The wound is the place where the light enters you – Rumi
There is a moment in almost every workshop I lead on inclusion when the room shifts. This does not happen when I present data or frameworks, but when someone tells a real story. The truth.
For the past twenty-five years, I have asked leaders across Asia and the Middle East what I see as a relatively simple question: what does exclusion mean to you? There is a visceral, immediate and at times surprising response, particularly when it comes from the most senior person in the room.
In my forthcoming book, Coaching Inclusion: Empowering Behaviours for Positive Change (Palgrave Macmillan, April 2026), a CEO recounts being excluded from closed-door meetings after speaking truth to power, warning his executive committee that a major acquisition would negatively impact the firm financially and reputationally. His objection fell on deaf ears, the acquisition moved forward, and the consequences were exactly as he had predicted. He mentioned in the workshop that this was the first time he had shared that story, and as he spoke, you could feel the weight of it still sitting with him and with his team in the room.
