The Great Pretence: Change It, Leave It or Create Something New

Hello everyone and welcome to the Dr Sam Collins podcast. If this is your first time joining me, then thank you so much. I really hope that you can get something out of this and if you are returning and coming back, then thank you as well. So today, uh, let me put a bit of a pre warning on this one. This one might seem like it’s a bit depressing initially, but it’s really not. It’s the most amazing insight. when you get it and you’re like, okay, now I understand this and now I can do something about it. So if you start feeling some feelings during this podcast, and they’re not the greatest in terms of feeling a bit annoyed or irritated with the world, it’s okay. Carry on, keep going. Don’t hit pause. All right. So here we go. There is a point, isn’t there, I think in most of our lives when something just starts to shift. We begin to see behind the curtain. You see that the meetings that you keep going to on Teams, you know, the back to back ones that I’m talking about, some of them exist. Maybe all of them exist, but some of them definitely exist, don’t they? Because nobody can really make a decision. They’re just trying to go through the motions. You can see that the process is just creating more work, but no better outcome. And you know that person and sometimes they’re your boss and they say things like, leave it with me, I’ll sort it. But then absolutely nothing happens, even if you chase them and then you don’t hear anything and then you think it’s your fault. And then you just sort of let it go and get irritated and annoyed. And you know those people and they are both men and women who they’re building these political careers. I’m not talking about political careers in politics, but… Yeah, that can be the case too. I’m talking about political careers in the business world, in the academic world, in the charitable world even. And they’re really, really good at telling senior people exactly what they want to hear, while other people quietly carry on doing the real work. You know what I’m talking about? Last week, one amazing, great, senior, intelligent, highly experienced woman described it to me as being kept in the dark while being fed shit. And I know it’s blunt, but I think it captures her experience perfectly. Then the light comes on. You’re still surrounded by the same people, the same system, but now you start to see it more clearly. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Gloria Steinem. Very sadly, last week I cried. Did you cry? I cried. Used a line that feels made for this moment. She said, the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. And that’s the journey I want to explore today. What happens when the truth makes you irritated, annoyed, even angry, but also, it gives you power. It gives you a sense of freedom. It gives you hope. It becomes a beacon. when you realise, okay, this isn’t just about me. This is about what is going on around me. So therefore it’s not all my fault. And what can I start to do about it? So we also need to be very practical, very pragmatic and use our logical and analytical minds. What can you see now that you could not, or perhaps would not, see five years ago? So last week I talked about the possibility that we’re not

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burnt out, we may be done. And that episode was about correctly locating the problem and refusing to treat every form of exhaustion as a personal defect and a wellbeing exercise. And just the fact that we’re not very good at taking the baths and having the walks and giving ourselves the breaks and not doing the back to back meetings. But this episode begins to take this one step on. So the question is now, not what’s wrong with you or me or any of us, it’s what am I going to do with what I know? And I call this the great pretense. This is the collective performance through which many organizations, professions and institutions maintain the appearance of purposeful progress while often relying on systems that need at best a radical update. The pretense that Activity equals impact. The pretense that process equals progress. The pretense that management equals leadership. Come on, it does not. The pretense that saying the right thing is the same as taking responsibility. The pretense that the capable women can absorb one more role without paying her anymore. and the pretense that nobody can see what is really happening. So when I talk about systems, I’m talking about the organisational, cultural and social structures, the rules, the norms, the incentives, the power dynamics that shape our workplaces and lives. A system isn’t just one person making one decision, it’s the whole network. It’s the network of beliefs, policies, habits and institutions that influence what happens and what we consider to be possible. Think of it like the invisible machinery operating behind the scenes. It’s the collection of rules, the expectations, the processes, the traditions and the structures that influence how everyone behaves and what outcomes are produced. That’s why We can have good people inside a system and still get bad results. The system itself may be producing those results. Are you with me? So when I talk about changing systems, I’m not talking about blaming individuals and saying it’s your fault or his fault or her fault or any of that. I’m talking about examining the wider forces that shape our choices. Who gets hurt? Who gets promoted? Whose ideas are valued? Who carries the burden of care? And I’m talking about burden of care in work as well as outside of work. What assumptions are built into the way we work, lead and live? Those patterns become systems and systems shape futures. So many of us have been taught to focus on fixing ourselves. Systems thinking asks a different question. What if the problem isn’t you or even those around you, but it’s actually the environment that we’re trying to operate within? So by the end of this episode, I really want you to understand why seeing through a broken system, yes, it can make you angry, but it can also give you a huge sense of

