Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood, and I am your host for
Joanne Lockwood: the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I will be interviewing a
Joanne Lockwood: number of amazing people and simply having a conversation around the subject
Joanne Lockwood: of inclusion, Belonging, and generally making the world a
Joanne Lockwood: better place for everyone to thrive. If you'd like to join me in the
Joanne Lockwood: future, then please do drop me a line
Joanne Lockwood: tojo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: That's S-E-E Change Happen dot co dot uk. You
Joanne Lockwood: better catch up with all of the previous shows on iTunes, Spotify and their
Joanne Lockwood: usual places. So plug in your headphones, grab a
Joanne Lockwood: decaf and let's get going. Today
Joanne Lockwood: is episode 23 with the Bites, Belonging
Joanne Lockwood: Your Fear and Anxiety. And I have the absolute honour and
Joanne Lockwood: privilege to be joined by Mark Wingfield. Mark
Joanne Lockwood: describes himself as someone who empowers individuals by giving them
Joanne Lockwood: hugely practical techniques to handle whatever life may throw at
Joanne Lockwood: them. And when I asked Mark to describe his superpower,
Joanne Lockwood: he said my empathy.
Joanne Lockwood: So hello, Mark. Welcome to the show. Hello, Jo. Thank you very much
Mark Wingfield: indeed. It's great to be here. So tell
Mark Wingfield: me, why do you feel reducing your fear and anxiety is important? What does that
Joanne Lockwood: mean to you? I think it's so universal
Mark Wingfield: that if you don't manage to conquer fears and anxiety, how
Mark Wingfield: on earth are you gonna be able to achieve your potential? There are so
Mark Wingfield: many things that can hold people back
Mark Wingfield: and not allow them to perform to their best. And with
Mark Wingfield: all the richness that we have in our society,
Mark Wingfield: there are people that I work with who are discriminated
Mark Wingfield: against, who are bullied, who are maltreated in
Mark Wingfield: some way, or ignored for however they turn
Mark Wingfield: up. But it's my privilege to actually
Mark Wingfield: help empower them to deal with whatever they have to go through,
Mark Wingfield: acknowledge any fears and anxiety they may have, and give them some
Mark Wingfield: techniques that will allow them to deal with
Mark Wingfield: it appropriately, effectively, and
Mark Wingfield: really achieve a 100% of what they're capable of
Mark Wingfield: achieving.
Joanne Lockwood: In the D&I circle, I often hear people talk about bringing their whole self
Joanne Lockwood: to work. And what you've just said there is really quite powerful because
Joanne Lockwood: you say holding back,
Joanne Lockwood: walking away. But we talk about getting people to
Joanne Lockwood: bring this their whole self to work. And I often say this, it's very
Joanne Lockwood: easy for you to say, not necessarily SEE easy for me to do,
Joanne Lockwood: the more typical you are, the less the stress you have in your life, the
Joanne Lockwood: easier it is to be yourself, isn't it? But as soon as you've got something
Joanne Lockwood: that's hidden within you, there's this anxiety that builds and
Joanne Lockwood: this fear of being discovered almost, isn't it? Yes.
Mark Wingfield: And I think some of that is you will
Mark Wingfield: appear different for whatever reason, whether it's the color of your skin or
Mark Wingfield: whether it's the way you dress or how you sound,
Mark Wingfield: how you come across in some other way, whether it's a disability or whatever
Mark Wingfield: it might be. And people
Mark Wingfield: form their own impressions immediately. They and you're aware of
Mark Wingfield: that. You know, everybody has unconscious bias of some kind, but
Mark Wingfield: some people have overt prejudice discrimination.
Mark Wingfield: And dealing with that can be really tough. So
Mark Wingfield: I try and just provide something that will work for an individual, and
Mark Wingfield: that can go from just simply communication
Mark Wingfield: techniques to staying calm when
Mark Wingfield: you're terrified or just a little bit nervous. Or
Mark Wingfield: if this is based on trauma, I
Mark Wingfield: work as a trauma therapist to take away the
Mark Wingfield: emotional context jo that
Mark Wingfield: people can actually function without worrying about how they feel
Mark Wingfield: about it. They just do what they need to do.
Mark Wingfield: So Bites it's kind of a a colorful
Mark Wingfield: array of things I've I try and bring to the
Mark Wingfield: party. Does it affect younger people
Joanne Lockwood: more than older people, women more than men,
Joanne Lockwood: white people less than not white people, straight people less than
Joanne Lockwood: not straight people or is it you can't be that clear
Joanne Lockwood: cut? I I don't think you can be that clear cut. I think that
Mark Wingfield: everybody, whatever shape or form or color
Mark Wingfield: or however they show up, We all have our own fears
Mark Wingfield: and anxieties, so no nobody's without fear and
Mark Wingfield: anxiety for whatever reason, but the grades of that and the type of fear and
Mark Wingfield: anxiety will obviously differ hugely. And
Mark Wingfield: I think if you talk about young people,
Mark Wingfield: it's it's a tough time growing up, isn't it? So it's also a fantastic,
Mark Wingfield: exuberant time and a fun time, and you got all your health, hopefully, and
Mark Wingfield: your your full physical abilities, hopefully,
Mark Wingfield: or you have my might have some kind of limitations. But
Mark Wingfield: in those formative years, they will
Mark Wingfield: dictate so much for the rest of your life. And there are all
Mark Wingfield: sorts of different studies that I'm sure you're aware of as many, if not more,
Mark Wingfield: as as I that, you know, for example,
Mark Wingfield: by the age of 8, you're more or less there.
Mark Wingfield: That's kind of you. And it's
Mark Wingfield: it's detail that's gonna be layered on top of that, but your the fundamental who
Mark Wingfield: you are is kind of by the age of 8. Now there's there's lots of
Mark Wingfield: different studies, and there'll be people that disagree with that comment.
Mark Wingfield: But, certainly, all what we do know is
Mark Wingfield: that those formative years are absolutely crucial. And if something happens to you in those
Mark Wingfield: formative years that's negative, then that can stay with
Mark Wingfield: you and be a real drawback for the rest of your life unless
Mark Wingfield: you can do something about it.
Joanne Lockwood: Do you think that the modern world you know whether that's online
Joanne Lockwood: gaming, social media, the selfie
Joanne Lockwood: culture, increases the anxieties that people may
Joanne Lockwood: have or introduces new new
Joanne Lockwood: threats into people's lives? Yes. I do. And I'm
Mark Wingfield: thinking one very specific response that, I've been
Mark Wingfield: I've been mulling over the a comment that's often
Mark Wingfield: asked of me. People often ask me, do you think nowadays we're
Mark Wingfield: more aggressive and violent towards people than we used to
Mark Wingfield: be? And I'm not sure that's,
Mark Wingfield: well, go back 13 years, 14 years when I first started my
Mark Wingfield: business. I used to say, I don't think
Mark Wingfield: jo, really. I'm not too sure about that. I think it's just a different type
Mark Wingfield: of aggression and violence. But
Mark Wingfield: now with the age of modern technology and
Mark Wingfield: this instant culture that we have, instant gratification,
Mark Wingfield: you know, you pick up your phone and you have the answer to
Mark Wingfield: generally everything in some kind of form, whether it's right or wrong, but you'll get
Mark Wingfield: a you'll get a response. You can put it into Google or whatever your preferred
Mark Wingfield: search engine is and find out something. And because people are so used to
Mark Wingfield: that, further down the road
Mark Wingfield: and they can access, all
Mark Wingfield: sorts of games and things that require
Mark Wingfield: action and response. We
Mark Wingfield: have instant you know, you go onto
Mark Wingfield: the London tube nowadays, and we have a little card, the Oyster
Mark Wingfield: card, and it'll let you through with your payment. Everything goes smoothly
Mark Wingfield: like that. If you go onto the Internet, you can pay immediately for something.
Mark Wingfield: Everything is instant or a lot of things are now instant. And
Mark Wingfield: when suddenly things aren't at that pace
Mark Wingfield: or your expectation that it will be is now
Mark Wingfield: unsatisfied, that's when you get a whole host of
Mark Wingfield: new issues, that perhaps
Mark Wingfield: weren't there before because the speed of things nowadays is so fast.
Mark Wingfield: And that permeates into so many different other areas.
Mark Wingfield: You know, if you only look at social media, I I work in schools, for
Mark Wingfield: example, work with young children, young adults
Mark Wingfield: on bullying. And
Mark Wingfield: with all the social media that there is now, things like Snapchat where you
Mark Wingfield: can make some comment and it disappears unless somebody's taking a
Mark Wingfield: screen grab of it, That has a whole host of
Mark Wingfield: new challenges that weren't there before. It's Belonging, but in
Mark Wingfield: a slightly Diversity form.
Mark Wingfield: Jo when I was first initially talking about bullying in schools, it
Mark Wingfield: was very much face to face techniques, how to deal with bullies.
