Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood, and I'll be your host
Joanne Lockwood: for the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I've interviewed
Joanne Lockwood: a number of amazing people and simply had conversations 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
Joanne Lockwood: the future, then please do drop me a line to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: That'S-E-E change Happen dot co
Joanne Lockwood: dot uk. You can catch up with all of the previous shows
Joanne Lockwood: on Itunes, Spotify and the usual places.
Joanne Lockwood: So plug in the headphones, grab a decaf, and let's
Joanne Lockwood: get going. Today is episode
Joanne Lockwood: 35 with the title, empowering
Joanne Lockwood: everybody to better share their gifts with the world.
Joanne Lockwood: And I have the absolute honor and privilege to be joined by
Joanne Lockwood: Penny Pullan. Penny describes herself as a
Joanne Lockwood: speaker, author, facilitator, and mentor.
Joanne Lockwood: And when I asked Penny to describe her superpower, she said, she
Joanne Lockwood: makes workshops work, and that's a tongue twister.
Joanne Lockwood: Hello, Penny. Welcome to the show.
Penny Pollan: Hello, Joanne, and thank you so much for your introduction. It's really
Penny Pollan: fun to be here and to be chatting away with you.
Penny Pollan: Yeah. You asked me, you say that I
Penny Pollan: make workshops work and yeah, I suppose
Penny Pollan: I do that. And I've been doing that for about 20 years.
Penny Pollan: I started off as a, project manager and program
Penny Pollan: manager and was very interested in, you know,
Penny Pollan: how do I really make these projects and programs as good as they
Penny Pollan: possibly can be? And realized that actually it was all about people.
Penny Pollan: I was just about getting that sorted and
Penny Pollan: working out how to work with groups in person
Penny Pollan: when something happened that
Penny Pollan: shifted my whole world
Penny Pollan: into virtual. About 19 years before everybody else,
Penny Pollan: I was meant to be hosting a kickoff meeting
Penny Pollan: for a big program. This is the first time I'd ever
Penny Pollan: run a whole program, just me. And there are all these people coming
Penny Pollan: from all over the world. We're going to spend 2 weeks in New York.
Penny Pollan: What fun. Except the date on my ticket when I
Penny Pollan: was flying out from Heathrow to Newark
Penny Pollan: was 13th September 2,001.
Penny Pollan: Now, yes, the listeners can't see,
Penny Pollan: but you've just pulled a face and gone, Oh, because
Penny Pollan: that's 2 days after 9:11. And oh boy, we weren't going
Penny Pollan: anywhere. We were grounded for 3 months. So that
Penny Pollan: program had to happen virtually a little bit like
Penny Pollan: everything had to suddenly go virtual at the beginning of the
Penny Pollan: lockdowns of 2020. So, yes,
Penny Pollan: so that added in virtual to the mix because I still had
Penny Pollan: to get this program done with quite ancient technology.
Penny Pollan: It's much easier in a way now because we can see each
Penny Pollan: other on a desktop. Brilliant. But,
Penny Pollan: then we just, nobody really knew about this virtual thing. And I spent ages
Penny Pollan: working on it and ended up being asked to help other people and
Penny Pollan: write books on it. But I've probably carried on long enough. So back to you,
Penny Pollan: John. Yeah. When you've when you're talking about that,
Joanne Lockwood: those days weeks months after 9/11, I
Joanne Lockwood: look back. Yeah. Most people kind of remember where they
Joanne Lockwood: were. It's one of those, you know where you were type type moments.
Joanne Lockwood: I remember I was working on a project for a cable
Joanne Lockwood: TV startup in Irvine in Scotland.
Joanne Lockwood: And I remember we we just got the the head end, the the
Joanne Lockwood: technology center up and running that, you know, the the massive big
Joanne Lockwood: dish in in the in the in the back, and they've plumbed it all in.
Joanne Lockwood: And those were the first pictures we got live
Joanne Lockwood: in in the in the computer room in the head end, in the in the
Joanne Lockwood: knock. There's the picture we had up, and we all gather around this small
Joanne Lockwood: screen looking at the I think it was well, it's obviously the
Joanne Lockwood: second plane hitting the the tab because nobody saw the first plane
Joanne Lockwood: hit. And we were just stunned
Joanne Lockwood: silent, and I was texting friends
Joanne Lockwood: that I'd been in New York with, the year before,
Joanne Lockwood: months before, just reminiscing and just stunned
Joanne Lockwood: silence. So that was, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: a world changing day and time, wasn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? It was. And I had a friend, though. Yeah. It was in the
Joanne Lockwood: air at that time, flying to the
Joanne Lockwood: US, and
Joanne Lockwood: they had no idea what's going on. They just know that they suddenly entered a
Joanne Lockwood: holding path and go around the circles. I think they ended up
Joanne Lockwood: landing in Gander. And if you've ever landed in Gander at
Joanne Lockwood: Newfoundland, it's quite an adventure. I mean, I've I've been there once on the
Joanne Lockwood: way to Miami and sat on the tarmac in Gander for 5
Joanne Lockwood: hours, because somebody had a suspect heart attack. But she was
Joanne Lockwood: in the air. And, of course, she knew nothing about what's going on
Joanne Lockwood: at the time, and her husband obviously did.
Joanne Lockwood: Obviously, knew that she was in the air. Her arrival time
Joanne Lockwood: wasn't too dissimilar. So, of
Joanne Lockwood: course, he knew that it wasn't her on those
Joanne Lockwood: planes because he knew that wasn't her her flight. But he he was
Joanne Lockwood: worried. You know? He didn't know what's gonna happen. Jo, yeah, when she
Joanne Lockwood: landed, all these panicked phone calls and messages, she still had no
Joanne Lockwood: idea until suddenly everyone became aware of
Joanne Lockwood: what had happened. And, yeah. So she tells that story from a different
Joanne Lockwood: perspective, being up in here at the time. So, yeah, it's it's
Joanne Lockwood: a, yeah, one of those moments, but I and as she
Joanne Lockwood: was saying that, you're right. It's it's one of those pivotal moments in history
Joanne Lockwood: where we suddenly have to adapt, change, learn about ourselves.
Joanne Lockwood: So the need for you to develop the virtual training, the virtual way of
Joanne Lockwood: interacting with people. And and as you say, at a time
Joanne Lockwood: where Zoom didn't exist, Teams didn't exist, Maybe there's a
Joanne Lockwood: bit of Webex and then I used to remote IT support. So we're using
Joanne Lockwood: things like, what's it called? TeamViewer,
Joanne Lockwood: things like this. So a kind of IT tools, weren't they, for a remote
Joanne Lockwood: dot. Yeah. The only way we saw each other face to face
Penny Pollan: is really when we were in the video conference
Penny Pollan: suite, which tended to be a corner office,
Penny Pollan: normally booked solid by senior very senior managers
Penny Pollan: at the lovely time, you know, between 2 5 when the UK and the
Penny Pollan: US overlapped. We could book those,
Penny Pollan: but we couldn't do video on the on the desktop like we can
Penny Pollan: now. I think we were able to see each other's
Penny Pollan: screens, if we had
Penny Pollan: IT tech support tools, but yes, all very, very different. And
Penny Pollan: the funniest thing is that there are now people in the workplace who
Penny Pollan: don't remember 911.