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of empowerment and hope and rationalization where you can say, okay, if this isn’t me, because I’ve tried all the things to fix me and I’ve tried all the time management techniques or whatever it is, and it still isn’t working, what can I do to influence the system around me and actually choose one of three paths, influence and change the system, the first one, the second one, leave the system or the third one. create something new. One of the great pretenses is that many of the challenges that women face are individual problems requiring individual solutions. We are told that we need better time management, greater resilience. We need to be more strategic. We need stronger boundaries or another productivity technique. And I’m not just talking about you’re being told those by someone else. We tell ourselves those things. But what if the issue isn’t simply the individual woman? What if it’s the issue is actually the system that she’s operating within? Because systems are incredibly powerful. They shape what feels normal. Cultural norms, organisational norms, social norms, religious norms, country norms, political norms influence everything. How we feel, how we behave. And if everyone around you is working 12 hour days, answering emails at 10 o’clock at night and sacrificing their wellbeing for work, overworking doesn’t feel like a choice. It feels normal. It feels expected. It is expected. It is the price of belonging and succeeding. So whatever time management technique you try and do with that. or enforce your boundary not to be there at the 10 o’clock meeting. If everyone else is there, it can be incredibly career limiting. So the problem is that these norms then reinforce themselves, don’t they? The system starts to shape the behaviour. It shapes the norms, it shapes and it strengthens the systems. And we end up in a self-perpetuating cycle where everyone adapts to the environment rather than questioning whether the environment itself is healthy. And I know that there are many of you out there who are questioning the environment, who are working in areas of social change, of organisational change, of cultural change, of teams change, of looking at yourself and really thinking about what needs to be different. But I don’t believe the answer is another coping mechanism. Coping helps you to survive the system, but survival isn’t the same as freedom. It certainly doesn’t feel the same as freedom and it certainly doesn’t give you the same choices as freedom. Sometimes the real question isn’t how can you manage your workload better? It’s why has this workload become so unacceptable in the first place?

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The great pretence survives itself because good people keep it running, keep compensating for it. Women particularly often rescue the deadline, protect the team, improve the presentation, translate the vague instruction and work late enough to conceal the real cost. The system then mistakes hidden sacrifice for normal capacity. This isn’t an argument that all women lead well and all men lead badly or women are naturally destined to repair every broken institution. That is yet to be proven, let’s go with that for now, alright? It’s a narrower and more defensible claim that women’s experience and leadership remains underutilised while the world faces intense problems that require a wider distribution of power, intelligence and imagination. One current illustration I have for you is from political leadership. UN Women and the Inter-Parliamentary Union report that as of the 1st of January 2026, women held 27.4% of seats in national parliaments. and 22.4% of cabinet posts globally. Now I know some people will be yippee yippee-ing about how high that is, but is it really that high? I mean, these figures do not prove that women would automatically create better systems, but they do show that major decisions are still being made without women holding equal power and influence. The evidence is not the whole argument. My coaching work supplies I believe another form of insight. Experienced women repeatedly describe to me their intelligence being swallowed up by process, accountability without authority, weak leadership often above them. Under payment, it’s still happening and I don’t know why we haven’t done a mass global rebellion about it. We’re still underpaid. And we say things like, it doesn’t really matter, it’s not about the money, but we’re still underpaid and overworked. And the emotional labour of making systems look actually much more functional than they are. So, boss is not only what broken systems do to women, it’s what the world loses when women’s intelligence is consumed by maintaining them. Let’s make it real. A woman who is doing the work of two people while still being underpaid and she’s gradually accepted the arrangement because she knows what will fall apart if she stops. A woman approaching 60 who asks whether she should just deal with it, just jog along, risk moving from the frying pan into the fire or use the next chapter of her life and career much more differently.