Mark Wingfield: But as time has gone on, people have been asking increasingly about cyberbullying tactics
Mark Wingfield: and how you can prevent and protect from a
Mark Wingfield: a technology point of view. You still need the face to face stuff,
Mark Wingfield: but it's it's been I I've noticed it over the
Mark Wingfield: years that Bites certainly moved more into a
Mark Wingfield: technological side of things. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I remember at school, I I would I would definitely say I was excessively
Joanne Lockwood: bullied, but I I did experience
Joanne Lockwood: some minor where you shoulder barge into you
Joanne Lockwood: occasionally or the in crowd
Joanne Lockwood: would exclude you or make you feel uncomfortable,
Joanne Lockwood: more passive intimidation if that makes sense or kind of the lockwood
Joanne Lockwood: looks and the potential threat of something happening rather than the actual.
Joanne Lockwood: There was always the kind of that that kind of implication
Joanne Lockwood: that something might happen which is psychological rather than physical which is
Joanne Lockwood: I've never I've not Belonging trauma of it but I suppose
Joanne Lockwood: I've become kind of hyper aware of bullying since
Joanne Lockwood: I transitioned myself because I'm hyper aware that I
Joanne Lockwood: polarize the views of certain people and there are people in
Joanne Lockwood: this country and around the world that have a kind of an
Joanne Lockwood: anti or a gender critical view of the world where
Joanne Lockwood: trans people are seen as being a threat to that view.
Joanne Lockwood: And I have suffered in some ways
Joanne Lockwood: stalking and and sort of cyber
Joanne Lockwood: commenting on posts on LinkedIn, Instagram, I've been the
Joanne Lockwood: target of comments on newspaper
Joanne Lockwood: chat comments on the newspaper sites because I appeared in the Sunday Times and the
Joanne Lockwood: Daily Mail and the Mirror, I think about that a few years ago and some
Joanne Lockwood: of the comments beneath that. I also took Bites a documentary online, to a channel
Joanne Lockwood: for documentary. Mhmm. And to see the some of the comments on the Facebook
Joanne Lockwood: post about that and people wading in. And I just
Joanne Lockwood: also just started an article, a monthly column with the, the Scottish
Joanne Lockwood: Herald. Mhmm. And last month, I last one I did was
Joanne Lockwood: about language, I talked about gendered language and all various other things and this seems
Joanne Lockwood: to have rattled the cage of somebody who's gender critical and suddenly
Joanne Lockwood: it's I I end up with all this trolling, they stalked me on
Joanne Lockwood: Inclusion, they and a whole load of people found me on Linkedin, a whole load
Joanne Lockwood: of people found me on Twitter, taking the article completely out
Joanne Lockwood: of context and putting their own their own thread on this which
Joanne Lockwood: is kind of hijacking and it wasn't directly targeted at me but I suddenly realized
Joanne Lockwood: that I was now vulnerable again and raised my head
Joanne Lockwood: above the parapet where people were gonna, you know, I now became a target or
Joanne Lockwood: something jo yeah, it's very interesting and I'm now thinking that next article I'm
Joanne Lockwood: writing in December and almost in the
Joanne Lockwood: back of my mind, I'm worried again about what the the
Joanne Lockwood: backlash may be was but the first three I wrote I had I had
Joanne Lockwood: Joanne of that thought was in my head, I was writing for my own lived
Joanne Lockwood: experience Bites now I'm thinking I've got to double think what I'm saying and
Joanne Lockwood: that- this is the problem, isn't it? I'm now in this zone where I've
Joanne Lockwood: got to worry about it. Oh, well, I I could help you with that.
Mark Wingfield: No. I'm terribly sorry, Ken. Because, I
Mark Wingfield: mean, when when you first started talking about schools and that's
Mark Wingfield: something I I hear about a lot, but also have experienced
Mark Wingfield: myself because, unfortunately, I wasn't
Mark Wingfield: badly bullied any more than other people at school.
Mark Wingfield: But I think it it happens to probably most people at some
Mark Wingfield: point in some shape or form, and I was no exception.
Mark Wingfield: And I can remember the jostling and the exclusion and
Mark Wingfield: the, I mean, I I even talk about something when
Mark Wingfield: when I speak about bullying. I talk about, jungle
Mark Wingfield: treatment, which is, people circling
Mark Wingfield: me, wanting to knock me down, and feed grass in my mouth. That's
Mark Wingfield: the shortened version. And I didn't let it happen. I'd seen it
Mark Wingfield: happen to other people, and I I SEE techniques very crudely,
Mark Wingfield: that came instinctively, but stopped people doing
Mark Wingfield: anything. And, so it's this a more refined technique that I
Mark Wingfield: talk to people about. But when you're talking about
Mark Wingfield: transitioning and and talking about that, and
Mark Wingfield: you talk about various newspapers and, how you're concerned
Mark Wingfield: about what's gonna happen
Mark Wingfield: next and how it's gonna affect you, I think you're doing absolutely the
Mark Wingfield: right thing because these things need to be talked about and addressed. But from
Mark Wingfield: a personal perspective, something I do as a a stronger
Mark Wingfield: therapist could help you take away that
Mark Wingfield: that emotional, concern and and
Mark Wingfield: enable you to write without thinking too much about
Mark Wingfield: the the emotion. You still need to think about the
Mark Wingfield: consequences and that that will still be there. But if you can take out the
Mark Wingfield: emotion element, you're probably right at a better pace, I would suggest.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I think I'm more likely to just proofread it a second time rather
Joanne Lockwood: than with just the extra lens on it. I'm
Joanne Lockwood: a pretty resilient person and this hasn't I haven't internalized this but
Joanne Lockwood: it just woke me up to the fact that there are
Joanne Lockwood: I'm not as safe as I was, if you like, or I'm more likely to
Joanne Lockwood: be. But then if we look at the press, whatever I wrote about,
Joanne Lockwood: someone's got to make a comment about it that's that's what people do they troll
Joanne Lockwood: these these press sites and they they become keyboard warriors, they
Joanne Lockwood: hide behind anonymity of Twitter and things jo I think
Joanne Lockwood: it just reminded me that this went on because I often live a very privileged
Joanne Lockwood: life of not caring or not thinking and it just it was just kind of
Joanne Lockwood: like a knock on the door going, don't forget about me sort of thing. I
Joanne Lockwood: thought, oh, yeah. You're still there. Okay. Yep. Mhmm. Now you're
Joanne Lockwood: there. And and it's worth thinking also that there will be a lot of people
Mark Wingfield: out there who you're you're a resilient person. I'm a pretty resilient
Mark Wingfield: person, But there are other people out there who might be in a similar situation
Mark Wingfield: as us who aren't as resilient. And, I won't I won't
Mark Wingfield: mention the details, but something happened recently, that
Mark Wingfield: I I was appalled at. Somebody was,
Mark Wingfield: not encouraged. Let's just put it like that. Was not encouraged
Mark Wingfield: in an environment which is supposed to be extremely encouraging.
Mark Wingfield: And, I I privately
Mark Wingfield: messaged the person that had been affected and, and
Mark Wingfield: supported them, overtly on on this,
Mark Wingfield: this it happened to be a Facebook chat.
Mark Wingfield: And I was just appalled they'd been treated in that way. And
Mark Wingfield: this individual is, again, quite resilient, but was quite upset
Mark Wingfield: by the comments that Happen been made, which were unthinking
Mark Wingfield: and, and not appropriate to the environment that they were made
Mark Wingfield: in. So it's it can happen in all sorts of different environments,
Mark Wingfield: and, it's worth thinking that there are people that
Mark Wingfield: will react differently to you. And
Joanne Lockwood: Listen, I talk about in the workplace type environment when we talk about
Joanne Lockwood: this banter and this humor that sometimes we have in the workplace
Joanne Lockwood: where one person thinks it's kind of jovial and
Joanne Lockwood: funny whereas actually the impact of that on others is
Joanne Lockwood: demeaning, it reinforces stereotypes, or in
Joanne Lockwood: some cases, it's just another microaggression that's causing them to feel less worthy
Joanne Lockwood: about themselves, isn't it? And Panther is but you
Joanne Lockwood: always get the pushback but it's only a bit of fun, it's only we're trying
Joanne Lockwood: to make the workplace too sanitised and too SEE is
Joanne Lockwood: people push back, don't they, on this banter? So how do you address that?
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I I think a lot of the time,
Mark Wingfield: people don't intend to to hurt or insult.
Mark Wingfield: They think they're being funny. They think they're being sociable. That's
Mark Wingfield: that's being positive about it. And you can talk to those people. And and if
Mark Wingfield: they find out that they are inadvertently causing distress
Mark Wingfield: or upsetting somebody, then they'll be mortified and and probably
Mark Wingfield: apologize and and stop doing it. And maybe be over careful.
Mark Wingfield: That might be the unintended consequence, next
Mark Wingfield: time. But there are those people that will be doing it on
Mark Wingfield: purpose, and that's why we have the Equality Act. And that's why
Mark Wingfield: we have
Mark Wingfield: mechanisms in place for
Mark Wingfield: protected elements within the Equality Act to make sure that people,
Mark Wingfield: do get some kind of, redress if
Mark Wingfield: they need to. But I I
Mark Wingfield: think there there are extreme examples. I remember going to a seminar years
Mark Wingfield: ago, and it was all about employment law. And, they were
Mark Wingfield: talking about employee handbooks, and it's a good idea to have all your discrimination
Mark Wingfield: policies and all the rest of it in an employee handbook, of course. And an
Mark Wingfield: example is given about, a business
Mark Wingfield: owner who hated swearing for things.
