Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everybody, and welcome to the very first podcast in my
Joanne Lockwood: no new show called Inclusion Bites. In this series, I'll be
Joanne Lockwood: interviewing a number of amazing people simply having a conversation
Joanne Lockwood: around the subject of inclusion, belonging, and generally making the world a
Joanne Lockwood: better place for everyone to thrive in. Would like to join me in the
Joanne Lockwood: future, then please do drop me a line to jo.lockwood@seachangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: You'll be at a catch up with all of the shows on iTunes, Spotify, and
Joanne Lockwood: all the user places. So plug in your headphones, grab a decaf, and let's
Joanne Lockwood: get going. Well, today, I have the absolute honor and privilege
Joanne Lockwood: to be joined by Dr Lynda Shaw. I first met Lynda at
Joanne Lockwood: a mess musical, at the Professional Speaking Association, and was recently
Joanne Lockwood: amused by her entertaining the audience in a musical comedy sketch playing
Joanne Lockwood: in the triangle in a different dialect. I asked Lynda
Joanne Lockwood: to describe her superpower, as she said, her superpower
Joanne Lockwood: is always loving change while the rest of us try to
Joanne Lockwood: resist change, this is something Lynda does to great effect.
Joanne Lockwood: And today, we're gonna tackle the topic entitled
Joanne Lockwood: It's the brain stupid. So Dr Lynda Shaw, good
Joanne Lockwood: morning. How are you? Good morning, Joanne. Really good. Thank you. How are
Dr Lynda Shaw: you? I'm fantastic. Thank you. Really looking forward to this. We planned this a
Joanne Lockwood: couple of months ago, and I'm really, really excited to, finally have the
Joanne Lockwood: opportunity to catch up. So do you want to tell me and
Joanne Lockwood: the listeners a bit more about yourself? So who is Dr Lynda
Joanne Lockwood: Shaw? Yep. I'm, I've got a doctorate in neuroscience.
Dr Lynda Shaw: My, specialty is unconscious processing of emotion,
Dr Lynda Shaw: and it's morphed into, other things as well.
Dr Lynda Shaw: Basically, because I had 3 businesses before I went back to academia,
Dr Lynda Shaw: and I've got a psychology in my background. So, my biggest
Dr Lynda Shaw: business, I had 2, 20 staff and 2000 members of a health
Dr Lynda Shaw: club. So I sort of get what it's like
Dr Lynda Shaw: to manage people to understand
Dr Lynda Shaw: how to motivate them, how to dis how to create decent
Dr Lynda Shaw: decision making processes, how to judgments, all of those things
Dr Lynda Shaw: that the cognitive brain does. So my discipline is cognitive
Dr Lynda Shaw: neuroscience. So I basically am a specialist in how the brain
Dr Lynda Shaw: changes behavior and behavior changes the brain.
Dr Lynda Shaw: And because of that, what people don't realize
Dr Lynda Shaw: is just how much control they really have.
Dr Lynda Shaw: They can control their behavior to a certain extent, not completely,
Dr Lynda Shaw: but to a certain extent, more than they realize if they just were aware
Dr Lynda Shaw: of it, understood how to do it, how to,
Dr Lynda Shaw: how to change willingly. So that's what I rang on about when I go
Dr Lynda Shaw: around to companies and senior people in on in the city and such
Dr Lynda Shaw: like. So it's almost like saying to yourself,
Joanne Lockwood: before something comes out your mouth before a thought becomes locked in, how
Joanne Lockwood: can I change that thought? How can I reframe that? How can I nudge it
Joanne Lockwood: into a different orbit maybe? Yeah. I mean, as soon as
Dr Lynda Shaw: you, create a different way of thinking on a particular
Dr Lynda Shaw: topic or a particular person or particular object, you'll actually
Dr Lynda Shaw: rewire the brain. You've lead our new neural pathways and new
Dr Lynda Shaw: connections, new synapses, new dendrites, new everything. So it
Dr Lynda Shaw: and then if you keep rolling that thought, you
Dr Lynda Shaw: will strengthen it, and it will become your default thought instead of
Dr Lynda Shaw: the more destructive one. So if we Yeah.
Dr Lynda Shaw: So, you know, we are we can do that, and we do it all
Dr Lynda Shaw: the time. But what people don't realize is they can do it deliberately.
Dr Lynda Shaw: And by doing it deliberately, you have that you're in more in control of your
Dr Lynda Shaw: destiny, which is really cool. So I I heard
Joanne Lockwood: recently that most of the biases we have are learned.
Joanne Lockwood: Okay. We we do have some protection type biases, some subliminal
Joanne Lockwood: reptilian buses, but we do learn a lot of biases, over the
Joanne Lockwood: course of our lifetime, don't we?
Dr Lynda Shaw: Wellbeing has come from heuristics.
Dr Lynda Shaw: Heuristics is a method the brain uses to,
Dr Lynda Shaw: create shortcuts to lay down information because
Dr Lynda Shaw: we we are bombarded with this cacophony of stimuli
Dr Lynda Shaw: all the time, and the brain can't cope with it. So it relegates everything
Dr Lynda Shaw: to unconscious processing, automatic processing that does not
Dr Lynda Shaw: take attention as quickly as possible. So we're locking away
Dr Lynda Shaw: all of this huge amounts of data. Now, if I said to
Dr Lynda Shaw: you, if this was, is this a four sheet of
Dr Lynda Shaw: paper here, was a, as the was the
Dr Lynda Shaw: brain. And, part of it's conscious
Dr Lynda Shaw: processing, and part of it is unconscious processing. How much would
Dr Lynda Shaw: you say that sheet of paper is conscious processing?
Joanne Lockwood: I'd have to say with a that's the thing I'm slightly educated. So I left,
Joanne Lockwood: I just say that probably 80% was probably unconscious and 20%
Joanne Lockwood: conscious. 20% conscious is what you reckon.
Dr Lynda Shaw: Yeah? Well, in actual fact, it's
Dr Lynda Shaw: probably that much. So That little dog.
Joanne Lockwood: A couple of stuff. All the rest is unconscious processing.
Dr Lynda Shaw: So what we do with heuristics is we think
Dr Lynda Shaw: Okay. That person has, has a
Dr Lynda Shaw: green skin with things sticking out of his head, must be a Martian, put them
Dr Lynda Shaw: in the Martian book. That person has,
Dr Lynda Shaw: that that thing has four legs of tail and ears. It must be a dog
Dr Lynda Shaw: in the dog box. The unconscious processing, it gets it could so
Dr Lynda Shaw: it's speed of efficiency for the brain to operate. But then
Dr Lynda Shaw: we get these biases, because they were all of a sudden thinking, well, that means
Dr Lynda Shaw: that all green people our martians when it could be
Dr Lynda Shaw: the Grinch, or it could be, you know, that dog is
Dr Lynda Shaw: actually a cat. So we we start get it wrong,
Dr Lynda Shaw: biases are, are not very, very helpful
Dr Lynda Shaw: in terms of being accurate because we stereotyped
Dr Lynda Shaw: people, immediately into, because they've got that accent,
Dr Lynda Shaw: that must mean they're ABC. In a box. It's stereotypical.
Dr Lynda Shaw: So, it's not helpful because we get that wrong, but
Dr Lynda Shaw: equally, it's helpful because it enables us process so much
Dr Lynda Shaw: information so quickly. So the heuristics are great,
Dr Lynda Shaw: but the side effect of the biases And the site, the
Dr Lynda Shaw: biases are the things that we're trying to tackle so much in commerce now, which
Dr Lynda Shaw: is a very difficult thing to tackle. And,
Dr Lynda Shaw: it's it's a conundrum. It's it's actually a really big problem.
Joanne Lockwood: I heard somewhere that, the the, if you
Joanne Lockwood: like, this unconscious brain is really fast, whereas the conscious
Joanne Lockwood: brain is quite slow and expensive in terms of
Joanne Lockwood: brain cycles. It costs more process things consciously
Joanne Lockwood: than it does unconsciously. Is is that a truism, or is that just a No.
Dr Lynda Shaw: It's it's it's fairly true. We've got to be careful of these
Dr Lynda Shaw: grant statements in neuroscience, the pop the popular press get hold of
Dr Lynda Shaw: this stuff. I mean, may I give you an example of what it's like to
Dr Lynda Shaw: be a neuroscientist to give you to give you context? Okay.
Dr Lynda Shaw: So we have an idea. And we've got our little idea,
Dr Lynda Shaw: and we think, okay, this is a really good idea. I want to research this
Dr Lynda Shaw: I wonder if anybody else has researched it and what's been said
Dr Lynda Shaw: before. So our little idea becomes this great big
Dr Lynda Shaw: piece of work where we're doing a massive literature review, and we're reading up on
Dr Lynda Shaw: it. We've realized then I'm going, okay. My dear's sound. I could do
Dr Lynda Shaw: that. So we break it right the way down, to our hypothesis.
Dr Lynda Shaw: And then we think, right, I'm going to design my experiment now. So we open
Dr Lynda Shaw: it up, we design the experiment, we run the experiment, we get the
Dr Lynda Shaw: results, And then we they finally take hold, not quite finally.