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A capable leader who is surrounded by career lifers and political operator who is full of rage because process has replaced purpose. A woman who controls every detail because competence and control have been her way of staying sane and safe inside an unreliable system. Let’s widen the lens. and have some future-facing possibilities? What if a finance leader in the future redirects part of her expertise towards funding women-led social enterprises or climate solutions? What if a lawyer uses her experience to improve access to justice, redesign a harmful policy or support community organisations? What if a corporate executive stays in her role but changes how work is allocated, makes invisible labour visible and gives people genuine decision authority? What if an academic connects research to public action rather than allowing insight to remain inside journals and conferences? She’s brave and starts speaking publicly about her work even though she hates public speaking. A charity leader who stops reproducing the same exhausted model and pilots a more collaborative way of sharing funding, knowledge and power and makes a huge difference to the educational system for children within her country. What about the woman who leaves a corporate institution that refuses to change and builds a small experiment with others? rather than waiting for the perfect opportunity or the perfect plan. Are you in there in one of those examples? Let’s reframe this. Awareness is power. Before awareness, you may interpret this strain as your own private inadequacy. You try harder, become a bit more efficient, learn how to delegate, soften your language. because you’re told that you’re too hard or you’re too soft or you’re not speaking up enough or you’re speaking up too much or whatever the heck it is, and you keep the machine moving. Awareness changes our questions. It allows you to separate what belongs to you and what belongs to the system. Now, this doesn’t mean that you suddenly control everything and it’s suddenly going to be okay. I cannot promise you that. Power is not the same as total control. Power begins with being able to name reality. Stop colluding with what you can see and find other people who see it too, and choose where to apply your influence. Now this is really important. Find other people who can see it too, or you can help them to see it too. And rather than moaning and complaining and getting angry about it, actually start to look up, what can we do? This truth may initially annoy you, irritate you, or maybe you think I’m overreacting because… It reveals how much energy and time you have wasted. And I feel like this, you know, like there’s a lot of energy and time that I have wasted personally. And in my work, when you really realise this isn’t about this individual or me, this is about the systems that we operate in. But it can become very useful, very useful and very hopeful, actually, and inspiring as a beacon.

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when we can move from this private fury into courageous speaking, courageous redesign, courageous solidarity and creation. You are not powerless because you cannot fix the entire system. You become more powerful when you stop pretending. Locate your sphere of influence and act with others. So the three paths, let’s talk about the three paths. Path one, change it, change it. Now this may seem initially like a very difficult endeavor and very difficult for one person to do alone, but isn’t it the small actions that often make the difference? I’m not talking here necessarily about them, the huge cultural change programs or the complete policy changes or the restructures or all of this stuff. Although I know that this all exists often, it’s just sort of reworking an old engine that isn’t working very well. This is the woman who works in the cafe who says, why are we throwing away all this food? Let’s do something different. This is the woman in the corporate organization in a meeting who speaks up and says, why are we doing it like this? Do we really need this meeting? Let’s align with what our values are and starts to live the values that we often espouse. We ask if this is a priority, why are we stopping it? We ask the questions that perhaps others are not brave enough to ask. Isn’t that really what leadership is? We request clarity about decision rights. We publish the real workload. We pilot a better process with one team. We bring the people affected by a decision into a room. Changing a system does not mean carrying it alone. Find your allies, map the power, work collectively. It does not mean being mean and disrespectful. I cannot guarantee you that everyone is going to love what you do. I cannot guarantee you that you will make massive change initially, but I do guarantee you this. Even if it is not the norm in your organisation and others would suggest that it’s career limiting, it is in fact the true definition of leadership. And even if it doesn’t work, my dear, I invite you to consider this. At least you tried. And isn’t it a life well lived when you give these things a go? Now path two, leave it. You’re not in prison.

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I know many of you would consider that you are, that there are bills to pay, that you have put much into this, that you don’t want to leave the people that you really like working with, that this has always been your path, that your mum and dad suggested that this would be the profession that would be a good one for you to go into. And could you possibly leave now at this age and stage of your life? And I recognise that Many of us don’t have the serious appetite to try and change an institution and that the personal cost of staying may have become too high. Leaving can feel very scary, it is the unknown. It could mean resigning, changing sector, ending a chapter in your life, stepping off a committee or refusing a role that means that you would abandon who you really are and your values. What I would suggest to you here, having worked with many, many women who have made transitions over the past 25 years, is get practical. Start to address what it is that is really truly scaring you. Is it really financial or is it the belief that you’re capable of doing something else? Would someone really want you to do it? Gather your fears and write them out. Gather your financial and practical information. Speak confidentially to others who are in other fields. Women particularly are incredible at, not women, a lot of women, let me say that, a lot of women are incredible at helping others. And when we want advice about what’s it like working in your field, how did you start that business? How did you transition from corporate to charity? How did you transition from charity to corporate? But we have to be brave enough to ask, to send the LinkedIn message to someone we don’t even know and accept if they don’t answer, it’s okay. We find somebody else. We women are not so good at accepting help, but we are very, very good at giving it.