Mark Wingfield: He was very religious person and and didn't like any swearing whatsoever.
Mark Wingfield: And, he'd been taken to industrial tribunal for sacking
Mark Wingfield: somebody who'd sworn at work. So his adviser
Mark Wingfield: told him, right. Okay. You need to put every single word that you find offensive
Mark Wingfield: in your employee handbook and say if you say these words on-site, you
Mark Wingfield: will be dismissed. That's what SEE did. So
Mark Wingfield: that's taking it to an extreme.
Mark Wingfield: I think that, you know, people do,
Mark Wingfield: try and have banter, But it's it's a fine line
Mark Wingfield: between upsetting somebody. And if you
Mark Wingfield: are on the receiving end of it and you are upset, you need to
Mark Wingfield: tell somebody about Bites, and don't keep it to yourself. Otherwise, it's either Joanne
Mark Wingfield: continue because they don't intend to and you've not said anything, or it's gonna
Mark Wingfield: continue because they find that, yeah, you're hurt, and I'm gonna
Mark Wingfield: make make sure you keep on being hurt, and I'm gonna enjoy it.
Mark Wingfield: But once you've actually stood up and said, I don't find
Mark Wingfield: what you said amusing, when
Mark Wingfield: you say that sort of thing, I feel uncomfortable. And what I'm
Mark Wingfield: gonna ask you to do is to
Mark Wingfield: not speak to me like that because those particular words are very
Mark Wingfield: derogatory. So please, next time, don't use those
Mark Wingfield: words or something along those lines. But that's easier
Mark Wingfield: said than done. First of all, you got the the personal
Mark Wingfield: potential pain or or emotional distress from those words
Mark Wingfield: or what's happened or the environment they happened in. Bites,
Mark Wingfield: secondly, you've gotta learn how to do it thinking, using
Mark Wingfield: all your great emotional intelligence and expertise when you're
Mark Wingfield: really upset and your amygdala's doing overtime, which is the
Mark Wingfield: emotional center of the brain, and you can't get the words out because your cognitive
Mark Wingfield: function isn't working very well. So that's what I help people with. I help
Mark Wingfield: them calm down so they can think these things through, have an approach
Mark Wingfield: that's gonna work that is neutral hopefully
Mark Wingfield: rather than aggressive, assertive
Mark Wingfield: certainly, but just pointing out open honest communication.
Mark Wingfield: When you said this, I felt like that. So what I'm gonna ask you to
Mark Wingfield: do, please, is do this. And, you know, just have a just
Mark Wingfield: a a structure to to responding that
Mark Wingfield: is is gonna work. And if they say, well, you can f off, you know,
Mark Wingfield: then you know where you need to go. You might need to complain, find out
Mark Wingfield: what the internal workings are of an employer. A good employer
Mark Wingfield: will will have that very clear in whether it's a handbook or any any other
Mark Wingfield: guidance. And they will have access
Mark Wingfield: to either talk to a manager or to somebody in personnel,
Mark Wingfield: HR, whatever whatever it's called, and they
Mark Wingfield: can get some redress hopefully before they have to go to a tribunal
Mark Wingfield: of some kind or take legal action.
Joanne Lockwood: Since what you're saying about swearing then, I was on a
Joanne Lockwood: taking part in a webinar or was more of an
Joanne Lockwood: interactive online meeting. And one of
Joanne Lockwood: the people who was attending at the meeting, they had a
Joanne Lockwood: very kind of aggressive posture, they were really
Joanne Lockwood: leaning into the camera. They were almost like almost like
Joanne Lockwood: in in the in the frame. Eating the microphone almost.
Mark Wingfield: Well, almost eating the screen rather than the microphone, it was kinda they were really,
Joanne Lockwood: really into this frame. And they were using swear words like punctuation.
Joanne Lockwood: I I found their whole presence in this,
Joanne Lockwood: this event completely distracting. I found their
Joanne Lockwood: their stance, their language Joanne the way they were talking almost like a bullying
Joanne Lockwood: type stance, I'm Bites almost like posturing and aggressiveness
Joanne Lockwood: and at the end, there's a kind of a, like, a a a an opportunity
Joanne Lockwood: for everybody attending sort of give a bit of group feedback and say what they
Joanne Lockwood: thought. And I and I I just I just looked
Joanne Lockwood: dead in the camera and said I found this this most of this meeting
Joanne Lockwood: completely offensive. The language by used by one of the people was,
Joanne Lockwood: you know, using swear words as punctuation, their stance, and their their their
Joanne Lockwood: aggression is not the kind of event I want to be part of
Joanne Lockwood: and I made it quite clear and kind
Joanne Lockwood: of everybody in the room got I could see everyone else's eyes looking at me
Joanne Lockwood: and so I just kept my a smile Belonging directly at the
Joanne Lockwood: camera, I just kept my stance and just I just part myself with a very
Joanne Lockwood: relaxed with a relaxed face
Joanne Lockwood: as if to stand up to that bullying behavior, I wasn't gonna walk away from
Joanne Lockwood: it and a few people after me said well I'm
Joanne Lockwood: glad someone said something because I found that again
Joanne Lockwood: that they were finding that being being in their environment uncomfortable with this person
Joanne Lockwood: Bites then but the the
Joanne Lockwood: the I was gonna come on to it, you know, what you were saying was
Joanne Lockwood: it's all very well standing up in that instance
Joanne Lockwood: but then you've gotta think about whether, a, you're gonna get backed by
Joanne Lockwood: somebody and supported in that claim, whether there's any gonna be any
Joanne Lockwood: follow-up victimization, and often people walk away. They
Joanne Lockwood: they often people who are targets or or of of
Joanne Lockwood: bullying or intimidation are the people that don't know how to stand
Joanne Lockwood: up for these opportunities. I appreciate it's exactly where you come in Bites there's so
Joanne Lockwood: much fear of recrimination, fear of of the bullying getting worse, isn't it? And that
Joanne Lockwood: this is this is I guess what you do, so what can people do in
Joanne Lockwood: that situation? Standing up sometimes running away is
Joanne Lockwood: often the easiest answer, isn't it? Yeah. That I mean, I
Mark Wingfield: I help people across a range of sort of conflict situations,
Mark Wingfield: and, you you
Mark Wingfield: can choose whether you deal with something there and then.
Mark Wingfield: And sometimes it's not appropriate to deal with it there and then because you're you're
Mark Wingfield: on the back foot. You haven't got all the information you need need perhaps.
Mark Wingfield: You're somehow triggered and not thinking straight. You might
Mark Wingfield: be very emotional, and that isn't the best time to give her
Mark Wingfield: your best. So picking and choosing
Mark Wingfield: your time is really important and place as well because
Mark Wingfield: I've I've had instances where things have
Mark Wingfield: been said and done, and you need to nip that
Mark Wingfield: in the bud. But you don't nip it in the bud in front of
Mark Wingfield: other people because they may be your allies or otherwise
Mark Wingfield: Belonging on their loyalties or how they interpret or perceive the situation. They're not
Mark Wingfield: you. They haven't SEE it the same way as you have and don't have
Mark Wingfield: your background experience. That might mean that something is
Mark Wingfield: particularly cutting or hurtful
Mark Wingfield: or embarrassing or whatever it might be.
Mark Wingfield: So maybe having a chat by the the
Mark Wingfield: water cooler, the the coffee machine, by the kettle,
Mark Wingfield: the 2 of you is the absolutely the best thing to
Mark Wingfield: do. But maybe once you've calmed down or walked out
Mark Wingfield: into the art of years ago when I went to a particular employer,
Mark Wingfield: my boss's boss was really, really winding me up. I
Mark Wingfield: actually got up and walked out of the office,
Mark Wingfield: not in a rage or anything. I just got up. They didn't know I was
Mark Wingfield: doing this at all. I just got up, walked out, and walked around the yard
Mark Wingfield: outside, which had, like, lots of bits of metal lying in the yard.
Mark Wingfield: And Bites wintertime, and I was frozen, and it just calmed me down
Mark Wingfield: and brought back brought me back to reality and how I was gonna deal with
Mark Wingfield: it just so I didn't say say or do the wrong thing because
Mark Wingfield: I have done it, done that in the past. You know, another manager, another jo.
Mark Wingfield: He put me under a lot of pressure, and
Mark Wingfield: I just blew up. And it was an open plan office, and it wasn't pretty.
Mark Wingfield: So we can really do ourselves a disservice. And
Mark Wingfield: being able to be calm in the moment, be able to think, okay. I need
Mark Wingfield: to do something different. Pick my pick
Mark Wingfield: my time and place and work
Mark Wingfield: out what my approach is. You know, work out what's the culture of this organization
Mark Wingfield: I'm in. How do they provide support? Do I need
Mark Wingfield: to go and talk to somebody in the union? Do I need to go and
Mark Wingfield: talk to a colleague? Just let let
Mark Wingfield: blow to a friend of mine who will listen. You
Mark Wingfield: know, what what's the strategy? Is this a one off? Is it
Mark Wingfield: repetitive? Is it part of a pattern of behavior that's being
Mark Wingfield: observed across the culture of the company? What's the
Mark Wingfield: best way of approaching this? Because if you if you blow up like I've blown
Mark Wingfield: up in the past, it won't do you any favors. Or if you
Mark Wingfield: just walk away as you've described, Jo, that's not gonna deal with the
Mark Wingfield: issue. It may well come back to haunt you. Other people may be subjected
Mark Wingfield: to it, and the perpetrator, if that's the right
Mark Wingfield: word, will be
Mark Wingfield: getting off scot free. And, you know, there there's nobody
Mark Wingfield: limiting their behavior, however distasteful and,
Mark Wingfield: nasty it might be. So it it's a real judgment thing,
Mark Wingfield: and and it's not it's not an easy answer. It's not a quick fix.