Joanne Lockwood: And the phone in the mobile phones, they were they were phones.
Joanne Lockwood: And I seem to remember cameras were just coming in our phones. They they
Joanne Lockwood: weren't defacto. They weren't the standard feature. No.
Penny Pollan: No. Not at all. Maybe some video messaging or you'd you
Joanne Lockwood: share video clips with each other or you maybe just perhaps send a
Joanne Lockwood: picture. And it's very early days with that. And I remember you Jo into companies,
Joanne Lockwood: everybody wants to you had to prove that your camera was disabled when you
Joanne Lockwood: walked into the building, and everyone was scared about people stealing secrets.
Penny Pollan: Absolutely. Yeah. The world has changed so much, hasn't it?
Penny Pollan: Yeah. Yeah. I remember we did most of the work by conference calls,
Penny Pollan: so we couldn't see each other at all, but we had to listen out
Penny Pollan: very carefully. And we got a lot done that
Penny Pollan: way, but we had to be structured. It forced us to do
Penny Pollan: things well, And I think that's how I
Penny Pollan: it forced yeah. It forced me to develop all the things that I then
Penny Pollan: used and helped other people with and and ended up thinking
Penny Pollan: through properly in the year that I wrote my book, Virtual Leadership. And I'm so
Penny Pollan: glad I had a chance to think through that book and write
Penny Pollan: it well before you know, a few years before the pandemic
Penny Pollan: hit, because then it was there. It was ready. People could just grab it.
Penny Pollan: And, yeah, it's been selling like hotcakes, that one.
Joanne Lockwood: So what was what's the cover of the big big nuggets
Joanne Lockwood: of, of lessons you've learned at that time or or put in your book? What's
Joanne Lockwood: the what's the kind of big nuggets from that? Yeah. There are a few things.
Penny Pollan: One thing is, that I think people are just about getting
Penny Pollan: about now, is
Penny Pollan: that virtual working is not just about being
Penny Pollan: in virtual meetings. That actually you need to think, how
Penny Pollan: do you as a team work effectively?
Penny Pollan: And then work as much as you can asynchronously.
Penny Pollan: You don't have to be together face to face like you and
Penny Pollan: I are when we're recording this. You can do a lot of
Penny Pollan: work in a much more flexible way. You can, you can do
Penny Pollan: work. If you do work asynchronously, so that means people can do
Penny Pollan: things at a time to suit them, then you can
Penny Pollan: flex around people's needs. Perhaps people,
Penny Pollan: for example, have kids they want to collect from school. Yeah, they can go off,
Penny Pollan: collect the kids from school, come back, but then they can make up
Penny Pollan: that time to produce the output that's needed at
Penny Pollan: a different time. Perhaps they work far better first thing in the morning
Penny Pollan: or last thing at night. And if people can do the
Penny Pollan: work, the virtual work that they need to do at times when they can work
Penny Pollan: best, as opposed to being expected to be sitting down
Penny Pollan: in front of a computer on meetings, you know, for a back
Penny Pollan: to back all day, which I saw so many people doing last year.
Penny Pollan: That's just not a good use of people's time. Not very
Penny Pollan: inclusive either. Mhmm. No. I completely agree. And I
Joanne Lockwood: think I was probably one of those people that got sucked into this back to
Joanne Lockwood: back 15 minute gaps. And then you Joanne wake you get at the end of
Joanne Lockwood: the day, you can't move. You are you are numb and drained
Joanne Lockwood: because you've you've had no break at all, have you? It's just screen
Joanne Lockwood: time. The thing that really helped the people who were in
Penny Pollan: those back to back meetings and didn't feel they could
Penny Pollan: change the culture of their organization quickly
Penny Pollan: was, if they were in control of any meetings, Jo start
Penny Pollan: them at 5 past the hour and finish them at 5
Penny Pollan: 2 rather than just I mean, there's so many people doing 9 to 10, 10
Penny Pollan: to 11, 11 to 12, you know, maybe grab 5 minutes to
Penny Pollan: grab a sandwich and then, you know, on 3 to 1. It was just
Penny Pollan: crazy. Yeah. That's certainly a lesson I've learned is to
Joanne Lockwood: make sure I've got that time between the between the calls.
Joanne Lockwood: And because inevitably, the calls was end up overrunning a bit, don't
Joanne Lockwood: they? If you're not careful, every call overruns into the next. By the end of
Joanne Lockwood: the day, you've just literally overrun or your contingency is your
Joanne Lockwood: lunch break or a coffee break. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: And I've seen people when I'm running training,
Joanne Lockwood: they arrive dead on time or 30 seconds late because they've just come for a
Joanne Lockwood: meeting. And at the end of the training session, they're saying, well, I've gotta go.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm into another meeting now. It's like, so you haven't really been
Joanne Lockwood: present because you've this this training is squashed between 2
Joanne Lockwood: other activities. And I do question sometimes whether people
Joanne Lockwood: need that half an hour to decompress before and half an hour to
Joanne Lockwood: absorb at the end before doing something else. Otherwise, it's it's such
Joanne Lockwood: a transient activity that that there's no memory of it.
Penny Pollan: Yeah. And, actually, we need time to get actions done. There's a whole
Penny Pollan: chapter in my new book coming up all about how do we make sure
Penny Pollan: workshops get actions done? Because so often, I mean, I don't
Penny Pollan: know if you are like this, Joanne, but you find that, there are
Penny Pollan: meetings, particularly in big organizations, there are meetings and
Penny Pollan: then a couple of weeks later, they have a meeting and none of the
Penny Pollan: actions have been done, and they essentially agree all the same actions to carry forward.
Penny Pollan: It's crazy. I mean, I'm guilty of myself.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm so busy scheduling
Joanne Lockwood: new business or or delivery. I very rarely have
Joanne Lockwood: time to focus on the admin or getting back to
Joanne Lockwood: people with information I said I would. And I end up squashing that in
Joanne Lockwood: between 2 other meetings. I don't have an I don't say to myself,
Joanne Lockwood: this afternoon is is catch up time or or
Joanne Lockwood: downtime. And, I said trying to keep keep
Joanne Lockwood: on delivering is, yeah, quite a struggle to to think about that.
Joanne Lockwood: Being good to yourself, isn't it? That's what you're trying to do, try and be
Joanne Lockwood: good to yourself and be fair to yourself. Mhmm. And actually do the best
Penny Pollan: work you can. So I'm sure if you're trying to squash the
Penny Pollan: actual core, really important bits of work, knowledge
Penny Pollan: work now, we need time to think.
