I am loving the Corporate Rebels audiobook. It is well recommended. 

It is fresh, smartly written and well researched, and it leans into actual real examples to show that work can be fun.

What jumps off the page, or out the earphones to be more exact. Is the fact that you can have all the values and principles in the world and demonstrate that you do have by producing a glorious marketing blurb, but…

It is a f*cking big BUT here, buuuuuut, if you lose sight of that image at the front end of the business, it matters not a jot what you claim. 

There is no point in screaming from the heavens that you are building a workplace for inclusion and diversity. You value the planet or believe in recycling everything to reduce your carbon footprint, etc., when at the sharp end of the business, this does not happen. 

If what you say and do are two different things, even if the difference is only in the margins, then it is still not stacking up. 

To then strive to justify that gap by then saying ‘that’s life!’ then that is a travesty. Because it doesn’t have to be ‘just life’… we can change it if we set a mind to action for change. 

People in authority should be working to change it and should be working in the margins. Big, bold statements are easy to make. Getting into the margins is where the real work has to be done. That is not so easy.

The margin is where the big statements are boiled down to real life. Real-life, for many, is where the values live and breathe, where they take root.

There must be fundamental principles at the core of each value that any business or person claims to have. If you claim inclusion and diversity, but people are bullying in the pursuit of that, that doesn’t stack up. 

If you declare that you are out to save the planet but consume more than many and do not engage in the full scope of protecting the earth, you are making a fraudulent claim. 

If you say you are into recycling and reducing your carbon footprint, but you are supping from a can of coke through a plastic straw while carrying a plastic bag full of clothes newly bought from Primark, then maybe, just maybe, you are missing the f*cking point.

Hypocrisy is everywhere today. It is usually selling you a falsely calming, reassuring dream state or forcing up your temperature so that the owner of that message can pick your pocket.

“I don’t trust people who don’t love themselves and tell me ‘I love you.’… There is an African saying which is: ‘Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.'” 

Maya Angelou

I am a hypocrite because I also say one thing and do the other (sometimes).

No one, no organisation is perfect, I get that. But at least aim to get into the margins. That is where we can see the accurate alignment.

I am going to try and improve on my hypocritical behaviour by getting into my own margins.

It would be hypocritical of me not to.

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