Ei x AXA : Mental Health & Insurances with Gordon Watson

10/14/22 • 47 min

Gordon Watson

He is the CEO for AXA Asia, an experienced and energetic leader with a strong track record of delivering results. He is also a member of the group’s management committee. Gordon’s career in the insurance industry spans more than 30 years, including as regional CEO for AIA, as well as leading the group’s corporate solutions, partnership distribution, and AIA Vitality businesses from 2011 to 2017; he was also regional president for AIG Life in Japan and Korea from 2008 to 2010. He has held many key senior roles based out of London, New York, Nairobi, Dubai, Tokyo, Seoul, and Hong Kong. Gordon holds an MBA from the University of Hull in the UK and is a fellow of the UK’s Chartered Insurance Institute and the Society of Marketing. He is also the founding chair of Shared Value Project (SVP) in Hong Kong, where he works with private companies to tackle social issues.

Insights from this episode:

Mental health visibility
Ethisphere Institute & One Mind
Mental health Index of best practices for companies’ self assessment
Creating mental health culture in companies
Leaders’ role and responsibility in mental health company practices
Sustainability of mental health practices in companies
Inclusion of mental health in Insurances

Quotes from the show:

“Each person, to be all you can be in a company needs to come in, needs to bring the best of themselves to work and be able to thrive there.” - Gordon Watson
“For me as a CEO, we want high performance, but people need to come in and they need to feel comfortable that they can thrive.” - Gordon Watson
“If you really get mental health culture right, it should be robust and strong enough for everyone.” - Gordon Watson
“How can we create an overall robust mental health culture that really allows employees to bring the best of themselves to work everyday no matter who they are and really have a meritocracy and a team that supports each other?” - Gordon Watson
“We really have the moral obligation to look beyond and exercise deep awareness in that realm because a lot can be hidden behind a smile.” - Mollie Jean De Dieu
“Emotional inclusion, it’s really all about the doing because inclusion is an action.” - Mollie Jean De Dieu
“There is such a stigma behind mental health but we need to be walking our talk in making ripples of change and allowing there to be a work landscape for the generations to come where they can truly bring their full selves at work.” - Mollie Jean De Dieu
“Unless we see employee mental well-being through a medical lens, it cannot be sustainable.” - Mollie Jean De Dieu
“If you look after the mental health of your employees it’s going to affect your business in a very positive way; morale, engagement, etc.” - Gordon Watson

Stay connected:

Gordon Watson
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gordontwatson/

Emotional inclusion

https://www.emotionalinclusion.com/

https://www.instagram.com/emotional_inclusion/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/emotional-inclusion/

Gordon Watson

Insights from this episode:

Mental health visibility
Ethisphere Institute & One Mind
Mental health Index of best practices for companies’ self assessment
Creating mental health culture in companies
Leaders’ role and responsibility in mental health company practices
Sustainability of mental health practices in companies
Inclusion of mental health in Insurances

Quotes from the show:

“Each person, to be all you can be in a company needs to come in, needs to bring the best of themselves to work and be able to thrive there.” - Gordon Watson
“For me as a CEO, we want high performance, but people need to come in and they need to feel comfortable that they can thrive.” - Gordon Watson
“If you really get mental health culture right, it should be robust and strong enough for everyone.” - Gordon Watson
“How can we create an overall robust mental health culture that really allows employees to bring the best of themselves to work everyday no matter who they are and really have a meritocracy and a team that supports each other?” - Gordon Watson
“We really have the moral obligation to look beyond and exercise deep awareness in that realm because a lot can be hidden behind a smile.” - Mollie Jean De Dieu
“Emotional inclusion, it’s really all about the doing because inclusion is an action.” - Mollie Jean De Dieu
“There is such a stigma behind mental health but we need to be walking our talk in making ripples of change and allowing there to be a work landscape for the generations to come where they can truly bring their full selves at work.” - Mollie Jean De Dieu
“Unless we see employee mental well-being through a medical lens, it cannot be sustainable.” - Mollie Jean De Dieu
“If you look after the mental health of your employees it’s going to affect your business in a very positive way; morale, engagement, etc.” - Gordon Watson

Stay connected:

Gordon Watson
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gordontwatson/

Emotional inclusion

https://www.emotionalinclusion.com/

https://www.instagram.com/emotional_inclusion/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/emotional-inclusion/

Previous Episode

Ei x Amy Edmondson: When Psychological Safety & Emotional inclusion Come Together

Amy Edmondson

Amy is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School, a chair established to support the study of human interactions that lead to the creation of successful enterprises. Best known for her groundbreaking work on psychological safety in the workplace, Amy has written a fantastic book called “The Fearless Organization, creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation and growth.” She is the author of seven books in total and more than 75 articles and case studies. Amy has been named in 2021, The #1 Management thinker in the World by Thinkers50 for her pioneering ideas on psychological safety in the workplace and transforming how companies operate, innovate and collaborate. She was also named the Most Influential International Thinker in Human Resources by HR Magazine in 2019.