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The important truth, of course, is that leaving an organisation is not always possible right away. It needs to be a planned exit, and a planned exit over a period of time is still an exercise of agency. Part three. This path is about creating something new. Maybe, and this is so true of so many women I know, what you want. doesn’t actually exist yet. When you write your list of what you want, that perhaps you want flexibility, perhaps you want to be financially rewarded appropriately, perhaps you want to be purposeful and passionate about what you do and jump out of bed in the morning and love what you do and still get paid for it. But it seems so idealistic, like a dream almost. and so therefore you tell yourself that it’s not possible, that you need to be more realistic on what is and isn’t possible. But the important truth is this, that maybe it doesn’t exist yet and that perhaps you are the pioneer in your own way who will create this pilot, this new service, this project, this policy, this fund, this collaboration, this different way of working or organizing your work. And I would encourage you, even if you think it’s completely off the charts than whatever it is that you want, stop just brainstorming it a bit. Draw a picture, write a one-page concept, invite a couple of other people into the conversation, run an experiment, volunteer your expertise, the cause that you’re really passionate about. And yes, they will want you. Yes, they will. Connect a couple of people who should know each other and you want to know. Create a micro version of the future you want to create. Even if it is only on a page, it is a starting point. I’m not talking about escape dressed up as purpose here. All right. We’re not just talking about getting away from something terrible and creating something else. Terrible. We’re talking about creating something new.

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All right. And this is where that, we might call it your entrepreneurial spirit. Hillary Clinton last week called Gloria Steinem an entrepreneur of social change. Now we don’t normally put those two words together. Entrepreneurs are about business and making money, aren’t they? And social change about making a difference, making no money. Let’s put those two things together. What a future. So the bigger futures… Ori is that there are paths. Path one, change it. Path two, leave it. Path three, create something new. Or maybe there’s some kind of hybrid path for you that I haven’t even thought of that you’re going to create. For generations, generations, hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years, women have gained entry into systems from which we have historically been excluded. That work remains unfinished and urgent. But there is another chapter now, isn’t there? Women using the knowledge that we have gained inside these systems to challenge what isn’t working. What can actually be harmful and to create what comes next? Imagine experienced women around the world applying their leadership Now leadership, I don’t want to lose you when I say leadership because I’m not talking about you don’t have to be the most senior person to be the leader, we can all be leaders and the definition of leadership has to radically change in my opinion. We are applying our leadership, so our leadership is our vision, our purpose, our values, our determination across business, charity, academia, law, politics, society, the environment. Not one heroic woman fixing everything. Not women being handed another burden. Millions of women, maybe even billions of us, in different spheres of influence, using our freedom, our knowledge, our relationships, our biology, how we feel, how we think, our empathy, our compassion. Our softness, which for so many years we’ve been told, don’t be too soft, it’s a bit soft, isn’t it? To shape the worlds that we touch. This is the future story. Awareness becomes connection. Connection starts to become experimentation. Experimentation becomes change. Individual beacons of light that we are become visible to one another.

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And nobody, none of us have to carry the whole future alone. See it. Choose it. Move it. I want to give you a practical exercise. Can I do that? Grab a piece of paper. You can do it. And a pen. Let’s go old school. Take one sheet of paper. Have you got your paper? Answer three questions. Number one. What can I now see clearly that I was no longer willing to pretend is working? Hmm. Number two. What path is mine for now? Change it? Leave it? Or create something new? And number three. What is one action I can take within 24 hours that makes my choice real? It doesn’t need to be a 55-page PowerPoint strategic plan. You do not need to solve your whole life in the next 24 hours. Choose one truth, one path, one move. It may be a thought, something that you think differently in the next 24 hours. Maybe you get up later tomorrow, because you need the rest in order to think. Maybe you challenge something differently and say something differently in one of those meetings that you’re going to have back to back over the next few days. Maybe you do take that piece of paper and just very idealistically dream likely. Is that a word? Dream likely. Start putting down what it is that you truly want. And I’m not just talking about the practicalities of what you want. but the values of what you want. Within the next 24 hours, this creates a ripple effect on yourself and on others. It starts to get you going on your path. You’ve seen one step down the path, you go, hmm, I think I quite like it on this path. And oh my goodness, look at all these other amazing people who are also on this path with me. This action should be small enough to complete, but real enough that you can no longer claim that nothing’s begun and it’s all just too difficult and you’re still in the angry phase. We need to move you from irritated, angry, frustrated, annoyed to practicality, illogical, into inspiration, hope and a beacon of something phenomenal for yourself and other women around the world. And yes, yes, you will get there.

