The Hidden System Protecting Workplace Abuse with Zelda Perkins

0:00The Harvey Weinstein story was on the cusp of coming out. and I spoke to the New York Times journalist who wrote that first story and I told them everything. But I also thought that from that story, that initial New York Times story, potentially other women would come forward with NDAs. And I genuinely thought that would happen, but it didn't. Zelda Perkins' courage didn't just change the law, it inspired a global movement. As the first woman to break an NDA with Harvey Weinstein, She exposed the misuse of NDAs and sparked a worldwide conversation about power, silence and justice. Through Can't Buy My Silence, she's helped the UK government reform NDA laws to protect victims of harassment and discrimination.

0:45Yes, Weinstein was a heinous abuser, but the whole point is that it's the system that enabled him. When somebody feels or has had an injustice, the most important thing is for them to be heard and seen. zelda thank you so much for coming on the show i am honored we've got your time today and i know already this is going to be such a powerful episode because when i think of courage and i look at what you've achieved and done that for me just sums up courage um so thank you first i just want to say for everything you've done and for those that might not be so familiar would you mind just starting is what it is you've been campaigning for and how it all began yeah of course and thanks very much for having me.

1:29I have run a campaign called Can't By My Silence and I campaign against the misuse of NDAs, not the total ban of NDAs, just the misuse of NDAs and that was born out of me having signed a very very onerous and egregious NDA when I was about 24 when I was working for Harvey Weinstein and he assaulted my assistant. I had worked for him for about five years. I knew that he was very difficult to deal with. He had never sexually assaulted me. I had suffered enormous amounts of sexual harassment but in the 90s we didn't have that vocabulary and I'm afraid to say it was fairly normal. You know what's interesting is Harvey's become the kind of poster ogre for sexual harassment but he certainly was not original or alone in that behavior and it still is going on today.

2:25I broke that NDA in 2017 and I broke it, I had tried to break it several times before but I broke it in 2017 because the Harvey Weinstein story was on the cusp of coming out and I spoke to the New York Times journalists who wrote that first story and I told them everything I broke my NDA I gave them all the information but they wouldn't they couldn't use me as a named source because they were too afraid themselves as the New York Times to break the NDA essentially they were protecting me That's nice. Yeah. But interestingly, once that story came out, I was so incensed, weirdly, in how little of the information that I had given them that they had used or been able to use legally, that I was determined then to break the NDA fully.

3:29but I also thought that from that story that initial New York Times story potentially other women would come forward with NDAs and I felt like if a whole bunch of us broke we'd be safer and I genuinely thought that would happen but it it didn't. I was also very keen to make sure that the focus of the story didn't just become the perpetrator. Yes, Weinstein was a heinous abuser, but the whole point is that it's the system that enabled him and that continues to enable. And right now we're in a huge scandal of the Epstein Prince Andrew issues, and it's the same thing. those in power can act with impunity we cannot change human nature we can change the systems we create these systems yeah we wrote law I mean humans are crazy they wrote law to protect themselves from themselves so you can change the law you can improve the law and we all have the power to do that and in a way we all have a duty to do that and maybe I shouldn't use the word duty But certainly, I think if you have a personal experience, it becomes not a duty.

4:48It becomes a must. Yeah. And I think when, you know, it's very kind of you to say that I'm courageous, but I always find it very problematic when people call what I did then brave. I mean, I try I called out Harvey at the time in 1998. 98 and what was so shocking for me was that I was shut down by the law I wasn't shut down by Harvey I was shut down by the law and that broke me as a young woman far more than the bad behavior of one man in power um so for me the story was always much more about the system yeah the systemic problem and so when the story broke in 2017 I wanted to make sure that everybody didn't just use Harvey as a scapegoat and that actually real change happened because whether Harvey was going to go to jail or not and we didn't know what was going to happen at that point I genuinely didn't think he would go to jail okay at that point um but whether he went to jail or not wasn't going to change the system it would just make people in power be a bit more careful or use the law even more deviously so i really wanted to draw the attention to what i felt was the root of the problem and that is as you say the root of the problem the root of the problem is massive that systemic issue is worldwide yeah and here where so this is where i probably use the word courage and I can understand you don't want people to maybe think that's maybe brave to maybe stop people doing it or thinking only certain people can do it that is that actually everyone can do it and this is the belief I have is everyone's got the courage within them it's actually helping people know just how to access that courage it doesn't belong to certain people we've all got it where did you sit there and go do you know what I'm going to take this on where did this come from or where did you even go how do I start with this oh it wasn't as it wasn't as thought out as that at all I mean for me it was just an essential need when I saw the New York Times story come out it to me it wasn't strong enough it wasn't clear enough and I felt like this was the moment potential moment of changing things and that I didn't think that article was going to do it I mean I'm looking now in hindsight I mean it went stratospheric the Me Too I mean although the Me Too movement was started by Tarana Burke a lot earlier that was a sort of second birth of the Me Too movement around Harvey and actually that's what protected me and that's what kind of gave me I suppose the the shields that if I had done what I had done without that I don't think I would be in the position that I'm in now.

7:40I genuinely think the reason that I managed to be so untouched essentially was because of that huge tsunami that tidal wave of me too which I just kind of surfed on yeah but I didn't have a strategy I mean my only strategy was actually very similar to when the initial event happened which was if I go and tell the grown-ups they'll deal with it I thought if I speak to lawyers or police or you know we'll we justice will be served and I was disavowed of that incredibly quickly and that was a horrible experience and I went through an experience that I would describe as legal waterboarding you know my colleague and I as young you know 20 year olds being taken through the negotiations of one of the most horrible settlement agreements you'll see which meant we weren't allowed to speak to the police our family our friends the HMRC a therapist you know we weren't allowed to speak to each other ever again and it ended up with actually making our lives completely impossible and both my colleague and I separately without speaking to each other because we weren't allowed to after we'd signed the agreement having to leave our homes having to leave the UK because we couldn't actually function under the strictures of that agreement.