Dr Lynda Shaw: They're being brought back down to those tiny results in about
Dr Lynda Shaw: half a page. And then we open it up again, in our discussion,
Dr Lynda Shaw: looking back at the literature review. So we're now Lockwood we've now
Dr Lynda Shaw: got our discussion. We've opened it up and we're trying to make sense of the
Dr Lynda Shaw: results. And then we'd close it down, get it down, and down, and down, and
Dr Lynda Shaw: to our conclusion, nice and neat, saying what needs to be done
Dr Lynda Shaw: next. And then with a bit of luck and a fair wind,
Dr Lynda Shaw: we are published in a peer review paper, and it
Dr Lynda Shaw: goes out there to the, to, the enlightened ones. And then
Dr Lynda Shaw: the popular press get hold of it, and that's all how it breaks loose,
Dr Lynda Shaw: because it goes wrong. So so you get this lovely
Dr Lynda Shaw: neuroscientific, of explanations and ideas
Dr Lynda Shaw: and what is going on in the brain, then popular press get hold of it
Dr Lynda Shaw: somebody says, oh, that's gonna fit my business model. I'm gonna say I can make
Dr Lynda Shaw: that fit because of what I'm selling or what my products or my
Dr Lynda Shaw: services. And then it goes really
Dr Lynda Shaw: Wellbeing, Mike, I'm I'm on a
Dr Lynda Shaw: mission to stop this. It's not I'm not gonna stop it, but I will
Dr Lynda Shaw: enlighten everybody I because, so we have to be very careful of grant
Dr Lynda Shaw: statements when it comes to neuroscience. It's a very serious
Dr Lynda Shaw: science, but it's an embryonic science. It's brand new in science
Dr Lynda Shaw: speak, and so we're learning new stuff all the time.
Dr Lynda Shaw: So I I believe that when we get the next generation of
Dr Lynda Shaw: neuroimaging equipment, we will probably unlearn
Dr Lynda Shaw: and discover things again that we have no idea about.
Dr Lynda Shaw: That's what's exciting about neuroscience. Okay. So so
Joanne Lockwood: we've been living in a world of kind of
Joanne Lockwood: fake news is it in terms of what we believe about the brain, and we've
Joanne Lockwood: had all these, you know, I, you know, you hear that Myers Briggs is is
Joanne Lockwood: is as interesting as horoscope and you hear the introvert extrovert,
Joanne Lockwood: the binary parallels that we thought they were before and the and the brain
Joanne Lockwood: is far more complex. So are we even now saying that men aren't for Mars
Joanne Lockwood: and women aren't for Venus anymore? Is is there no male brain, female brain, or
Joanne Lockwood: is that another myth? I worry about this. This this
Dr Lynda Shaw: labeling like this, it's it's the brain isn't that simple. We're
Dr Lynda Shaw: simplifying it too much. We are products
Dr Lynda Shaw: of our, of our chemicals and our biology, but
Dr Lynda Shaw: we're also products our environmental and social upbringing.
Dr Lynda Shaw: So, therefore, we can't just say a male. I mean, I I know that it
Dr Lynda Shaw: girls are little tomboys in the playground. I know that little boys who would rather
Dr Lynda Shaw: play with the prime or chair or, you know, or dolls.
Dr Lynda Shaw: It's, how do we talk about the so called male and female
Dr Lynda Shaw: brain like that, especially when you consider how we
Dr Lynda Shaw: treat our boys and girls differently. And there's been some
Dr Lynda Shaw: really good documentaries on on mainstream television here in the UK,
Dr Lynda Shaw: about this and how, you know, boys, we
Dr Lynda Shaw: push a little bit to be more physical because we're a little bit more
Dr Lynda Shaw: protected with. We don't need to be But it's the way we're programmed as
Dr Lynda Shaw: parents and as teachers and carers. So I think to
Dr Lynda Shaw: talk about a male and female brain is really misleading.
Joanne Lockwood: It's almost, I think it's quite
Joanne Lockwood: demeaning often to women to say, well, the female brain is
Joanne Lockwood: different to the male brain. Therefore, you can't be as effective as a
Joanne Lockwood: man. And it's almost like it's almost like creating 2nd class of citizen
Joanne Lockwood: by by using this malefemale brain thing and men is strong women a
Joanne Lockwood: week. Men men don't quote. Women do quote. And then that's the
Joanne Lockwood: kind of the label we're given as women. That we have to perform
Joanne Lockwood: to our stereotype. Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, we
Dr Lynda Shaw: have this, this idea of of the masculine, you know,
Dr Lynda Shaw: engineers of of men, mathematicians on men. What
Dr Lynda Shaw: nonsense? There's plenty of it female in in men mathematicians
Dr Lynda Shaw: and plenty of female engineers out there, but it's this you know, and one of
Dr Lynda Shaw: my kids, so when they were at university, one of their friends was done on
Dr Lynda Shaw: engineering course, she was the only girl in the auditorium. You know, in the
Dr Lynda Shaw: lecture theater, everyone else was a guy, and I just thought, that's so sad.
Dr Lynda Shaw: Yeah. You know, that's it. And I did some covert of research in a
Dr Lynda Shaw: senior school, not far from here, and I was looking at year 9, so they
Dr Lynda Shaw: were fourteen to fifteen year olds. And, I said,
Dr Lynda Shaw: okay. Let's look at the jobs of nurse, doctor,
Dr Lynda Shaw: what secretary, and she was a
Dr Lynda Shaw: nurse. He was a doctor, and I'm thinking,
Dr Lynda Shaw: really? Still we're doing this? And, you know,
Dr Lynda Shaw: it still goes on. It perpetuates everywhere. I mean, I think I remember one of
Joanne Lockwood: the BBC TV programs where they talked about boys and girls, and they kind
Joanne Lockwood: of identified around about the age of and 7 is where we start locking in
Joanne Lockwood: these identities within us, and a lot of that is
Joanne Lockwood: socialized. And there was big great examples about if you dress
Joanne Lockwood: a a baby in girl clothes at the age of
Joanne Lockwood: 6 months to 18 months. People treated them in a different way than if you
Joanne Lockwood: dressed them in boy clothes regard their actual sex drug gender.
Joanne Lockwood: And, yeah, I was talking to some people that was like, because I work on
Joanne Lockwood: the recruitment HR space. And one of the challenges is trying to
Joanne Lockwood: attract more young girls, women, into stem
Joanne Lockwood: subjects, into into subjects where traditionally it's been
Joanne Lockwood: operated by men. I I think it's I was
Joanne Lockwood: actually speaking it to a an organization, and
Joanne Lockwood: they said, well, it's not our problem so much. Society's problem,
Joanne Lockwood: and I said, well, hang on a minute. If you're running a business, you've gotta
Joanne Lockwood: take some responsibility to invest in the future and go out
Joanne Lockwood: into schools, go out into the into the work beyond your workplace
Joanne Lockwood: to make your subjects aspirational and to try and overcome those
Joanne Lockwood: biases by having great female role models great role models from
Joanne Lockwood: underprivilege or underrepresented communities, not just sit back and go,
Joanne Lockwood: well, we can't do anything in society. And that that's a challenge
Joanne Lockwood: I see. And I almost a demand where we have to start
Joanne Lockwood: maybe into anti nation classes. We start
Joanne Lockwood: trying to educate parents on how to debise how to
Joanne Lockwood: degenerate a lot of the stuff they and the message that they give their children.
Joanne Lockwood: The schools are now doing a fantastic job. I I I speak to a lot
Joanne Lockwood: of pair and the schools are putting a lot of effort into making sure that
Joanne Lockwood: boys and girls feel equally aspirational. But, of course, you come home, you
Joanne Lockwood: then get socialized back into the boy girl. And then the friends and all
Joanne Lockwood: your peers kick in, and and they just reinforce the terrorist. So all the great
Joanne Lockwood: work the schools are doing is being deprogrammed by the parent
Joanne Lockwood: and society around them. And that's that's all. I think we've gotta
Joanne Lockwood: pre we gotta tackle pre parents and change
Joanne Lockwood: the generation. Otherwise, we're never gonna make a difference. I I I'm
Dr Lynda Shaw: I'm looking forward to the day when we do not discuss gender at all.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes. Amen. Yeah. Yeah. I'm look yeah. I'm really am looking forward to that
Dr Lynda Shaw: day. I'm looking forward to the day when somebody gets a job on their
Dr Lynda Shaw: merit. On their capability and their experiences so
Dr Lynda Shaw: far. I'm looking forward to that. I'm a mother of a son and a
Dr Lynda Shaw: daughter. I don't want to either of them to have a
Dr Lynda Shaw: problem because of their gender. So I worry about us saying we
Dr Lynda Shaw: need more women in on the board or we need more women
Dr Lynda Shaw: somewhere. Yes, we do, but surely we
Dr Lynda Shaw: are doing the same as we did with the other with the opposite
Dr Lynda Shaw: gender, but just change the label. You know, we to
Dr Lynda Shaw: to it's it's a it's a labeling thing. I would rather just say, let's
Dr Lynda Shaw: the north gender. Did you know I did a documentary with Karen Brady on
Dr Lynda Shaw: channel 5 new? No? Okay. We
Dr Lynda Shaw: sorry. I'm cracked. Tell me if you just want me to be quiet, Jo. Oh,
Joanne Lockwood: that's good. I get very excited.