Joanne Lockwood: You can Reality is it's quite it is disturbingly
Joanne Lockwood: prevalent in most in a lot of workplaces where we talk about racism or
Joanne Lockwood: sexism, it may not be seen as you know playground
Joanne Lockwood: bullying Bites there's a lot of discrimination, which
Joanne Lockwood: is also bullying. Yeah. Discrimination is bullying. Victimization is bullying.
Joanne Lockwood: This still goes on in the workplace, around
Joanne Lockwood: women being denied opportunities, being treated in
Joanne Lockwood: a more demeaning way, the language used,
Joanne Lockwood: reinforcing limiting beliefs, denial of opportunity
Joanne Lockwood: for women, for black people, for many minorities
Joanne Lockwood: and it's really difficult in the workplace to stand up because the culture in
Joanne Lockwood: a lot of organisations is such that the person in
Joanne Lockwood: power is kind of believed by default, Bites kind of well they're a good
Joanne Lockwood: fellow, they're a good person, they're they've got a high performing team and of
Joanne Lockwood: course they're gonna react this way and you know SEE hear,
Joanne Lockwood: you know, we've got the home secretary setting a poor
Joanne Lockwood: example of what is SEE to be
Joanne Lockwood: acceptable workplace behavior, haven't SEE? And, Bites I don't
Joanne Lockwood: think she is unique in that style of
Joanne Lockwood: leadership and that's the sad thing in offices, isn't it? There's a lot of language
Joanne Lockwood: of the workplace bully exists and that's how do
Joanne Lockwood: people overcome that when they feel the dice and the cards are stacked
Joanne Lockwood: against them? You know, sometimes leaders in organizations have
Mark Wingfield: have to be
Mark Wingfield: told that the culture that they think they're leading is not actually the
Mark Wingfield: culture that's being Diversity. Because some people who are
Mark Wingfield: absolutely have the right the right instinct and the right approach,
Mark Wingfield: nondiscriminatory approach, and allow everybody to flourish to the best of their
Mark Wingfield: ability, they may be ignorant to what's going
Mark Wingfield: on a few levels down. But if they
Mark Wingfield: are aware, then there is legislation in
Mark Wingfield: place to say, yeah, actually, no. This isn't right. And,
Mark Wingfield: again, a different business I've worked for before was extremely autocratic.
Mark Wingfield: And wouldn't say it's particularly discriminate discriminatory,
Mark Wingfield: but it was very you either do it like this or you're out.
Mark Wingfield: You know, we'll give you loads of opportunity to to do well, but if you
Mark Wingfield: fell up, you're out. It was very,
Mark Wingfield: very cut and dried. And, I eventually left
Mark Wingfield: that organization because it it just didn't suit
Mark Wingfield: SEE. And, you know, I didn't think I was being
Mark Wingfield: given the opportunities that I was capable of achieving either. So it's a 2 2
Mark Wingfield: pronged thing. I could just about put up with a culture because there were good
Mark Wingfield: things about it as well, to be fair.
Mark Wingfield: But I wasn't getting on as I wanted to. And I think,
Mark Wingfield: people sometimes know and sometimes they're ignorant of what's going on in their own workplace.
Mark Wingfield: How many how many senior people
Mark Wingfield: bother to go down on the shop floor to find out what's actually happening
Mark Wingfield: and how people communicate, and are they the best example of that? I I
Mark Wingfield: see this all the time when I when I talk to,
Mark Wingfield: organizations who have frontline staff who are being abused, threatened
Mark Wingfield: with aggression and violence potentially.
Mark Wingfield: And their leaders have no idea what's
Mark Wingfield: going on. Or if they do, they just ignore it
Mark Wingfield: and think, well, that's what they paid for. That that, you know, that
Mark Wingfield: comes with the jo. That's not acceptable.
Mark Wingfield: And the duty of care that organizations have to protect their staff,
Mark Wingfield: they they should be doing the right thing. They should be going down. They in
Mark Wingfield: my opinion, leaders should always be mixing with
Mark Wingfield: every level of staff in the organization.
Mark Wingfield: And a job of a leader is to lead. And how can you lead if
Mark Wingfield: you're in your ivory tower? You can do a certain amount and
Mark Wingfield: dictate, but that's not my preferred way of of
Mark Wingfield: leading. You know, you gotta involve people. You gotta lead
Mark Wingfield: people through, actually physically lead them through and show them how things should be
Mark Wingfield: done. I I remember one,
Mark Wingfield: train company recently
Mark Wingfield: that, I no. I've gotta be careful what I've what I say now
Mark Wingfield: because I've worked with you. So there's one train company I
Mark Wingfield: know where there was a bit of a commotion at a platform, and
Mark Wingfield: he asked all of his staff to go down there, but he didn't go.
Mark Wingfield: Asked everybody else to go, but he didn't. And I
Mark Wingfield: thought that was really telling. And,
Mark Wingfield: yeah, I didn't see that as good leadership at all. There wasn't a
Mark Wingfield: good reason why you didn't about a train company. I was,
Joanne Lockwood: I was on the the train for Waterloo
Joanne Lockwood: heading towards Portsmouth. It's probably about a year ago. I mean, back in the days
Joanne Lockwood: when we used to be able to travel, you know, there's there's
Joanne Lockwood: wonderful days where where train travel was was kind of everyday thing,
Joanne Lockwood: Bites retreat again. So I was on this
Joanne Lockwood: train out of Waterloo and southwestern trains or whatever
Joanne Lockwood: they're called these days, it's about 7 o'clock in the
Joanne Lockwood: evening and I I normally sit right at the back because I get off of
Joanne Lockwood: Petersfield jo it's best place to get off is right at the back of the
Joanne Lockwood: Joanne, so get straight on the train Change walk loop. Mhmm. And that's where
Joanne Lockwood: normally the buffet trolley sets off from, so they park it up in the little,
Joanne Lockwood: the the whatever you call this sort of gap
Joanne Lockwood: in that, you know, where the where the doors are. So there's a little the
Joanne Lockwood: corridor area there by the doors, the festival, I think it's called. Festival.
Joanne Lockwood: Happen. And, so the the it was a lady who
Joanne Lockwood: was who was man was manning the trolley that day, and she was kind of
Joanne Lockwood: parked up ready ready for the train to set off. I think they set off
Joanne Lockwood: once the train's moving, people SEE down. And
Joanne Lockwood: then this this this this crowd of office people got on
Joanne Lockwood: who'd and I suspect they'd already spent the afternoon in the pub,
Joanne Lockwood: they were all kind of happy and jolly and lively
Joanne Lockwood: and they kind of clocked the buffet trolley and decided they wanted to carry on
Joanne Lockwood: drinking there and then jo rather than wait
Joanne Lockwood: until the trolley is set off and started serving, they're going, oh, come on, cut
Joanne Lockwood: your service now, cut your service now, and everyone was coming under a bit bit
Joanne Lockwood: of pressure and eventually they all sat down and one of the protagonists, the
Joanne Lockwood: leader of this little group stood up in his very,
Joanne Lockwood: very posh suit and Bites very slurry
Joanne Lockwood: sort of, jo I was like, oh, come on love, you know, you know, you
Joanne Lockwood: want a service, we'll be good, we'll behave, you know, just want a couple of
Joanne Lockwood: glasses of wine and suddenly they put their arm around
Joanne Lockwood: her and they were hanging on her, calling her love and
Joanne Lockwood: come on love, you wanna help us like this? And I was sort of sat
Joanne Lockwood: there thinking this is completely inappropriate, this is completely not
Joanne Lockwood: acceptable. And I sat there and I pondered, everybody else was ignoring
Joanne Lockwood: this and I eventually took a photograph of what was going on and started
Joanne Lockwood: filming a bit of it. And I was getting more and more
Joanne Lockwood: upset with myself for not saying something. I was almost I was getting to
Joanne Lockwood: the point where I thought I should Happen stepped in. I should be saying something.
Joanne Lockwood: This is not acceptable behavior. And
Joanne Lockwood: if it eventually it stopped and she she passed off the other train, I looked
Joanne Lockwood: at everybody around me in the car in the carriage saying, did you see that?