9:08When you can't talk to your family and friends and you can't talk to a future employer, you don't realise that when you're signing the agreement, but the absolute, the ripple effect that that has on one's life in every area is beyond comprehension. Can you try and just describe a little bit of what a day would be like for you in terms of the thoughts and how you felt, just to kind of bring that to life for us? Because we can't, it's very difficult to imagine, what's that like to feel so constrained? well it's a sort of it's a slow creep you don't quite realize what happened until you know the dust begins to settle I mean even going through the negotiation process in itself was so terrifying and torturous you know I was a young very inexperienced girl I was 24 25 I'd never dealt with a lawyer I'd never you know been in a negotiation I thought if you if you called out a sexual assault that everyone would be on my side I wasn't expecting to be be felt like I was being criminalized I wasn't expecting expecting to be put under high high pressure and disapproval and scare tactics and you know we were kept in those legal offices overnight you know we did a session where we were having to negotiate from five in the afternoon to five in the morning I mean it's basically just breaking you down yeah and we were kept isolated we weren't allowed pen and paper I mean it was an extraordinary experience and then you know to get out of that to survive that you then you know just that and it's up and I couldn't talk to anybody when that was happening can you imagine going home just being shut and not being able to say to somebody I'm going through this negotiation because of these things and then I guess you think that when it's over then you'll be able to kind of express yourself in some way you don't understand that the impact that then once that's finished and our lawyer said to us you have to imagine that this is like a black hole in your life you just can't speak about anything around this moment this was also my my most proud job you know it was my first really successful job and I worked for Harvey for nearly five years and I did incredibly well with him because actually I had very strong boundaries with him because I was so young and inexperienced I didn't want anything from him I didn't really know who he was I didn't really I hadn't got into that job from an ambitious point of view I got into that job by mistake so I was again I was kind of kind of accidentally I seem to do everything by accident um accidentally I was very protected because to me what was the worst thing that could happen I'd get fired and at that point was my first job so I was like well so well I'll get another job you know when you're sort of 22 you don't really understand so I think ultimately my nature was was always underlying this you know when the assault happened I went straight to Harvey and confronted him you know I I led the fight in our negotiations that that's just part of my nature I guess I'm I'm I'm a naturally combative person but in terms of breaking the NDA in 2017 and then having to take on the battle because again in 2017 when I broke my NDA I thought I'll tell the grown-ups this time it wasn't the lawyers this time I was like okay if I can tell parliament and I mean literally I didn't even know the words I was like how do I tell the politicians how do I tell parliament about what's happened so that they can change the law that was all I had in my head and I was very lucky because I was interviewed on Newsnight by Emily Maitlis and God bless Emily Maitlis and God bless the BBC for editing it so beautifully which made me look fantastic because they could have edited it in a different way okay and I think that's something that people need to always be very aware of when they go into the public domain you know once you tell your story publicly and once you tell your story to the media you lose control of it immediately it's like a child it grows its own personality and it walks away from you and you can't control how that story develops or is developed by other people and so a lot of it his luck and I was very lucky because that interview went stratospherically you know wide and it reached a lot of MPs good and so I then had a immediate gateway into Westminster which I'd never ever experienced I've never been to Westminster I've never spoken to a MP and um I was again very fortunate because I got picked up and championed by some incredible ministers, incredible MPs, Maria Miller at the time being one of the first and Jess Phillips.

14:09And I had the opportunity to give evidence at two select committees. And I thought, oh, great, this is easy. Isn't isn't our democracy wonderful? I've told all the grownups, they've all been so shocked because they were everybody was so shocked. And for me, that was extraordinary because I had spent 20 years of my life thinking that I was the wrong one I was a baddie that I was in trouble but I was the problem and the validation of one the public and media but two MPs taking really seriously and saying what you did was right and what happened to you was wrong was enormous you're finally being seen yeah and I think for a lot of people that's that's often all they need they don't need it from the media but they need somebody to go yes what's happened to you was wrong yeah I see you I see you and we let's try and make that change yeah um you know and you can take that macro you know as big or small as you want that's all it's about when somebody feels or has had an injustice the most important thing is for them to be heard and seen and actually the sooner you hear someone and see them the less escalation there is around the problem.

15:24Yeah. You know, and I think that is a lesson going forward in the kind of employment environment that I very much see. Yeah. Just a quick reminder, if you haven't already, to please hit the like button and subscribe to the channel. It's a small action that makes a big difference. You'll be the first to know when new episodes drop and your support helps us create meaningful content for leaders like you. I'd also love to hear from you. So if you have any thoughts, questions or ideas, pop them into the comments. And if you're curious about how my leadership coaching or training could support you or your team, just drop me a DM and we'll set up a call.