Joanne Lockwood: 15 minutes a final hour frame. Definitely. Yeah. Care for it.
Dr Lynda Shaw: Okay. We we did this we did this program. I set
Dr Lynda Shaw: up an experiment, and we we've gotten some recruiters from an in
Dr Lynda Shaw: different employment agencies, half old guys, half old girls. We split them
Dr Lynda Shaw: into 2 groups. And we hid them away in the side rooms. We
Dr Lynda Shaw: had CVs stuck up on the wall.
Dr Lynda Shaw: Half the CVs had the name of the applicant
Dr Lynda Shaw: and the photograph, half of the CDs had no name and
Dr Lynda Shaw: no photograph. So you would think that was not you couldn't tell what
Dr Lynda Shaw: gender they were because of that. With them,
Dr Lynda Shaw: the first group of the, of the first group of recruiters
Dr Lynda Shaw: came in, and they saw with photo first and
Dr Lynda Shaw: without, and we swapped it around for the second group. So we mixed it up
Dr Lynda Shaw: a bit, so there wasn't any kind of ordering problem.
Dr Lynda Shaw: The brief was they didn't know why they were there, but the brief
Dr Lynda Shaw: was that they had to, decide
Dr Lynda Shaw: on one applicant for a first interview in
Dr Lynda Shaw: an engineering firm as an IT expert.
Dr Lynda Shaw: Traditionally so called a male role, engineering firm,
Dr Lynda Shaw: IT, and that was it. I think it was
Dr Lynda Shaw: 95 percent of the result, 95%
Dr Lynda Shaw: of them chose men. Even with
Dr Lynda Shaw: the CVs without a photograph or a name.
Dr Lynda Shaw: And when we told them that there was a bias going on, they were mortified.
Dr Lynda Shaw: Because they're recruiters. They understand what bias means. And they just
Dr Lynda Shaw: say, no. No. No. No. No. What was it? Well, why did you choose that
Dr Lynda Shaw: person? Well, because they've got a better degree was more suitable. No.
Dr Lynda Shaw: They've all got suitable degrees, every one of them. And but it
Dr Lynda Shaw: turned out that it was the language in the CVs that
Dr Lynda Shaw: that gave them the idea of which gender it was. So the
Dr Lynda Shaw: female CVs were words like team building, and,
Dr Lynda Shaw: things like that, that looks the more cohesive, type
Dr Lynda Shaw: of words, whereas the guy words were all about ambition and
Dr Lynda Shaw: those words. And that that gave a clue as to what the recruiters
Dr Lynda Shaw: were looking at. And it was quite enlightening
Dr Lynda Shaw: that, and they were really upset with themselves. And
Dr Lynda Shaw: argued big time pushed back. Yeah. But,
Dr Lynda Shaw: it, it was true. You know, but people will have biases. You know, the only
Dr Lynda Shaw: people that don't have biases are dead people. So, you, you
Dr Lynda Shaw: know, so it's not a bad thing. We just need to be aware
Dr Lynda Shaw: of them and work with them sensibly. Yes. I
Joanne Lockwood: mean, the whole, meritocracy in recruitment and
Joanne Lockwood: opportunity is a whole new topic, which I'm I'm planning on tackling the other
Joanne Lockwood: day, but, I often find merit pushing meritoxi
Joanne Lockwood: forward is an excuse to keep the status quo because what we're saying
Joanne Lockwood: is based on the based on the merits we've decided, this is the best
Joanne Lockwood: person, but we often don't include in
Joanne Lockwood: that merit autocracy scoring other skills that
Joanne Lockwood: are maybe more appropriate to the workplace, about collaboration, about teamwork, about
Joanne Lockwood: empathy, about building relationships.
Joanne Lockwood: So often we're building the meritocracy with male bias in
Joanne Lockwood: mind, and that that's that's the challenge I have with meritocracy. And, yes, we'd all
Joanne Lockwood: love to be equal, but I think some people need
Joanne Lockwood: equity, which means give them a leg up to give them equality, if you like,
Joanne Lockwood: or equal chance. So Yeah. Yeah. So that, yeah, I think currently
Joanne Lockwood: meritocracy is almost an excuse to keep status quo.
Joanne Lockwood: And sometimes I I feel that a diversity hire,
Joanne Lockwood: whether that's gender ethnicity is somehow somehow seems
Joanne Lockwood: 2nd best. I'm hiring for diversity,
Joanne Lockwood: not for the best person, but I have to hire someone who's different.
Joanne Lockwood: They won't be as good. So you're almost pre bias in person to be
Joanne Lockwood: not as good as the obvious candidate. And, anyway, that's a
Joanne Lockwood: that's a topic for all of you in the future. Unless you've got
Dr Lynda Shaw: some Sorry, Jeremy. You've just really touched on something that's
Dr Lynda Shaw: really interesting there. If we are,
Dr Lynda Shaw: feeding the status quo,
Dr Lynda Shaw: we're actually going to become dinosaurs because things are
Dr Lynda Shaw: changing so rapidly, we really have got to think
Dr Lynda Shaw: in in much more creatively, with with much more
Dr Lynda Shaw: innovation. So In actual fact, if we've got a job speaker, we're looking
Dr Lynda Shaw: for a certain type of person and we're trying not to be gender biased or
Dr Lynda Shaw: any bias whatsoever, maybe we're looking at the rock, maybe obscapes,
Dr Lynda Shaw: not correct. Oh, completely. Completely. It's
Joanne Lockwood: a whole whole recruitment industry, and it is is shaking itself up.
Joanne Lockwood: Is based on a CV, which is a historical document. And
Joanne Lockwood: that was only invented in the eighties when we started having fax machines, and we
Joanne Lockwood: could start writing CVs on computers. Before that, we used to fill an application
Joanne Lockwood: form. So we we constructed the CV as the official document.
Joanne Lockwood: People Wellbeing at video interviews, again, video interviews could have their own
Joanne Lockwood: buy you know, you see somebody at the way they talk, the way they
Joanne Lockwood: sound, the way they all these other facts kicking. But yeah, it's
Joanne Lockwood: I think the the more forward looking companies now are being more
Joanne Lockwood: objective in their approach where they were set
Joanne Lockwood: defined criteria, you would maybe rate yourself, someone else would rate you on
Joanne Lockwood: the answer to a question. So for the time you get around to say
Joanne Lockwood: that the second round, there's always there's always that affinity, but as you
Joanne Lockwood: already know, that person has capability. So you're more likely to you're more likely
Joanne Lockwood: to welcome everybody whereas first system of CV is
Joanne Lockwood: down to how good you are at creating a CV, whether you've paid
Joanne Lockwood: someone or or what it is a whole load of factors that CVs often are
Joanne Lockwood: written by professionals to get people jobs, not actually to
Joanne Lockwood: do the job. And, often, the the interview process is
Joanne Lockwood: is two people lying to each other, about the demo
Joanne Lockwood: mode of the game, if you're like, rather than actual actual game footage.
Joanne Lockwood: So, yeah, it's, it I think the forward looking companies are starting to
Joanne Lockwood: address the way they recruit, the way they attract. The whole
Joanne Lockwood: candidate experience, and also understand that the step is
Joanne Lockwood: about their brand and about their, what they're offering people in terms of
Joanne Lockwood: flex ability and the skills they need because they don't want
Joanne Lockwood: the hierarchical businesses in the past. They want more neural
Joanne Lockwood: networks, and that requires different skill sets, which can't always pick up in
Joanne Lockwood: a CV. Absolutely. There's a lot you can't pick up in a
Dr Lynda Shaw: CV. But, of course, as soon as you get somebody in front of a
Dr Lynda Shaw: panel, the the, perceptions of each
Dr Lynda Shaw: panelist will be, unique to
Dr Lynda Shaw: only them. So they'll be looking with their with their buyers views as well,
Dr Lynda Shaw: you know, it's one of the big different. To be honest with you, when I
Dr Lynda Shaw: go into companies, one of the things I talk about is if you have got
Dr Lynda Shaw: an interview panel, or a board or whatever is that you
Dr Lynda Shaw: come to a point of agreement that you are
Dr Lynda Shaw: if you display a bias, which you're bound to
Dr Lynda Shaw: do, the others pointed out to you. Yes. I'd just
Dr Lynda Shaw: say, hang on a minute. Little Jiminy cricket here. We're all watching on your
Dr Lynda Shaw: shoulder. You just did X Y Zed. The problem with that
Dr Lynda Shaw: is that somebody might feel they're being got at
Dr Lynda Shaw: by their peers. So it has to be really a place
Dr Lynda Shaw: of where everybody consents to the same thing.