Joanne Lockwood: Did you find that appropriate? And everyone immediately put their newspaper up or their iPad
Joanne Lockwood: on their phone Lockwood away from me and went, we're not getting involved. I thought,
Joanne Lockwood: it's incredible. Jo I thought, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna
Joanne Lockwood: report this to British Transport Police. SEE the numbers flashed
Joanne Lockwood: up on the overhead board. Yeah. The text number. 6610116.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. So texted that. SEE I've just witnessed a piece of,
Joanne Lockwood: as assault on a member of staff because it wasn't assault on a member of
Joanne Lockwood: staff, she didn't invite. It was physical, it
Joanne Lockwood: was touching and hugging, and I thought that was assault unwanted. So
Joanne Lockwood: I reported it, I got a message back saying please email the photographs and and
Joanne Lockwood: the time and any photo anything you got jo I emailed it all
Joanne Lockwood: Happen. And, when the guard came
Joanne Lockwood: down collecting tickets, I I reported to the guard and said,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, I just just to let you know, I've reported to transport police that that
Joanne Lockwood: that gentleman over there assaulted your member of staff and I found the behavior
Joanne Lockwood: inappropriate. And then this
Joanne Lockwood: this this chap was gonna get off the station
Joanne Lockwood: at at Guilford. Mhmm. I thought, okay. So there was
Joanne Lockwood: no chance to transport the police to come on in advance. SEE I thought, well,
Joanne Lockwood: I was just gonna stand up and to say something to this person. I said
Joanne Lockwood: so I tried to shake his hand Yeah. And I I grabbed his hand and
Joanne Lockwood: shook his hand and as I did, I was I was passively hoping that
Joanne Lockwood: I would distract him in his drunken state from getting off.
Joanne Lockwood: So I wanted I almost like I almost wanted to hold his hand on that
Joanne Lockwood: stage. -You're not a dangerous beast, don't you? So your business stop, yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: And I said I saw what you did, I've reported what you did to transport
Joanne Lockwood: police and just to let you know I thought I found your behavior completely
Joanne Lockwood: unacceptable and he was like what's going on? He said well I've
Joanne Lockwood: got to go' I said do not feel any remorse' he said 'I didn't do
Joanne Lockwood: any they set him off. So and then I got I got a callback from
Joanne Lockwood: transport police the next day. I appreciate I'm rebelling on a bit Bites about this,
Joanne Lockwood: but transport police decided not to take it any further or Southwest Trainers decided not
Joanne Lockwood: to take it any further because the person involved,
Joanne Lockwood: the woman who's decided it wasn't that much of a problem jo
Joanne Lockwood: they had no evidence, you know, they had other evidence it's like
Joanne Lockwood: that how sad is that that someone has to feel that that's part of their
Joanne Lockwood: jo? That that's can be that that they have to put up with that every
Joanne Lockwood: day or or occasions? And how incumbent is on
Joanne Lockwood: an employer for duty of care to not
Joanne Lockwood: regardless of whether the employee felt they've been abused, they had CCTV from the train,
Joanne Lockwood: they have my photographs, there's clear evidence that they should have stood up and said,
Joanne Lockwood: actually, that's not behavior SEE want passengers to exhibit to our
Joanne Lockwood: staff. Regardless where the staff thought it was okay
Joanne Lockwood: and I felt I just thought to myself:
Joanne Lockwood: South Wales Trains or whoever the train company was at the time
Joanne Lockwood: are not an organization I'm really I don't think their ethics are
Joanne Lockwood: great here if they're not prepared to stand up and say something at that point
Joanne Lockwood: and that was quite disappointing but the sad thing
Joanne Lockwood: in the relation we're talking about here is the lady who was operating the buffing
Joanne Lockwood: trolley clearly thought this is an everyday occurrence. It happens
Joanne Lockwood: and she's almost been socialized to believe it's okay. That's the sad thing
Joanne Lockwood: about it in that story. That that Bites very different with I've worked
Mark Wingfield: with, 3 train 3 train operating companies so far,
Mark Wingfield: and they take a very, very different approach to the one that you
Mark Wingfield: you've experienced. And the
Mark Wingfield: very first one I I worked on, strangely enough, there's a
Mark Wingfield: real strong link to what you just said. I
Mark Wingfield: was brought in because a lady had been sexually assaulted
Mark Wingfield: serving food and drink. And, poor
Mark Wingfield: lady was traumatized as you might expect, and,
Mark Wingfield: she wasn't gonna go back to work even though she left a job. And, anyway,
Mark Wingfield: the good news story is that she was back at work shortly after I I
Mark Wingfield: helped her with the the trauma therapy. And then we worked
Mark Wingfield: with all of the staff, all of the onboard catering staff
Mark Wingfield: to make sure that that sort of thing never happened again. And what we
Mark Wingfield: did was we trained every single
Mark Wingfield: staff member in assertiveness and techniques. But
Mark Wingfield: they called it a zero tolerance program, the company. And it
Mark Wingfield: wasn't just our training. We were just part of it. What they also did was
Mark Wingfield: they put up signs and posters everywhere saying it is not acceptable
Mark Wingfield: to do this x, y, and zed to our staff members.
Mark Wingfield: They should be treated with respect. They had little adverts of,
Mark Wingfield: children dressed up in their their parents' clothing, say,
Mark Wingfield: please, you know, be nice to my mommy and daddy or, you know, that sort
Mark Wingfield: of thing. And, the
Mark Wingfield: team were I mean, they were very focused on customer service,
Mark Wingfield: but not customer service at any cost like you you might have experienced on
Mark Wingfield: that that day when they wanted more more and more drink. So when we train
Mark Wingfield: them, it's all about saying and being able
Mark Wingfield: to say things like, I can't SEE you anymore. I can't serve you. I'm not
Mark Wingfield: jo sorry. And moving on. Or if they had the
Mark Wingfield: hand put around them, would you please take your arm off me? Would you
Mark Wingfield: please stop doing that, SEE, madam? What you know, whatever
Mark Wingfield: the situation was. And then how to ramp that up if they got a negative
Mark Wingfield: response or an abusive response, to the point where we
Mark Wingfield: also trained them in, self defense as well. So
Mark Wingfield: it was, it was a fantastic program. We've let's say we've done that on SEE
Mark Wingfield: 3 different train operator companies, very successfully. And
Mark Wingfield: what's really gratifying about that is that people have the
Mark Wingfield: confidence to turn around and say, please don't do
Mark Wingfield: that, and to deal with I mean, this one was food and drink on the
Mark Wingfield: train. But what do you do when somebody's threatened to stop their cigarette out on
Mark Wingfield: you? Because you've been they've been told not to smoke,
Mark Wingfield: that drugs involved, football, gangs,
Mark Wingfield: all sorts of Not wearing a mask. Not wearing a mask. Not wearing a
Joanne Lockwood: mask. Yeah. Smoking, but, actually, it's a,
Mark Wingfield: what's the word? Vape. Vaping. Thank you. Vape? Yeah. Vape yeah. Vaping is not allowed
Mark Wingfield: on on trains, which a lot of people don't understand
Mark Wingfield: why. So it's being able to convey why
Mark Wingfield: that's not such a good idea and
Mark Wingfield: doing it calmly without getting aggressive, without being
Mark Wingfield: too passive. Just finding that right balance of coming across
Mark Wingfield: as professional, customer focused, but
Mark Wingfield: still author authoritative and and assertive.
Mark Wingfield: And it's it's a it's an interesting mix. And and for some, that's really
Mark Wingfield: difficult. But we, we do experiential
Mark Wingfield: training to to get them in a place where they can do it, and they're
Mark Wingfield: coached all the way through it. And they leave, of course,
Mark Wingfield: of metaphor, a 10 feet tall with with the confidence, and that's half the
Mark Wingfield: battle of being able to do it. We we could go back to our earlier
Mark Wingfield: conversation about, you know, people not being able to do it. Once
Mark Wingfield: they've actually experienced it and I mentioned to you, I might put my dark
Mark Wingfield: glasses on. That's what we that's what we do. We frighten
Mark Wingfield: people deliberately on a course. So I'm now
Mark Wingfield: for the sake of anybody listening to this, I'm putting my dark glasses on.
Mark Wingfield: What you looking at?
Mark Wingfield: And because the eyes are hidden,
Mark Wingfield: because they betray so much of how we're feeling, and you suddenly
Mark Wingfield: get that taken away. And the rest of the body acts very aggressively.
Mark Wingfield: We we have somebody coming towards you who we call the intimidator. You have a
Mark Wingfield: coach standing by your side. And if you react badly,
Mark Wingfield: either aggressively or too passively, the coach will immediately step in and
Mark Wingfield: modify your behavior with your support.
Mark Wingfield: If you do really well, the coach just says, fantastic, Jo. Keep on going. That's
Mark Wingfield: brilliant. And they just whisper in your ear. So it's actually
Mark Wingfield: happening and anchoring that experience, and we make sure it's a successful
Mark Wingfield: experience jo that if that ever happens in real life,
Mark Wingfield: you switch immediately back to what worked well for you
Mark Wingfield: beforehand. We've imprinted it in the amygdala, the emotional center of the brain,
Mark Wingfield: which is where you go into your when you when you have your fight or
Mark Wingfield: flight experience. So it that's why I love doing that. It's
Mark Wingfield: it just helps people deal with really nasty stuff
Mark Wingfield: and, or mildly disturbing stuff. It doesn't have to
Mark Wingfield: be as as high octane as that. But we we SEE
Mark Wingfield: we we do the worst so you can cope with anything, really. And we're
Mark Wingfield: horrible. We're horrible when we put glasses on. We say the
Mark Wingfield: worst stuff. We really do. Sometimes on a train or something like that,
Joanne Lockwood: sometimes it's just about making a very loud noise or saying or saying at the
Joanne Lockwood: top of your voice, that isn't acceptable. And that creates this
Joanne Lockwood: kind of everyone now sees what's going on and the person who is perpetrating
Joanne Lockwood: Bites hopefully will realize that they're now being viewed
Joanne Lockwood: and they haven't got they haven't got control of the situation anymore. Yeah. Particularly on
Mark Wingfield: a on a train carriage where you're perhaps moving along at whatever speed you're moving
Mark Wingfield: Belonging, you can't escape. So you you've gotta really work around
Mark Wingfield: the furniture in in the environment that you're in and using other
Mark Wingfield: people to your benefit. You know, get people on-site.