16:00Thanks so much. Now let's get back to the episode. I hadn't kind of caught up with myself. You know, I was 45 when I broke my NDA in 2017. But I was still really retarded in that 25 year old's psychology and emotion and I still felt like a small very young woman with no power no voice I shouldn't really be there and I thought when I spoke to the select committees then that would be it and I'd go back to my my job working in theatre but of course what happened was everybody looked at me and was like yeah this is awful what are you kind of what are you gonna do what are you that you know obviously MPs have a thousand issues to deal with and they do an incredible job but you have to be the one pushing that lever the lever is there for all of us to access of democracy okay MPs work for us you know and I think we all forget that we all sit around complaining but there are employees we have a responsibility to guide them yeah and you know what I experienced and suddenly learnt was they really will work for you if you engage but you have to engage I don't guess you have to keep showing up and show that you keep showing up and that's not possible for everybody no it was possible for me because yet again I essentially lost my job I didn't lose my job but it was not it was not possible for me to work because I had three months of press camping camping outside my house of being part of several legal kind of cases that were going on the Weinstein case my own case against the solicitors regulatory authority um I was also you know we both myself and my colleague were looking if there were legal protection or legal loopholes around our agreement because we didn't know if we were going to be pursued by Weinstein or not so it was a very um turbulent complex time which continued for three years and the media heat continued for nearly three years and it didn't really stop until covid it was during covid that i realized that when and if covid and lockdown stopped now everything had gone back to zero we'd also had a government check or a leadership change and we'd gone from theresa may who had promised to stop the scourge of nda so again i thought marvelous isn't our democracy great it's all going to be done you know in a couple of years obviously Boris Johnson's government wasn't in his top priority to get rid of secret settlements you know as we know it's part of keeping the hierarchy of power in place and it's a tool that we know Boris Johnson has used personally let alone on you know larger level so it wasn't top of his list of things to deal with and it went back to zero went back to zero during covid and i think probably my the only moment that the first moment of real bravery for me was acknowledging and stepping forward into reigniting this as lockdown stopped and creating a public facing campaign with a silly name and i can't buy my phone yeah it's a brilliant name well but do you know what i mean like it's it yeah you know before it was just me doing doing the work yeah like basically i didn't change anything yeah it just it became an organization it became a a thing it had a slogan which i kind of not wanted to do i just wanted to deal with the people who could make the change and get on with it and i think i could have achieved that if there hadn't been a leadership change in government and if covid hadn't come but you know life doesn't happen as you wish you've put can't buy my silence out there now this is a campaign you're behind this this is like a really cause driven I'm guessing it's going to be taking up a lot of your time as well what was happening for you inside how are you coping with this how are you leading this this was the most challenging part and this is the part where I think maybe the tenacity or the having to be very robust actually had to come into play.

20:25Everything I'd done up to that point was reactive. You know, I was just following my gut completely. I wasn't talking to anybody about what to do or how to do it. I was just, you know, just running and pushing. With the campaign, I initially started it with a Canadian law professor. retired law professor who had some experience in campaigning so all of a sudden you know there was somebody to kind of discuss a form of strategy with I mean she very much was you know working in Canada and I was working in the UK we never physically met initially but I also was coming out of lockdown where I'd lost the person who brought me up my essentially my mother and my other closest female kind of friend.

21:18And so I was in a very, very vulnerable state. And I really didn't want to start the campaign, but I knew I had to. And I don't know if I would have had the strength to have done that if I hadn't been being pushed by a partner. Okay. So in many ways, you know, having that partner pushing was what pushed me over that line to do the public facing campaign but again in terms of strategy you know we it was interesting because I found any strategy conversations very frustrating because I was just like I just want to do and I kind of feel like I know what to do or I know what I feel like I want to do and I found a lot of the kind of strategic conversations um felt almost like time wasting and I think I think this is the big difference between um personally driven campaigning personal experience campaigning and sort of organizations you know looking after a cause I think when it's when you're campaigning from a personal experience it's a very different thing it was I mean the first the first year was incredibly challenging you know I was working on my own at home having spent what felt like two years isolated and alone already um and having to get up every morning and go and sit at my desk and essentially you know bite people's ankles endlessly um took an enormous amount of determination and strength I think a lot of that was just my internal personal need and drive that I had lost my anonymity I had again lost my career essentially by breaking my NDA because this had become my new identity whether I wanted it or not and for me there was no question of me stopping until I achieved the goal that I had set, which was to change the law, which because it had seemed so achievable in that first couple of years, I believed would be done.

23:32But to have lost so much, essentially, in terms of privacy, in terms of, I mean, just so many things. And I mean, even down to silly things like, you know for me seeing myself on camera having photographs taken hearing my voice I'm not that person and and on a personal level having to just tough that out and go I'm not liking any of this it makes me feel uncomfortable I hate seeing myself but I also understood the power that the bit of profile I had at that time had I didn't understand why I was like well this seems to be working I seem to speak to people you know I was being contacted by hundreds of women and men but mostly women and I felt at this point now I had a huge responsibility to them not just myself to make sure that this was done yeah so there was no question of not doing it but I can tell you what it took the majority of mornings I'd be I'd be crawling to my desk on my hands and knees wishing I wasn't having to do it yeah but not feeling I had a choice you had to because you used a term when we were speaking which stopped me in my tracks actually it's not a term I've used because we've talked about you know and I talk a lot about bullying in the organizations but when you said I actually realized I was bullying myself yeah and I think people listening to this might actually just a few people in the city oh my god that is what I'm doing to myself yeah when did you have that moment when you realized that's what you were doing well it's funny you know we have two brains I was very cognitively aware that I was being hard on myself but I also felt like well who else is going to drive me if I'm not beating myself up and if I'm not there going you're not doing enough you know you've got to be on it more you can't feel low and not do stuff there isn't an excuse there isn't anyone to pick it up so you've got you know get back up get on stop being weak do more I was aware of that but I hadn't understood that it was really what I then identified as self-bullying until I had somebody start working for me a year ago so that's very recent okay you know I got a brilliant young man started working for me almost exactly a year ago and he really got the campaign and his enthusiasm um and And pride in the campaign kind of slightly blindsided me.