Dr Lynda Shaw: And, you know, you actually are looking after one another, so you are not
Dr Lynda Shaw: demonstrating or using buyers because you're being pulled up on it. So
Dr Lynda Shaw: it raises awareness of of, you
Dr Lynda Shaw: know, what what is your default button? Yeah. And I think,
Joanne Lockwood: again, look at some of the forward looking companies, they're they're a lot more
Joanne Lockwood: effort into training their recruiters. They're also
Joanne Lockwood: trying to avoid groupthink or dominance within an interview
Joanne Lockwood: board where each person has to rate and review against a set
Joanne Lockwood: of objective criteria before they discuss. And
Joanne Lockwood: only then do you do you consolidate the results and try and average
Joanne Lockwood: out those biases if you can? And
Joanne Lockwood: some of those are done blindly, and some of those are done,
Joanne Lockwood: as I say, just using objective based questions. So, you know, find the error in
Joanne Lockwood: this code, write me 5 lines of code that will do this.
Joanne Lockwood: So really testing in job experience, and some are even
Joanne Lockwood: saying come in and work for us for a day, do the job and
Joanne Lockwood: see how it goes. And and those are kind of a better, better ways of
Joanne Lockwood: evaluating someone's fit performance,
Joanne Lockwood: capability than a 5 minute interview, which really,
Joanne Lockwood: I think people are saying now that an interview and a CV and application
Joanne Lockwood: video only gets you a month or 2's head start. It's the actual the
Joanne Lockwood: person that's gonna thrive after the 3 or 4 months, when they've they've picked up
Joanne Lockwood: the job, they've picked up the opportunity.
Joanne Lockwood: And, they're actually enrolled I think what we
Joanne Lockwood: tend to do is we we tend to go for the person who's got the
Joanne Lockwood: extrovert personality or the or the person more like us
Joanne Lockwood: or the more like the person just left or the other people in the team.
Joanne Lockwood: And that's that's when we're right at the job set, we often think of the
Joanne Lockwood: person we want to hire, and then we match everybody against that
Joanne Lockwood: person other than the actual needs of the role.
Joanne Lockwood: But, yeah, that that's that's that's the way the
Joanne Lockwood: world is moving, and it slowly in some areas, but people organizing
Joanne Lockwood: are really focused on that. Yeah. I think it's it's all about group membership.
Dr Lynda Shaw: You know, we, we identify with people like us, and
Dr Lynda Shaw: we need our group membership, and we will fight for our group.
Dr Lynda Shaw: As you've seen everywhere, absolutely, every week, just listen to the news
Dr Lynda Shaw: anytime, and you will find people fighting for their group that they feel
Dr Lynda Shaw: a member of, and anybody out side of that group is a threat.
Dr Lynda Shaw: And that's, you know, that's evolutionary psychology going on here. You know,
Dr Lynda Shaw: everybody outside that, and and for very good reason, when we were in
Dr Lynda Shaw: Little Villages, and we were being invaded all the time and raided and
Dr Lynda Shaw: stuff and, you know, raped and pillaged and all of those things going
Dr Lynda Shaw: on. So, but so our group membership is very,
Dr Lynda Shaw: very important to us. So it's the, I think
Dr Lynda Shaw: the way to get help to get over it is to for
Dr Lynda Shaw: people to appreciate the differences of
Dr Lynda Shaw: other groups. So there needs to be a a move
Dr Lynda Shaw: forward to to appreciate. So we're raising
Dr Lynda Shaw: awareness, and then we start to appreciate how those
Dr Lynda Shaw: differences are valuable, So set set a break
Joanne Lockwood: uniqueness, set a break differences. It makes
Joanne Lockwood: the whole bigger by enriching it with different experiences,
Joanne Lockwood: different thoughts, different different ideas. Yeah. I agree. Yeah.
Dr Lynda Shaw: Absolutely. Absolutely. And then what you've got is but to be honest
Dr Lynda Shaw: with you, you raise awareness, but people will still
Dr Lynda Shaw: ignore it if they feel threatened. So you won't actually
Dr Lynda Shaw: change anybody's mind unless you can stimulate
Dr Lynda Shaw: curiosity. Because with curiosity, we
Dr Lynda Shaw: learn. You know, sure we learn the times table by road,
Dr Lynda Shaw: you know, just boring, boring, dram it in, but most of us
Dr Lynda Shaw: learn by being curious. And children, especially, like, they're
Dr Lynda Shaw: sponges. They're everything they're in in awe, and they're in wonder of
Dr Lynda Shaw: everything that going on, and they're learning huge amounts of data
Dr Lynda Shaw: every single day. And just by being sponges and curing,
Dr Lynda Shaw: about what the, what's going on in the world. So if we can stimulate that
Dr Lynda Shaw: in adults, but raising awareness of what's going
Dr Lynda Shaw: on, Finding that curiosity to then appreciate
Dr Lynda Shaw: the differences there are and then being curious about what that person
Dr Lynda Shaw: contribute, or those people can contribute, all that group contribute
Dr Lynda Shaw: to what you're doing. That's a good way forward, I
Dr Lynda Shaw: think. Yeah. Are are we now living in society
Joanne Lockwood: where people aren't being as curious as they once
Joanne Lockwood: were with, maybe there's too much information, too much strong opinion,
Joanne Lockwood: mean, it's just to look at some of the the hot topics of the of
Joanne Lockwood: the world in the UK. So we've got the, the Brexit debate. We've
Joanne Lockwood: got climb change. We've got some of these other debates that are going on where
Joanne Lockwood: we have, anti vaxxes and and and people who are
Joanne Lockwood: adamant that vaccines, cause, autism,
Joanne Lockwood: etcetera, etcetera. So we've got all these really strong opinions, and people seem to
Joanne Lockwood: set up camps on opposite sides of the opposite hills and
Joanne Lockwood: just start throwing grenades and and rocks and stones at each other and aren't
Joanne Lockwood: just So you're not with this carnage of where the center
Joanne Lockwood: ground is almost like dangerous where
Joanne Lockwood: you have to have an opinion, and think we saw it with with
Joanne Lockwood: Brexit. Once you'd entrenched into a camp, it was very hard to
Joanne Lockwood: to get into the middle ground and have a conversation. And is
Joanne Lockwood: that the media? Is social media? Is that is that just the way society's evolved?
Joanne Lockwood: Is that how do we how do we get curious again? How do we how
Joanne Lockwood: do we reverse what we've done? I think, if
Dr Lynda Shaw: anybody is so ensconced in their, in their group membership,
Dr Lynda Shaw: they are not going to be curious unless their curiosity is stimulated.
Dr Lynda Shaw: That could be stimulated by an outsider, or it could be stimulated
Dr Lynda Shaw: by what another group has done. And,
Dr Lynda Shaw: and and it depends how how much identity
Dr Lynda Shaw: somebody has with their group, how deep that identity is.
Dr Lynda Shaw: If somebody has more than one identity, then they
Dr Lynda Shaw: are going to be more willing to bond to find out
Dr Lynda Shaw: about others. But if people, if somebody has got, you know,
Dr Lynda Shaw: some religions, well, all religions, some people in them, they become,
Dr Lynda Shaw: they don't want to know about anything else. They are right, and everybody else is
Dr Lynda Shaw: wrong. And that's so black and white. It just can't
Dr Lynda Shaw: possibly be true. It just can't be true. And of course, if we can
Dr Lynda Shaw: get that going, that curiosity you going, then we communicate better. And if we
Dr Lynda Shaw: communicate better, there'd be far less, anguish and
Dr Lynda Shaw: anxiety. Oh, yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: We need to put this this this this podcast onto the onto onto the radio,
Joanne Lockwood: play it everyone's home and just and get people to on. Let's open our minds
Joanne Lockwood: up, but it's it's a really difficult thing to overcome when you're so entrenched.
Joanne Lockwood: You you so everything in your life saying you're right.
Joanne Lockwood: You're being bombarded with your in group stuff, as you said. And
Joanne Lockwood: that sometimes in order to break away from that, you've got to be the brave
Joanne Lockwood: one. Step out of your in group and go and go and visit
Joanne Lockwood: visit the enemy. You know, it's it's I often talk about it as
Joanne Lockwood: a you're either a man in ice fan or a man city fan. You're
Joanne Lockwood: either a a bright red or a light blue. You you can't
Joanne Lockwood: there's no middle ground. You can't be half half a
Joanne Lockwood: Jedi. You can't be half a sith. You know, you're you have to make you
Joanne Lockwood: have to snare your colors sometimes, and and that's where people really
Joanne Lockwood: struggle to the open minded, isn't it? It is. And it's
Dr Lynda Shaw: all again down to group identity. They can't belong to more than
Dr Lynda Shaw: one group, but I've never stood. Why? It doesn't
Dr Lynda Shaw: I don't I I I can understand it psych in
Dr Lynda Shaw: in terms of psychology, but I don't understand because you everyone else is
Dr Lynda Shaw: threat. But if somebody, if that group has proven themselves not to be a
Dr Lynda Shaw: threat, then, you know, lift yourself up. And
Dr Lynda Shaw: just start to ask questions and find out what it's
Dr Lynda Shaw: like to be at that other group.