Penny Pollan: And if you try and squash it into the odd snatch minute here and there,
Penny Pollan: we're not going to be doing our best work, are we? No. For sure.
Joanne Lockwood: We're not. No. It's and that also I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: one of the purposes, yeah, the mattress of this podcast around
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion, of course, different people
Joanne Lockwood: think, experience, interact differently. And
Joanne Lockwood: often we design these constructs of
Joanne Lockwood: meetings around the privileged or the leaders or or the way we've
Joanne Lockwood: always done it. And I think we start to learn that that that doesn't work
Joanne Lockwood: for everybody, does it? No. Absolutely not. So, I mean,
Penny Pollan: my thing is to get the best if you want to get the best out
Penny Pollan: of everybody, and surely, if you're bringing people together to work together,
Penny Pollan: you want each person to do their best and to be at their
Penny Pollan: best. So, create the conditions where each
Penny Pollan: person can contribute their
Penny Pollan: best to that group. And so the group as a whole can do their
Penny Pollan: best possible work together and change the world, hopefully, just a little
Penny Pollan: bit. Mhmm. So that means when you're designing
Penny Pollan: a work shop or a meeting or something, think about each
Penny Pollan: person. What's going to be the environment of
Penny Pollan: that meeting or workshop that will help them to
Penny Pollan: do their best work? You probably can't imagine
Penny Pollan: this in, the the answers to these. You probably have to have discussions with
Penny Pollan: them unless you know them very well. But what's gonna
Penny Pollan: suit different people?
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Well, ask them upfront. Absolutely.
Penny Pollan: And say, you know, what's going to be best for you? And and
Penny Pollan: if they look blank, because nobody's ever asked them anything like that and has
Penny Pollan: just expected them to fit in, they might well look blank. But you can
Penny Pollan: say, you know, we've got a whole range already. You know, somebody wants
Penny Pollan: this, somebody suggested this, somebody else wanted, I don't know,
Penny Pollan: to have to have fruit available in the room or whatever it might
Penny Pollan: be. Sort of let let them know
Penny Pollan: how how you really do genuinely want to make it possible for them to do
Penny Pollan: their best possible work. Give them some examples of some of the things that suit
Penny Pollan: other people. It's amazing. People's eyes light up and go, what?
Penny Pollan: Really? Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: You've asked me. You care about me. You thought about me. Yeah. It's
Joanne Lockwood: you say, I've I've been some on some some great local courses,
Joanne Lockwood: and you walk in. As you say, there's fruit on the table, there's chocolate, there's
Joanne Lockwood: coffee, there's cold water, And and immediately, you just feel,
Joanne Lockwood: oh, you feel happy, you're conversational, everyone's talking about, oh, isn't this lovely?
Joanne Lockwood: And you start off with positive frame of mind, don't you? So the room is
Joanne Lockwood: all laid out. Despite working for Mars for 10 years,
Penny Pollan: I wouldn't have chocolate in a meeting or workshop. Because what
Penny Pollan: you do is you get this sort of sugar high. The rush. And
Penny Pollan: then what happens next is the crash, and everybody's, you know.
Penny Pollan: So even when I was working for Mars, I actually banned chocolates from the
Penny Pollan: meeting rooms, I would say, because of that. Just those little
Joanne Lockwood: foxes boxes glass of mints that people put out Oh, no. No. No. Still sugar.
Penny Pollan: Still sugar. So apart from the jelly beans.
Penny Pollan: Yeah. Absolutely. So fruit is good,
Penny Pollan: but actually what's really helpful, unless you have someone with a nut allergy, so
Penny Pollan: this is important, nuts are actually really good because they give you enough
Penny Pollan: energy to stop being hungry. Yeah. They're high in protein, aren't
Joanne Lockwood: they? Low in fat, generally. Well, they have quite a lot of
Joanne Lockwood: fat from nuts. Almonds are the best, aren't they? So, yeah, nut
Penny Pollan: nuts are great as well, and and some fruit, and and that'll keep people
Penny Pollan: going. The other thing I do is in in a in
Penny Pollan: person workshop, I like to use music. So
Penny Pollan: something that really gets people feeling, hang on, this is a little bit
Penny Pollan: different from your box standard boring meeting, is to
Penny Pollan: play some steel drum music just
Penny Pollan: in the background as people coming in. Because that's the sort of classic
Penny Pollan: we're on holiday music, perhaps. Jo just
Penny Pollan: so it's just so different from the standard work vibe.
Penny Pollan: So I find that quite fun. I like the idea.
Joanne Lockwood: So maybe just have it Yeah. As part of the warm up or the it
Joanne Lockwood: we're able to get their seat just a bit of a bit of a jump
Joanne Lockwood: in the background. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. I like that idea.
Penny Pollan: My accent arms people. Yeah. But don't do
Penny Pollan: anything that is still drum music of standard
Penny Pollan: tunes, especially ones that have
Penny Pollan: words, because it's very easy with music to switch
Penny Pollan: people back into a state from the past. And the last thing
Penny Pollan: you want is to be playing a music that was, you know, our song
Penny Pollan: when somebody's just gone through a dramatic and
Penny Pollan: unhappy divorce, for example. So
Joanne Lockwood: nothing that invokes a memory.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And that and that's part of the when I talk about inclusion,
Joanne Lockwood: is thinking about all these permutations
Joanne Lockwood: about not using your own lens all the time, thinking about the
Joanne Lockwood: impact or how that would resonate with somebody
Joanne Lockwood: else. And as simple as that, yeah, as you say, triggering a
Joanne Lockwood: memory, triggering an upset,
Joanne Lockwood: overemphasis on family, overemphasis on children in discussions,
Joanne Lockwood: that may well lead someone to feel sad
Joanne Lockwood: or upset if they've lost someone recently. So it's yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: It's so difficult, though, because we we love these human interactions
Joanne Lockwood: and almost have to pause and take a break and step back and
Joanne Lockwood: go, is this gonna work? Is this a good conversation?
Penny Pollan: And think about what are the assumptions that I'm making about
Penny Pollan: people? So
Penny Pollan: it's so easy to assume that people fit into the stereotypes
Penny Pollan: of that age of the age that they are,
Penny Pollan: or of the gender or of, well, all sorts of
Penny Pollan: things. I remember, obviously, the group of
Joanne Lockwood: friends is several years ago, and we were talking
Joanne Lockwood: about television and soaps or films or
Joanne Lockwood: whatever's been going on. And one person
Joanne Lockwood: doesn't didn't have a television. And, of course, we were all fascinated about
Joanne Lockwood: how this person was able to survive in their life without a television.
Joanne Lockwood: Apparently, they didn't go to movies or the cinema, so they had
Joanne Lockwood: no visual media bias in their life. They had no visual entertainment.