26:08And I sort of initially kind of was a bit patronizing. I just sort of laughed. I was like, wasn't he sweet? He thinks like this is some big thing. Yeah. He thinks that I'm like some big thing. He thinks the campaign is some big thing. It's not. It's absolutely rubbish. But, you know, if he wants to think that, he can. Yeah. And then, you know, in that very sort of first few months, he had all this enthusiasm. And he'd bring me in and go, oh, this has happened or that's happened or this journalist this wrong and I kind of be like and so what and he'd be so crestfallen and I suddenly realized well I can't I can't do that to him I can't treat him like I treat myself and then that was the moment where I realized how aggressive I was being to myself and I learned so much from having somebody who actually taught me to have pride in the campaign and actually to stop bullying myself so much you know there was also a bit of an issue because there was an issue within the campaign with my co-founder in Canada where I just realized I had kind of slipped into a similar kind of relationship with that um and again for myself I had coping mechanisms but when you know there were issues with the Canadian team you know they they grew quite a team and they came to me you know feeling you know with with with issues I then that was then when I actually really had to face what had been happening in that relationship and again a little bit like with with my initial issue it wasn't until it was hurting someone else that I had the ability to do something about it.

27:59That's interesting isn't it that we do less for ourselves but we'll go and fight for others. Yeah it's much easier it's much easier to to fight for other people it's much easier um and I think maybe also that's where the word bravery comes into the individual because I think actually if you speak up for yourself it is it is brave I feel like I've always spoken up for other people which to me feels natural and easy I mean to go back to the the the you know the moniker of of bravery or courage it's not so much that I feel like we need to tell people that they all have it and they can all access it I feel like we need to change the cultural vocabulary around it it's not brave it's normal it is normal to speak up when something bad happens when you call it brave that suggests that you shouldn't yeah yeah so you know obviously you can't just immediately go oh well anybody who speaks up is just normal but in terms of moving things forward culturally yeah and in terms of how you talk about whistleblowing again i feel is a very negative word yeah so the vocabulary around all of these things to me needs to be dialed down needs to be normalized speaking up is normal you know we all spend our life being taught at school or as children you know that that saying when something's wrong and not lying is the correct thing to do then you get out into the work world and suddenly everything's turned around the other away you're suppressed you're that just highlights how as you go back to this it's the system the fact that you're so right the fact that we've got to a place where we'll say to someone oh that was really courageous because you spoke up in that meeting and defended someone or spoke up for yourself how the system has made that a courageous act not something that should be totally normal we do to look after ourselves and what what is right and wrong and speaking up shouldn't be an aggressive act you shouldn't have you know and and this is something that i do try and explain to businesses when I when I go and speak to them is that you shouldn't be afraid of transparency because actually if you deal with stuff right at the beginning when the when it's potentially just microaggressions and people feel comfortable to say I didn't feel comfortable with that but that doesn't mean they have to run to HR and there has to be disciplinaries and you know you go into the stratosphere of tribunals you know if people can catch things at the beginning if when you're in an office environment you see somebody making an inappropriate joke then everybody in that room should be able to go hey buddy that's not okay yeah and that also is helpful helpful to everybody yeah you know helps if everybody's open about boundaries you know the big confusion is you know particularly with me too a lot of the kind of you know male dialogue became well how do we know what we're allowed to say or not say well that's true how do you know i mean I'll give them some slack but I mean essentially everybody knows deep down if what they're saying is right or not but let's let's cut everybody a bit of slack and say okay well sometimes it's on it's on it's on the on the edge yeah well if nobody says anything how do they know then then it begins to escalate so then you go a bit closer to the edge then you go over the edge then you do something that really is stepping across a line yeah and this is why then in a work environment you know we have so many issues and you know you have hr and then you have tribunal and then it all gets really messy and something that essentially started off as probably quite a small misunderstanding that doesn't get dealt with was allowed to grow what's your view on you know we always say like you praise in public but you criticize in private because when you said like you know if you're in a room and say to some appropriate joke that you should be able to in that moment just go do you know what mate that that's not okay I think sometimes people are confused of what is that say nice things in public but in private like because you don't want to I think people are worried about humiliating people or hurting somebody's feeling or if you do it in some I think there's so much confusion of when do you do it the appropriateness to do it and how you make others feel if somebody's made an inappropriate joke which is already making somebody feel humiliated and and upset it's far better for someone just to go you don't need to go how dare you that's really bad just go that makes me feel really uncomfortable yeah ask the person you know have you checked in with that person I think you should check in because the thing is is we also all have different levels of sensitivity yep and for one part like you could say a whole load of shit to me and it's not it's just going to bounce straight off me yeah that's not necessarily a good thing it's just because i've been i've been through quite tough training um you know and but you could say something to somebody else or somebody from a different generation and i think that's also you know a very obvious issue these days is that different generations have very different boundaries and what they make things mean as well yeah and so you just ask you say and if if it's an open conversation you know you're much more likely to be able to diffuse the situation if everybody can be honest and speak and say I'm not going after I'm just telling you that makes me feel uncomfortable yeah and being okay if you have said something that has made someone be uncomfortable and it's never your intention to hurt you thought it was funny or you thought you just you're just not aware I suppose it's also equipping those people of how to respond when you get called out so then you don't then get aggressive or get defensive it's like look we're just all learning here and he's saying it comes back to that culture allowing that we're in a community we're in a we're in a community a work environment is a false you know sort of forced community you know you don't choose each other you're all put in a community you all have to work together if a business is going to run successfully then everybody needs to work together successfully and it does need to come from the top that people feel that they're they are in an environment where they can talk about things where they can point things out and that is only going to make business work better.