Dr Lynda Shaw: Yeah, Yeah. I I mean, that that segue is nicely. And just one of the
Joanne Lockwood: things we were talking about the other week, which was around trans identities.
Joanne Lockwood: And the way that trans identity and people who are
Joanne Lockwood: trans can polarize people into two camps.
Joanne Lockwood: There are some who are vehemently transgender
Joanne Lockwood: critical who try and base their
Joanne Lockwood: understanding of the world based on a fixed binary gender, binary sex,
Joanne Lockwood: birth, chromosomes, birth genes, etcetera.
Joanne Lockwood: And other people who are more able to see gender as a freely
Joanne Lockwood: sense of sense of identity, sense of self, something we've evolved over
Joanne Lockwood: our lifetime, and and there's no binary
Joanne Lockwood: gender, as such, there's a whole spectrum, which is fluid and it
Joanne Lockwood: can evolve and not everyone has to be this
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, the gender box of an expectation of a man or the gender box
Joanne Lockwood: expectation of a woman. And, there are some people who
Joanne Lockwood: seem to want to police people back into their box. I
Dr Lynda Shaw: know. I know we do. And it's giga box quite interesting.
Dr Lynda Shaw: Last week, I was, I was speaking at a conference. And just before
Dr Lynda Shaw: I had to go on stage, they they broke out in groups.
Dr Lynda Shaw: And, I was that one group stayed in the main room, and
Dr Lynda Shaw: other groups went to different areas in the building. So I stayed in the room,
Dr Lynda Shaw: because I knew I was I was wired up and with the mic and everything.
Dr Lynda Shaw: So I stayed there. And, I watched this group. Honestly,
Dr Lynda Shaw: Joe, it was the weirdest thing there were
Dr Lynda Shaw: about 20 of them. And in my imagination, I
Dr Lynda Shaw: could see, like, particles all coming
Dr Lynda Shaw: together and entwining and bouncing
Dr Lynda Shaw: bouncing and doing this and bouncing a bit more and doing
Dr Lynda Shaw: stuff. And I just thought, this is I I'm very
Dr Lynda Shaw: interested in quantum physics, but I don't understand it. But,
Dr Lynda Shaw: it's pretty hard. But, but it's like,
Dr Lynda Shaw: when you talked about when you have a period in our lives where we're more
Dr Lynda Shaw: fluid, we can be, you know, whatever we wish to be in terms of
Dr Lynda Shaw: gender or whatever. It was like that. It was, I could
Dr Lynda Shaw: see all these particles, again, in my imagination, just coming
Dr Lynda Shaw: mingling together, very much influencing
Dr Lynda Shaw: one another. Very much, leaving your
Dr Lynda Shaw: template, your footprint, whatever, but equally, then thought to
Dr Lynda Shaw: myself, okay, in terms of neuroscience, what's going on here? And
Dr Lynda Shaw: in neuroscience and psychology, we try to explain things in very,
Dr Lynda Shaw: not fixed ways, but certain ways of logic,
Dr Lynda Shaw: whereas quantum physics is random. You know,
Dr Lynda Shaw: that you get these these particles going on, all of a sudden, they're behaving certain
Dr Lynda Shaw: way and then they don't. It just they just randomly do something else. And that's
Dr Lynda Shaw: what people do. Yeah. You know, we we have all these
Dr Lynda Shaw: psychology theories and neuroscience stuff coming out. And,
Dr Lynda Shaw: all of these things going on about human brain and the human behavior,
Dr Lynda Shaw: but then they get all of a sudden, they can do something really random. You
Dr Lynda Shaw: go, where did that come from? Why why would you do that? And it's
Dr Lynda Shaw: like we are intwined in quantum theory,
Dr Lynda Shaw: in that just for some reason, we do something random, and
Dr Lynda Shaw: it's a very fluid process.
Dr Lynda Shaw: That's how I saw it. Sorry. I went off on that. I'm
Joanne Lockwood: As you're talking, I'm I'm going back to the intro we had where you
Joanne Lockwood: said you embrace change and where you find that other people
Joanne Lockwood: don't. Is, and I completely get that
Joanne Lockwood: because what I found since I I embrace change
Joanne Lockwood: myself, I've almost
Joanne Lockwood: become a a change in bracelet because I realized that I've
Joanne Lockwood: had to go through an event in my life. Where I changed significantly,
Joanne Lockwood: and I impacted those around me. So it's kind of reasonable
Joanne Lockwood: for me to want respect who I am for me to be able to embrace
Joanne Lockwood: other people's change, whether that or difference of opinion, because if I, if
Joanne Lockwood: I'm if I say why not, I'm okay, but I don't get you. That's
Joanne Lockwood: almost like saying, well, hang on a minute. If if I if I if I
Joanne Lockwood: want any modicum of respect, I have to be out of but everybody has an
Joanne Lockwood: opinion. Everybody, everybody's identity, and you say in group
Joanne Lockwood: out group, whatever that identity is, whether it's football,
Joanne Lockwood: gender politics, you're allowed to have an opinion.
Joanne Lockwood: And it's just a way of embracing that opinion and sharing it in
Joanne Lockwood: a discussion respectful way rather than
Joanne Lockwood: trying to force an opinion on somebody, you know, you're allowed to have it, but
Joanne Lockwood: you don't have to necessarily share it. Sometimes you can you can keep your mouth
Joanne Lockwood: shut and know when it's, it's not mainstream. So
Dr Lynda Shaw: But I don't I don't think people realize how they come across sometimes.
Dr Lynda Shaw: I I have I have an this quirk in my
Dr Lynda Shaw: behavior in that I can actually stand outside of myself
Dr Lynda Shaw: and watch me interact with others. I don't know if you do
Dr Lynda Shaw: that. Do you do that? I I think I'm I'm in space
Joanne Lockwood: looking down. Yeah. Watch the gameplay if you like.
Dr Lynda Shaw: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I do it when I'm on stage. You know, I I
Dr Lynda Shaw: can I can be telling a story, and I am watching the re that the
Dr Lynda Shaw: me telling the story and the response of the audience, and I'm not in the
Dr Lynda Shaw: story are more watching it play out Yes? So that I
Dr Lynda Shaw: can work the audience, to communicate with them better.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes. So, so I so I think,
Dr Lynda Shaw: aim, just stand outside of ourselves and watch the
Dr Lynda Shaw: show and realize that we are not doing
Dr Lynda Shaw: terribly Wellbeing we are doing very Wellbeing what we can then change our
Dr Lynda Shaw: behavior. The problem is when it gets really
Dr Lynda Shaw: important is when we're in a high state of arousal, when we
Dr Lynda Shaw: are really, you know, the emotions are going, and they're in
Dr Lynda Shaw: charge, and people get really heated. And,
Dr Lynda Shaw: and you see it on social media all the time, it's just ridiculous.
Dr Lynda Shaw: And so you people just, are in that state of,
Dr Lynda Shaw: of of emotions, rolling, Wellbeing the brain, rolling the way that you
Dr Lynda Shaw: can't actually step up side of yourself and watch the show go on.
Dr Lynda Shaw: And it just fuels everything to the negative.
Dr Lynda Shaw: So, yeah, for me, standing outside of myself is really
Dr Lynda Shaw: helpful. That's a really good, technique. And I
Joanne Lockwood: It's funny. I I I I often say the same thing to people, and not
Joanne Lockwood: often do I hear people go, like, oh, I know exactly what you mean, but
Joanne Lockwood: to hear you say that, I think, yes. I found somebody else.
Joanne Lockwood: And the analogy I often use is the is the the film, the matrix,
Joanne Lockwood: at the point where when Neo dies and he wakes up again.
Joanne Lockwood: And when he wakes up. He he sees the world as a social construct. He
Joanne Lockwood: sees his place in the world, how he can influence it, how he gets
Joanne Lockwood: influenced. And then at the end, flies over the city looking
Joanne Lockwood: down at the world or the construct of the world.
Joanne Lockwood: And I've I kind of found that since I embrace my change
Joanne Lockwood: that to be critical about what I'm what the
Joanne Lockwood: information I'm feeding critical about the biases I'm hearing be able to
Joanne Lockwood: question. So why did I think that? Why do I think why do you think
Joanne Lockwood: that? And then almost like trying to come up with a little thought that that
Joanne Lockwood: doesn't allow me to proceed until I until I've realized why I'm saying
Joanne Lockwood: something Or is that a fact? Is that an
Joanne Lockwood: opinion? Is that kind? Is it cruel? What
Joanne Lockwood: who told me to believe that thing? What's the media telling me I should believe?
Joanne Lockwood: Why do you want me to click that button? And it's almost like, is
Joanne Lockwood: having the that extra bit of circuitry in your head that says, just quickly
Joanne Lockwood: check it and put it back in again before it gets processed before it gets
Joanne Lockwood: locked in. Yeah. I mean, I've got a a a little
Dr Lynda Shaw: digital, when I
Dr Lynda Shaw: hear information, when I see a situation or whatever,
Dr Lynda Shaw: I'd check it by saying who says? Yeah. Who
Dr Lynda Shaw: says? You know, if somebody tries to light on who says? Yeah.