Insights from this episode:

Psychological safety
Speaking up and being heard
Cultural differences in workplace dynamics
Purpose and fulfillment in work
Spectrum of Mental Health illnesses
Value creation
Curiosity, Humility, and Empathy

Quotes from the show:

“It’s great to have psychological safety and feel like you can speak up, but it matters even more if you feel like someone’s listening.” - Amy Edmondson
“Healthy organization of the future would be one where the purpose is front and center is people’s minds, where the culture is healthy, inclusive.” - Amy Edmondson
“We all want to be a part of something larger than ourselves.” - Amy Edmondson
“The first thing that companies need to do is truly differentiate and help identify people who are having medical mental health challenges and get them the help they need. Nothing could be more important than that. “ - Amy Edmondson
“Psychological safety is simply permission for candor.” - Amy Edmondson
“Curiosity is the twin sister of humility.” - Amy Edmondson
“Emotional inclusion is really a calling on companies to seriously invest in the mental health of their employees inside their organization, and really through a medical lens to see sustainable results because that’s effectively what we’re all after.” - Mollie Jean De Dieu
“Make sure that our employees feel valued and cared for, and that they have a sense of meaning within their organizations.” - Mollie Jean De Dieu

Stay connected:

Amy Edmondson
LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amedmondson/

Emotional inclusion

https://www.emotionalinclusion.com/
https://www.instagram.com/emotional_inclusion/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/emotional-inclusion/

Next Episode

Ei x Shell: Emotional Inclusion In Action

Lyn Lee

Lynn is the first global Asian female Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion officer to execute her job out of Asia for Shell. In terms of DE&I, Shell has a bold goal to become one of the most diverse and inclusive organizations in the world. With 20 years and counting at Shell, Lyn champions the DE&I priorities, focusing very much on accelerating the progress of gender balance in senior leadership and stem roles, ethnicity and local national representation.

Lyn is passionate and committed to driving workplace inclusion of people with disabilities, LGBTQIA+, and promoting care and destigmatizing mental illness. She represents Shell as a company which embraces a diverse global workforce to build a strong culture of inclusion, respect and high performance.

Insights from this episode:

DE&I
Differentiation of Emotional Inclusion and Psychological Safety
Stories and human connection
Mental Illness and seeking professional help
Respect and empathy
Emotionally inclusive leadership
Mental health illnesses and medical care and treatment
Leadership tips
Shell’s “I’m Not OK” initiative (to promote open and honest conversations about mental health)

Quotes from the show:

“Inclusion, I think for me it’s really feeling that you are part of that ecosystem, that when I go to work I know that I will be supported. It’s about knowing that I’ll be valued for my contributions and that I’ll be valued for the person that I am. So when I go to work I feel safe. And being able to be myself, I can thrive.” - Lyn Lee
“Emotional inclusion for me would mean that no matter who I am that day, whether I'm having a good or bad time, that I can feel almost that the people that I work with have my back.” - Lyn Lee
“Psychological safety is really being in an arena that allows you to be safe whilst Emotional inclusion really is about the ability to bring your full self at work with the emotionality component that we all have ingrained within all of us.” - Mollie Jean De Dieu
“All of us have a story and when we share that, we connect people because we all have at some fundamental level, we all need that connection; the ability to hear other people’s stories so that it gives us a voice as well to tell our stories.” - Lyn Lee
“People really need to hear that navigating or going through difficulty is not an end-all and be-all and that we can survive it all, and we can also still be able to have a career.” - Mollie Jean De Dieu
“You have all these vented emotions that you are carrying, worries that you are carrying, and all of these add to an emotional burden and that burden is heavy. It’s heavy unless you share it, unless someone is able to give you feedback. And that’s actually what’s needed in a major crisis like that in terms of dealing with mental health challenges.” - Lyn Lee
“Company leadership plays such an important role in creating an environment where employees have the chance to take time off to care for themselves and where worker well-being is really emphasized.” - Mollie Jean De Dieu
“For companies to truly put mental health at the centerfold of their agendas, really understanding the full scope of our employees’ humanity both the physical and the mental, and really looking at insurances too or allocated budget, to care for our employees mental welfare because as we know mind and body are so interconnected.” - Mollie Jean De Dieu
“The first thing that is the most difficult is having the ability to talk about this [mental health]. This is the most important. This is the start to recovery, the start to being better, the start to gaining back yourself.” - Lyn Lee

Stay connected:

Lyn Lee

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lyn-lee-981ba03/

Emotional inclusion

https://www.emotionalinclusion.com/
https://www.instagram.com/emotional_inclusion/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/emotional-inclusion/