Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I am the host of the
Joanne Lockwood: Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I will be interviewing a
Joanne Lockwood: number of amazing people and simply having a conversation around the
Joanne Lockwood: subject of inclusion, belonging and generally making the world a
Joanne Lockwood: place for everyone to thrive in. If you'd like to join me in the future,
Joanne Lockwood: then please do drop me a line to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: You'll be able to catch up with all of the shows on itunes, Spotify and
Joanne Lockwood: all of the usual places. So plug in your headphones, grab a decaf
Joanne Lockwood: and let's get going. Today is episode
Joanne Lockwood: three with the title of Diversity
Joanne Lockwood: fatigue through the lens of a middle aged white guy.
Joanne Lockwood: And I have the absolute honour and privilege to be joined by Scott
Joanne Lockwood: MacArthur, no less. And I first met Scott at a Professional
Joanne Lockwood: Speaking Association conference in 2018, and we hit it
Joanne Lockwood: off straight away. Scott is a mentor, a speaker, a
Joanne Lockwood: writer, and, as he says, has worked with
Joanne Lockwood: musical producers as a rock musical producer, a TEDx speaker, a business
Joanne Lockwood: consultant, an HR director, a zoo ambassador,
Joanne Lockwood: research scientist. And today, Scott focuses his writing and keynote
Joanne Lockwood: speeches on the employee experience and the workplace of
Joanne Lockwood: the future. This is all through his lens experiences of science and
Joanne Lockwood: technology. He has a particular interest in emergent
Joanne Lockwood: technologies and cognitive diversity. Scott has
Joanne Lockwood: worked in over 300 companies worldwide wow.
Joanne Lockwood: Including PwC atos, Superdry,
Joanne Lockwood: Willis Deloitte, Specsavers, Capgemini and the Chinese
Joanne Lockwood: Olympic Authority. I bet they've got problems at the moment. So I asked
Joanne Lockwood: Scott to describe his superpower and he said,
Joanne Lockwood: I know how to read, so hello, Scott. How are
Joanne Lockwood: you? Hi, Jo. Nice to speak to you. How are you? I'm very good,
Joanne Lockwood: thank you. We met
Joanne Lockwood: a year and a bit ago at that PSA conference in
Joanne Lockwood: where was it? Coventry way, wasn't it? Coventry, yes. That was
Scott MacArthur: an interesting experience in itself, wasn't it? Yeah, we kind of
Joanne Lockwood: gravitated, kind of kindred like minded
Joanne Lockwood: spirits. Yeah,
Scott MacArthur: it was good. It was interesting because I think, if I remember rightly, there
Scott MacArthur: was quite a lot of people knew each other, and you and
Scott MacArthur: I didn't really know many people there. That's why
Scott MacArthur: we gravitated. But it was a good force of gravity.
Scott MacArthur: I'll never forget that. It was a good introduction. It was, yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: It's quite daunting when you go to these events for the first time on your
Joanne Lockwood: own. Yes. And everybody seems to know each other, don't
Joanne Lockwood: they? I think we looked after each other well. I
Scott MacArthur: think we did. And I mean, actually, if I'm absolutely honest,
Scott MacArthur: despite the fact I'm a public speaker these days, I feel
Scott MacArthur: quite uncomfortable in social environments like that.
Scott MacArthur: For example, I dread dinner parties
Scott MacArthur: and I can't stand formal networking events.
Scott MacArthur: I think I can empathise with people who struggle with it, kind
Scott MacArthur: of to. Collect sort of self professed introvert. Is that how you describe yourself
Joanne Lockwood: or. Is it just I don't think I'm an introvert.
Scott MacArthur: I've done all the tests and you know that I'm not a great
Scott MacArthur: believer in the science is very poor behind most of these
Scott MacArthur: tests, but I guess I'm maybe an
Scott MacArthur: introverted extrovert. I don't know if that makes any sense,
Scott MacArthur: but I like my own company. I really like my own company.
Scott MacArthur: And I think it's partly why my superpower is reading books, because
Scott MacArthur: I love being in the company of Tolstoy or,
Scott MacArthur: you know, and I can do that by opening a book.
Scott MacArthur: And I can be quite difficult to get to know as well, because
Scott MacArthur: I put up this shield quite often that's not always
Scott MacArthur: particularly welcoming. So, yeah, I'm
Scott MacArthur: introverted extrovert. I'm extroverted introvert. I don't really know
Joanne Lockwood: ambivert, I think is the kind of
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, I've read. About that as well, but maybe I don't know.
Scott MacArthur: But certainly I don't feel comfortable in social environments and this is
Scott MacArthur: easy because I know you and I could talk to you all day,
Scott MacArthur: but certainly in these environments I feel
Scott MacArthur: quite uncomfortable. But the PSA, the Professional Speakers Association, does get easier,
Scott MacArthur: doesn't it, once you get into it and you crack the veneer
Scott MacArthur: of you get to know these
Scott MacArthur: think. Because as
Joanne Lockwood: speakers, we're all opinionated, we all want to sell our
Joanne Lockwood: ideas, we all have a certain stagecraft and presence about
Joanne Lockwood: us. That's probably why it's daunting, I think. Once you realise
Joanne Lockwood: that you are the same ilk, if you
Joanne Lockwood: like, and then people start finding us daunting now, don't
Joanne Lockwood: they? And it's kind of oh, they do. I think it's just a case
Joanne Lockwood: of breaking that ice and just jumping in. I think
Joanne Lockwood: both feet first isn't mean. There's a Scottish saying, I don't know
Scott MacArthur: how well it translates, but it's we're all Jock Thompson's
Scott MacArthur: Bayams. And what that basically says is we're all the
Scott MacArthur: know, we're all from the same place, but
Scott MacArthur: sometimes you have to rediscover that you're just the same as everybody else.
Scott MacArthur: And in that environment, it can be quite difficult. I noticed you've done a couple
Joanne Lockwood: of ten X's over your life. I watched a few on the YouTube the other
Joanne Lockwood: day and if anyone's listening in, do look up Scott MacArthur's
Joanne Lockwood: couple of TEDx on YouTube. If you tell us the titles and just tell us
Joanne Lockwood: what that experience is like. Well, I've done two.
Scott MacArthur: One was one of the biggest ones in Europe, which was TEDx
Scott MacArthur: Warwick. There was a couple of thousand people there.
Scott MacArthur: That was quite a moment for me. I call it a threshold
Scott MacArthur: moment. You have these experiences in your life that suddenly you go,
Scott MacArthur: Whoa. And you see things differently. So at that
Scott MacArthur: TEDx, I spoke about why facts don't
Scott MacArthur: change people and it's all about how important storytelling is
Scott MacArthur: and how important cognitive bias is, et cetera. And I was coming
Scott MacArthur: at that from my scientific and psychological training and
Scott MacArthur: past. But I'll tell you what the best that was, it wasn't the
Scott MacArthur: TEDx. I mean, that was daunting. I'd done lots of speaking at that point,
Scott MacArthur: but having 2000 people in front of you and a red dot, it
Scott MacArthur: was quite scary. But it was the meal afterwards that was
Scott MacArthur: actually the threshold moment because they took us out to a really
Scott MacArthur: nice hotel to have dinner and I'm sat there
Scott MacArthur: with I'll just give you a few. There was a guy who's become
Scott MacArthur: a dear friend who's one of the UK's leading AI experts.
Scott MacArthur: There was a guy who was a prison guard from California.