Dr Lynda Shaw: And they go Well, you know, because that, you know, the
Dr Lynda Shaw: stuff that people come out with is just a it it it is their
Dr Lynda Shaw: perceptions based upon their experiences so far. And,
Dr Lynda Shaw: which is why it's so unique because
Dr Lynda Shaw: we perceive the living based on experiences that have gone before, so they are
Dr Lynda Shaw: completely unique. It's this massive pyramid going on. So what I do,
Dr Lynda Shaw: I double check, and who says? And it just stops people in their tracks,
Dr Lynda Shaw: because nobody, yeah, if you're going to quote some kind of
Dr Lynda Shaw: research going on, then, clearly, the authors of the researcher who said, but
Dr Lynda Shaw: that's not what people are talking about. They're talking about an
Dr Lynda Shaw: opinion or an idea or an perception that is
Dr Lynda Shaw: based on something that is, as I say, unique. So
Dr Lynda Shaw: pulling them up short, it says, perhaps some works.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Based on what? Yeah. Yeah. It's
Joanne Lockwood: it's almost like a Hayward taught school in math mathematics.
Joanne Lockwood: It it show your workings out. It's, you may have been answer wrong
Joanne Lockwood: at the end, but if someone understands how you got to that answer, they can
Joanne Lockwood: they can then piece together your thought process. Don't have to
Joanne Lockwood: necessarily just disagree with you, but they can see what you're trying to think at
Joanne Lockwood: the same time. Yeah. And even even though math is your right
Dr Lynda Shaw: or your wrong, you you get marks for the, what are you worked it out?
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Exactly. So, you know, it's, so, yeah, absolutely
Dr Lynda Shaw: agree with you. Really good. Just able to see at the same date the same
Joanne Lockwood: evidence and draw a different conclusion based on their
Joanne Lockwood: perspective, their biases, their groups. But
Joanne Lockwood: then you have a discussion about where where they diverge based on this data.
Joanne Lockwood: So you thought that at that point. I thought this at this point. So why
Joanne Lockwood: do you think that? Do I need to adjust my
Joanne Lockwood: thinking, or should I help you adjust your thinking, or do we just say, okay,
Joanne Lockwood: that's a fundamental theology type disagreement. We
Joanne Lockwood: can't we can't rationalize that one, but we can understand why we people think
Joanne Lockwood: that. I think also people take themselves too seriously.
Dr Lynda Shaw: Yeah. I do. Hello. You know, I, but my I and my
Dr Lynda Shaw: work is serious. I love my work, and I do good stuff with what I
Dr Lynda Shaw: with the results I get with clients and so on, but I've to take myself
Dr Lynda Shaw: seriously, it's not it doesn't serve anyone. No.
Joanne Lockwood: The triangle in in a DJ is. Yeah. I think we all need to
Joanne Lockwood: have our off days and just chill out and and be a be
Joanne Lockwood: a be ourselves, be relaxed sometimes, don't we? We're not careful. We we just seen
Joanne Lockwood: as this professional or
Joanne Lockwood: someone without outside interests, who? Would that be all of us?
Dr Lynda Shaw: Yeah. And you know full well that you're not going to be liked by everybody.
Dr Lynda Shaw: Well, that's okay. Sorry. Yeah. I don't, you know, it it
Dr Lynda Shaw: doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. And if
Dr Lynda Shaw: we worry about stuff that we can't do anything about, and that's just dark,
Dr Lynda Shaw: We all do it. Don't get me wrong. I'm as guilty as the next person,
Dr Lynda Shaw: but I talk so I'm talking to myself here. There's a mirror going on.
Dr Lynda Shaw: So I, you know, we, we, we do. We need to lighten up.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Be far more accepting and lighten up and not
Dr Lynda Shaw: think that we are because we Touplings with our perceptions,
Dr Lynda Shaw: we are always the central player. Whatever we
Dr Lynda Shaw: see, we are the central player. So we
Dr Lynda Shaw: take ourselves too seriously. Yeah. That's the expression I
Joanne Lockwood: heard was, strong opinions lightly held. I can't remember
Joanne Lockwood: who said Nice. I think it's nice to have a an opinion.
Joanne Lockwood: It's nice to know who you are, what you stand for, but holding
Joanne Lockwood: it lightly enough that you're willing to listen and adapt and
Joanne Lockwood: improve your algorithm if you like. Yeah. I think that's actually where
Dr Lynda Shaw: the schools can come in is to, encourage more debating societies.
Dr Lynda Shaw: Because we we are losing the art of
Dr Lynda Shaw: arguing sensibly our corner and then letting the audience
Dr Lynda Shaw: decide which can, which foot they've got in, in which camp. I can remember, I
Dr Lynda Shaw: was once that, consciousness is my favorite topic full time, right, it's
Dr Lynda Shaw: mostly tip terrible ever so hard. It's like the last frontier. And I
Dr Lynda Shaw: was at in Tucson at the consciousness, a conference.
Dr Lynda Shaw: And, I was sitting in, in in the audience, and
Dr Lynda Shaw: one, there were 2 neuroscientists on this stage. 1 was arguing
Dr Lynda Shaw: for Freud, the other was arguing against. Now neuroscientists
Dr Lynda Shaw: and Freud do not work together. Okay. It's a bit like oil and water.
Dr Lynda Shaw: But the way the guy talked
Dr Lynda Shaw: about Freud and persuaded the audience that we still needed to
Dr Lynda Shaw: consider Freudian theory in our neuroscience work,
Dr Lynda Shaw: He won. Because of the way he argued it and it
Dr Lynda Shaw: was calm, it was logical. He got really good
Dr Lynda Shaw: evidence and, he he won, I I
Dr Lynda Shaw: think if you're very good at debating, you could say persuade somebody, the
Dr Lynda Shaw: sky's green. You know, so, sorry, there goes my
Dr Lynda Shaw: phone in the background. So you can actually persuade somebody in is sort of in
Dr Lynda Shaw: agreement with purple spots. So if you're really good at argument, that
Dr Lynda Shaw: you will persuade people. Now that could be right or wrong. Don't get me wrong,
Dr Lynda Shaw: but then I'm talking right or wrong again, then that's wrong,
Dr Lynda Shaw: if you see what I mean, because it's not, it's not black and
Dr Lynda Shaw: white. It's, there's this lovely ambiguity about
Dr Lynda Shaw: life. So, yeah, So I think the schools
Dr Lynda Shaw: could help us not to be, to be better at understanding one another if
Dr Lynda Shaw: they taught debating skills. I suppose
Joanne Lockwood: the modern society, young children,
Joanne Lockwood: teenagers, they're kind of brought up in a world of wanting to be
Joanne Lockwood: liked wanting to get self
Joanne Lockwood: gratification or gratification. This is a selfie. It's a Snapchat filter.
Joanne Lockwood: There's a lot of mental health issues, as we know, about children who
Joanne Lockwood: are are bullied by not by people actively blocking them or
Joanne Lockwood: dislike them on social media. And this is kind of the the the
Joanne Lockwood: modern generations way of of social contact is that the
Joanne Lockwood: in groups and out groups are a hyper magnified
Joanne Lockwood: through these these social media outlets, aren't they? Yeah.
Dr Lynda Shaw: Absolutely. Absolutely right. And I mean, the the social media is just, I
Dr Lynda Shaw: mean, the children and anybody just cannot get away from anybody
Dr Lynda Shaw: decides to be a bully. And, and I
Dr Lynda Shaw: really use the word hate, but I hate
Dr Lynda Shaw: bullies. Absolutely categorically hate
Dr Lynda Shaw: bullies. There is never, ever, ever, any excuse
Dr Lynda Shaw: ever to bully someone, never. And of course, the
Dr Lynda Shaw: kid now are in their rooms, you know, aren't far
Dr Lynda Shaw: too late on various social media networks or, or whatever they're doing.
Dr Lynda Shaw: And, they can't get away from the bullies. They can't get away from those who
Dr Lynda Shaw: are who are feeding them with self doubt and low self worth.
Dr Lynda Shaw: And, it's serious dangerous, and I think horrific,
Dr Lynda Shaw: really horrific. Yeah. There's an oxymoron, and what it sounds like an oxymoron, and
Joanne Lockwood: is it you should be intolerant of intolerance
Joanne Lockwood: That's kind of knocks you more on its own way, but what it's basically trying
Joanne Lockwood: to say is that anybody who steps out of what is considered
Joanne Lockwood: polite normal society, whatever normal is, or the social
Joanne Lockwood: construct of the rules we've created. Anyone steps outside of that should
Joanne Lockwood: not be tolerated, but they're intolerant. Which is where we talk about religious,
Joanne Lockwood: fanaticism, some of the the terror attacks. We can't be
Joanne Lockwood: tolerant of that even to know that person, you have to
Joanne Lockwood: almost allow them to express their religious freedom or their their view
Joanne Lockwood: but we can't be tolerant of that person in this society. And at that point,
Joanne Lockwood: ladies, it's like, it's bully. It's it's it's that they're they're
Joanne Lockwood: sitting out to harm the many and they're not the one that at at
Joanne Lockwood: being harmed if you like. I actually have a
Dr Lynda Shaw: problem with the word tolerate. So do I hate it hate it. Yeah.