34:01I mean the new legislation that is coming in I know is causing a lot of furore within businesses and in the legal sector because by taking away the ability to use confidentiality to hide allegations of wrongdoing terrifies businesses because they think that there's going to be a lot of vexatious complaints. That's just not how it works and actually it's going to be a positive because what's going to happen is people are going to take more personal responsibility about how they behave because they know that they can't hide it and the ones that are what I would call incontinent abusers who literally cannot help themselves they will get weeded out super fast so you then as a business do not end up colluding with somebody who who is consistently behaving badly yeah you know so that you end up in a situation where you've got a manager who's got three or four NDAs against them and all of a sudden you realize as as as for the business's reputation you look twice as bad yeah because people are breaking NDAs now people are not respecting that confidentiality because people have been empowered over the last five six years seeing lots of these high profile cases now breaking yeah is that actually your business reputation is going to be far more damaged if you're also found to have tried to hide allegations of misconduct yeah if you have dealt with those allegations then there's nothing you know you've done the best you can and if it's a vexatious person well to be honest they'll hang themselves and if it's if if they're vexatious we do have libel and defamation laws to protect that you know those laws are in place that's not what confidentiality and ndas are there for if victims want to have confidentiality in one of these situations because of course there's always going to be settlements there are always going to be situations where it's he said he said he said she said there isn't you know enough proof it's too complicated this isn't trying to stop settlements what it's trying to do is is is to put some equality in the bargaining and to make sure that the victims in the situation can choose for it to be confidential if they so wish but not the alleged perpetrator what do you think because i'm i've been i've been meeting a lot of people who have gone through corporate bullying to different levels of extreme and listening to their stories and what's been going on what do you think in terms of especially when it's at the top and it's really coming from the top this bad behavior and it's been accepted and the culture today is you don't speak you don't want the you don't want to become the next victim and there's actually there's such a fear-based culture what do you think because i think the nda is brilliant everyone just knowing you're protected but a lot of these people are very scared of losing their jobs they're spared scared of maybe still even being the first one to speak within those systems what are you hoping the campaigning you've been doing is actually going to be able to change for people to go actually we can speak without feeling like a whistleblower without feeling i'm going to lose my job or be known as that or that don't hire that person she'll do this well it's not going to happen overnight because this is a huge cultural change as well but for any cultural change to be effective it has to have the legislative backup because that's the kind of the root of being able to change the culture.

37:37Genuinely, by taking away the mechanism that hides bad behavior means people will have more confidence in being able to speak because they're not going to be at risk of being shut down. One of the things in the legislation, which is absolutely fantastic, is, you know, bullying is difficult because there isn't a statutory definition of bullying. And there are, you know, there are some great campaigns working on trying to get a statutory definition for bullying. But in terms of the legislation that we have, you know, got change with, which covers discrimination and harassment, which covers a huge amount of issues.

38:20What's so fantastic about this this new amendment is that it's not just if you've experienced discrimination or harassment yourself it's if you've witnessed it or if you've heard about it and also nothing can stop you from talking about how your employer dealt with the complaint if you made the complaint so there's lots of great stops there to actually make individuals take more personal responsibility and bosses and organizations take more responsibility because they can't slide out at any point there's another piece of legislation that's gone through in the workers protection act which means that if you if um you're sexually the the sorry that businesses have to take much more responsibility around actively stopping and risk assessing any form of sexual harassment so all of these pieces are all beginning to lock in together to make sure that you know people who are in a vulnerable position because of the hierarchy of power and it's always going to be there and there has to be a hierarchy of power in a workplace but so that it cannot be abused in the way that it is being abused yeah and then this is further backed up by the victims and prisoners Act and the Victims and Courts Bill, which Victims and Prisons Act has come in and the Victims and Courts Act is about to come in, which deals with confidentiality, NDAs, around criminal acts.