Mark Wingfield: And and doing just what you just said, you know, being very clear. That is
Mark Wingfield: not acceptable, sir, madam. You're gonna have to stop doing that.
Mark Wingfield: I'll have to report you to the police. What whatever the words are that are
Mark Wingfield: appropriate. And sometimes the best thing actually is to
Mark Wingfield: walk away. You know, when somebody I mean, if if you come across somebody who's
Mark Wingfield: psychotic, who just doesn't care, if you come across somebody who's
Mark Wingfield: waving a needle at you, then you you don't confront them, and
Mark Wingfield: you you get you get to the other end of the train and you lock
Mark Wingfield: yourself in with the driver if you can. You know, if they if they got
Mark Wingfield: a vendetta against your uniform because you're the figure of authority
Mark Wingfield: that's come to challenge them, then get out of there.
Mark Wingfield: And, you know, in in the last resort, if you can't go anywhere,
Mark Wingfield: that's when the physical self defense comes in. But you you shouldn't shouldn't do
Mark Wingfield: that unless you really, really have to. So it
Mark Wingfield: yeah it makes for very interesting training
Mark Wingfield: sessions. Yeah I can imagine. So you said far at
Joanne Lockwood: the beginning about sort of the age of 8 is kind of like a
Joanne Lockwood: formative type age where if you've been used to,
Joanne Lockwood: being abused or being treated badly, you're
Joanne Lockwood: already kind of fitting more meek and mild and
Joanne Lockwood: you become a habitual receiver of
Joanne Lockwood: bullying or violence. Presumably
Joanne Lockwood: the opposite also applies to you, you're
Joanne Lockwood: used to being treated in a bullying way but you would also maybe take
Joanne Lockwood: on the role of a bully as well? Is that does that is that cause
Joanne Lockwood: and effect? You know? If you see, you do. If you experience, it becomes
Joanne Lockwood: you or or It can be. I I don't think it it
Mark Wingfield: necessarily has to be.
Mark Wingfield: Everybody's situation is different, and it certainly can be
Mark Wingfield: that. And, you know, that that's what used to be trotted out all the
Mark Wingfield: time as, you know, bullies are are people who feel
Mark Wingfield: inadequate, and they want to get power over other people. I think it's more complex
Mark Wingfield: than that. I think that, you know, if you've had
Mark Wingfield: a some nasty physical violence against you in
Mark Wingfield: the home or sexual violence or something like that,
Mark Wingfield: you you might just think that's the norm, and that's how you
Mark Wingfield: treat people. You know? It's it's ingrained. It's Bites
Mark Wingfield: learned behavior rather than,
Joanne Lockwood: you know So that's how dad treated mom or mom treated dad.
Joanne Lockwood: That's how I will treat my wife or my husband or something. Yeah. It's it's
Joanne Lockwood: kind of that's how marriages work or that's how parents treat the children.
Mark Wingfield: Yeah. And and the same goes for, you know, the discrimination
Mark Wingfield: of all kinds, you know, whether it's, color of skin or religion
Mark Wingfield: or how people present themselves or, you know,
Mark Wingfield: gender issues or or whatever it happens to be.
Mark Wingfield: You know, it if you if you're a little top growing up and you see
Mark Wingfield: your your mom or dad doing it, well, that's that's how you behave, and that's
Mark Wingfield: that's what you learn, unless that gets corrected somehow.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I I fascinate to hear more about your role play stuff. That sounds
Joanne Lockwood: really really powerful. I mean, I I love experiential
Joanne Lockwood: learning, and I I think real active scenarios where you
Joanne Lockwood: put people in those zones where they actually feel because I think most learning for
Joanne Lockwood: me occurs when there's a feeling of you stimulate more
Joanne Lockwood: than just the logic, you stimulate that Happen SEE. So
Joanne Lockwood: I guess that's how you're training which you really are creating this
Joanne Lockwood: feeling, feel the need type stuff, aren't you? Well, it's really
Mark Wingfield: tapping into where you go when you're frightened because we SEE deliberately frighten people
Mark Wingfield: in controlled circumstances. We tell people we're gonna do that as well, by the way,
Mark Wingfield: so they they know it. And we we get them to sign a piece of
Mark Wingfield: paper because we say we're gonna say really horrible stuff to you with your
Mark Wingfield: permission. If there's something you don't want us to say, then please tell
Mark Wingfield: us. Otherwise, we we could let anything out of our mouths.
Mark Wingfield: And we say that, but also add to it. But please
Mark Wingfield: don't don't tell us if you can because
Mark Wingfield: we're gonna use stuff that could really be used against you in real life.
Mark Wingfield: And if you block that off, it's not reality.
Mark Wingfield: So whilst, some people will think, well, you can't say that sort of
Mark Wingfield: thing. Actually, we're doing it for the best of intentions. And I'll give you an
Mark Wingfield: example again with Bites with a train operation Happen. Actually, I I remember
Mark Wingfield: distinctly that SEE, we
Mark Wingfield: were doing a a training session, probably about,
Mark Wingfield: 14, 15, 16 people, SEE like that. And
Mark Wingfield: about a quarter of the people that were in the room were black.
Mark Wingfield: And we did a an intimidating
Mark Wingfield: scenario where, we had a black lady,
Mark Wingfield: and I was the intimidator. So I was swearing at her. I
Mark Wingfield: SEE racist language, and I did
Mark Wingfield: this to provoke the the fear and the the anxiety
Mark Wingfield: that that we need for this to work and for them to benefit the most
Mark Wingfield: and learn how to deal with that. And she dealt with me really, really well.
Mark Wingfield: She was very professional. She was excellent. Coach helped her a little bit,
Mark Wingfield: but she did fantastically well. And so I
Mark Wingfield: when we're not doing the the physical side of things, I I retreat. That's
Mark Wingfield: that's how she knows it's working because I I go back because I it's not
Mark Wingfield: working. And she's very certain. She dealt with it very well.
Mark Wingfield: And as soon as she walked off, she went, I'm
Mark Wingfield: so glad I did this today. But in the audience
Mark Wingfield: was a white lady
Mark Wingfield: who it was all about her and her
Mark Wingfield: importance on the day. And she complained, I don't see
Mark Wingfield: why you have to use racist behavior. I said, well, I don't like
Mark Wingfield: racism any more than you do. But we're we're doing this
Mark Wingfield: because we're trying to be realistic
Mark Wingfield: and help anyone on this course prepare
Mark Wingfield: most effectively to deal with nasty stuff that might happen. That's
Mark Wingfield: what this course is all about. It's about dealing with aggression and violence. So
Mark Wingfield: if you limit what we're gonna SEE, and that lady didn't limit us by the
Mark Wingfield: way. She allowed us to to deal with it, and and she wasn't
Mark Wingfield: bothered at all. She was really pleased she didn't she'd done it. And the 3
Mark Wingfield: other black people in the room gave her a round of applause, were very happy
Mark Wingfield: with what went and we did something similar with some of them as Wellbeing wasn't
Mark Wingfield: always racist language that we used. It might have been their
Mark Wingfield: appearance or their job role or something we weren't happy with
Mark Wingfield: in in the context of a railway situation
Mark Wingfield: from a service point of view. And,
Mark Wingfield: she wouldn't accept that. She said, no. I I still don't see why you have
Mark Wingfield: to. I understand the need for it to be, realistic, but I still
Mark Wingfield: don't understand why you have to use racist language. Like,
Mark Wingfield: that's real I'm sorry, but that's real life, unfortunately. As much as we
Mark Wingfield: might Bites like it not to be, that's real life. And so,
Mark Wingfield: you know, if if you were on a course, Jo, for example, I would do
Mark Wingfield: all sorts of transgenders stuff, you know, which
Mark Wingfield: other people might think, how dare you do it? But the reason I'd
Mark Wingfield: do it and I would only do it with your permission, but to to put
Mark Wingfield: you in a situation where you felt uncomfortable and had
Mark Wingfield: to really learn how to deal with it in the moment. And the coach would
Mark Wingfield: help you if you if you were struggling with it. But if you're doing fantastically
Mark Wingfield: well, they just say, well done, Jo. Keep going. Excellent. And it
Mark Wingfield: we do the same with, people of all varieties. I
Mark Wingfield: mean, that we've had mute people on the course, deaf people on the course,
Mark Wingfield: people in wheelchairs, of every every color of
Mark Wingfield: skin that you can imagine from every well, not every nationality, but
Mark Wingfield: a lot lot of different nationalities from
Mark Wingfield: Somalian through to Pakistani, to Czech, to Slovakian,
Mark Wingfield: to you name it. We've we've worked with with plenty
Mark Wingfield: of lots of different communities. And,
Mark Wingfield: it's it's I'm just trying to think of anybody else who's ever
Mark Wingfield: complained about it. I can't think of anybody else, honestly,
Mark Wingfield: in the I've been doing this since, about 12 years ago.