Scott MacArthur: There was a professor from Bristol who's one of the world's leading authorities on
Scott MacArthur: Nanotechnology. She's an incredible creature. There was a woman
Scott MacArthur: there who was an opera singer, who was one of the she was
Scott MacArthur: lead soprano in the Covent
Scott MacArthur: Garden Opera Company. Unbelievably different people. And we
Scott MacArthur: were all sitting there giving each other feedback
Scott MacArthur: and it was just like it was
Scott MacArthur: incredible. You wouldn't, on the face of it, think that an opera singer could tell
Scott MacArthur: somebody from a scientific background about how to improve his talk,
Scott MacArthur: but she really could. So that was a threshold
Scott MacArthur: moment. The second one I did was TEDx Telford, which
Scott MacArthur: is a much smaller 100 people, much, much smaller
Scott MacArthur: experience. But the interview set up was terrific. And at that
Scott MacArthur: one I did something that I never thought I would do. I spoke
Scott MacArthur: about my relationship with my grandfather
Scott MacArthur: who was very dear to me and the talk was called
Scott MacArthur: who is paying for Your attention? And it was all about how
Scott MacArthur: the analogue technologies, which is the future. I mean, analogue is the
Scott MacArthur: next big thing. Digital is coming to the end of its time and analogue
Scott MacArthur: is going to be next. And I was basically going back to the future. I
Scott MacArthur: was explaining to them why a letter I'd had
Scott MacArthur: from my grandfather and I've got a box of them that are foot deep and
Scott MacArthur: I call it my grandfather's foot, which always cocks people's
Scott MacArthur: attention. But I could smell his aftershave, I
Scott MacArthur: could feel his writing and where he changed his mind and there was all these
Scott MacArthur: people crying in the audience. It was wonderful. So
Scott MacArthur: that one was more I guess it was slightly more about
Scott MacArthur: myself. It was about my own story and telling it for the
Scott MacArthur: first time publicly, which was something I do as a speaker a lot. But
Scott MacArthur: that was a really intimate one. I was in tears.
Scott MacArthur: I came out off the stage and I was crying. You can't see that in
Scott MacArthur: the video. But I was I was crying. And so it was a
Scott MacArthur: complete two different experiences. But I'll tell you what
Scott MacArthur: and I know some people criticise TEDx and say there's
Scott MacArthur: too many of them now and you don't get paid to do it.
Scott MacArthur: That's a load of nonsense. I absolutely
Scott MacArthur: love it and I cannot wait to do the next one. It's a
Scott MacArthur: privilege to have the opportunity to stand up there and meet
Scott MacArthur: these incredible people. I mean, the one at
Scott MacArthur: Telford, funny enough, there was a diversity expert,
Scott MacArthur: there was a marketing guru, there was a guy who
Scott MacArthur: is a design expert, there was a chap who was a
Scott MacArthur: global warming expert.
Joanne Lockwood: We've lost Scott. Hold on, something just happened.
Joanne Lockwood: We've got a global warming expert and. An incredible
Scott MacArthur: array of different types of people. So it
Scott MacArthur: was a privilege, and it is a privilege to be associated with it.
Scott MacArthur: So bring on the next one. Yeah, I've not done one yet.
Joanne Lockwood: I have applied once. I didn't get accepted. I don't think I found
Joanne Lockwood: my story. I need to find something unique,
Joanne Lockwood: something I've got a passion about, and crystallise it as a one
Joanne Lockwood: off. Whereas I think before, the mistake I made was I tried
Joanne Lockwood: to just tell a general, sort of like, doesn't work.
Joanne Lockwood: It's not repurposing an existing keynote. This is developing something specific.
Scott MacArthur: And I think the other thing is the mistake I made well, not a mistake,
Scott MacArthur: it was a learning thing. The first one. Well, they both get good
Scott MacArthur: titles. Why facts don't change. People are you paying attention? Or who is paying for
Scott MacArthur: your attention? They're both easy to remember, they're both easy to say. And
Scott MacArthur: people, they are what I call generative. You immediately think,
Scott MacArthur: what's he going to be talking about? And I think that helps. So if
Scott MacArthur: you go in there, and some people do, and I don't think you should, but
Scott MacArthur: you go in there and you're selling a book or you're selling a product,
Scott MacArthur: I don't think that works. You just have to be yourself
Scott MacArthur: and come up with something from your experience
Scott MacArthur: that really captures people.
Scott MacArthur: Actually, I'll tell you what you can speak about. I remember you telling me this.
Scott MacArthur: You said to me, and this is quite personal, so you might want to edit
Scott MacArthur: this out, Jo, but you said to me, one of my
Scott MacArthur: stories is about how I turned my wife into a lesbian. Yes.
Scott MacArthur: That would get 100,000 bites in a second on a TEDx.
Scott MacArthur: It would, because what's that
Scott MacArthur: about? It's got, obviously, sex, it's got all sorts of funny.
Scott MacArthur: And it's that sort of title that works as a TEDx.
Scott MacArthur: One of my mentees just now, she's
Scott MacArthur: the chief executive at Twycross Zoo and I'm zoo ambassador
Scott MacArthur: there, and she's just done one, and it was
Scott MacArthur: called How To Be More Bonobo.
Scott MacArthur: And it's rocketed it's over 40,000 hits.
Joanne Lockwood: Wow. Because it's just this unusual title and folk go, who's that about?
Scott MacArthur: There's an art to it, and I'm not saying I'm particularly good at it, but
Scott MacArthur: there's an art to it, and I think it is about having one simple thing
Scott MacArthur: that you talk about for 15 minutes. Yeah, no,
Joanne Lockwood: I don't half forgotten about that as a talk title.
Scott MacArthur: I've still got it in me. I've still got it in me and maybe that's
Joanne Lockwood: the one I expand and go for.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm not going to edit this out. I mean, for the benefit of people who
Joanne Lockwood: are curious. It's about how I took part. My wife and I took part in
Joanne Lockwood: a Channel Four documentary which documented
Joanne Lockwood: my gender transition. So we went from what people would
Joanne Lockwood: label us as a heterosexual couple into
Joanne Lockwood: a same gender couple. So on national
Joanne Lockwood: TV, she kind of became a lesbian. And that's kind of the basis
Joanne Lockwood: of the talk. But I would go into a lot more about
Joanne Lockwood: how we like to label people, how we feel more comfortable, and we put people
Joanne Lockwood: in boxes, which is probably the basis of that talk,
Joanne Lockwood: that people want to assume that those are our labels.
Joanne Lockwood: And actually, we're not sure what our labels are. In fact, we don't bother with
Joanne Lockwood: labels in a marriage. That's how we would
Joanne Lockwood: describe ourselves. Yes. Of two people.
Joanne Lockwood: That's probably a good point. What I need to do is I probably need to
Joanne Lockwood: dig out some applications and go on a hunt
Joanne Lockwood: for a TEDx opportunity somewhere. Yeah, good point.
Scott MacArthur: It's a great experience. I titled this
Joanne Lockwood: when we talked about diversity fatigues with a
Joanne Lockwood: lens of a middle aged white guy. And the reason I suggest this is
Joanne Lockwood: we hear this expression, white male panellist tail banded around. For me, it's
Joanne Lockwood: a horrible expression. It's discriminatory, it's
Joanne Lockwood: insulting and doesn't have any place in my world.
Joanne Lockwood: But also, I am aware there is diversity fatigue. We're always quoting
Joanne Lockwood: McKinsey, we're always quoting these stats. We're throwing
Joanne Lockwood: millions and millions globally on unconscious bias training. But I think we
Joanne Lockwood: both know it's not working. We're
Joanne Lockwood: not causing a shift change in culture
Joanne Lockwood: overnight, or even at all. I think the latest stats on gender pay
Joanne Lockwood: gap, we're looking at 2080 before we get even gender parity,
Joanne Lockwood: almost. We're making it worse before we get there. So
Joanne Lockwood: I'm also conscious that I speak to many men and
Joanne Lockwood: they're starting to feel marginalised. They're not being involved in the conversation. So how do
Joanne Lockwood: you feel as a man, as a white guy in
Joanne Lockwood: that space, talking about diversity and cognitive diversity?
Scott MacArthur: Well, there's two parts to that. The professional
Scott MacArthur: part, which I spent 15
Scott MacArthur: years working in the HR world.
Scott MacArthur: I was an HR director, I worked in British gas, I worked in
Scott MacArthur: Scottish and Newcastle, quite male environments, but I worked in what
Scott MacArthur: they used to call equal opportunities for 15 years.
Scott MacArthur: And I professionally
Scott MacArthur: feel excited, actually, about what's happening, because
Scott MacArthur: what you've currently got, and it's a bit like politics at the moment, there
Scott MacArthur: are interim moments. Remember I said that phrase threshold
Scott MacArthur: moments before? I take great pride in being
Scott MacArthur: involved in the laying, the foundation
Scott MacArthur: that's come to today. I think it has moved.
