Last Friday, I hobbled into a training room in Saigon on crutches, balanced my knee on a chair pirate-style, and spent the morning facilitating a ‘JEDI’ workshop for EXO Travel’s regional HR team.

I’ve personally used EXO Travel for the past fifteen years, and would commend them to anyone seeking travel and ticketing support across Southeast Asia. They’ve consistently supported my family’s adventuring around the globe and my own work trips. So, it was a particular thrill to be asked to join them and discuss various issues that are close to my heart, and to my livelihood as a consultant.

JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) is a framework I’ve been working with for a while now and, standing on one leg, introducing the session last Friday, seemed a visually fitting and auspicious way to kick things off.

The most interesting part of JEDI, at least to me, is the “J”. Most organisations are now reasonably familiar with diversity (who is in the room?) equity (is the playing field level?) and inclusion (do people feel they belong once they arrive?) But Justice asks a different question: why was the playing field uneven in the first place, and what are we prepared to do about it?

You could say that justice is the difference between helping somebody navigate a flight of stairs, and asking why the building still doesn’t have a ramp. As someone currently spending more time than usual thinking about accessibility, I have developed views on both.

What impressed me about EXO was that they weren’t approaching the topic as a box-ticking exercise. The company has developed a JEDI policy, shaped by its leadership and grounded in values that include “caring deeply, seeking excellence and inspiring joy”.

Before our workshop, they surveyed their HR leaders across the region, to understand the challenges they were facing. That input helped shape the session itself. The result was a conversation rooted in reality rather than theory. We explored what respectful workplace culture looks like in practice. We discussed inclusive recruitment and hiring. We looked at psychological safety and what prevents people from speaking up when they see problems emerging.

Most importantly, we worked through real case studies drawn from situations participants had encountered themselves.

I’ve seen organisations invest significant resources in developing policies that very few employees ever truly understand or feel ownership over. Equally, I’ve seen relatively simple initiatives create lasting change because people were given the opportunity to discuss difficult issues openly and arrive at practical solutions together.

The EXO team showed a genuine willingness to do exactly that. By the end of the session, participants had identified concrete actions they could take forward. Not vague commitments to “raise awareness,” but practical steps connected to their own teams and responsibilities. It was a great moment to oversee, when a group of people begin to see a challenge collectively and decide they have both the responsibility and the ability to do something about it.

I’ve written recently about the pressures JEDI is facing. One time arguing that companies must double down as the political winds shift, and another time tracking the pendulum swing as some Western corporations quietly retreat from the language they once championed with considerable zeal. Many large firms have been rebranding, scaling back, going silent. Others have quietly stopped talking about JEDI issues altogether.

And yet, sitting in that training room in Saigon last week, none of that felt particularly relevant. Here in Southeast Asia, diversity has never been an abstract concept. Daily professional life already involves navigating different languages, religions, cultures, generations and perspectives. The challenge was never whether diversity existed, but how to work effectively across it.

That pragmatism may ultimately prove an advantage and we might see, like I saw with EXO, more companies focused on solving workplace problems and helping teams perform better together.

A company can’t solve everything in a single morning, but in choosing to engage seriously with the questions, EXO created space for honest discussion. And they demonstrated that progress is still possible when organisations are willing to listen, learn and act.

****************************************************

I can’t quite resist ending with the obvious Star Wars reference. The Jedi, after all, spent a long time in exile before the Force reasserted itself. But what mattered wasn’t that they disappeared from public view, but that the people who understood why their work was needed, never stopped practicing it.

In the meantime, this particular one-legged facilitator, for what it’s worth, has no plans to go anywhere.

And so, if your organisation is working through similar questions and could use a facilitator, then do get in touch. My company Coracle Consulting runs workshops on exactly these themes and more: JEDI and workplace culture, but we also deliver modules on communication and professional presence, team collaboration, problem solving, negotiation and self-motivation.

Drop me a line at timbishop@coracleconsulting.net if you’d like to talk.

Have a great weekend!