Joanne Lockwood: And we all find it really incredible, but then as the day and
Joanne Lockwood: the time with them progressed, we found it really difficult to have
Joanne Lockwood: conversations because we realized that so much of the context, the conversations,
Joanne Lockwood: and discussed we had had a kind of
Joanne Lockwood: culture based on film and TV. Mhmm. Even
Joanne Lockwood: just that expressions of humor or
Joanne Lockwood: or scenarios or quoting a line, and we've had it
Joanne Lockwood: really strange. Joanne, that made me realize that
Joanne Lockwood: people experience the world differently. They have different paradigms, different
Joanne Lockwood: metaphors to the ones I use. And what I thought were really good
Joanne Lockwood: really good examples, suddenly it didn't work. And it it was
Joanne Lockwood: really testing. So, yeah, we we can't make those assumptions that people
Joanne Lockwood: think and perceive the world as we do.
Penny Pollan: Absolutely. So that's why it's really, really important. If
Penny Pollan: you want to get the best work out of people, which is if
Penny Pollan: you're bringing people together for a workshop, or a
Penny Pollan: meeting of any sort, you're doing that to get
Penny Pollan: some work done together. Then actually
Penny Pollan: know who the people are and design the process
Penny Pollan: of your session to so
Penny Pollan: that each person can do their best work. And, overall, you can do fantastic work,
Penny Pollan: and you can have lots of fun doing it.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I I I think a fun element has to be enjoyable, doesn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? Work work shouldn't be tedious.
Joanne Lockwood: Work with an element of satisfaction
Joanne Lockwood: and enjoyment doesn't become mundane, in which case you're more like to
Joanne Lockwood: be diligent, engaged, productive. Absolutely.
Penny Pollan: Now, it's interesting, you see. I don't know if you
Penny Pollan: know the book Death by Meeting by Patrick Lenconi.
Joanne Lockwood: I've not read the book, but I've been in the meeting. Yes,
Penny Pollan: absolutely. Now you see his answer to boring
Penny Pollan: meetings, I'm not quite this this,
Penny Pollan: yeah, I wouldn't go quite as far, but he says the best thing to do
Penny Pollan: if you're in a boring meeting is to mine for conflict.
Penny Pollan: Because if you dive deeper and find things that
Penny Pollan: people care about enough to, for there to be conflict
Penny Pollan: and a little bit of tension, then you've got to something that people
Penny Pollan: care about and not just, can't can't be bothered.
Penny Pollan: Okay. Which I think is interesting, but but I suppose the
Penny Pollan: core of what he's saying is that actually people do care about things. And
Penny Pollan: if you're working just and you're
Penny Pollan: sort of glossing over everything and it's just tedious and boring.
Penny Pollan: You're not actually engaging with things that people care about. So
Penny Pollan: maybe mining for conflict is one of the ways to to do that.
Penny Pollan: But I'd probably say mine for things people care about as opposed
Penny Pollan: to try and find conflict. Yeah. Also, maybe as a as a
Joanne Lockwood: when you're thinking as an inclusive leader or as an inclusive facilitator, as
Joanne Lockwood: you're you're the host of that session, you have to be aware
Joanne Lockwood: and emotionally intelligent enough to understand you're losing the audience.
Joanne Lockwood: Because how often do we see people running for the finish line, I'm
Joanne Lockwood: gonna give you this. I'm gonna go I'm gonna finish. No matter what happens, I'm
Joanne Lockwood: gonna you're gonna get this without stopping or reflecting. Oh, actually,
Joanne Lockwood: the right thing to do here is to pause, change, and adapt.
Joanne Lockwood: Because I I've sat in meetings where where we've ended up getting
Joanne Lockwood: our hankies out of our bags and waving the white flag. So it's
Joanne Lockwood: like, we give up. We surrender. It's interesting because I
Penny Pollan: talk about this a little bit in the, in the book that's coming out
Penny Pollan: in July, And I talk about,
Penny Pollan: how people tend to go into, I've got to be in control
Penny Pollan: mode. So I've got to finish this, whatever. You
Penny Pollan: know,
Penny Pollan: that I need to, I have the, I'm the authority, the
Penny Pollan: spotlight is on me. I I'm you know,
Penny Pollan: something's going on. I'm the one who has to know what's going on, and I
Penny Pollan: need to make the decisions as to what happens next. And it's a complete disaster,
Penny Pollan: you know, like you and your friends with your white handkeys.
Penny Pollan: That's what it feels like. Whereas, if I've learned
Penny Pollan: now after many years of doing this, that if I'm in a
Penny Pollan: workshop and it feels like that, and I'm the workshop leader, I will say
Penny Pollan: something like, to me, it feels like we are
Penny Pollan: elephants when we're wading through this
Penny Pollan: gloopy field full of treacle. Doesn't
Penny Pollan: it feel a bit like that to you? And then everybody will smile and
Penny Pollan: go, yeah. And then I say, well, what Joanne we do? What what
Penny Pollan: are your suggestions for making it a little bit less like elephants
Penny Pollan: through a field of treacle? And there'll be all sorts of ideas popping up, and
Penny Pollan: then people will feel that they've, you know, we're all in it together,
Penny Pollan: and that's a mode to switch away from. Switch away
Penny Pollan: from, I've got to be in control of everything to,
Penny Pollan: We're in it together. But actually as a facilitator, that takes all the
Penny Pollan: weight off your shoulders and actually lets you be much
Penny Pollan: better. And you're much less likely to head off into the fight,
Penny Pollan: flight, freeze response that you tend to get when you're really stressed.
Penny Pollan: That comes very quickly when you're in this, I've got to be in control
Penny Pollan: mode. Whereas if you're sort of, you know, we're in this
Penny Pollan: together, you've got ideas, I've got ideas,
Penny Pollan: you've got different perspectives to me. You may see things that I can't.
Penny Pollan: All those sort of things can all work together really, really
Penny Pollan: helpfully, really effectively. So try and get people, or
Penny Pollan: when you're running workshops, try and stop yourself heading off in that, I've
Penny Pollan: got a control, I've got a control, I've got a control over and over again,
Penny Pollan: going around your head and just think, well, if something goes wrong
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Well, there's all of us who together can sort
Penny Pollan: it. But sometimes that takes a a
Joanne Lockwood: person with the right experience, character, confidence
Joanne Lockwood: as a as a sort of, if you like, a group leader, as a session
Joanne Lockwood: leader to be rather than
Joanne Lockwood: reach content, which often people reach content, is to
Joanne Lockwood: have conversations with the audience. So you're not telling,
Joanne Lockwood: you're showing an example and letting people bring build their own
Joanne Lockwood: pictures. And then in that conversation, you could say, so how are we feeling about
Joanne Lockwood: that? Anyone anyone got any thoughts? How how does that feel to you? And are
Joanne Lockwood: we okay? Do we need a break or would we be okay to carry on
Joanne Lockwood: a bit more? Almost like involving them in the decision of what what
Joanne Lockwood: happens next. Yeah. Because it's their meeting generally,
Penny Pollan: especially as an external facilitator, you know, it's their meeting. It's
Penny Pollan: not my meeting. I'm just there to be the catalyst to make it all
Penny Pollan: happen and work smoothly. I was very of what I'm delivering.