39:55Now, you would assume that an NDA was always void around a criminal act. Well, it is, but it's not actually written into legislation. And it's about what people understand. And what people understand when they've been through a negotiation for NDAs is that they must never speak they can't speak to anybody it said in my agreement I had to use my best endeavors not to speak to the police to not ever identify Weinstein and if I had to speak to the police or a look another lawyer for a civil reason that I had to give Miramax and you know Harvey Weinstein's lawyers 48 hours notice so even though those things essentially were illegal you can write whatever you want in a settlement because it's a private contract but now that in legislation it is void and it is in there it is void any agreement that is hiding if you believe you're a victim of crime so any form of criminal act you can speak to anyone wow anyone including the media now that's for a criminal act okay but i mean you know if you're sexually assaulted at work that's a criminal act yes so all of these pieces are now really beginning to dovetail together and the government is taking a very very serious and clear-eyed look at trying to bring confidence back into the british justice system and to address you know the toxicity that has grown in you know quietly in the cave of the work workplace environment and has become as you say almost the norm it's almost it's scary how it's becoming the norm and almost accepted that well that's what you're going to come across I think it's always been there I think the point is now people are actually acknowledging it and speaking about it and the next step is people are going to start doing disseminating it stopping it from happening yeah realizing that they don't have to go to the press or go to HR but they can just call stuff out and that their their business and individuals have to take more responsibility take it more seriously when people speak up I'm noticing the things where we're seeing the change or people who have successively made changes when there's been a collective voice always whenever there's this solo voice they just get paid off and asked to leave and as you said seen as the problem yeah so I think part of what I'm trying to think at the moment what sort of strategies could help and it's like how do we get to that point where we can build a collective and people are winning to support each other to go this is not okay and I'm willing to be part of that collective to drive that change yes I mean it's interesting because a lot of a lot of companies you know um over the last few years where the sort of DE and I'm um objectives were quite strong i mean that's now changing because of what's happening in the states unfortunately but um you know so many businesses i go see them they go but we've got an anonymous speak up line and we've got then i'm like no that doesn't work no it needs to be it needs to be transparent you need people to have the confidence to actually to to say stuff and and that's how you make it collective keeping things anonymous keeping it's keeping people siloed yeah is literally the worst thing you can do because that isolates people you know i mean we saw this at channel four and i'm i'm not breaking any any um any privacy laws now because it's we we broke it in in parliament but you know the women at channel four there was a whole group of women who were encouraged to come forward and speak about their issues the moment they came forward individually and spoke about the issues they were all siloed from each other and picked off you know and that's because they did they followed the the system that was meant to help and i think again it's about changing the culture from the top that bosses instead of automatically seeing the people who speak up as the problem seeing that actually it's probably the alleged perpetrator that's the problem and starting there rather than starting by immediately trying to silence the people who are speaking up because the people who do speak up tend to be the people you want in your company because they care yeah because they could just leave yeah the fact that they're sharing it they're caring they want it to be better and they're probably willing to help be part of the change as well and they're the people that need to be embraced yeah and yes of course there's always going to be a mad frog in there somewhere but listen we don't go to the lowest common denominator we don't not have a benefit system because some people cheat it yeah you know so to me it's just it's just it's a culture it literally it's turning the telescope around the other way and it's not something to be afraid of it's actually something to be positive and i think businesses i hope that businesses will be able to grasp this positively and i think by the legislation kind of being so all-encompassing in a way um you know this is happening whether businesses wanted to not this is happening you can no longer hide misconduct yeah with confidentiality in a you know in a pre-dispute agreement in a you know in a settlement agreement in your initial employment agreement you can't do that because anything that does that will be void and if you're putting that in your agreement you're a bad boss who's going to come and want to work for companies that have that yeah you know that mechanism in when it's been publicly exposed when it's in legislation you know before it was kind of standard everyone nobody really knew it was all a bit you know all a bit dark arts everyone kind of was like do i know i don't know you know how many ceos actually really knew how many board members actually knew or know how many ndas there are Just a quick reminder, if you haven't already, to please hit the like button and subscribe to the channel.

46:01It's a small action that makes a big difference. You'll be the first to know when new episodes drop and your support helps us create meaningful content for leaders like you. I'd also love to hear from you. So if you have any thoughts, questions or ideas, pop them into the comments. And if you're curious about how my leadership coaching or training could support you or your team, just drop me a DM and we'll set up a call. thanks so much now let's get back to the episode so if i was to go and work at a company once this all legislation goes for would i be able to see that for the company's reputation and what's going on will i be is there going to be you know like you have like trust pilot we can go and see reviews will you be actually be able to find out the company you're about to choose to work for what they follow no but as but you have the right to ask okay i mean there isn't like a trust pilot mechanism I mean that is something that could be done yeah but in a way again this is legislative yeah so it shouldn't even need to be highlighted but initially I think it's something that's really important and this is part of the educational part of a campaign is that people understand their rights because yeah we can change legislation but that doesn't mean that people actually know their rights it doesn't mean that when somebody's signing their employment contract that they realize that it's important that they check what the confidentiality provisions are in there It's fine having confidentiality in your contract, as long as that confidentiality isn't trying to stop you from talking about anything harmful that might happen to you.

47:28So difficult, though, because when I'm thinking about it, you start asking that in an interview. You can just see bosses, red flags going off, going, hang on, why are they asking about confidentially? What sort of person are they? Can we trust them? You see how the behavior and the beliefs need to shift, don't we? Absolutely. But in a way, that's what I'm saying. you shouldn't have to ask because the thing is even if you sign your employment contract and it still has um the wrong sort of confidentiality legislation it's void it's void it doesn't it doesn't work but you need to know that but also you know employers um and you know gc's and companies need you know and this is the only work that they're going to have to do in terms of on an administrative scale is they are going to have to remove a lot of their standard confidentiality clauses and reword them and that is a good thing i mean that was a brilliant thing and if there's a leader sitting here listening to this like trying to get like their heads around it okay what does this mean what's that going to change what does it mean for me if i'm in a bad situation at the moment or if i'm a leader that's creating this bad situation in my company what would you say in terms of we go really practical what's all like the one to three practical steps for them to understand this legislation think about how to look at their culture and what are some steps in terms of also the education because I think a lot of people are going to need to be educated on this and understand what it means what with can't buy my silence is that going into that space to help companies or is it you've got the legislation and you're done you're like I've done with it which is amazing what you've done right now I literally I want to run for the hills you know I've spent seven years of my life fighting tooth and nail and you can't underestimate the amount of personal energy I can't you know that has taken and I need a rest and it's not just seven years of fighting it's 20 years of of living under the cosh of my NDA before that so for me right at this moment I just need a little bit of of regenerative time I kind of feel that you know it's an opportunity for somebody to to go in there and do that and maybe maybe after some time out it might be something that I look at but the reality is is it's really simple and to me you know there are lots of companies that that go in and and and do corporate education and to me they're they're slightly I think it's a bit of money for old rope because they make something which is often quite simple very complicated and that's when the whole tick box thing comes in if you haven't done this course and you haven't done that then you know that's how you show that you're a good company yeah but actually if i'm speaking to a ceo or a hr person or a general counsel this is really simple you cannot use confidentiality to hide any form of misconduct full stop that's it it's not complicated so stop so then start looking at how you start stamping out misconduct it will stamp out misconduct in it just by its existence okay if you make it very clear to your employees that that's what's going to happen yeah that is how that's that will start stopping it now obviously it's not going to mean that there's no bad behavior and that there isn't conflict there is always going to be conflict in the workplace yeah but listen it's not you know taking away confidentiality is not going to like blow every business up in the states over 27 states have legislated against the misuse of NDAs in varying forms but usually mostly majoritatively around sexual misconduct now lawyers and and businesses have said oh if you take away confidentiality you're you know you're taking away the ability to settle for victims because what business is going to settle if they don't get confidentiality well if the law says that you can't have it then And, you know, the businesses still have to settle.