Mark Wingfield: She's the only person that's actually had a problem, but it was all about her.
Mark Wingfield: And she came late for the session. She didn't sign the piece of
Mark Wingfield: paper. We didn't get the get the opportunity to tell tell her about
Mark Wingfield: what the circumstances were and and to get her to read the sheet that she
Mark Wingfield: needed to sign. And, you know,
Mark Wingfield: Bites just very unfortunate. But most
Mark Wingfield: importantly, the people that needed the help got the help they needed on the day.
Mark Wingfield: And so we we've done our job.
Mark Wingfield: It's not your usual guess. I can I can I can imagine?
Joanne Lockwood: And often, it's people
Joanne Lockwood: feigning offended on behalf of somebody else
Joanne Lockwood: when all they're really doing is they're having their kind of privilege
Joanne Lockwood: challenge aren't they they're kind of like well I don't want to listen to that
Joanne Lockwood: language it doesn't happen in my world sort of thing so you're being
Joanne Lockwood: offensive without but they often did not realizing that
Joanne Lockwood: that's everyday lived experience of any people. That's right. And that's the reality of the
Mark Wingfield: world. Yeah. Absolutely. That that and that's that's where it came from.
Mark Wingfield: And I I think also I might be being unfair here, but
Mark Wingfield: I I sensed a little bit of, well those those
Mark Wingfield: poor black people don't they're not able to look after themselves jo I've got
Mark Wingfield: to do this for them. I sensed a little bit of that as well which
Mark Wingfield: I thought was very distasteful. That benevolent, that Yeah. That maternal paternal
Joanne Lockwood: kind of yeah. So, Yeah. No. That that's that's quite
Joanne Lockwood: prevalent. Yeah. I mean I mean, fortunately, most people that I I talk to in
Joanne Lockwood: the workplace, a lot of this is kind of subtle.
Joanne Lockwood: It's it's it's not overt Bites
Joanne Lockwood: the microaggressions Bites the kind of the whispering behind
Joanne Lockwood: their backs the yeah, if you talk about maybe trans people, the misgendering
Joanne Lockwood: or the misnaming or the that
Joanne Lockwood: look or the subtle exclusion or being suddenly you find you're
Joanne Lockwood: tolerated and people walking away from you or the, you know, the playground bully
Joanne Lockwood: stuff, not not not physical, a lot of it's more mental or subtle
Joanne Lockwood: and that's that's the frustration, this this
Joanne Lockwood: humiliation, this, Yeah. That doesn't
Mark Wingfield: always lend itself to the sort of aggression and the high
Mark Wingfield: octane stuff I've just described. But what we also do sometimes is and
Mark Wingfield: quite often, actually, we do something called forum theater where
Mark Wingfield: we act out a situation and people throw situation to us and
Mark Wingfield: say, right, can you role play this, please? So 2 of us role play the
Mark Wingfield: situation on their behalf. And then they correct to say,
Mark Wingfield: oh, no. It doesn't work work out quite like that. Or, they throw
Mark Wingfield: in an idea of how it could work. You know, can you replay that? Say
Mark Wingfield: it like this or change change the circumstance? And they
Mark Wingfield: find it very, very, practical. And so those
Mark Wingfield: microaggressions you're talking about might be a really good thing to work on there.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah I'm just thinking sort of like the in the office
Joanne Lockwood: where SEE casual sexism is at
Joanne Lockwood: play where the woman in the room is
Joanne Lockwood: expected to clear the table after the meeting or make the coffees
Joanne Lockwood: or or be talked over. So it's more techniques to SEE
Joanne Lockwood: able to exert your your presence, your
Joanne Lockwood: authority, seek allies, seek people around you to amplify
Joanne Lockwood: you and to say actually it's not my role
Joanne Lockwood: to clear the coffee cups up, can somebody
Joanne Lockwood: it's not fair or whatever whatever the retort is or or it
Joanne Lockwood: might SEE in a particular instance if someone calls me mate, it's
Joanne Lockwood: like actually I'm not your mate, that's not language I like to SEE,
Joanne Lockwood: I don't mind if you personally I don't mind if you call me love whereas
Joanne Lockwood: many many women will find love offensive, but I Joanne think it's right, it's actually
Joanne Lockwood: quite validating. To be treated in a
Joanne Lockwood: sexist way is perversely quite validating for me.
Mark Wingfield: Yeah I get that, yeah. Yeah jo it's yeah
Joanne Lockwood: those are the kind of the workplace things
Joanne Lockwood: that go on day in day out. And that's if you're not
Joanne Lockwood: they're not physical, they're not overt. I mean, I I think that's yeah. The experiential
Joanne Lockwood: stuff you're doing here is is very much out in the street.
Joanne Lockwood: I fully understand, I fully see the needs of it. How Joanne people learn these
Joanne Lockwood: techniques for SEE these micro, these kind of these subtle things, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? The drip drip drip stuff. Yeah. That that's more the forum theater stuff that
Mark Wingfield: we do and, sitting down and talking things through. But, again,
Mark Wingfield: it can be extremely upsetting when you're in the receiving end. So
Mark Wingfield: having some we we train people in, something called heart rate
Mark Wingfield: variability control, for example. So you
Mark Wingfield: you control the sinusoidal wave of,
Mark Wingfield: of your heart rate and the how it
Mark Wingfield: changes because your hearts change all the time. And if you can control that, you
Mark Wingfield: control the overproduction of adrenaline and cortisol. You
Mark Wingfield: make yourself feel much better through producing up to something called DHEA
Mark Wingfield: and have more focus by producing something called acetylcholine. If
Mark Wingfield: you can get the frequency of your heart working correctly, we we teach people how
Mark Wingfield: to do that, and it enables you to access your thinking brain again. So if
Mark Wingfield: you've slipped into fight or flight, then this can
Mark Wingfield: just focus you back very quickly. So you can use all of that great
Mark Wingfield: experience and and abilities, and you can you can herd people to help you
Mark Wingfield: and support you and have a strategy. But if you and if
Mark Wingfield: you can't do that or you're terrified or you're frozen,
Mark Wingfield: which happens to a lot of people, especially on our intimidating courses
Mark Wingfield: like that bunny in the headlights type thing,
Mark Wingfield: If you don't have those those techniques, you can't then move
Mark Wingfield: forwards, and you can't have those discussions and use those techniques that can
Mark Wingfield: really assert the situation is not correct and
Mark Wingfield: would you please do this type of response.
Mark Wingfield: Yeah. It it's a challenge. When you when you said something about I'm not your
Mark Wingfield: mate, it just made me laugh because, I'm known in my family saying
Mark Wingfield: things like that. So so we at home, we had a
Mark Wingfield: guy around making, making some electrical repairs around the
Mark Wingfield: Happen. And, every second word was mate. Alright, mate.
Mark Wingfield: We're gonna put that installation there, mate. And then we're gonna do this, mate. And
Mark Wingfield: then we're gonna do that, mate. And I got sick and tired of it. And
Mark Wingfield: I said, look. Can I just stop you there? I'm not
Mark Wingfield: your mate. You can call me Mark. You can call
Mark Wingfield: me the boss. You can call me sir. You can call me customer, mister
Mark Wingfield: customer, but I'm not your mate. I'm your
Mark Wingfield: customer. And when my kids heard that, they're like, dad, you can't say
Mark Wingfield: that. I said, well Well, someone has to. Yeah. Someone has to say that. Yeah.
Mark Wingfield: That's right. You really do sometimes. Yeah. I mean, you you mentioned
Joanne Lockwood: HRV and I found out a little bit about HRV. I was at a seminar
Joanne Lockwood: just over a year ago and there was this study Belonging
Joanne Lockwood: on around the impact of HRV or the correlation between HRV and
Joanne Lockwood: stress and they they found
Joanne Lockwood: 30 SEE and they wired them up with a with a
Joanne Lockwood: monitor 20 fourseven flights 3 or 4 weeks
Joanne Lockwood: and they wide up some other people who are not in those kind of roles,
Joanne Lockwood: people in sort of kind of benevolent sort of calm roles. And
Joanne Lockwood: what they identified Bites some of these SEE, so so red
Joanne Lockwood: in their language was high high was a low HRV. So low
Joanne Lockwood: HRV is bad, high HRV is good. You want you want a big heart rate
Joanne Lockwood: variability on the little one. Mhmm. That's what they were saying. Jo so they
Joanne Lockwood: identified that a lot of these CEOs had HRV in a dangerous
Joanne Lockwood: way, almost 20 fourseven, even when they were sleeping,
Joanne Lockwood: their HRV was in the stress zone. And they
Joanne Lockwood: identified that over the course of a day, they probably had 5 or 10
Joanne Lockwood: minutes spread throughout the day where their HRV was kind of relaxed.