Dr Lynda Shaw: I do. I'd I'd it tolerates sounds arrogant.
Dr Lynda Shaw: It sounds like, I'm okay. I will put up with the fact that you're not
Dr Lynda Shaw: as good as me. And I just really have a strong
Dr Lynda Shaw: problem with that. I don't I think, you know, we talk about tolerating
Dr Lynda Shaw: in society. No. We show compassion and understanding.
Dr Lynda Shaw: We do not tolerate, and we appreciate. We
Dr Lynda Shaw: appreciate differences. So I think there's a, it's not
Dr Lynda Shaw: just a case of semantics because the words we use have a subliminal
Dr Lynda Shaw: effect on our mind. So if you're going to, if you're going to feed
Dr Lynda Shaw: people with this, with the way I've got to be more of a tolerant society,
Dr Lynda Shaw: I'm sorry. That makes you an arrogant society. And
Dr Lynda Shaw: I don't like it. Catching people against our rule set is tolerance. You're gonna say
Joanne Lockwood: my rule set is this. You don't quite meet my rule set. Therefore, I'm
Joanne Lockwood: gonna allow you in a bit Yeah. But it's still on the outside.
Joanne Lockwood: You're still on the out group, but I I I tolerate you as an out
Joanne Lockwood: group. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's very condescending. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: No. I hate the word. It's it's bought from
Dr Lynda Shaw: yours. It's we've we've got to come from a place of
Dr Lynda Shaw: being curious to understand one another and to appreciate the
Dr Lynda Shaw: our differences and appreciate that we've all got a place in
Dr Lynda Shaw: this world to contribute to society. That's how I
Dr Lynda Shaw: see it. Yeah. You're talking to
Joanne Lockwood: the converted. So, yeah, no compete in this. Exactly. See the world.
Joanne Lockwood: Whilst I've got you on the line, one one thing I wanted to talk to
Joanne Lockwood: you about was around about, so
Joanne Lockwood: I often get misgendered by people. And what
Joanne Lockwood: I figured out in my limited research is that it's only certain
Joanne Lockwood: people that do it. So that I break people into, like, kind of, 3
Joanne Lockwood: categories. There's people who've known me most of my life. So they've
Joanne Lockwood: known both sides of me, and therefore, there's gonna be a lot of legacy, a
Joanne Lockwood: lot of history, behind how they know me, what we've done together, the lived
Joanne Lockwood: experience, the shared environment we have. So I have an understanding that they're
Joanne Lockwood: gonna get it wrong from time to time because it is difficult and I'm not
Joanne Lockwood: saying it isn't difficult. There's another group of people who've only known me as
Joanne Lockwood: me today, and that group is huge. Within that group
Joanne Lockwood: of people who've only known me as Joanne, Joanne, the woman, Joanne, the female,
Joanne Lockwood: Joanne's speaker, business owner. There were people in
Joanne Lockwood: that group who still misgend
Joanne Lockwood: me from time to time, and It's
Joanne Lockwood: random. It's occasional. Often when they're referring to
Joanne Lockwood: me, so they'll they'll say, they'll look to somebody else and say, he's
Joanne Lockwood: fantastic. Oh, sorry. I meant she's fantastic, but there were people who
Joanne Lockwood: never get it wrong. And then there's a third grouping, the main grouping
Joanne Lockwood: is people I see in a service providing,
Joanne Lockwood: position. So that that there is a a steward, a hotel
Joanne Lockwood: check-in, serving me on a at a restaurant there, the
Joanne Lockwood: cabin service crew, checking people where where
Joanne Lockwood: those are the kind of people that sometimes from time to
Joanne Lockwood: time through either subliminal message in their brain that's
Joanne Lockwood: saying, oh, hello, sir, or
Joanne Lockwood: just misgendering that casual way. So it's it's trying to understand. So I've I've
Joanne Lockwood: come down to think that it's not always just about the person being say,
Joanne Lockwood: ignorant. I hate the word ignorant. Or is it laziness? Is it
Joanne Lockwood: their brain just has some pathways in it that they can't override? I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: what's your thought? I don't think it's
Dr Lynda Shaw: laziness. I think it's just preconditioning. According
Dr Lynda Shaw: to their own perceptions, their own upbringing, their own environment,
Dr Lynda Shaw: and they slip into default. If
Dr Lynda Shaw: if it was laziness, I think they would know they're doing it and can't be
Dr Lynda Shaw: bothered, but I don't think they do. I think it's something just comes out. It's
Dr Lynda Shaw: like that unconscious processing. It's just, you know, the
Dr Lynda Shaw: default comes out of their mouths, without without
Dr Lynda Shaw: thinking it through. I mean, especially with the 3rd group, who might not even be
Dr Lynda Shaw: aware they've done it, okay, all of a sudden, calling you. He
Dr Lynda Shaw: thank you. He thank you for your passport, sir. Have a good flight.
Dr Lynda Shaw: Whatever. They might not even realize they said it, they've just gone on and they're
Dr Lynda Shaw: on automatic. So I don't, I don't, I don't
Dr Lynda Shaw: think it's too deliberate, unless the
Dr Lynda Shaw: occasional person is being horrid. But, I
Dr Lynda Shaw: don't I don't think it's a talk to liberal. I think it's just the unconscious
Dr Lynda Shaw: brain going into default, and they, they've
Dr Lynda Shaw: just not been exposed to e enough people who have been tr
Dr Lynda Shaw: or a transgender. I think it depends on, you know, what they've
Dr Lynda Shaw: been exposed to to that date. And I I I
Joanne Lockwood: fully appreciate it. It's it's a very complex thing because that
Joanne Lockwood: millisecond perception of who you are that that, you know, how we we we do
Joanne Lockwood: all that processing very quickly, and it's made up of so many different
Joanne Lockwood: dynamics. It's frame and stature, the
Joanne Lockwood: way you move, just from the way you stand or just, the,
Joanne Lockwood: the voice
Joanne Lockwood: let alone the face the facial dimensions, the
Joanne Lockwood: ratios, the hair, size of hand,
Joanne Lockwood: size of feet. There's a whole lot of dynamics going on where someone just makes
Joanne Lockwood: a snap decision, and it's what you do with that data that varies,
Joanne Lockwood: I think, between people. Some people some people kind of look at me
Joanne Lockwood: and go, no they don't interpret it at all.
Joanne Lockwood: They just they just say, sir. Some people say, I see a woman. You are
Joanne Lockwood: a woman. And some people is where it's a bit more complicated where they're sort
Joanne Lockwood: of at. They don't want students to evaluate and go, clearly, Joe
Joanne Lockwood: is trans. Joe was born this way, and then
Joanne Lockwood: their brain almost like flips over it they think too much
Joanne Lockwood: almost. Yeah. I think that's right. And I do think, I
Dr Lynda Shaw: mean, I do believe that society is getting better.
Dr Lynda Shaw: Our society is getting better, because we're being we're talking about
Dr Lynda Shaw: it more, we're understanding more. I think it's very hard for
Dr Lynda Shaw: people who are not exposed to anything like that at all,
Dr Lynda Shaw: they're gonna come across as more stuck.
Dr Lynda Shaw: But the more we we talk about it, the more we become open, the more
Dr Lynda Shaw: we realize there are many, many categories of human Wellbeing. If we want to talk
Dr Lynda Shaw: about categories at all, then I think that that it will
Dr Lynda Shaw: become less of an issue, but I think maybe we're in a place of transition
Dr Lynda Shaw: in our society at the moment. Yep.
Joanne Lockwood: No. Yeah. I think we'll we'll we'll
Joanne Lockwood: transition in life. Not as I say every day, but
Joanne Lockwood: we we evolve. We go from being an infant to a child, to a young
Joanne Lockwood: adult, to a teenager, to, all these various things we have
Joanne Lockwood: responsibilities as a as a parent, as a as an employer,
Joanne Lockwood: employee, a boss, a a yeah. So we all have these
Joanne Lockwood: different hats, different identities. And Oh, it's a
Dr Lynda Shaw: generation thing as well. Yeah. Completely. And We all think we're
Joanne Lockwood: different, but we're all the same. Yeah. I do I do think there's
Dr Lynda Shaw: a generation thing. I think, you know, if if you've got an older
Dr Lynda Shaw: generation who has not that society has
Dr Lynda Shaw: not openly talked about transgender, transsexual, tran, lesbian, gay, whatever. They've
Dr Lynda Shaw: So therefore, they're not going to be sure how to handle
Dr Lynda Shaw: it. Whereas the next generation down, it's more open. It's talks
Dr Lynda Shaw: about a lot more. It's become the norm, and the youngest generation probably won't even
Dr Lynda Shaw: think about it. You know, it's just like, for yes, So what's
Dr Lynda Shaw: your point, which will be great? So do
Joanne Lockwood: you think there's anything, say, I, as a trans person, could
Joanne Lockwood: do to help people who may be struggling with this,
Joanne Lockwood: what what what technique could I learn to make it easier for people? Do you
Joanne Lockwood: have a thought on that? Yeah. I do. I
Dr Lynda Shaw: know some people who are younger people,
Dr Lynda Shaw: and they have, gone through,
Dr Lynda Shaw: they've changed gender and
Dr Lynda Shaw: they lack understanding for those who don't understand. They,
Dr Lynda Shaw: they
Dr Lynda Shaw: expect everybody to, make
Dr Lynda Shaw: allowances and inverted commas and use the correct words. We
Dr Lynda Shaw: don't say he, she, you say it, we use that stuff, which, you know, you
Dr Lynda Shaw: can't, it's very hard to say a sentence like that. It doesn't sound grammatically
Dr Lynda Shaw: correct. That's hard in itself. Think there are a lot of
Dr Lynda Shaw: people out there who want to understand and
Dr Lynda Shaw: and dot people as equally regardless of what they've chosen
Dr Lynda Shaw: to do, but those people, there are some people who
Dr Lynda Shaw: are who are intolerant, and they're expecting, expecting
Dr Lynda Shaw: more of the society, the society are able to give at this moment.