Scott MacArthur: If you'd gone to a gas engineer in the back of a van
Scott MacArthur: in the 1980s when I was a British gas, they would
Scott MacArthur: have laughed at you. And I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about me talking
Scott MacArthur: about equal opportunities. They would just laugh at you. What are you talking about little
Scott MacArthur: girls? But they've got no role in this. Blah, blah, blah.
Scott MacArthur: And now we're at a point where, yeah, it's everywhere.
Scott MacArthur: And for me, it's an interim step because it
Scott MacArthur: shouldn't be like this. It shouldn't be everywhere. It should be like
Scott MacArthur: electricity. It should just be there, but invisible. It shouldn't be something we have to
Scott MacArthur: talk about. That's the next phase. So
Scott MacArthur: professionally, it's amazing.
Scott MacArthur: I'm really excited about it. But personally,
Scott MacArthur: there are things that are getting in my Wick
Scott MacArthur: labelling just drives me nuts.
Scott MacArthur: I hate that toxic masculinity phrase. I
Scott MacArthur: cannot stand it because not just because it's
Scott MacArthur: stupid, but because we all
Scott MacArthur: know you, and I definitely know that if you label somebody something, they
Scott MacArthur: take on that label. So it's completely counterintuitive.
Scott MacArthur: It's crazy. But as a bloke who looks
Scott MacArthur: for work in the conference environment,
Scott MacArthur: I now have this monster that I'm competing against, and it's called
Scott MacArthur: diversity, and it hurts my business
Scott MacArthur: right now. So there's a professional side of me
Scott MacArthur: is quite comfortable with it, but in terms of opportunities, for me, it's
Scott MacArthur: had a negative impact. So I have to balance that. And, I mean,
Scott MacArthur: I'm obviously very happy about it in terms of the humanity side of it, but
Scott MacArthur: being in the interim phase is quite complex. And I think one
Scott MacArthur: of the reasons you and I hit off is we can have that sort of
Scott MacArthur: conversation. I don't know what to
Scott MacArthur: say. What do I say? Jo, one of your other phrases that could be
Scott MacArthur: another good TEDx title is, don't be a dick.
Scott MacArthur: You know that you've said that to me a million times. And I think that
Scott MacArthur: is really telling because the environment is full of people
Scott MacArthur: on one side being offended. They become professional at being offended. I think that's a
Scott MacArthur: horrible trait. And another side are just becoming more and more
Scott MacArthur: toxic because of the labelling. So, actually, we've got to be really careful
Scott MacArthur: about how we because we're all Jock Thompson's bands, we're all just people
Scott MacArthur: try to do our best. And I think you said in your introduction, helping people
Scott MacArthur: thrive. And that's ultimately where I think we're heading.
Scott MacArthur: We're on a journey, and I think we're getting there. I think we're making real
Scott MacArthur: amazing progress. Amazing progress. Yeah. There's
Joanne Lockwood: some great points you've pulled up there. And I find sometimes,
Joanne Lockwood: let's call it in the DNI space, the conversations go on. You end up these
Joanne Lockwood: two polarised camps, the people who won't
Joanne Lockwood: change and the people who demand change. And then there's often no room for the
Joanne Lockwood: centrist view, where people come together, where people are able to have these,
Joanne Lockwood: I don't know, conversations. Please help me understand this. I want
Joanne Lockwood: to make things better. I want to make change, and I'd love you to help
Joanne Lockwood: me type conversations, but we keep getting caught up with
Joanne Lockwood: bad language. We throw in phobias and isms all the
Joanne Lockwood: time. Let's be clear, there are some people
Joanne Lockwood: who are toxic. There are people out there, it's not males, it's not white
Joanne Lockwood: people, there are toxic people, people on both sides of the argument
Joanne Lockwood: that won't come together and have conversations. And I understand
Joanne Lockwood: why people have entrenched views, having been oppressed, having been
Joanne Lockwood: brought up in an environment where they have lived experience
Joanne Lockwood: of being discriminated against and bullied and
Joanne Lockwood: beaten up and violent. So I understand fully why people have
Joanne Lockwood: protection views. But I think in a corporate world, we need to start coming
Joanne Lockwood: together in this centrist ground, having open, honest
Joanne Lockwood: conversations without fear of
Joanne Lockwood: reprisal. If you get it wrong, if you're coming
Joanne Lockwood: from a position of respect, from open
Joanne Lockwood: heart, to listen, to learn, then we should embrace people like that. And I
Joanne Lockwood: think that's the challenge we have at the moment.
Joanne Lockwood: But I think we still do detect some
Joanne Lockwood: protectionists from the middle aged white guys sometimes,
Joanne Lockwood: because often we see initiatives that favour
Joanne Lockwood: women, that favour ethnic minorities, that favour to people of different
Joanne Lockwood: faith. Almost the point where we're saying, well, actually, if you're the white guy on
Joanne Lockwood: this slate for his role,
Joanne Lockwood: you stand less change than a diversity candidate. That's
Scott MacArthur: right, yeah. And I mean, that's why we formed
Scott MacArthur: I'm part of a group called the Whole Man Academy. The whole Man Academy, which
Scott MacArthur: is a group of guys. There's three of us, four
Scott MacArthur: of us mainly, who are looking at initially, it was to create a space for
Scott MacArthur: men to talk, because men aren't as
Scott MacArthur: good as others at speaking and
Scott MacArthur: getting airing their feelings, talking about how
Scott MacArthur: they're coping with the label of things like toxic, masculinity
Scott MacArthur: and tim has been really interesting. Jo, our
Scott MacArthur: audience is men only, right? It's
Scott MacArthur: absolutely and deliberately and unashamedly men
Scott MacArthur: only. We've had our biggest audience is women,
Scott MacArthur: which is really interesting. We'll come back to that. And our second biggest
Scott MacArthur: audience is the bisexual and gay community and the
Scott MacArthur: trans community, and our third community is men.
Scott MacArthur: So we seem to be getting this upside
Scott MacArthur: down response and it's really
Scott MacArthur: because I'm just watching it what's going on.
Scott MacArthur: And on the whole, I'm speaking in stereotypes, but on the
Scott MacArthur: whole, women are coming because they want their men to come.
Scott MacArthur: So they're saying, I'm going to buy John a ticket because John needs to talk
Scott MacArthur: to somebody about his feelings or about his biases,
Scott MacArthur: and we give them that environment and that's great.
Scott MacArthur: The bi and gay and trans community see to be, and this
Scott MacArthur: is terrible stereotype, I'd love to know what you think of this, but the
Scott MacArthur: impression we are getting is they are more in touch with our feelings, so they're
Scott MacArthur: coming anyway. Half of our audience, literally, in every event,
Scott MacArthur: is from that community. And then finally, we're getting
Scott MacArthur: very few
Scott MacArthur: heterosexual men coming into that environment that want to actually
Scott MacArthur: talk about how they feel. They're just not coming. So it's a
Scott MacArthur: fascinating as an experiment, it's
Scott MacArthur: fascinating. And we've had events where our
Scott MacArthur: last event had Rob Rinder, Judge Render
Scott MacArthur: from the television, that chap, he spoke,
Scott MacArthur: charlie King, who's from TOWIE, came along. I was speaking,
Scott MacArthur: we had some others and we attracted 25 people,
Scott MacArthur: whereas if I do a talk in London, over 100 people turn up if I'm
Scott MacArthur: doing an open thing in a pub. So I get more than the whole man
Scott MacArthur: academy. I think it's the label, it's the man bit.
Scott MacArthur: We're not giving up because I think it's a really worthwhile and an important
Scott MacArthur: piece, particularly given, if you look at the mental health part of it,
Scott MacArthur: so many young men killing themselves
Scott MacArthur: that we need to do something about it, we need to help.
Scott MacArthur: But it's a very interesting social experiment, Jo,
Scott MacArthur: you think of that and it's partly in reaction
Scott MacArthur: to everything's about not
Scott MacArthur: me, and I think that's fair, that's a good
Scott MacArthur: natural human reaction. I'm not sorry for that, not in the
Scott MacArthur: slightest, no.
Joanne Lockwood: Speaking from my own lens, my own perspective, and my own lived experience.
