Here’s the full transcript of diversity speaker Adah Parris‘ chat with Jane Farnham of Great British Speakers:
00:00:08:11 – 00:00:16:03
Jane Farnham
Hi, I’m Jane Farnham from Great British Speakers, and I’m here today chatting to the amazing futurist and diversity speaker Adah Parris. Hi Adah, welcome and thank you for joining us today.
00:00:16:22 – 00:00:17:49
Adah Parris
Hi. Thank you for having me.
00:00:18:28 – 00:00:49:49
Jane Farnham
Well, I’ve been wanting to chat to you for a while now and dare I say it, you’re a fabulous one off. In so many respects, you got so many strings to your bow. Just some of the facets of your life at present include a futurist, cultural strategist, keynote speaker, artist and also chair of Mental Health First Aid England. So before we start talking about the future and all those things that come with it, just fill us in with a bit of your life story prior to being involved in the speaking world.
00:00:51:10 – 00:01:14:52
Adah Parris
Well, yes, it’s funny when people read out that, all of that list of titles and I suppose the common theme is just, I suppose there’s a narrative that runs through all of them. So what I now realize is that I’ve always been a systems thinker, and so I see patterns and connections in worlds. But what I did is I worked at London Business School for six years, helping to put together marketing programs.
00:01:14:52 – 00:01:44:52
Adah Parris
So that was about learning how to create educational learning programs. I worked at London, the Institute of Practitioners and Advertising, so more the business side and understanding how communications work. And then I helped to set up and run the School of Communication Arts, which is an advertising school that is not traditional. So it’s more a concept school. And then I also worked for Telefonica and helped to design and build their Technology accelerator program Wayra.
00:01:45:10 – 00:01:57:55
Adah Parris
And so being able to be in those different worlds has helped me to recognise, to understand the languages used in those different spaces, but also to bring together and recognise some of the patterns that have led me to where I am now.
00:01:58:56 – 00:02:09:18
Jane Farnham
Yeah, that’s a real background, isn’t it? So then you start to get involved in speaking, because obviously it’s so varied, and how did you decide upon your many topics?
00:02:10:19 – 00:02:37:53
Adah Parris
So the speaking gigs came about because I had worked in these different areas, but the artist and the creative side of me discovered this thing called Burning Man, which is a counterculture gathering festival in the Nevada Desert. And I used to go to that. And one of the things that I’m about there is that it says and it has ten guiding principles, and one of them is radical self-expression.
00:02:38:13 – 00:02:55:44
Adah Parris
And so I learned this whole,, this I got to this space of being able to really express who I was. But at the same time, I had a very good high profile career. And what I said to people was that if you want me to be the person that you hired, I need to be able to go and do this because this is kind of recharging.
00:02:55:44 – 00:03:16:35
Adah Parris
It’s my therapy. And so people started to ask me, so ask me, how did I build my brand? Because I’ve got this real creative side of making headdresses and going to these places, but at the same time, high-profile technology, advertising. And I’ve never seen myself as a brand. I was just being me and taking that principle of radical self-expression.
00:03:17:04 – 00:03:42:41
Adah Parris
And so my first gig came about because somebody asked me; they were running the program to help people recognise transferable skills from changing from one career to the next. And they asked me to do a talk on personal brand identity, and I kind of panicked a little bit, but realised that what I have been doing was taking business ideas and business strategies and applying them to myself.
00:03:42:59 – 00:04:15:10
Adah Parris
So that I created a talk about how you are authentically yourself in what you do. And that’s where it started. So that was the first that was really about me. But then, because I worked in tech, because I had an understanding of the human implications of that, the topic started to develop. And over the years, what’s happened is because I’ve had this ability to recognise patterns in different worlds and different worlds in different areas, I’ve been able to really focus on the things that I find really interesting.
00:04:15:27 – 00:04:45:28
Adah Parris
So rather than looking for the big similarities that people tend to notice, I notice the small ripples. And so I talk about the small ripples that are running through worlds and areas that people don’t necessarily think are connected. For example, emerging technologies and shamanism and ancient indigenous practices or quantum mechanics and bringing those different things together to make it quite an interesting conversation that is around getting people to ask more questions.