Dr Lynda Shaw: So, and this is this is a massive generalization.
Dr Lynda Shaw: Massive. So I think peep perhaps
Dr Lynda Shaw: people who want to not be in the stereotypical
Dr Lynda Shaw: norm to be a little bit, understanding and
Dr Lynda Shaw: help educate those people in what it's like,
Dr Lynda Shaw: or why, or whatever, just so
Dr Lynda Shaw: that they can, you you can, increase the level of understanding
Joanne Lockwood: So almost what I'm hearing is so
Joanne Lockwood: you would say people who have
Joanne Lockwood: limited exposure to different identities, whether that's
Joanne Lockwood: gender, race, whatever, they need
Joanne Lockwood: help to learn. And to shut
Joanne Lockwood: someone down doesn't help Wellbeing. All it does is
Joanne Lockwood: create conflict. So it's finding a way
Joanne Lockwood: to turn, a potential
Joanne Lockwood: accident or a potential over or just some
Joanne Lockwood: unconscious slip up into into a a positive outcome
Joanne Lockwood: through, I'm sorry, that that that hurt. That
Joanne Lockwood: doesn't work for me. Can we have a conversation about it?
Dr Lynda Shaw: Yeah. I mean, you you gotta be very careful you don't put
Dr Lynda Shaw: people, they, that they make people feel bad about themselves.
Dr Lynda Shaw: Because everybody's trying to do the best they can. Most
Dr Lynda Shaw: people are trying to do the best they can. So to make them feel bad
Dr Lynda Shaw: about themselves, we'll just set up with more of a them and
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I I I get that. And I think the struggle,
Joanne Lockwood: a lot of people who have who are less typical, what, whatever that
Joanne Lockwood: I did see maybe is that it could become very, very exhausting where
Joanne Lockwood: you're having to do that time and time and time again. So
Joanne Lockwood: for for me to meet the chemist one day, that
Joanne Lockwood: may be the 5th thing this week. It may be the 3rd thing that morning.
Joanne Lockwood: I may be feeling great about myself, and I'm thinking about the day. And
Joanne Lockwood: then the airline steward
Joanne Lockwood: makes a remark And then that's completely so
Joanne Lockwood: for me to then be in in the right firm of mind to say, actually,
Joanne Lockwood: can we treat this as a learning exercise? Having
Joanne Lockwood: had this experience many, many times, you know, the drips of water, the
Joanne Lockwood: microaggressions. So it's some, at some point, someone is to straw the
Joanne Lockwood: bricks of the camel's back some of that one person and that that Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Struggle where you you are having to kind of explain yourself all
Joanne Lockwood: the time. Yeah. Absolutely great. But Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: But I think there's an element of of 2 city battles. Yeah.
Dr Lynda Shaw: I So and I the breath the word battle is completely wrong,
Dr Lynda Shaw: but, it's like you've got to choose the times
Dr Lynda Shaw: that it suits you and the, have you perceived
Dr Lynda Shaw: the person to be receptive, to take
Dr Lynda Shaw: your message on board? And just choose when it, when it, when it, you think
Dr Lynda Shaw: it's going to work at its best, and you're, you're in the right frame of
Dr Lynda Shaw: mind to do it. And then, and
Dr Lynda Shaw: hopefully, enable that person to be an ambassador,
Dr Lynda Shaw: to be able to talk about this to others in a positive light.
Dr Lynda Shaw: So you're you're setting up little ambassadors to toggle off
Dr Lynda Shaw: and spread the word in a positive way. Yeah.
Dr Lynda Shaw: I did. Yeah. I think I think the biggest struggle though is the
Joanne Lockwood: It it's a one off to you. It's a it's a 50 off to me.
Joanne Lockwood: And, essentially, the the the micro the, you know,
Joanne Lockwood: the the drip drip effect of it, it it it can become
Joanne Lockwood: exhausting. And I think, you know I'm sure. In the same way.
Dr Lynda Shaw: Maybe maybe that's why you're you're really at a disadvantage there, Joe, in that you're
Dr Lynda Shaw: a professional speaker. Yes. And that's what I do. Yeah. You can
Dr Lynda Shaw: say your thing to hundreds of people at any one time,
Dr Lynda Shaw: which is fantastic. Yeah. I know. And and that
Joanne Lockwood: and that's that I
Joanne Lockwood: think a society evolves. And and it's I
Joanne Lockwood: use Brett it as a as an example, if if I
Joanne Lockwood: can understand the other view, it doesn't matter what my view is. If I can't
Joanne Lockwood: understand the other view, I can have more empathy that in a way,
Joanne Lockwood: it's incumbent on us all to be educated about
Joanne Lockwood: ourselves. Yeah. Because we're all unique. You're
Joanne Lockwood: you're you, I'm me. That there'll be something that I don't understand about you. So
Joanne Lockwood: you kind of gotta explain it, and that that thing that's different about you
Joanne Lockwood: may not be as obvious as the thing that's different about me. So you may
Joanne Lockwood: have to explain more, less often. But there's some times where you'll you
Joanne Lockwood: maybe have to justify some research, your thoughts. You you know,
Joanne Lockwood: some of the conversation we've had today is challenged. Thinking that
Joanne Lockwood: people have had around neuroscience and the brain for years. And a lot of
Joanne Lockwood: people go, no. No. No. No. I've I've based my whole talk on left brain,
Joanne Lockwood: right brain, and and Myers Briggs, because all this stuff, and and you're
Joanne Lockwood: saying, well, now, actually, that's it's not as simple. And so you're changing other people's
Joanne Lockwood: beliefs. And it, yeah, sometimes you you
Joanne Lockwood: probably find the same. You have to pick your back and see it actually has
Joanne Lockwood: no point arguing with you. It doesn't it's not bad. You know, you you can
Dr Lynda Shaw: you can do make a, a, an impression of somebody, and you could just think,
Dr Lynda Shaw: do you know what? It's just not worth me talking to them. Wasting my
Dr Lynda Shaw: breath. And then you'll know your extents, you'll instinctively know
Dr Lynda Shaw: that, somebody's actually receptive to learning
Dr Lynda Shaw: and that's the person to talk to. Maybe this other
Dr Lynda Shaw: person will be more receptive in a month's time. Who knows? But
Dr Lynda Shaw: at that moment, you know, full word, you're just wasting your breath. So I do
Dr Lynda Shaw: think we need to choose who we talk to about
Dr Lynda Shaw: what. If I engage rather than battles or or pick our
Joanne Lockwood: conversations here. I agree. I agree. That's been fantastic,
Joanne Lockwood: and I I thank you for your time this morning. There anything you'd like to
Joanne Lockwood: just wrap up? It's like, so how do people contact you? How can
Joanne Lockwood: I find out more about your work? Okay. I'm As I
Dr Lynda Shaw: say, I'm a specialist in in the art of change or embracing
Dr Lynda Shaw: change, which in which covers many behaviors, including habits
Dr Lynda Shaw: and all sorts of things that I guide people through. So I'm
Dr Lynda Shaw: you can find me at Lynda at drLyndaShaw.com. That's
Dr Lynda Shaw: l y n d a, d r l y n d a s h a
Dr Lynda Shaw: w. It's really hard to say that, isn't it? And why can't I just have
Dr Lynda Shaw: a simple name? lynda@drlyndashaw.com or www.drlyndashaw.com.
Dr Lynda Shaw: That's me. Brilliant. I'll put all those details in the in the
Joanne Lockwood: pop notes and the accompanying this. And
Joanne Lockwood: if, if you've enjoyed this conversation, if you'd like to hear more, then
Joanne Lockwood: please do subscribe. The links again will be in the comments,
Joanne Lockwood: and I'd love to hear more. And, of course, if you'd like to contribute
Joanne Lockwood: to a future edition, then please contact me, and I'd love to have you as
Joanne Lockwood: a guest. So for now, Dr Lynda Shaw, thank
Joanne Lockwood: you so much for your time. You've been an inspiration. Thank you very much.