51:24You know, you're settling not for silence. You're settling because you're agreeing not to go to tribunal. The victim is agreeing and you're agreeing to not take it further legally. That's what a settlement is. So settlements will become much clearer and much better. And can I tell you something? In the States, settlements have gone up by 10%. Wow. Not down. And the settlement amounts haven't drastically changed. and the reality is is that most settlements offer very small amounts of money it's only you know the occasional ones where you're talking about hundreds of thousands of of pounds and also if people want to keep the amount you know the amount confidential that's fine that's not a misconduct but you cannot stop people having a human right of talking about what's happened to them in a in a settlement in a reasonable settlement and it is not it is the threat of sight being silenced that is chilling people yeah and the reason that people go to the press is because they've been silenced and it wrecks their lives and they end up you know breaking down and realizing that they can't continue their life until they speak publicly and the only safe place to speak is publicly in the media because that's the only place they can find protection but if you take that away actually businesses reputations are going to be safer because you're going to deal with stuff in the right way in the right way and quicker can you quite believe after let's say this whole 27 years of your life of what this has been can you quite believe that you're nearly there has it sank in yet what you've been able to do well yes yes and no yeah like there's part of me that's like well of course this is in a way this was such a simple clearly moral and ethical question so this part of me the kind of the the the the idealistic part of me you know never doubted that it couldn't happen but then the the the self-flagellating bullying part of me also kind of can't believe that I have managed to get here yeah um or that we have managed to get I mean I haven't done this by myself this is you know there have been so many brave people who have spoken up because the more people that broke their ndas and spoke up you know around the crispin odie story the neil gaiman story the russell brand story you know all of these women who came forward you know what happened at the post office all of these stories educated the media and the press into understanding the ndas are at the root of all of these scandals um and you know and then the fantastic politicians that have been allied and really pushed for change you know and it's been completely cross-party and both chambers I have to say the majority of them have been women but there have been some fantastic men too but you know it's been incredible seeing democracy at work but it's also been you know quite a solitary experience seeing how hard you have to fight to get these things done yeah but you can get them done yeah and how fortunate are we to be living in a democracy where as a woman of no standing essentially can just through will will and speaking and speaking and And speaking to our government.

54:58Using them. Using the government for what they're there for. That change can be had. You know, in Afghanistan, I wouldn't even be able to speak on the street. And I think we need to be a bit more positive about our democracy. And the fact that we're living in a democracy, particularly when we look at what's happening in America. And the legislation that's coming in and that is already in around this particularly. but also just in terms of the employment rights bill in general is going to be making Britain leading in terms of of employment rights and human rights yeah and that's something we should be proud of and are you proud of yourself I'm not sure that I can say proud but I think I have got to a point where I'm I'm at a point where I can go okay I've done the job well done which is which is a huge relief I think I'm relieved maybe more than proud and just yeah the lightness that I now feel of not waking up in the morning with 4 000 voices in my head um you know to put to push this along is is is a great is a great place to be and anyone listening to this who's about to start whatever it is that they the question that they want to get answered and thing they're about to start what now you've been through it and you'll come I know there's still more to do but you're the lights at the tunnel now what advice would you pass to them to help them to keep going I think the most important thing that I learn I have learned in the last seven years was to 100 % trust your gut you must trust your gut every time I listen to my gut it's always right and if I listen to other people and took other people's advice over my gut it didn't work out and I think to add to that though remember your gut is what you can personally achieve and do it doesn't necessarily mean yes it's the best way of solving that problem but it's the best way of solving that problem if you're the one doing it you know maybe there was a better way of doing this campaign and I could have got this done in three years but on a personal level I could only do what I could do and I had to stick to my own personal integrity and I had to do it the way that felt right for me and I think if you stick to that then you will survive if you veer from that you're much more likely to get crushed yeah and also then you start you know blaming other people or you know it becomes much more complicated so listen to you listen to your gut you know you need to always go with your instinct yeah because your instinct is also protecting you Yeah.

57:43You when we spoke before the show, I voice note a group of girls that I'm in to go just come off the call with you because there was something you said in line with that. You said you're making a decision. Now, somebody else might say that's not the best strategy for this or not the right thing to do here. But that decision is the right decision if it's your decision and your integrity. integrity and i've always noted my friends like listen to this because i think we get so much noise and so many opinions and i think sometimes then you start doubting yourself and question and then before you know it you've actually lost a bit of the motivation to go and do something because it's suddenly the noise has made the fears activated and you start and i'm talking about this from personal experience you start overthinking you start questioning am i going to look stupid is this good but it was so pure what you and you just said it so naturally to me he was like if it's the right if it's your decision regardless what anyone else says it's the right decision for you and I was like that for me was so empowering to hear from you so I just wanted to make sure we got to share that because it made me feel amazing and I know my friend's message back straight away going I'm putting that on a post-it note now that's it god I hope it's right but that's the thing the interesting that you went there it is right and And I think, you know, to add to that, I think it makes it sound like, you know, everybody who's giving you opinions and saying things is wrong or bad.