Joanne Lockwood: What you're saying about people who may be LGBT
Joanne Lockwood: I certainly went through a phase in my life where I had to think about
Joanne Lockwood: me, who I was, my identity, relationships I
Joanne Lockwood: have with other people, some of the things in my life that
Joanne Lockwood: I liked disliked, places I want to move from
Joanne Lockwood: and to. When I consider my own gender
Joanne Lockwood: transition. I had to think about collateral damage, who I was going to hurt.
Joanne Lockwood: Was it worth it? Who am I? All this kind of stuff is going on
Joanne Lockwood: my head. So I probably did a lot of self reflection, self analysis
Joanne Lockwood: about my own sense of self and identity.
Joanne Lockwood: And I think many people who go through whatever transition that is in their life,
Joanne Lockwood: whether they've had an illness, an incapacity,
Joanne Lockwood: or they've had a major death in their family or close
Joanne Lockwood: friends, we all start to then think about our own mortality and humanity,
Joanne Lockwood: don't we, at that point? Yeah. And I think it's quite probably a true
Joanne Lockwood: observation that in my previous life,
Joanne Lockwood: I didn't do that. I was so focused on
Joanne Lockwood: being the head of the family, earning income,
Joanne Lockwood: delivering my job, hunter killer
Joanne Lockwood: protectionist type role, showing no weakness
Joanne Lockwood: and being there a 100% 24 x seven to make sure I was
Joanne Lockwood: delivering what I could at work, living what I could for the family. And then
Joanne Lockwood: I realised that there was no fulfilment in that, it was just an empty
Joanne Lockwood: life. I wasn't living to live, I was living to
Joanne Lockwood: work, and I was working to live.
Joanne Lockwood: As a result of my change, I rebalanced my entire
Joanne Lockwood: life that actually, I want to live my life, I want to live my
Joanne Lockwood: life, I want to enjoy my downtime and I want to enjoy what I
Joanne Lockwood: do. And I was thinking about I was
Joanne Lockwood: out shopping in the local tesco's at the weekend with my wife
Joanne Lockwood: and I remember we filled our trolley up and we got such a cashier and
Joanne Lockwood: I remember there's been times in my life where I dreaded having to pay
Joanne Lockwood: the bill, thinking, Will this card work? Have I got enough
Joanne Lockwood: money? Can we pay the rent? Can we pay the mortgage? Can we do this?
Joanne Lockwood: And I kept all that in my head without sharing with my
Joanne Lockwood: family. So I had all this pressure. I had cash issues with the
Joanne Lockwood: business. I couldn't draw my monthly allowance
Joanne Lockwood: that month because the business hadn't generated enough profit. I was paying the
Joanne Lockwood: staff, I was doing credit control almost aggressively
Joanne Lockwood: to get money in from clients, to pay people, to pay that, to pay that.
Scott MacArthur: And then there's only a little bit. Left for me, sort of thing. So I
Joanne Lockwood: remember sort of 20 years of my life running a business, literally
Joanne Lockwood: worrying about everybody.
Joanne Lockwood: I never allowed myself to open up and say, well, how about me?
Joanne Lockwood: I feel I can't cope anymore. I really am struggling. Yes.
Joanne Lockwood: And I've certainly learned over the last three or four years
Joanne Lockwood: a different way of being, which the gender
Joanne Lockwood: transition has been a catalyst and a
Joanne Lockwood: realisation. And I'm not saying it's cause and effect, but this
Joanne Lockwood: is obviously in my head a long time. But it has I think
Joanne Lockwood: it's interesting you note that your target audience is your
Joanne Lockwood: minority group. Yeah, exactly.
Scott MacArthur: Fascinating.
Scott MacArthur: You've reminded me that one of the phrases that your audience might not have heard
Scott MacArthur: before is this phrase, cognitive diversity.
Scott MacArthur: And I think what you've just said, it really
Scott MacArthur: quite didactic there, because it reminded
Scott MacArthur: me of how I felt and how
Scott MacArthur: I grew up in an ex mining town in
Scott MacArthur: the roughest part of Scotland that you can imagine. Very
Scott MacArthur: male dominant, classic man getting the pay, going
Scott MacArthur: to the pub and the wife having to come down and pull him out the
Scott MacArthur: pub to get money to feed the kids. That environment.
Scott MacArthur: And I never met a person who was
Scott MacArthur: outwardly gay until I was in
Scott MacArthur: my never met a person of colour until I was
Scott MacArthur: probably 19. It was all that
Scott MacArthur: environment. And to expect anyone to come out of that
Scott MacArthur: environment, male, female, not to be impacted by it is a
Scott MacArthur: completely ridiculous thing to expect.
Scott MacArthur: And I have been unfair on, like my
Scott MacArthur: father, for example, who, on the face of it, is a homophobic
Scott MacArthur: racist. However, he's on his journey, I'm
Scott MacArthur: on my journey, we have different journeys. He's never met
Scott MacArthur: anyone. He's never had the experience to question
Scott MacArthur: where he was brought up. And it's why I often say to
Scott MacArthur: people, it's a bit trite, forgive me,
Scott MacArthur: but seek first to understand before being understood. You've got
Scott MacArthur: to learn to ask questions and
Scott MacArthur: not make judgments, because, Jo, you've got cognitive biases just as
Scott MacArthur: much as I have, as you know, and
Scott MacArthur: it's difficult. And that's why I like you, because you and I have
Scott MacArthur: these debates where we'll probably fall out because we're like,
Scott MacArthur: that doesn't make any sense. But that's exactly how it should be.
Scott MacArthur: You should be able to have this different
Scott MacArthur: perspective. And again, one of the things I really value about our friendship is
Scott MacArthur: that it's cognitively diverse. We are not the
Scott MacArthur: same and we shouldn't be the same. And it means
Scott MacArthur: and this is why, again, in many ways, I quite like the Professional
Scott MacArthur: Speaking Association. Because, again, you can be sitting there, and you can be talking
Scott MacArthur: to someone who's an expert at doing training courses
Scott MacArthur: on cruise ships, and then you can be speaking to somebody
Scott MacArthur: who's an expert at speaking about rape, and then you can be speaking to
Scott MacArthur: somebody who's an expert on LinkedIn. And you have these
Scott MacArthur: cognitively diverse perspectives. And what
Scott MacArthur: that does, if you're willing
Scott MacArthur: to see it, what that does is it holds a mirror up to you
Scott MacArthur: and goes, do you know what, Jo? Or do you know what,
Scott MacArthur: Scott? I don't agree with you. I see it differently.
Scott MacArthur: And that's where the magic is. I mean, David White, one of my
Scott MacArthur: favourite poets, he says in one of his most beautiful poems, he
Scott MacArthur: says, Start close in. Right, start
Scott MacArthur: close in. And what he means is, you've got to start with yourself. And the
Scott MacArthur: only way you can well, sorry, there's multiple ways, but one of the main ways
Scott MacArthur: you can do it is by meeting people who are different to you, because they
Scott MacArthur: look at you and they go, you're weird, or I don't agree with you.
Scott MacArthur: And that's like, oh, no one's ever said that to me before.
Scott MacArthur: And as long as you've got that soft front thing, you can
Scott MacArthur: actually learn about yourself from a stranger.
Scott MacArthur: And that's terrific. Terrific. But most
Scott MacArthur: folk don't see it. No, that's one of the things I try and
Joanne Lockwood: talk about when I'm consulting or training or running workshops,
Joanne Lockwood: is about the expression go and drink in someone else's pub. If you
Joanne Lockwood: keep drinking your own pub, you meet the same people. Exactly.
