environment — however small and short-lived that environment may be.

However, my approach to consulting is not simply focussed on diversity & inclusion for the sake of it. It is my belief that what ultimately holds us back from having an equitable and collaborative society fundamentally comes down to the question of ‘access’. Whether it’s the unequal treatment that someone experiences in an interview due to bias. Whether it’s the connections someone has been fortunate enough to have been gifted or developed that cause them to get further in life than others. Or perhaps how the simple privilege of being able to more access London more easily has meant someone’s earning power has been increased substantially in comparison to other people.

And it is this question of access that has lead me to create my first ever vision and mission for Collaborative Future:

Vision: A more equitable and collaborative world.

Mission: To build more inclusive communities and teams by making knowledge and networks more freely accessible.

I want to ensure I set an example from the very start of my consulting career in relation to my mission. This means that I will strive to make my work as transparent and accessible as possible to people within your organisation in order to ensure that anyone can continue to build upon it long after any paid-for engagement. It also means that when I develop training resources around facilitation, inclusion, collaboration, agile ways of working etc I will find ways to share them freely via newsletters, blogs, events or videos — even if they form a core part of a paid-for service. And importantly when I am approached with a paid-for opportunity that I think may be the perfect first gig for someone else, would better suit their skills, or might help them to make a connection that will be really fruitful for them in the future, then I will refer the work on to that person (much like many kind souls have already done for me in the past few months).

It does not mean that I will do unpaid work for organisations who can afford to pay — as this will only make it harder for others who are less privileged to access paid work. Nor does ‘freely accessible’ mean that I want to push the organisations I work with to make their services 'free' — but rather to encourage them to evaluate what the cost of accessing their services/ their knowledge/ their networks means in relation to privilege, and explore when it is necessary to create a more collaborative relationship where people can contribute in varying ways that fit with their circumstances in return for the same level of “access” as others.

This may sound like a scary approach to take as a self-employed person whose income is already precarious but at the end of the day I simply need to make enough money to pay my bills and support my family. Beyond that I want to use the knowledge and networks I have been blessed with to make society a better place — not just hoard them for myself. And I believe that through taking a more collaborative approach as a consultant I will be setting an example to others and demonstrating to them the value of creating a more equitable and collaborative society.

I’d love your help to develop this thinking and I’d also be interested in hearing from people who might want to work with me!

You can email me at tessa@collaborativefuture.co.uk or just leave me a comment below!