Joanne Lockwood: I I look at the the con or listen to conversations going on. I think,
Joanne Lockwood: well, actually, I don't wanna stop this. The next couple of slides and stuff
Joanne Lockwood: I wanna talk about, I wanna I wanna cover. But what I try and do
Joanne Lockwood: is drip them into the conversation rather than stop the conversation to hear the
Joanne Lockwood: slides. I actually present into the conversation
Joanne Lockwood: and allow people to carry on. And, once people are in
Joanne Lockwood: flow, you wanna keep them in flow, don't you? Absolutely.
Penny Pollan: I used to trip up over flip chart Joanne.
Penny Pollan: Obviously, you haven't been anywhere near a flip chart for a while, when
Penny Pollan: we record this. I used to get really worried about it, and
Penny Pollan: it would go round around my head. I mustn't trip over the
Penny Pollan: flip chart stand. I mustn't trip over the flip chart. It would go
Penny Pollan: run around my head all day. And, you
Penny Pollan: know, I mean, you know, Joanne, by the end of this, I probably or
Penny Pollan: that day, I probably would have tripped over the flip chart. It's just something I
Penny Pollan: always did. And then I
Joanne Lockwood: thought, why don't I consider me tripping over the flip chart?
Penny Pollan: Sort of reframe it as, well, it's entertaining
Penny Pollan: for everybody. So if I do end up tripping
Penny Pollan: over, I'll do it in a flamboyant and entertaining way.
Penny Pollan: And, and, you know, so there you are. There's something for you to laugh
Penny Pollan: at. And, it's sort of
Penny Pollan: quite enjoyed it once or twice when it happened, but it's hardly happened ever since
Penny Pollan: because I'm not been thinking about it all the time. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I I just I was I was delivering a training session at a hotel on
Joanne Lockwood: a Saturday morning once. And as I as I was just about to get
Joanne Lockwood: into my role, I just sort of said, hi. Welcome, everybody. There's such a massive
Joanne Lockwood: crack on the back of my head, and I went flat into the table in
Joanne Lockwood: front of me. And the whiteboard has come detached from the
Joanne Lockwood: wall and and pivoted and smacked me on the back of the head. Of
Joanne Lockwood: course, I was now seeing stars and days. Everybody in the room would rush into
Joanne Lockwood: my assistance. So we agreed that I was gonna go
Joanne Lockwood: off. The next customer would come on, and I come back later. So while I
Joanne Lockwood: was off, I redesigned the first couple of slides. It had a little
Joanne Lockwood: emoji avatar of me with a big bandage around my head. So I came
Joanne Lockwood: back. Well, hopefully, we're okay in the future. But, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: you have to sort of fall with it, make a laugh, and and and Yeah.
Penny Pollan: Yeah. Reassure the audience I'm okay and and seeing the funny side. But, yeah, it
Joanne Lockwood: was a trip over the flip shop, mind out for
Joanne Lockwood: the whiteboard on the back of the head. Yeah. I wonder if you were sort
Penny Pollan: of expecting the next few whiteboards to land on you or a
Penny Pollan: little bit wary. I'm now I'm now more cautious. I'm definitely
Joanne Lockwood: more cautious about what's behind me and what's above me. But yeah.
Penny Pollan: Interestingly, a little while ago, you said that you needed oodles of
Penny Pollan: experience to be able to switch into that we're
Penny Pollan: in it together state. I think it's not just
Penny Pollan: it can come from years of experience, but
Penny Pollan: also you can learn about it and know about it and practice
Penny Pollan: it and actually get there without having to do the 20 years
Penny Pollan: of actual high stress, and then working out for
Penny Pollan: yourself that it's it's a better way to do things.
Penny Pollan: Jo, you I agree. I've I've
Joanne Lockwood: kinda learned it by experience over the last
Joanne Lockwood: couple of years. So I have got I haven't got 20 years experience in doing
Joanne Lockwood: that. It's it's just it became a style that
Joanne Lockwood: evolved, and I detected it works.
Joanne Lockwood: Therefore, I will be rewarded by good behavior by doing more of it, and it
Joanne Lockwood: became a self fulfilling, action.
Joanne Lockwood: It's just become part of your style, doesn't it? You just adapt and evolve to
Joanne Lockwood: it. Yeah. But if somebody said to you upfront, you know, when you begin to
Penny Pollan: get really stressed and you're feeling like you have to be in control,
Penny Pollan: just notice that and deflect away from it to actually know
Penny Pollan: the whole room, we're all in it together.
Joanne Lockwood: Mhmm. We can do it together. It's not about
Penny Pollan: I. If people in that sort of controlling stage
Penny Pollan: go, it's all me, me, me, me, me, I, I, I, but actually it's not
Penny Pollan: me, it's we. And if you think, actually, that's all of us.
Penny Pollan: And I often think, and there's a picture in my book as well, of
Penny Pollan: a metaphorical spotlight. Imagine it on the ceiling
Penny Pollan: above you, if you're in person in a room. And
Penny Pollan: the people who are in that sort of, you know, I've gotta be in
Penny Pollan: control state often seem to have this
Penny Pollan: metaphorical spotlight. I mean, it's metaphorical, but it
Penny Pollan: seems very real to them indeed. They've got this massive spotlight shining
Penny Pollan: onto them. And Jo
Penny Pollan: metaphorically, if you can just switch that spotlight Jo that it
Penny Pollan: focuses on the group that you're serving,
Penny Pollan: again, it takes pressure off and it helps you to go from that, actually, it's
Penny Pollan: all about I, it's all about me controlling, to actually we're all in
Penny Pollan: it together. We can do this together. I'm just here as a
Penny Pollan: catalyst and as a supporter.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. But that that could be a challenge where you've
Joanne Lockwood: got people with different learning abilities, different
Joanne Lockwood: physical capabilities in a mixed group, isn't it? Trying to really
Joanne Lockwood: make everybody feel included. That can be a struggle when
Joanne Lockwood: not everybody can participate in the same way. You need to design.
Penny Pollan: You see, so there are 3 things with a a meeting or workshop. There's
Penny Pollan: a process that you're going to do, but you can't
Penny Pollan: just design your process straight away. You need to know 2
Penny Pollan: things before, and they're all P's. So
Penny Pollan: the first P you need to know is the purpose. What is the purpose
Penny Pollan: for your meeting or workshop? When you've got that sorted, then
Penny Pollan: you can think, given that purpose, who are the people we need?