Joanne Lockwood: Go to a stranger's pub, get involved with conversations, meet new
Joanne Lockwood: people, expand your perspective, be likeable,
Joanne Lockwood: be approachable, be open, be vulnerable and just get involved with
Joanne Lockwood: conversations with different people. And I often encourage people to look at their circle of
Joanne Lockwood: friendships, look at the people they know in their life and
Joanne Lockwood: without make it sound tokenistic. Work out who you're not
Joanne Lockwood: friends with, work out what people don't have in your life and then
Joanne Lockwood: find a way of meeting people. Either join community groups,
Joanne Lockwood: volunteer, get out there and drink in other
Joanne Lockwood: pubs, or just meet different people in different groups. And then you
Joanne Lockwood: expand your circle of friends. Absolutely. I think
Joanne Lockwood: we've all got room at our table for more perspectives. Oh, yeah. As soon
Joanne Lockwood: as we start narrowing our perspectives, we get a single view of the world. Then
Joanne Lockwood: we have these polarised conversations where
Joanne Lockwood: nobody can have the middle ground. It's almost like a mediaeval
Joanne Lockwood: battle, where people are standing on the hills with their arches firing at each other.
Joanne Lockwood: All the foot soldiers and the mental horses and their swords, and things are
Joanne Lockwood: getting slaughtered on the battlefield, and the generals just look at each other.
Joanne Lockwood: Hmm. That didn't work. There's twice. The more arrows
Joanne Lockwood: and these battles are just last man standing things, aren't they, that no one wins.
Joanne Lockwood: It's just who doesn't die? Who doesn't die? Yeah.
Scott MacArthur: Crazy. That's what we are. Sometimes in these DNI
Joanne Lockwood: conversations, it's the loudest voice, the biggest
Joanne Lockwood: fists. Who's not going to die? Absolutely pummelled
Joanne Lockwood: people into I've given up argument. I just can't take anymore. I'm out. My
Joanne Lockwood: mental health won't take this. I'm out. And that's what the
Joanne Lockwood: press, Twitter and all these online stuff does now. It just spreads
Joanne Lockwood: hate from two hills with the arrows flying at each
Joanne Lockwood: other. Yes, absolutely.
Scott MacArthur: There's an app have you heard of Shaper? No, I
Scott MacArthur: haven't. No. It's
Scott MacArthur: kind of tinder without the sex,
Scott MacArthur: what it talks about. And I'm not saying it's a great app, it's an
Scott MacArthur: okay app, but it's one of these swipey things, but
Scott MacArthur: it swipes on interestingness, and I quite
Scott MacArthur: like that. I don't even know if that's a word. Okay. So, for
Scott MacArthur: example, you'll go on there, and it'll have people from a
Scott MacArthur: broadcast. So you'll have scientists, poets, engineers,
Scott MacArthur: gardeners, whatever, cooks, and you can meet them, you can
Scott MacArthur: connect with them and get to know them. It's not a
Scott MacArthur: mean I think you're better to get something like the PSA than you are a
Scott MacArthur: shafer. But if you're sitting at home now and you're wondering how to
Scott MacArthur: meet people, it could be a way to start. I met
Scott MacArthur: a very interesting microbiologist that's
Scott MacArthur: not a million miles from me, because I used to be in that game, but
Scott MacArthur: nevertheless, it's been 30 years since I've done it. So when I met her, it
Scott MacArthur: was really interesting. And she is an interesting person,
Scott MacArthur: and that's a way to meet people. But because of the way society has
Scott MacArthur: changed and I mean, the other thing that I think and you mentioned it, community
Scott MacArthur: groups, we're not good at that anymore. I'm an
Scott MacArthur: atheist, and I don't find the God thing
Scott MacArthur: helpful, but I do find church helpful, oddly, because
Scott MacArthur: church, if you take away the God stuff, was a great place
Scott MacArthur: for people to come together, to dance, to sing, to talk.
Scott MacArthur: And we haven't replaced that in society because the church is dying. And
Scott MacArthur: that is a good thing. And from my perspective sorry if you don't agree with
Scott MacArthur: that, but that's, from my perspective, a good thing. But we also, I
Scott MacArthur: think, have therefore left a gap. And there's a
Scott MacArthur: chap called Elaine de Boton talks about this. He talks about the school of life,
Scott MacArthur: and he's trying to bring in the idea of almost secular
Scott MacArthur: churches where we get together from different backgrounds and help each other. And
Scott MacArthur: I think that's a real opportunity. I mean, someone's going to do really well in
Scott MacArthur: that space, because I think as human beings and certainly from a
Scott MacArthur: biological perspective, we need to be with other people.
Scott MacArthur: We're not meant to be on our own. We're not these
Scott MacArthur: wild cats that go around polar bears who spend most of their life walk around
Scott MacArthur: on their own and only come together for sex. Humans are not like that.
Scott MacArthur: We need the socialisation. I've been to a few cities like
Joanne Lockwood: that, but yeah.
Scott MacArthur: So there are opportunities there. But again, we're at
Scott MacArthur: this threshold moment. We'll never get to the
Scott MacArthur: end. There's another beautiful piece of
Scott MacArthur: poetry that talks about we're on the pathless path.
Scott MacArthur: All these people talking about goals and all this stuff, and
Scott MacArthur: frankly, I think it's a lot of nonsense because life isn't like that. You can
Scott MacArthur: only really see life in hindsight. It's very difficult to see it that way. But
Scott MacArthur: I think part of the pathless path is we need to be better at
Scott MacArthur: working, being together. We used to be quite good at it, but that was within
Scott MacArthur: a construct that's no longer appropriate. So we need to think of a new construct
Scott MacArthur: and certainly not going to be going back the way it's going to be going
Scott MacArthur: forward, but in a different way. Do I know the answer? No, I don't.
Scott MacArthur: But I do think there is an opportunity there, which is kind of what the
Scott MacArthur: Homean Academy is about, but it's not the answer.
Joanne Lockwood: I think the new focus on things like
Joanne Lockwood: mindfulness being more
Joanne Lockwood: introspective, providing people support to know that good
Joanne Lockwood: enough is good enough, they are good enough. And a lot of stuff we're doing
Joanne Lockwood: around mental health, first aid is very powerful. And I think that's
Joanne Lockwood: what we've lost. I think what we need to do
Joanne Lockwood: is help men embrace this,
Joanne Lockwood: where women will naturally come together and talk about their feelings,
Joanne Lockwood: talk about the stress of their life, talk about the man in their life, talk
Joanne Lockwood: about all the issues with each other in a safe,
Joanne Lockwood: friendly environment. But men always come to in my past
Joanne Lockwood: experience, men come together looking for sort of
Joanne Lockwood: one upmanship, establishing their place in the pecking order,
Joanne Lockwood: not showing weakness, or they'll be the brunt of the banter.
Joanne Lockwood: It's making sure you're not the weak person in the pack, isn't it?
Scott MacArthur: Yes. To burst into tears and say, I'm really
Joanne Lockwood: struggling, is not a male thing. And I
Joanne Lockwood: know two men have committed suicide through financial pressures
Joanne Lockwood: at work, business and family. And their problems
Joanne Lockwood: were solved immediately after their death by everyone
Joanne Lockwood: pulling around the surviving partner and saying, we can help
Joanne Lockwood: you and fix this. And their businesses were rescued, everyone was paid.
Joanne Lockwood: So these solutions are always there.
Joanne Lockwood: You need to have a fuse in your head that says help.
Scott MacArthur: Yes. And even what you've just said is interesting
Scott MacArthur: because in a tangential way,
Scott MacArthur: because if you go into the football dressing room is a classic
Scott MacArthur: metaphor. Right? And what's a reality. And I've heard
Scott MacArthur: people saying, it's awful. The
Scott MacArthur: language, the demeaning language, about women. The
Scott MacArthur: demeaning language about homosexuality and trans
Scott MacArthur: people is terrible. And actually, I used to agree with that,
Scott MacArthur: and I used to during my British gas days, I
Scott MacArthur: got dragged into a job where I was looking after welfare.
Scott MacArthur: And that's a word we used to use as much now, but
Scott MacArthur: we used to have welfare officers who'd run events,
Scott MacArthur: and I had to look after these guys. And to be quite honest with you,
Scott MacArthur: Jo, they were disgusting. I was like, and I'll tell you
Scott MacArthur: the story in the pub sometime, but there was some stuff that was really
Scott MacArthur: scary, but I've actually reframed that in my head
Scott MacArthur: now. I kind of see it as saying that's really
Scott MacArthur: bad is not right, because they obviously need it. There's something
Scott MacArthur: happening there that they need. The problem is, there's not the next step.
