Key points in the Equality Act

The new Act intends to harmonize, simplify and clarify discrimination law.

A new and helpful concept is that of "protected characteristics". These are: age; disability; gender reassignment; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; sexual orientation. This has not really extended the scope of discrimination law.

By and large the Act applies the same characteristics of direct and indirect discrimination as in the previous law.

Direct discrimination is defined as follows:

"A person (A) discriminates against another (B) if, because of a protected characteristic, A treats B less favourably than A treats or would treat others."

Note that this definition means that the less favourable treatment does not have to be on the grounds of the claimant's protected characteristic. What matters is what is going on in the mind of the discriminator. This reflects the case of Coleman v Attridge Law where the claimant alleged that she was being treated less favourably becasue of her son's disability. This has widened the concept of direct discrimination to include discrimination by association. It also includes discrimination by perception. So an employer may discriminate where he treats someone less favourably because he thinks (wrongly) that they are gay.

Pregnancy and maternity are protected acts. The Act provides:

"A person (A) discriminates against a woman if, in the protected period in relation to a pregnancy of hers, A treats her unfavourably — (a) because of the pregnancy, or (b) because of illness suffered by her as a result of it", or if A "treats her unfavourably because she is on compulsory maternity leave", or " because she is exercising or seeking to exercise, or has exercised or sought to exercise, the right to ordinary or additional maternity leave".

There is also now a notion of "combined discrimination". This will cover where there is discrimination because of a number of protected charactersitics (but not marriage or civil partnership or pregnancy or maternity). E.g. the cases where older female newsreaders claim the discrimination they have suffered is based on the fact that they are older and female.

Claimants may still want to bring their single strand claims as well as their combined claims.

More on the new Act in my next blog.

Making paper tanks

So at the same conference at MAGNA in 2009 I described in my last blog, Geoff Liberman taught the entrie audience of 700 or more to jive. He did this by getting us all on our feet and showing us the moves slowly, step by step, finally having us all jive at full speed to Bill Hayley and the Comets playing "Rock Around The Clock".

There was an important lesson behind this exercise. I'll tell what it is after I have related another story about something that happened today at my home.

My 9 year old daughter has been able to make origami tanks for a few months now since she watched a video on the topic at school. Today she showed me step by step how to make them. I practised the technique and can now make them easily.

Thank you, Brooke for teaching me.

The lesson? Instead of telling people how to do something, show them. When I heard that from Geoff, I decided to think about how that applies in work situations.

I thought, "Next time I am mentoring a trainee on how to use a compromsie agreement, I'll show them how I amend some of the clauses I am faced with. I'll get them involved with as many meetings with clients and networking contacts as I can, so that I can show them how to run a good meeting, how to build rapport, how to use NLP techniques to make that rapport even stronger."

My daughter's teachings today reminded me of it again. She was giving me the same lesson (without realising it) as a man who has made many millions of pounds as a succesful bsuniessman and who was engaged to present pearls of wisdom to 700 BNI delegates at the annual conference at MAGNA, Sheffield.

How will you use this information? If a friend had told me these stories I'd be thinking, "What can I look out for when dealing with my staff that will enable me to show them how to do something, rather than tell them?"

Learn to show instead of to tell.

Food of the right kind

It was Geoff Liberman at the BNI Annual Conference at MAGNA last year who asked the 700 strong set of delegates: "Where is the most valuable piece of real estate in the world?".

Arms shot up into the air. Geoff patiently went around the volunteers. Answers ranged from Hollywood Boulevard, to Dubai. Gradually, all the suggestions were exhausted and we all sat there completely puzzled. Then Geoff took hold of his ears with both hands and said: "It's this bit right here between your ears."

Geoff went on to explain. 'With this part of the body", he said as he indicated from neck donwards, "you can earn $40,000, perhaps even $50,000 or $60,000 if you look after it and feed it with the right nutrition. But with this bit", he pointed to the head, "you can earn millions if you feed it with the right stuff."

The message was clear. Read lots of great books and feed your mind with good knowledge.

What it did for me was intensify my desire to read. I took up his recommendation to read "Rhinoceros Success" (on sale at the conference) and profited from its teachings.

This was a fabulous part of his presentation and made a point that will stay with me for a long long time. Ever since then I find myself asking poeple I meet what is the best book they have read on a particular topic and I have gone on to read wonderful material without having to search for it. Examples are "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu and "Resistance is Useless" by Geoff Burch.

Take Mr Liberman's advice. Read for at least 30 minutes every day and watch what happens for you.