Joanne Lockwood: And then they compared that with the HRV of people in non
Joanne Lockwood: stress roles or people who've got their kind of stress under control
Joanne Lockwood: and they were the almost like polar opposite where their HRV would
Joanne Lockwood: spike, but all their slate all their all their slate pattern was
Joanne Lockwood: unbroken by by basically this HRV being kind of in the
Joanne Lockwood: green zone And so there's a huge link between the hashtags, strokes,
Joanne Lockwood: mental well-being on HRV as well, so you talk about this fight or flight
Joanne Lockwood: this and I also noticed that my Apple Watch now has this
Joanne Lockwood: Breathe app and the Breathe Happen, when you activate the
Joanne Lockwood: Breathe functionality, it actually causes HRV mechanism to
Joanne Lockwood: monitor during that Breathe cycle. So I've become a since
Joanne Lockwood: that talk and then you mentioned I've become kind of aware of the link
Joanne Lockwood: between HRV, stress, anxiety and other things.
Mark Wingfield: Yeah Bites all it's all interlinked. I first started working in
Mark Wingfield: that in, 2007, and, and I've
Mark Wingfield: got a a little piece of software on my computer that I
Mark Wingfield: hook people up to so that they can actually see their heart rate variability as
Mark Wingfield: they're as they're doing this exercise. There's all sorts of software
Mark Wingfield: that that that can help train people to do it. And,
Mark Wingfield: Fascinating. It's a bit of fun, but it's very, very practical stuff. That's that's all
Mark Wingfield: I'm interested in, practical things that will that will help.
Joanne Lockwood: Well, I just think I'm I'm fairly relaxed a lot of the time that you
Joanne Lockwood: say is, but my HRV is is not great. And I don't know
Joanne Lockwood: why that is because I'm not I'm pretty I'm pretty chilled out. I don't I
Joanne Lockwood: don't worry about a lot at the moment. And, so, yeah, I'm just
Joanne Lockwood: I'm trying to figure out why my HRV is jo I've got a very
Joanne Lockwood: low HRV, which I think is bad, isn't it? You got you want big variability
Joanne Lockwood: to indicate you're Well, I when I've been doing I mean, I've been doing this
Mark Wingfield: quite a while, and I see I often get people out to
Mark Wingfield: demonstrate how you can, by yourself, learn how to
Mark Wingfield: control your half rate Bites variability. And to me, it's the
Mark Wingfield: it's the shape of the curve that's more important. Some people have much shorter curves
Mark Wingfield: than others. So I'm not I I'm not
Mark Wingfield: familiar with the the the research that you're talking
Mark Wingfield: about. I'll be very interested to have a look at it, but it to my
Mark Wingfield: mind, having done this for a long time, the
Mark Wingfield: it's not so much the variability and your
Mark Wingfield: the elasticity of your heart heart rate
Mark Wingfield: reduces as you get older anyway. So as you get
Mark Wingfield: older, you're gonna have less of a a peak and trough
Mark Wingfield: anyway simply because your your heart you know,
Mark Wingfield: imagine that that when you're a a 10 year
Mark Wingfield: old and you're a 20 year old, you know, you you have
Mark Wingfield: very, huge flexibility in in all of your
Mark Wingfield: body, not just your heart, and and it's just a symptom of that.
Mark Wingfield: Whereas when you as you get older, you know, things seize up a bit
Mark Wingfield: and don't work quite as well. I think that was the key thing. The the
Joanne Lockwood: recovery going from high anxiety to
Joanne Lockwood: low anxiety that was the SEE as you said that the curve on the way
Joanne Lockwood: back down is the important thing. Yeah. Yeah. It's,
Mark Wingfield: and it's easy to learn. You know? It it's just simple
Mark Wingfield: techniques, but then you can bolster it with some psychological
Mark Wingfield: techniques. And, if we had more time, I could I could go into some
Mark Wingfield: of those and explain how they work. But Sure. I mean, I I I I
Joanne Lockwood: jo suffer from, high blood pressure. And
Joanne Lockwood: whenever I was having my blood pressure taken, I knew that if I could get
Joanne Lockwood: myself into a zone and I could reduce it from being
Joanne Lockwood: 150 over to 120 over just by really just by
Joanne Lockwood: putting myself in this place in my head. Yeah. And I could I could actually
Joanne Lockwood: think my blood pressure down Yes. And the nurse looked to me like I was
Joanne Lockwood: crazy, I said, well no, just give me a second now. And she
Joanne Lockwood: jo, wow, how did you do that? I said, yeah, I just gotta put myself
Joanne Lockwood: in this place where I can do that. Mhmm. I guess that's like
Joanne Lockwood: a a micro meditation, isn't it? It's kind of some way of just knowing you
Joanne Lockwood: can bring take control of your body again. Yeah. I I
Mark Wingfield: use distraction techniques, in a whole host of things. I
Mark Wingfield: mean, in heart rate variability and also when I do, Havening, for
Mark Wingfield: example, as well, which is a trauma therapy I use.
Mark Wingfield: And the power of the mind is is phenomenal,
Mark Wingfield: and we don't we don't tap into it enough. You know, we we
Mark Wingfield: allow it to run us rather than us take control. So I help
Mark Wingfield: people take the control back. Well,
Joanne Lockwood: on on that note, I think oh, and we could talk when we've been going
Joanne Lockwood: to SOVA now. I'm sure we can talk for a lot longer and yeah. We
Joanne Lockwood: Happen. And I think what we do is
Joanne Lockwood: if we wrap it up there I mean and
Joanne Lockwood: anyone who's listening I'm sure can get in contact with you SEE how can people
Joanne Lockwood: get in touch? What's the best way of finding you? Well, it
Mark Wingfield: it's been it's been pretty enjoyable, Jo. Thanks for that. I wasn't that disflating
Mark Wingfield: the breakfast stuff we were going to talk about today. But to get in
Mark Wingfield: touch, if you if you look Mark Wingfield from MaxUp, m a x,
Mark Wingfield: you'll find me in a in any search engine. Bites I'm
Mark Wingfield: on, LinkedIn, a little bit on
Mark Wingfield: Twitter. I've just just started on Instagram. I'm just dab
Mark Wingfield: dabbling, dipping my toe in Instagram. That's under Max train
Mark Wingfield: Diversity. And, I have a
Mark Wingfield: haveningmax.com is my Havening website, but I'm
Mark Wingfield: also, on maxconflictmanagement.com
Mark Wingfield: because that's a lot of bread and butter work that I normally do.
Mark Wingfield: That's always m a x. So thank you very much indeed, Jo. It's been fun,
Mark Wingfield: and, we'll talk again soon. Didn't you
Joanne Lockwood: mention that, you got an offer for
Joanne Lockwood: anyone who's listening that they can, they can, take Indeed. Take a bar shot
Joanne Lockwood: for the new year. Is that right? Yeah. Thanks for reminding John for talking about
Mark Wingfield: that. Yeah. I I run
Mark Wingfield: online workshops to learn how to
Mark Wingfield: reduce fear and anxiety. And they've been very successful and
Mark Wingfield: popular since I first started doing them in May. And
Mark Wingfield: they're continuing. So into the new year, there'll be various dates on
Mark Wingfield: my Eventbrite site. So, again, if you look at Max training and development
Mark Wingfield: on Eventbrite And if you put in, Jo
Mark Wingfield: Lockwood as a code, that's jo o
Mark Wingfield: so, capital letter j then
Mark Wingfield: lowercase, that's the word, lowercase jo, and then uppercase
Mark Wingfield: l, and then the rest of Lockwood as a code. No gaps.
Mark Wingfield: As a thank you for anybody coming on here and and listening to to me
Mark Wingfield: spout away for a little while, there's immediate 10% off
Mark Wingfield: coming along there. And, so, yeah,
Mark Wingfield: everybody will welcome to come along. You don't have to talk about what it might
Mark Wingfield: be that upsets you or you want to work with. It's very quick. It's
Mark Wingfield: permanent. It's fantastic. So, come along experience. There's a video on
Mark Wingfield: the on the Venbrite page to explain what what all that's about. Bites thank you
Mark Wingfield: for reminding me, Jo. Yeah. That's that's open to any, please. Brilliant.
Joanne Lockwood: What I'll do is I'll make sure we put those details when
Joanne Lockwood: on the show notes and, when we share this episode. Jo,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, click click below, you'll find it and,
Joanne Lockwood: we'll make sure you do that. So thank you very much and a
Joanne Lockwood: huge thank you to the listeners, you, for
Joanne Lockwood: tuning in. Please do subscribe and keep
Joanne Lockwood: updates on future episodes of the Inclusion Bites podcast that's
Joanne Lockwood: B-I-T-E-S. Tell your friends, tell your colleagues, I'm sure you have loads.
Joanne Lockwood: Well, I've got a number of exciting guests lined up just like
Joanne Lockwood: Mark and I'm sure you'll be inspired by them over the next few weeks months.
Joanne Lockwood: And of course, if you'd like to be a guest, if you'd like to inspire
Joanne Lockwood: people, I'd welcome you to get in touch as well.
Joanne Lockwood: So as always, if you've got any ideas, feedback, suggestions,
Joanne Lockwood: then please do email me to jo atseachangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: I'd love your thoughts on how we can improve. So finally, my name is Joanne
Joanne Lockwood: Lockwood and it's been an absolute pleasure to host this podcast for you today.
Joanne Lockwood: Catch you next time. Bye.