59:06But I mean, everybody, everyone has an agenda. We have our own agenda, too. And, you know, I had lots of friends who, you know, at the beginning of this process, when I sort of started saying I was going to speak out, most people told me not to. And it wasn't because they were bad or wrong. It was because they were trying to protect me. but actually it was really unhelpful for me to to hear it luckily at that moment I was so driven to speak out it just meant I just didn't ask anybody or tell anybody what I was doing and I continued like that for for three four years I literally didn't say anything to anybody because I didn't want I didn't want to have to explain and I I could feel the truth so clearly what I needed to do once the the organization started I can't buy my silence I mean I I laugh when I say organization because still it's been was basically only me for for three years and then and then I and then I got some help with with with Oscar but um it meant that I started sort of second guessing a bit more and going well what's better for the organization and that's when I realized no I just still have to listen I have to go with what my gut gut says and I do believe in a way that what has given this campaign a success because I never had a big board of directors I never had you know a lot of you know huge amount of I mean I had some funders but I didn't have funders who were going to get involved or who I had to you know explain things to I was completely nimble I could move however I needed to move and because I was a sort a sole trader it meant I could get into rooms much more easily yeah you know and I look at some other campaigns and some other organizations and they have these incredibly impressive boards and patrons and all of these incredible people and they've been going for years and they haven't managed to do what we've managed to do and it's not just because I've been nimble and on my own it's mostly because we've been so fortunate with the fact that the media started to pick up and understand you know the insidious nature of silencing victims of all sorts yeah you know in all sectors um but i think sometimes organizations become cumbersome because it slows down it slows it slows you down in the camp particularly in the campaigning environment um but yes you know understanding what your actual goal is and sticking to that goal that doesn't mean you don't question yourself I mean I at the beginning again would used to absolutely viciously question myself about particularly about speaking to people in the media I'd be like okay why am I going to speak to this person is it because it's good is it will it help the campaign or do I feel flattered that they've asked to speak to me good question you know and that's just that's just just checking in with yourself going what is that feeling that I'm having yeah is it like oh gosh so and so wants to speak to me it would be fun to be on there you know oh will that give me more profile that's the that's that's the wrong feeling go deeper go is this going to make the message is this going to make the message more powerful yeah and actually I kept my powder pretty dry in the media.

1:02:35I mean, if you think I've been around for seven years, basically, you know, I've done a lot, but I haven't, I've done less than 50%. I've said, you know, no to over 50 % of requests. And in a way, I also think that's helpful because you can be overexposed in the media. And the media is so, it's a dangerous environment to be in. and so you should only really ever talk if you've got something that someone else can't say and that's truly coming from a place of integrity yeah and then and then also if you get trolled if you get negative feedback it doesn't hurt yeah because it's coming from a real truth yeah when people when people say bad stuff about what i've said i'm like it's because they don't understand I don't feel angry or hurt I just understand they don't know yeah so it doesn't it doesn't damage me and I think that's another really hard thing when you're in any form of public domain is that you're open to so much vicious criticism but if you're speaking if you're speaking from the heart you can kind of again that kind of gives you a bit of teflon because you know what you're saying is is right yeah thank you it's been an absolute honor to have this time with you and hear your story um it's a real inspiration it's just an inspiration and story of resilience and drive and commitment and wanting to see the right thing done i'm so sorry it came from such a bad experience and so i think most things change in this world from you know someone having to go through pain um but your determination and it's just been really inspiring for me to also go yeah use the government because for me i think like the government's way over there they're untouchable how do i get to the actually if you just said here like pretty much i know people have helped you but it's been your drive and you you say the organization was you until oscar came only recently you don't fear doing these things on your own don't fear going and talking to the government you say you don't need a board to make change it's actually we're very very powerful as human beings to listen to our truth listen to our integrity and take action and then collect the people that are willing to then come on that journey with you to kind of keep you going and keep you supported and I just think this has been just such a wonderful example of that of what we are capable as human beings and when you do you know that courage to make change so we can actually make courage just more it's normal yeah to do the things you talk about well I feel you know unbelievably privileged to have been able to turn something negative into a positive because the majority of people who do speak up who do come into the public domain who do go up against the big guns don't get that opportunity and I you know I am genuinely thankful because so much of that is luck it really is um you know that the media chose to be sympathetic to me um and that I managed to catch a moment um you know it's not a given that stuff like this works out and I do I feel incredibly fortunate to have been able to to turn this experience yeah painful as it has been doing it it's been worth it it's been worth it and it's made me grow as a human being and make me feel at peace in a way that nothing else ever has i'm so grateful you've got that and i'm so grateful to you for everything you've done and thank you for coming on the show thank you thank you for everyone listening or watching um i know there's so much to take out from this episode if anyone needs to reach out or have any messages or questions please do get in touch and if there's anything for zelda we'll we'll get in touch with zelda but um please i hope you feel supported by this encouraged by this and inspired to when you want to do the right thing, we are so empowered to do that as human beings.

1:06:37So thank you. If you've been enjoying the Courageous Leaders podcast, we'd love it if you'd subscribe to our YouTube channel. Your support helps us keep creating quality content and reaching more leaders like you who are ready to grow and make a real impact. We fund this podcast ourselves so every subscription truly makes a difference and allows us to support courageous leaders like you. Thank you for being part of the journey.