Penny Pollan: Identify the people and then learn about them and
Penny Pollan: how are they unique? What are their preferences? What are their
Penny Pollan: strengths? What are their weaknesses? What do they bring?
Penny Pollan: What do they need? All those things about the people. And then
Penny Pollan: you design the process of your workshop, whether it's
Penny Pollan: in person, whether it's virtual, whether it's hybrid,
Penny Pollan: those three things apply. Know your purpose. From the
Penny Pollan: purpose, work out the people, and then knowing
Penny Pollan: deeply about the people and their perspectives and their preferences, all that
Penny Pollan: stuff, then design the process to suit that particular group.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Definitely. The other
Joanne Lockwood: thing I think people often forget is asking people
Joanne Lockwood: if they have any needs or special special requirements,
Joanne Lockwood: even down to do you need a regular break? Is there any anything going
Joanne Lockwood: on? So I I I did a few sessions the last couple of weeks
Joanne Lockwood: where one person was blind. I was having a conversation on
Joanne Lockwood: Zoom this morning where the person was deaf and I
Joanne Lockwood: had to turn subtitles on on Zoom and
Joanne Lockwood: speak very clearly, articulately
Joanne Lockwood: because they weren't also there were non native English speakers also with lip
Joanne Lockwood: reading and subtitling when English wasn't their first language. And it was,
Joanne Lockwood: I felt I was very conscious about making sure that I took responsibility
Joanne Lockwood: for being understood. And sometimes when we when we don't take that
Joanne Lockwood: leadership role in communication, we speak to be
Joanne Lockwood: heard from our own lens, not the other person's lens.
Penny Pollan: It's interesting, Chris, of the virtual leadership work that
Penny Pollan: I've done, I've
Penny Pollan: had a lot of people who were not English
Penny Pollan: mother tongue speakers, who I've interacted with
Penny Pollan: virtually. And, I interviewed an expert
Penny Pollan: in business English once for virtual,
Penny Pollan: And it was really interesting because I completely put my foot in it. I
Penny Pollan: made a complete hash. I introduced him as a leading
Penny Pollan: light in the world of business English. And he
Penny Pollan: said, Penny, thank you for giving me that marvelous example of how not to do
Penny Pollan: it. Because I'd used the phrase leading light.
Penny Pollan: So while my pronunciation was impeccable and
Penny Pollan: my accent was understandable
Penny Pollan: and even the words were quite simple, what I'd done was
Penny Pollan: I'd used a metaphor of a leading light, which is something that
Penny Pollan: when you're sailing and coming into a port, you
Penny Pollan: might have 2 lights that line up and you can use them to work out
Penny Pollan: where the channel is. Now, how somebody who might
Penny Pollan: be from Central China would know
Penny Pollan: anything about, you know, little lights on sticks
Penny Pollan: in the sea off the coast of England,
Penny Pollan: they just wouldn't. And so it was a way of excluding.
Penny Pollan: And ever since then, I've been so careful thinking about not
Penny Pollan: just clarity and speed and all of that,
Penny Pollan: but also the words that I'm using to make them
Penny Pollan: inclusive. I'm very conscious about
Joanne Lockwood: words that are associated with good, or words associated with
Joanne Lockwood: bad, and often masculine words
Joanne Lockwood: masculine words are more worthy, better.
Joanne Lockwood: Sometimes feminine words are less worthy or seems worse.
Joanne Lockwood: And when we think about racism, some words are associated with the light
Joanne Lockwood: as being gray and the dark as not being gray. So you're sometimes
Joanne Lockwood: really conscious and mindful about, as you say, there's analogies, metaphors, or seminars we're
Joanne Lockwood: using. What do we mean by that? Are we effective
Joanne Lockwood: using effectively a racist connotation to describe something as
Joanne Lockwood: bad? Yeah. Really? Yeah. Sinister. Yeah. Yeah.
Penny Pollan: Yeah. Yeah. Sinister. You know, left handed people.
Joanne Lockwood: That's me. Not good. Handed. Yeah. Yeah. Half my family are left
Penny Pollan: handed. I'm right handed. But, yes, you know, are they
Penny Pollan: sinister? Well, it wasn't so long ago
Joanne Lockwood: that we were excluded from certain job
Joanne Lockwood: opportunities. You couldn't work in a bank because they were worried you might
Joanne Lockwood: smudge statements. You're handwriting them. You couldn't write envelopes.
Joanne Lockwood: So the I've actually seen a memo from Barclays saying
Joanne Lockwood: that we're now allowing people who are left handed to to work as clerks.
Joanne Lockwood: And that that was like in the fifties. It wasn't that long ago.
Joanne Lockwood: So it's it's incredible. I mean, example I often give is that I've got
Joanne Lockwood: one of these thermos soup flasks and it comes with a
Joanne Lockwood: spoon in the lid. And the spoon only works if you're
Joanne Lockwood: right Joanne. Since you're left handed, it folds up every time you use it.
Joanne Lockwood: And incredible that a company like Thermos designed this
Joanne Lockwood: product with a spoon that doesn't work for left handed people.
Joanne Lockwood: And it just shows that we we all have these blind
Joanne Lockwood: spots to design, to thinking about other people.
Penny Pollan: Absolutely. And I think I mean, I particularly think of left
Penny Pollan: handed people because once I was doing something, and we had an activity that
Penny Pollan: had involved paper and
Penny Pollan: scissors and glue, I think. I don't know what it was. It was,
Penny Pollan: I don't like icebreakers
Penny Pollan: and energizers that are for their own sake. But if there's something
Penny Pollan: related to the content that you're covering, the work that you're doing
Penny Pollan: together, that can change the state, then that's great.
Penny Pollan: As long as it's something related, not just creating,
Penny Pollan: the tallest possible towers out of spaghetti and marshmallows
Penny Pollan: just for the sake of doing that.
Penny Pollan: But, so we are doing something with paper and scissors and glue, except I
Penny Pollan: only had standard scissors, which are right handed.
Penny Pollan: And there's somebody who who is left handed who find it particularly
Penny Pollan: difficult to cut accurately. And ever since then, I've been much
Penny Pollan: more careful and included that.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I've scissors because the paper always folds in
Joanne Lockwood: the scissors because the blades are the wrong way around. You always end up the
Joanne Lockwood: wrong side. I end up having to sort of cut backwards to force myself
Joanne Lockwood: or and, yeah, I I have terrible trouble with
Joanne Lockwood: tightening and loosening screws because for some reason, my brain
Joanne Lockwood: just doesn't wanna do it in the way that it works. It's always reversed. And
Joanne Lockwood: often, I end up tightening something up, but I should be undoing it
Joanne Lockwood: without realizing. And I have to I have to actually work get another screw that
Joanne Lockwood: I can turn and think, okay. Right. That got it now. And
Joanne Lockwood: it's and I'm not sure that's whether that's being left handed or whether that's just
Joanne Lockwood: the way my brain works because it's left handed. A lot of these
Joanne Lockwood: things that seem natural to a right handed person just aren't for left
Joanne Lockwood: handed people because everything works in reverse.