00:04:46:42 – 00:04:51:32
Jane Farnham
So is that one of the most popular topics you talk about at present, or are there others?
00:04:52:00 – 00:05:17:43
Adah Parris
Um so the most popular topic at the moment is around innovation. So what is innovative? Innovation for me, first of all, what is technology? Because most of us, we tend to focus on technology becoming synonymous with digital. And it’s not, to me, technology is really it’s they are tools that we use to do three things: connect with and understand ourselves, connect with and understand others, and connect with and understand our environment.
00:05:18:01 – 00:05:51:25
Adah Parris
And if we take that to be true, then it means that there are lots of different types of technologies and things that we can use to help us solve problems. So that’s what I do. And so it becomes a really interesting conversation because what I’m doing is creating a space where people feel comfortable to step outside of their comfort zone, to step outside of their echo chambers and ask questions of what could be if we didn’t look at it from this lens, what could it be if we take it from a ecology or a indigenous practice or from a quantum mechanics perspective?
00:05:51:41 – 00:05:59:33
Adah Parris
And how is that relevant to us doing business and succession planning, making sure that we futureproof the businesses that we have?
00:06:00:28 – 00:06:08:24
Jane Farnham
It sounds like quite a healthy, holistic view that the bigger industry, you know, a company in general.
00:06:08:51 – 00:06:32:18
Adah Parris
Yeah, it is, because I think many of the, much of the way that we’ve approached business in the past has been quite linear. It’s this that leads to this leads to this. Whereas my approach is that I get organizations and business and leaders to recognise the systemic nature that I tend to refer to as puppeteering, that if you move this spring here, it’s going to have an impact over here.
00:06:32:38 – 00:06:56:54
Adah Parris
And so I help people to recognize that within their own businesses, their own cultures, and then to understand, so how can we start to plan, you know, that whole understanding, that lens means that you need to have different values, different measures of success, different outputs, but also you widen the diversity of the people that you have in your organization.
00:06:57:07 – 00:07:17:02
Adah Parris
And one of the big things that comes out of that is that the I in diversity and inclusion is not enough. People want to belong. And we’ve seen that through what’s happened with the pandemic now, including people, is not enough. People want to belong. So how do you change your cultures, your processes, your way of thinking to make sure that you are creating cultures of belonging as well?
00:07:18:25 – 00:07:38:15
Jane Farnham
Gosh, that sounds like a huge subject in itself. I don’t want to go into too many, but talk away. But one thing I really am curious about, and I’ve heard it mentioned many, many times, but I don’t think I’ve had it explained to me in a way that I truly get. What on earth is a human blockchain?
00:07:39:52 – 00:08:03:00
Adah Parris
A human blockchain. Yeah, it’s what came about because of the way that I approach looking at technology. And so if and I think there will be so many different descriptions of what a blockchain is, I’m not talking about the technical side of it. What I’m talking about is a philosophical, philosophical concept. A blockchain is a flatter, decentralised structure where there are very few.
00:08:03:00 – 00:08:27:39
Adah Parris
There are no hierarchies, and it means that you are able to bring lots of different perspectives together. A human blockchain for me, I remember when I first started looking at the idea of blockchain, the philosophy of it, I thought I realised that that’s how societies should work, that it’s it’s almost in many ways a democratic approach to having a, to creating cultures.
00:08:27:50 – 00:08:48:45
Adah Parris
And so human blockchains is just my way of being, our way with our organisation isn’t the earth. It’s our way of describing how to create flatter cultures where everybody recognises their value and really was able to recognise how to be have a sense of autonomy, but you’re all working towards the same goal.
00:08:50:38 – 00:09:01:52
Jane Farnham
Right. Okay. Explained. Thank you. What does your ideal speaking gig look like? And what do you really get a buzz out of when you’re talking to people?
00:09:04:44 – 00:09:23:36
Adah Parris
When I start, when I’m asked to do a speaking gig, the first thing I do is I always go back to the same quote. I see myself as a storyteller. And it’s a quote, I’ve forgotten his name now, but it’s from a book called The Way of Kings, and it says, The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.