Scott MacArthur: There's not the place for them to say, I've gone to the
Scott MacArthur: football environment, and I get a lot of that from my mates, and I like
Scott MacArthur: that, and personally, I don't like it, but a lot of men clearly do.
Scott MacArthur: Millions of men clearly do. So just to say that's
Scott MacArthur: rubbish and discounted, I don't think it's right. I think we say, okay,
Scott MacArthur: men need that environment. Let's understand that. And I don't understand it, but let's
Scott MacArthur: understand it. But then there's the next level. And this is what the Homean Academy
Scott MacArthur: is trying to do, is to say, okay, come along to one of our events.
Scott MacArthur: We'll talk about football, but we'll also talk about your feelings.
Scott MacArthur: We'll also talk about and we're trying to be cute with it because we'll talk
Scott MacArthur: about things like fashion. Men never talk about fashion
Scott MacArthur: with guests. Last month from a company called Shakeup, which
Scott MacArthur: is men's makeup, right? And when we started to talk
Scott MacArthur: about men's makeup, one of the guys said, put your hand up if you ever
Scott MacArthur: use your partner's makeup, nearly every hand in the room went up,
Scott MacArthur: right? It was like, whoa. So a lot of this stuff
Scott MacArthur: is about getting us together, men, women,
Scott MacArthur: and get us together and just get us talking about
Scott MacArthur: how it feels.
Scott MacArthur: Please don't misunderstand me. I also have an issue with the victim
Scott MacArthur: culture I think we've created. I work with school kids quite often,
Scott MacArthur: and you can see a lot of those kids are being programmed to be victims.
Scott MacArthur: And I don't think that's helpful either. But it's because it's so
Scott MacArthur: complicated, and it's kind of why I use poetry quite a lot, because
Scott MacArthur: poetry cuts through a lot of this and things like,
Scott MacArthur: as a first step, stand close in. What does that mean?
Scott MacArthur: And it gets you thinking rather than telling you, this is how you've got to
Scott MacArthur: behave. Does that make sense? Jo? I see a
Joanne Lockwood: lot of people trying to repurpose the word victim.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm not a victim. I was the target of
Joanne Lockwood: victim is a very personal experience. Whereas
Joanne Lockwood: if you can reframe that and say, I was the target of abuse. I was
Joanne Lockwood: the target of someone's inappropriate behaviour. It puts it back to the person
Joanne Lockwood: that perpetrates it. So I think I think we should
Joanne Lockwood: stop using victim and
Joanne Lockwood: saying, I was the target of and
Joanne Lockwood: yes, if you identify as a victim, that's fine. I'm not saying you shouldn't, but
Joanne Lockwood: what we need to do is push it back to the people creating those scenarios
Joanne Lockwood: in the first place.
Joanne Lockwood: But it is if you are the target
Joanne Lockwood: of abuse or the target of discrimination, through
Joanne Lockwood: microaggressions, through socialisation, through all the things.
Joanne Lockwood: And it's a very privileged statement to say, well, I don't see
Joanne Lockwood: that man up, girl up, whatever that
Joanne Lockwood: may be. It's a very privileged way of looking at life. And it's
Joanne Lockwood: often incumbent on those with privilege to walk in their
Joanne Lockwood: shoes, to understand their lived experience and to try and think about
Joanne Lockwood: what's going on in their life and what support you can give from that perspective.
Joanne Lockwood: Rather than don't just chuck money at something, actually, some people
Joanne Lockwood: would rather you embrace them and gave them emotional
Joanne Lockwood: support, not financial support. Give them attention.
Scott MacArthur: Give them some attention. Belonging, value, worth,
Joanne Lockwood: encouragement, praise, motivation goes a long
Joanne Lockwood: way. And understanding what motivates people is something
Joanne Lockwood: we do in the workplace all the time, isn't it? Absolutely.
Joanne Lockwood: What's the future, then? What's the future for diversity initiatives?
Joanne Lockwood: And how do we get men to have these conversations with each other
Joanne Lockwood: and have conversations with women and have conversations
Joanne Lockwood: with people who are not like them in the workplace? How do we get them
Joanne Lockwood: to come together? Well, God,
Scott MacArthur: there's a PhD thesis on that question. Magic bullet.
Scott MacArthur: Yeah. It's not going to be
Scott MacArthur: simple.
Scott MacArthur: That's right. But it's true. I think there has to be some
Scott MacArthur: carrot and stick. So I think legislation has
Scott MacArthur: to change. I think,
Scott MacArthur: with the world I used to live in, employment law has become far too
Scott MacArthur: about, far too much about quotas
Scott MacArthur: and not celebrating difference, but actually making more
Scott MacArthur: difference, which I've got, I think is just stupid looks at it the wrong way
Scott MacArthur: around. I think there are real nitty gritty
Scott MacArthur: things like maternity and how that's
Scott MacArthur: dealt with and how careers are dealt with, how companies respond.
Scott MacArthur: But I think there is actually, and maybe
Scott MacArthur: this is more a hope, one of the things
Scott MacArthur: that is belonging more and more obvious to anyone who
Scott MacArthur: works in any number of companies. And I've worked in over 300 companies.
Scott MacArthur: And you start to see trends in all sorts of companies, and you start to
Scott MacArthur: see how they're morphing and changing and all the
Scott MacArthur: rest of it. Now, I don't buy into the millennials
Scott MacArthur: nonsense and I don't buy into all this stuff. It's just silly. It's
Joanne Lockwood: consulting labels, new
Joanne Lockwood: packaging. We don't need it. We don't
Scott MacArthur: need it at all. But what is happening?
Scott MacArthur: I don't know. And I'm proud that I don't know, because I really don't
Scott MacArthur: know. If you look at the high street now or
Scott MacArthur: even online, however you buy things, what are people
Scott MacArthur: looking for now? They're looking for things to be done for them as an individual.
Scott MacArthur: So it's personalization individualization. So you
Scott MacArthur: get your coat can with your name on it, or you get your dress done
Scott MacArthur: to measure in the shop with a scanner, or you get all this is
Scott MacArthur: happening and you think, okay, that's only being
Scott MacArthur: around for a long time, but it's only really getting traction now. And I've
Scott MacArthur: seen some of the emergent technologies in this space which is going to make it
Scott MacArthur: easier and easier and easier for companies to do things, bespoke products for
Scott MacArthur: everybody. So it used to be the driving force behind companies
Scott MacArthur: was something like we used to call it scalable efficiency, right? So everybody
Scott MacArthur: had the same uniform, the same terms and
Scott MacArthur: conditions, collectively bargained with trade unions or staff
Scott MacArthur: associations, all of that stuff that's now counter to
Scott MacArthur: what's happening in our lives. We're looking for individualism.
Scott MacArthur: We're looking for things that are for me, not for my tribe.
Scott MacArthur: I think that and I can't imagine
Scott MacArthur: a future where that isn't going to be just something that keeps going like that.
Scott MacArthur: It is exponential, and a lot of folks use that
Scott MacArthur: without really understanding what that means. Exponential
Scott MacArthur: means that if I take 30 steps from where I'm sitting right
Scott MacArthur: now, I'll be in my loo, which is just down there. Jo
Scott MacArthur: right. 30 steps will get me to that loo. If I take
Scott MacArthur: 30 exponential steps, I'm on Mars,
Scott MacArthur: right.
Joanne Lockwood: Doubling each penny on a chessboard. That's exactly
Scott MacArthur: the grain of rice, the famous story. But if that's
Scott MacArthur: happening in society about individualization,
Scott MacArthur: there is only one thing that's going to mean, and that means that at work
Scott MacArthur: we're going to turn around and we're going to say, I'm not accepting
Scott MacArthur: collective bargaining. I'm not accepting quotas. I'm not
Scott MacArthur: accepting the collective model. Now,
Scott MacArthur: I know people have, you can say my superpower
Scott MacArthur: reading in one of the great writers in this space, who I don't like, but
Scott MacArthur: was Iron Rand, who was writing this in the she
Scott MacArthur: was talking about individualization from the market being
Scott MacArthur: the ultimate supreme ground force. And I don't agree with that. But what I
Scott MacArthur: do agree with is where you look at it and you say, okay, what will
Scott MacArthur: that mean in the company? And it will just mean that if you want my
Scott MacArthur: skills, you're going to have to give me what I need
Scott MacArthur: for my life. It's why I don't believe in the work life balance thing as
Scott MacArthur: well, because it's a false binary. It's just nonsense.