Penny Pollan: Well, something that I find useful
Penny Pollan: is not just saying, you know, would you like a break? Yes or Jo?
Penny Pollan: Just jumping back to what we were talking about a little while, but
Penny Pollan: saying, what breaks do you need?
Penny Pollan: So asking open questions as
Penny Pollan: opposed to questions with yesno answers,
Penny Pollan: which makes it easier for it's as if you're expecting a
Penny Pollan: response to that question. It's not just a sort of,
Penny Pollan: yeah, we'll have you know, brakes fine.
Penny Pollan: But, actually, you know, what what dietary requirements do you have
Penny Pollan: as opposed to do you have dietary requirements? Yeah. I
Joanne Lockwood: was I ran a workshop the other morning, and at the beginning of it,
Joanne Lockwood: someone said, I I'll be having breaks during the session. It was a 2 hour
Joanne Lockwood: session. I said, yeah. I'm planning 1 around about an hour in,
Joanne Lockwood: and if we need one, just the last 20 minutes. They say,
Joanne Lockwood: oh, the reason I need to know is my dog needs to
Joanne Lockwood: have to be let out every so often.
Joanne Lockwood: Jo it'd be really helpful for me if it was 40 minutes rather than an
Joanne Lockwood: hour. I went, absolutely fine. 40 minutes ago for me.
Joanne Lockwood: And so there was a just by planning the schedule and
Joanne Lockwood: my needs, it actually reminded me that I actually need to ask people about, was
Joanne Lockwood: that okay for them? And we also have to you know,
Joanne Lockwood: we've we've all got deliveries, Amazon,
Joanne Lockwood: Hermes, DPD, everything's turning out. The doors are knocking. Pets are jumping
Joanne Lockwood: around. Kids need feeding and schooling. So we've
Joanne Lockwood: learned really to be very adaptable to the needs of individuals.
Joanne Lockwood: Whereas I think when we started this process, we were still that
Joanne Lockwood: regimented, I've got you in my room. You're gonna do as you're told. And now
Joanne Lockwood: we've learned we we can't herd our cats in that way.
Penny Pollan: Perhaps my book should have come out a couple of couple of years earlier,
Penny Pollan: the the one about workshops. But, anyway, it'll it'll be there. Now I
Penny Pollan: do have something that is quite useful when you're
Penny Pollan: starting up meetings and workshops, which I call my magic 6. In
Penny Pollan: fact, I used to call it meeting startup steps,
Penny Pollan: but then one of my clients said, Penny, you should call it a magic
Penny Pollan: 6. Quite useful for planning as well. So
Penny Pollan: this, that discussion about where the break should be could,
Penny Pollan: would come up if you, if you brought this up. So, and
Penny Pollan: there is a visual as well for it, but I can't share that on this.
Penny Pollan: So, but the first question is, we are here to,
Penny Pollan: What are we here to do? So make sure you can answer that question or
Penny Pollan: complete that sentence. We are here to. The purpose of the
Penny Pollan: meeting, ideally about 7 words. So not a
Penny Pollan: paragraph, quite high level. How, you know, what
Penny Pollan: how will you know that this has been a success because you've done
Penny Pollan: this thing? And then the next of the
Penny Pollan: magic 6 is, Today we will Jo, what are
Penny Pollan: the 4 or 5 objectives that we will cover today?
Penny Pollan: The next one is our plan. And that's where things like
Penny Pollan: start times, end times, breaks, and so on comes
Penny Pollan: in. Who's doing
Penny Pollan: what is another one. So what
Penny Pollan: people are playing which roles in the session and make sure you've
Penny Pollan: got them. I mean, with virtual, we need to have,
Penny Pollan: somebody keeping time. We need to have somebody writing down
Penny Pollan: actions, preferably in a shared way Jo everyone can see
Penny Pollan: them. And then they can, you know, say, actually, that's not quite what I
Penny Pollan: meant when I said I'd take that action on,
Penny Pollan: and so on. One that's often forgotten is how
Penny Pollan: we're going to work together.
Penny Pollan: Lots of things there. I mean, especially virtually.
Penny Pollan: Things like we know about muting if we're in a noisy environment, you know, we've
Penny Pollan: had so many dog box and so on over the last year or
Penny Pollan: so, but one person speaking at any time.
Penny Pollan: If you're on a big call, why not say, stay your name at the beginning
Penny Pollan: of anything you contribute? Because it's not always clear. I know the
Penny Pollan: little lights come around boxes, but it's not always clear. And especially if somebody says,
Penny Pollan: I'll take that action, and nobody knows who it is.
Penny Pollan: So, those sort of things, how are we going to work together?
Penny Pollan: Which is, if it hadn't come up already, hopefully that's where the,
Penny Pollan: can we break every 40 minutes Jo that my dog can
Penny Pollan: Joanne nip outside quickly? And then the final step is
Penny Pollan: what's happening next? What's next? So
Penny Pollan: that right from the beginning, we're thinking about what's gonna happen afterwards.
Penny Pollan: And if you get those six things, sorted
Penny Pollan: and clear, both in your preparation, but then crucially at the
Penny Pollan: beginning of a meeting or workshop, then it will go much more smoothly
Penny Pollan: and it will be shorter as well than it would otherwise be.
Joanne Lockwood: I think there's some great points there. I mean, I I think
Joanne Lockwood: about this when I'm running workshops and maybe not meetings, but many
Joanne Lockwood: workshops, is I try and create this story. Because if we're going
Joanne Lockwood: on a car journey, we know we're a bit 10 miles away. We know when
Joanne Lockwood: we're 20 miles away. We know the path, the route we're taking. So we can
Joanne Lockwood: almost our brains become used to that journey. So if we're
Joanne Lockwood: surprising everybody with micro bits of knowledge as we go,
Joanne Lockwood: their brain can't plan ahead, so they don't know what's happening next. And I think
Joanne Lockwood: that's brilliant, the idea that we we create this story and say, well, we're gonna
Joanne Lockwood: first of all, we're gonna talk about this. We're gonna show that. I'm gonna do
Joanne Lockwood: a bit of this, I'm gonna do a bit of that, and we're gonna talk
Joanne Lockwood: again, and we're gonna have some of this. Is that okay? I'm gonna have a
Joanne Lockwood: break about there. And so you almost narrate the agenda
Joanne Lockwood: and create this sort of kind of shared vision, don't you? I think I think
Joanne Lockwood: that's a great idea, just building it into that, the the 6 points at the
Joanne Lockwood: beginning, making that part of your routine. And I do it all visually
Penny Pollan: and draw it up all over the screen. Just means
Penny Pollan: everybody's clear, and visual support is helpful as well.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I love that. I love that. So maybe I'm doing this without
Joanne Lockwood: thinking, and it's, it's it's actually good practice.