00:09:24:01 – 00:09:48:57
Adah Parris
So I love those talks where, engagements where I’m also learning at the same time, and it feels more like a conversation rather than me standing up and just saying, This is what this is. Because I find that when the gigs that have been more successful, where people really want to follow up, are the ones where they say, I’m not sure what I think about that, but you’ve got me thinking.
00:09:49:10 – 00:10:15:37
Adah Parris
And so it means that the gig can lead to, the speaking gig can lead to a longer engagement, because I really enjoy those deeper, deeper, longer conversations rather than just the one-off. But what gives me, what brings me joy, what makes me excited is being challenged, me as a speaker, being challenged about my own perceptions of things and my own ideas, rather than coming in and talking about the same things.
00:10:15:38 – 00:10:43:08
Adah Parris
So an organisation that’s curious and is open to hearing new ideas and not quite sure how it’s going to work. One of the most exciting gigs I’ve done recently was speaking at Telex Amsterdam in November and that was exciting because I started with the question What type of ancestor do you want to be? And it’s not a question that many have really thought about.
00:10:43:28 – 00:11:01:03
Adah Parris
But for me that was interesting because when we tend to think of our ancestors, we tend to think of in the past, but actually we have to recognize that we are ancestors now and that everything that we do, everything that we are, is about creating legacies. So we have to take responsibility for what we create and put out into the world.
00:11:02:30 – 00:11:26:42
Jane Farnham
Wow, you’re right. It’s so important to get people thinking on every single level. And I think it’s only when we come together, when we communicate, that we’re able to do that. So it’s great that you’re bringing, you know, different sectors of the workplace together to be able to do that and to get people thinking about and looking at things through, looking at things from other people’s perspectives.
00:11:26:49 – 00:11:51:45
Adah Parris
Yeah, but also then, because these are businesses, it’s getting back to getting them back to the point of actually recognising how that impacts their bottom line, their revenue streams, or looking at and being able to identify new potential revenue streams. So I’ve done that talk with big organisers with banks, corporate banks, with big global organisations that are really about the movement of money.
00:11:52:06 – 00:12:17:04
Adah Parris
So imagine asking organizations, the financial services, what type of ancestor do you want to be instead of just focusing on what technology is going to get us to where we think we want to be, It flips the narrative, it fits the mindset, and suddenly you realize that you have a responsibility for understanding the types of legacy that you’re creating and how you help money to move around the world.
00:12:18:16 – 00:12:37:57
Jane Farnham
That’s definitely a good way of looking at it. It’s kind of planting seeds and baby steps towards becoming what you want to be. And so with all the change that we’ve experienced over the last two years, now is it almost, what excites you the most about the future as you see it?
00:12:38:45 – 00:13:05:43
Adah Parris
What excites me the most about the future? I, as devastating as the pandemic has been, I believe that we needed a big shift. We needed to stop. We needed to slow down and we needed to ask ourselves some big existential questions. Who am I? What is important to me? What impact do I want to have in the world, and the world could be my community, my business, my friends, you know, my town, what have you.
00:13:06:05 – 00:13:36:39
Adah Parris
And so there’s been a level of resilience that we’ve all had to dig deep to find. And now what excites me is about how to get people, businesses, leaders to recognise how do you turn that resilience into thriving? Because we’re still in this pandemic, but how do you flip that into what are the things that we really had to dig deep and learn, and how can we use that to maintain that sense of humanity, whilst also recognising that we are businesses and we do need to make money?
00:13:37:33 – 00:13:41:47
Jane Farnham
Hear, hear, thank you so much, Adah. It’s been such a thrill chatting to you today.
00:13:42:03 – 00:13:43:31
Adah Parris
And you, thank you for having me.
00:13:44:00 – 00:13:59:16
Jane Farnham
Now if you’d like to book Adah to make a real impact in your business or at your events, then simply contact me or Steve at Great British Speakers on 01753439289 or you can email bookings at [email protected]. Thank you.
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Adah Parris, diversity speaker at Great British Speakers