Scott MacArthur: But that's another talk. But for me,
Scott MacArthur: it's coming, and companies are not quite there
Scott MacArthur: yet. And I think that will be the beginning of making this a much easier
Scott MacArthur: process for us all, because again, it's why I am
Scott MacArthur: very cautious about things like psychometric testing who say, oh,
Scott MacArthur: you're a yellow or a red or a pink. No,
Scott MacArthur: that's labelling and if you get labelling, you know that that can never be a
Scott MacArthur: good thing. There are 7 billion different personalities in the
Scott MacArthur: world and we should celebrate that. And then people say to me, well,
Scott MacArthur: we can't do that, too expensive. No, technology
Scott MacArthur: is taking us on that almost evolutionary journey where we can I mean, evolution
Scott MacArthur: usually takes millions of years, but not in this context. We
Scott MacArthur: can now do things efficiently, but at the individual level. And
Scott MacArthur: I think, Jo, that's our salvation because it
Scott MacArthur: takes away all of this. So our conversation would just
Scott MacArthur: be Jo and Scott having a it's. I
Scott MacArthur: tell you, you taught me something, right, about speaking,
Scott MacArthur: actually, and you said, imagine how you would
Scott MacArthur: feel if the MC came on the stage
Scott MacArthur: and said there were two types of people in the room. There
Scott MacArthur: was blue people and red people. And they walked in and went, Good morning, blue
Scott MacArthur: people and red people and I was yellow, how would
Scott MacArthur: I feel? Right? And you taught me to say, Good morning, everyone.
Scott MacArthur: Do you remember that? I don't remember even doing it right. Tiny
Scott MacArthur: little change. And I thought, Shit.
Scott MacArthur: And I didn't mean when I went up and said, hello, ladies and gentlemen, I
Scott MacArthur: didn't mean to not include somebody,
Scott MacArthur: but I never realised. Sorry. I did realise, I just never thought about
Scott MacArthur: it. I'd never thought about it, so I never realised. And I
Scott MacArthur: think that that sort of story that you tell and I
Scott MacArthur: tell to a lesser extent, but will help people understand that we're
Scott MacArthur: all Jo Thompson's Bears, we're all the same, but we're actually all
Scott MacArthur: unique and it's that we should be celebrating and not things
Scott MacArthur: like in the HR world, recruiting to match
Scott MacArthur: corporate values. What a pile of nonsense.
Scott MacArthur: But people sell that and people go, well, it's really
Scott MacArthur: important, it's actually killing your business,
Scott MacArthur: particularly in the next ten years.
Joanne Lockwood: Branding, that's what it's all about here's, our visions of values. We
Joanne Lockwood: want to use that as an excuse for cookie cuttering somebody else.
Scott MacArthur: Yeah, well, let's be honest, it always
Scott MacArthur: was about discrimination and it was deliberate, managed
Scott MacArthur: discrimination. And I get know historically, if you're
Scott MacArthur: running an army, you need somebody that fits that mould. They
Scott MacArthur: need to be the know. But if you're running Martin Spencer's or
Scott MacArthur: you're running Barclays Bank, you don't need that. At
Scott MacArthur: mean, I won't tell you the company name, but I remember
Scott MacArthur: joining a company and just look at my CV, you can work it out. But
Scott MacArthur: their induction programme, they actually told you
Scott MacArthur: where to get your haircut, what suit you were allowed to
Scott MacArthur: wear, what aftershave you had to buy
Scott MacArthur: they actually told you what fucking umbrella you were allowed to
Scott MacArthur: buy, Jo, from what shop.
Scott MacArthur: It was the same with the girls, but
Scott MacArthur: they've stopped that now, which is good, but that is
Scott MacArthur: where we're coming from. And anyone who's naive and include you and I in
Scott MacArthur: this, who thinks we can change it overnight? Well, they've just been naive. It's
Scott MacArthur: going to take generations. But to answer your question, I've been prattling on now, but
Scott MacArthur: your question is such a good question. I think that change will be
Scott MacArthur: that will be driven by a mixture of sensible legislation,
Scott MacArthur: but mainly about the culture we live in, being based on
Scott MacArthur: individualization of products, and that will drive a demand and a
Scott MacArthur: requirement for companies to treat us as individuals, not as labelled
Scott MacArthur: groups. Some good thoughts there. Personally, I think
Joanne Lockwood: we're going to see the rise of the artisan. We're going to value the
Joanne Lockwood: intellectual ability of an individual and that fits into your
Joanne Lockwood: individuality there. And organisations need to learn how to
Joanne Lockwood: manage artisans and respect them and motivate
Joanne Lockwood: them and not box them into this corporate structure. We need more
Joanne Lockwood: neural networks of employees and people, and don't think of
Joanne Lockwood: employees as team players in our neural network. And our
Joanne Lockwood: artisans in the future are going to be gig workers. They can have a portfolio
Joanne Lockwood: of careers, they're going to come together for small, discrete projects,
Joanne Lockwood: maybe in an agile workforce, resources on demand. So again, we
Joanne Lockwood: need to be able to value and motivate these people differently than just put them
Joanne Lockwood: in this HR box. I also think we also have increased
Joanne Lockwood: pressure on mental health because if a lot more people are going to work remotely,
Joanne Lockwood: going to work in isolation, what outlet do people have for socialisation,
Joanne Lockwood: to share ideas, to have discussions, to have disagreements and agreements?
Joanne Lockwood: I think that's the danger of the future, where we end up just having conversations
Joanne Lockwood: like we are now online with one on one, but we don't enrich
Joanne Lockwood: that with a broader experience. I think that's maybe the challenge of the future is
Joanne Lockwood: to stop people feeling isolated, because as soon as we see people like
Joanne Lockwood: individuals, some of the tribe and team spirit
Joanne Lockwood: disappears as well. So we all become gifted individuals
Joanne Lockwood: and not team players. So those are definitely challenges as I see it.
Scott MacArthur: Yeah. As far as the pathless path, we don't know where it's going to go.
Scott MacArthur: But another thing that I quite often have heated debates
Scott MacArthur: about is people telling me that we have to think
Scott MacArthur: about development in a different way. It has to be done online.
Scott MacArthur: No, it doesn't. There is
Scott MacArthur: not a platform on the planet that does it well, they
Scott MacArthur: do it okay. And it's only ever going to be okay
Scott MacArthur: because, you know, you're sitting, you and I can have this conversation here, partly because
Scott MacArthur: we know each other, that helps. But
Scott MacArthur: actually, to get the real nitty gritty with somebody, you've
Scott MacArthur: got to be in the same room as them. You can't replace it. There
Scott MacArthur: used to be a phrase and I don't like it, but it was a blended
Scott MacArthur: learning. You would look at things from different perspectives and of course we now know
Scott MacArthur: that learning styles is nonsense and all this labelling
Scott MacArthur: stuff is all nonsense. But getting people
Scott MacArthur: together is dynamite. Dynamite. And it goes right back
Scott MacArthur: to where you started us when you mentioned about community. Community is
Scott MacArthur: not online. You can help with online stuff, but the reality is,
Scott MacArthur: and a lot of people get a lot of good things out of the online
Scott MacArthur: stuff, but actually, real communities like face to face,
Scott MacArthur: touching. Hands, et cetera, and a blend,
Joanne Lockwood: blended learning. We're not kinesthetic,
Joanne Lockwood: audiovisual, et cetera, et cetera. We're more than. But we all appreciate
Joanne Lockwood: diversity of learning opportunities in two different ways.
Joanne Lockwood: Absolutely. Storytelling is a very historic
Joanne Lockwood: human way of communicating. We draw cave paintings, we tell each other stories.
Joanne Lockwood: The Icelandics have the sagas of Snorri to
Joanne Lockwood: talk about their culture, how things have evolved way before we can write and communicate
Joanne Lockwood: and transmit. The human species developed
Joanne Lockwood: through stories, which is, I guess, where religion, a lot of religion came from through
Joanne Lockwood: the stories. But we love our stories.