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The great pretense, you cannot unsee it. You might notice now even more than before the empty process, the political careers, the missing leadership, the work that always travels towards the most responsible person and the silence that allows it to continue. That awareness should make you angry and good that it does because anger I think is underrated. It’s one of those emotions that I actually quite like, as weird as that may sound, it can tell you that something matters, but it cannot stay trapped in complaint. It gives awareness and awareness gives us choices. We can change what is within our influence. We can leave what we will not change. We can change something that does not yet exist. The world does not need women. It doesn’t need us becoming better and better. at tolerating broken systems. We don’t have the time. Too much is going on in the world. I cannot believe, I looked at BBC this morning and CNN and I do it deliberately every morning because it totally depresses me. And I think, oh my God, this stuff is happening around the world, but it also totally ignites me. All right. It’s like, okay, I need to, I need, I need to do some, something, something. This morning when I got up, I wasn’t I was feeling really tired. I had this weirdest dream in the night. Like, I had the most epic dreams and it wasn’t the most fun dream. And I woke up and I ended up putting the lights on and watching a bit of MasterChef just to get me back to sleep, quite frankly. Not that MasterChef is boring. I love MasterChef, but you know, it doesn’t require too much of my brain cells. And so I ended up sleeping in a bit, but not in a good way because I hadn’t slept. And also I had one glass of wine last night. Just one glass of wine, but I think one glass of wine now just gives me a bit of a morning headache. Might be in the ice cream bar I had with it. But anyway, so this morning I woke up and I was like, I’m definitely not recording because I just feel like absolute total shite. But I thought to myself, okay, let’s look at CNN and BBC. Did it. All right. Now I feel a bit more motivated. Did my meditation and that really, really helped me because many of you know how much I love a good little meditation in the mornings. You know, sometimes we have to do things when it’s not perfect and at least we’re doing it. That’s the main message. Don’t wait, you’re perfect. Don’t wait till you know exactly what’s going on because there’s too much going on and time is short and life is short too. So choose one path and choose one ripple action in the next 24 hours. And if this episode made you think of another woman who needs to see it too,

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You know who she is. Maybe she’s your daughter, your sister, your mother, your aunt, your niece, your next door neighbor, your team member, your boss. Someone you met at an event five years ago, but you just think she’s amazing. Someone on Instagram, whatever it is, and you know that she’s in the great pretense and you want her to stop surviving in silence. Listen to the podcast. And, or just tell her about it. you know, what you’ve learned from the podcast. Um, so we can have more women understanding this too. And I know there’s some fabulous men out there too, who you know, need to listen to this. And there’s some not so fabulous men and some not so fabulous women who probably need to listen to it too. They probably won’t listen to it, but I think let’s start with those that will. And that’s got to be, maybe that’s your action. Maybe that’s, maybe that’s your action, however small or however large it creates a ripple effect of change. The great pretense, it survives in silence, better futures begin when we start to find each other and really mobilise and move. So thank you so much for listening today to the Dr Sam Collins podcast. And I’m feeling really sweaty now and probably need to, I don’t know, go and have a cup of coffee or something because it’s still early in the morning for me. I’m just so grateful that you listened the whole way through. And don’t just listen to it, though. You’ve got to do something with it, all right? Take that action and get on the path. Or if you’re already on the path, which I know many of you are, and maybe you’re down a path where it’s already going really great, then look around you and bring others, particularly other women and girls, onto that path with you, all right? And if you’re stuck, then you listen to this again. Take one of those actions to get yourself unstuck. And if you’re just starting out on the path, which I know many of you are, this is a great path. We’re having a lot of fun on this path. Yeah, this is like, this is a good time. This is a place where you’re with people and particularly women who are like, you’re not mad, you’re good. No, no, no, we’re with you. How can I help you? Not like, oh, how can I do this? Sounds very difficult. We’re not, no, that’s not the path we’re on. We’re on a path where we’re doing good things and we care and we’re incredibly powerful and incredibly fierce and incredibly angry and incredibly soft all at the same time. It’s a phenomenal mixture. And we drink a lot of coffee and some wine and eat quite a lot of cake. All right. Thank you and see you next week.

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