Joanne Lockwood: We go to the cinema to see a story, we come entertainment. It's
Joanne Lockwood: about taking us from a journey from here to here and making us feel great
Joanne Lockwood: at the end of it, or sad or happy getting an emotion. So, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: humans coming together and telling stories is very powerful.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm a great believer in that. But they don't teach us how to tell
Scott MacArthur: stories. No. I was working with a group the
Scott MacArthur: other week, two weeks ago, young people who were all doing quite well on their
Scott MacArthur: corporate jobs. And I'd watched them all do presentations. There
Scott MacArthur: was maybe 20 of them. Not one of them told a story.
Scott MacArthur: Not one of them. It was all about bullet points and
Scott MacArthur: about leveraging the value, all that nonsense, language
Scott MacArthur: that you get indoctrinated with. But of course they don't
Scott MacArthur: teach you at school. It's crazy. The important stuff
Scott MacArthur: is not done at school. They don't teach you how to have relationships. They
Scott MacArthur: don't they don't teach you how to read a book. And I know, I
Scott MacArthur: think that's my superpower. They don't actually teach you how to read a book at
Scott MacArthur: school, and they certainly don't teach you how to tell stories.
Scott MacArthur: What's more important than those three things? I can't
Scott MacArthur: change? Yeah, you look at the recruitment
Joanne Lockwood: process, we base it on a CV and we were taught how CVS, and
Joanne Lockwood: it's all about bullet points. I
Joanne Lockwood: achieved even short sentences.
Joanne Lockwood: I did this and I achieved 50,000 pounds worth of saving. Whatever.
Joanne Lockwood: Let me tell you a story about who I am. Get to know me as
Joanne Lockwood: a person. Get to know my values, what makes me tick, what makes me happy,
Joanne Lockwood: what makes me sad. Those are the conversations. And you go, Actually, I think you're
Joanne Lockwood: a fantastic person. You'd be great here. We'd love you. Come and have a job.
Scott MacArthur: Come and have a job. Let's figure out how we can make that work together.
Joanne Lockwood: And we never have those conversations. I appreciate hiring at
Joanne Lockwood: scale isn't very difficult
Joanne Lockwood: for artisans, for specialists, for senior managers, for
Joanne Lockwood: leaders. We need to have that more story based. Who are
Joanne Lockwood: you? Tell me about yourself.
Scott MacArthur: Sorry? I mean, tell me about yourself again. Creates problems for people
Joanne Lockwood: with diversity, then. We're always well
Joanne Lockwood: versed in the storytelling art, so
Joanne Lockwood: we got to respect different learning styles, different personality types, to be able to allow
Joanne Lockwood: everyone to succeed within a story and wellbeing, environment.
Joanne Lockwood: There's no easy magic bullet, as we've said already. No, it's
Scott MacArthur: complex. That makes it beautiful. That makes it beautiful. For me, that
Scott MacArthur: just makes it beautiful. Complexity is beautiful. Simplicity, it's a
Scott MacArthur: bit like and I won't go on about this, but one of the
Scott MacArthur: competencies I really don't like. Really don't
Scott MacArthur: like, and I know it's an
Scott MacArthur: indicator of someone who is going to have a problem with me,
Scott MacArthur: if nothing else, is people who are certain
Scott MacArthur: certainty is the sign of a fool or a
Scott MacArthur: teenager. Yeah. Certainty
Scott MacArthur: is just such a silly way to be.
Scott MacArthur: And that's why Brenny Brown nicked us from the Buddhist. But she talks
Scott MacArthur: about having a soft front. Strong back and a soft front and a wild heart
Scott MacArthur: that she added. But that's what that meant. It means
Scott MacArthur: that a soft front means you take in
Scott MacArthur: you don't have a hard front. The armour like the certainty thing.
Joanne Lockwood: I agree. And it's beautiful when you think about it,
Scott MacArthur: but people don't get it. They think, companies think, oh, I need
Scott MacArthur: somebody who's dead sure and they need to know what they're doing.
Scott MacArthur: That's how we got the Scottish Parliament building or the two, or
Scott MacArthur: what they call them, black swans. That's because people were certain about what they were
Scott MacArthur: doing, rather than actually open to feedback and changing what they were doing.
Scott MacArthur: But I won't go on, Jo, because. That
Joanne Lockwood: subject, that's another hour we can have a question
Joanne Lockwood: I like, which is strong opinions, lightly
Joanne Lockwood: held. That means you can have a
Joanne Lockwood: viewpoint. You do know what you stand for, but lightly held means
Joanne Lockwood: you're able to embrace other people's and maybe adjust
Joanne Lockwood: your own and recontextualize it, or accept other perspectives.
Joanne Lockwood: Your soft front, strong back type. I love this
Joanne Lockwood: content as well. Anything that says, I
Joanne Lockwood: want to speak to somebody who has an opinion. But I'd like to think
Joanne Lockwood: that between us, we can come up a third opinion. Bit of yours, bit
Joanne Lockwood: of mine, and a shared one. And I think the basis of all
Joanne Lockwood: storytelling and human direction is to come up with a third view, which is amalgamation.
Scott MacArthur: Yeah. Well, I think we yak on
Joanne Lockwood: now for well over an hour, and that's been fantastic. So how
Joanne Lockwood: can our listeners and our viewers find you? So you've got hashtags and what's
Joanne Lockwood: a good way of finding? Well, my main hashtag that I use everywhere is
Scott MacArthur: slightly narcissistic, but it says Scott Speaks.
Scott MacArthur: And if you use that on LinkedIn or
Scott MacArthur: on Instagram or on YouTube, you'll find me. My YouTube is
Scott MacArthur: called The Employee Experience, which is full
Scott MacArthur: of mini documentaries and little what I call talk trailers for what
Scott MacArthur: Scott speaks about. Otherwise, I'm obviously on LinkedIn.
Scott MacArthur: But my favourite platform, and the one that I think is
Scott MacArthur: misunderstood, is Twitter. Because
Scott MacArthur: Twitter is about information. It's not about your family
Scott MacArthur: or your job, it's about information. And if you use it well, I
Scott MacArthur: think it's still a lovely platform. So at
Scott MacArthur: Scott, underscore MacArthur is where I can be found
Scott MacArthur: most of the time. And I'm very
Scott MacArthur: proud of how I curate my Twitter stream.
Scott MacArthur: And a lot of the detail there disagrees with what I
Scott MacArthur: say because, again, I think you should be given balance to people
Scott MacArthur: and don't think that all my stuff is certain because it certainly isn't
Scott MacArthur: fantastic. And if anyone would like to find out more about the whole man academy,
Joanne Lockwood: whether you're a woman listening, a man listening, or someone who
Joanne Lockwood: identifies as non binary or other genders, then again,
Joanne Lockwood: contact you. Is it hashtag allman academy as well. It is. Yeah.
Scott MacArthur: hashtag #AllManAcademy. And it's
Scott MacArthur: we have a we have a newsletter which is open to everybody.
Scott MacArthur: We're about to make a big announcement about a podcast.
Scott MacArthur: It's coming soon. We're starting recording that in the next couple of weeks.
Scott MacArthur: That will be a bi weekly podcast. So that's all coming
Scott MacArthur: in the next few weeks. Well, thank you, Scott.
Joanne Lockwood: I really appreciate our time together and I really look forward to catching up
Joanne Lockwood: with you face to face again and just carrying on this conversation. In fact, what?
Joanne Lockwood: We should set up a webcam next time we have a pint.
Scott MacArthur: That's a great idea. Yeah. Okay, let's be in each
Scott MacArthur: other's pubs on the webcam. That's a great idea.
Joanne Lockwood: Thank you very much. And to the audience, thank you for listening.
Joanne Lockwood: Please do subscribe to keep updated with future episodes of the In
Joanne Lockwood: Bites podcast. That's B-I-T-E-S bites. I have
Joanne Lockwood: a number of exciting guests lined up that I'm sure you'll be inspired by over
Joanne Lockwood: the next few weeks and months. And if you would love to take part,
Joanne Lockwood: please do let me know. I'm looking for other people to just have a chat
Joanne Lockwood: with Jo and inspire the audience.