Joanne Lockwood: So you've got this new book coming out. Is that is that in the new
Joanne Lockwood: book, or is that in the original book? That's in the new book. In fact,
Penny Pollan: I think it's in pretty much every book I've written, but, because it just
Penny Pollan: works so well. It's one of those things I came up with in
Penny Pollan: 2007 and thought, oh, you know, next month I'll tweak it. And I haven't tweaked
Penny Pollan: it since. But yes, it is in the new book,
Penny Pollan: it talks about how to use those 6 steps for planning workshops,
Penny Pollan: for running workshops, as well.
Penny Pollan: Yeah. And, I do have some little
Penny Pollan: cards. If people want a little card, they can get in touch with me,
Penny Pollan: and I can point them at a a link to sign
Penny Pollan: up to get sent 1 in the post.
Joanne Lockwood: So is this is this a a digital age
Joanne Lockwood: uplift book? Is this is this a kind of a a 20 year
Joanne Lockwood: 2021 book, or is this a a different topic to the original one?
Penny Pollan: The book I wrote last was Virtual Leadership. So this is all
Penny Pollan: about getting things done virtually. I'm updating
Penny Pollan: this to include a chapter on hybrid, but the one that's coming out
Penny Pollan: shortly is Making Workshops Work.
Penny Pollan: And it's about creative collaboration for our time. The title was actually
Penny Pollan: decided before this whole COVID stuff kicked off, which I
Penny Pollan: think was quite funny. But, and that's
Penny Pollan: about how do you run workshops? And because it's
Penny Pollan: now, it's for our time, it's how to run workshops, whether
Penny Pollan: you're in person, whether you're hybrid, or whether you're virtual.
Joanne Lockwood: So we've got more nuggets. Yeah. I know you don't wanna ruin the entire book.
Joanne Lockwood: You want people to buy it, but what there's a lot of nuggets have you
Joanne Lockwood: got in there that we can you can share? I'm happy to share. So let
Penny Pollan: me just I'll give you a feel for the flow, and then
Penny Pollan: maybe some nuggets will emerge as we go through. So I
Penny Pollan: talk through some of my own horror stories, you know, the
Penny Pollan: complete disasters, and I got some other people to share theirs as
Penny Pollan: well, But also some
Penny Pollan: stories that should be really inspiring, where where things have worked
Penny Pollan: out incredibly well through using some of the ideas
Penny Pollan: that I talk about later.
Penny Pollan: I've got a whole chunk around that bit we were talking about,
Penny Pollan: which is about how can you be a a workshop leader or
Penny Pollan: facilitator? How do you go from that,
Penny Pollan: I've gotta be in control mode to something more productive where you
Penny Pollan: have all your brain available to think other than, just
Penny Pollan: running around going, ah, I've gotta be in control.
Penny Pollan: There's a whole chapter around what makes people tick. So
Penny Pollan: that's people in your workshop, but also yourself as a workshop leader.
Penny Pollan: So a little bit of neuroscience, social psychology, stuff like that in there as
Penny Pollan: well. There's, it then
Penny Pollan: goes through the planning, running the
Penny Pollan: meeting, well, planning, choosing the activities, then running the
Penny Pollan: meeting, getting actions to happen afterwards. There's a whole chapter of all
Penny Pollan: lots of complications, and loads of people contributed
Penny Pollan: complications that had happened to them. So there's lots of very practical
Penny Pollan: stories for both in person, but
Penny Pollan: also virtual and hybrid examples. And then it finishes
Penny Pollan: off with 3 lovely case studies of people who, are using
Penny Pollan: workshops to great effect in very different ways and in very different
Penny Pollan: industries. So that's the book.
Joanne Lockwood: And that's out in July, is that right? July
Penny Pollan: 13th, it comes out as a printed book. But,
Penny Pollan: on July 12th, just that
Penny Pollan: day, not the day after, even if you plead with me,
Penny Pollan: because it's all done by the publishers, on
Penny Pollan: July 12th, they're going to drop the Kindle price to 99p
Penny Pollan: just for one day.
Joanne Lockwood: So So that should be about a week after this
Joanne Lockwood: podcast episode drops. So put it in your
Joanne Lockwood: diary now so that you It's a Monday. It's a Monday. So
Joanne Lockwood: this will this it should launch on a Thursday, so 3 days'
Joanne Lockwood: time. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. So the Monday after this,
Penny Pollan: Monday 12th July, the 99p offer is
Penny Pollan: there. I mean, it's still very good
Penny Pollan: for £20, which is the normal price. But I just
Penny Pollan: thought people might like, you know, to have that. Or if you fancy the the
Joanne Lockwood: paperback and the the the real print, invest in it, or
Joanne Lockwood: if you just want a quick preview, read the nice IP version on Kindle.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Great bargain. And there will also be a
Penny Pollan: a color workbook to download, that you can actually
Penny Pollan: write your own stuff in for the whole planning,
Penny Pollan: and preparing part, with lots of examples as well of doing things
Penny Pollan: very visually, which I hope will be helpful.
Joanne Lockwood: Well, I'm looking forward to that. I'm gonna put my diary to
Joanne Lockwood: remind myself to, on the on 12th, on the Monday to
Joanne Lockwood: have a look at that. Yeah. So so what's your vision for the
Joanne Lockwood: future? We we're living in this changing world. We've
Joanne Lockwood: got hybrid. We've got in person. We've
Joanne Lockwood: got return to the office. Where do you see the world going,
Joanne Lockwood: and and how do we adapt and and and
Joanne Lockwood: not ignore what we've learned? Oh, we need to not
Penny Pollan: ignore what we learned. The thing is this whole thing about how people work
Penny Pollan: effectively together, the core is the same, whether you're
Penny Pollan: virtual or hybrid or in person,
Penny Pollan: it's about helping each person to do their best work.
Penny Pollan: That is really dead simple, and it's also really complicated, but
Penny Pollan: it is that simple. If we can look at everybody to do their
Penny Pollan: own best work and to interrelate with everybody
Penny Pollan: else as effectively as they possibly can and work together
Penny Pollan: to produce amazing stuff. Doesn't matter if we're
Penny Pollan: hybrid or virtual or in person. That's the challenge.
Joanne Lockwood: Jo. It it is so obvious. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: We know the facts don't change people. We know that we shouldn't
Joanne Lockwood: drive too fast. We shouldn't eat too much red meat. We shouldn't drink too much.
Joanne Lockwood: We still do. And we still don't really
Joanne Lockwood: appreciate how to motivate people, to engage people, how to get
Joanne Lockwood: people on our side and create that sense of belonging. We still struggle with that,
Joanne Lockwood: don't we? And that's I guess that's our own human nature. If everybody
Joanne Lockwood: was the same and everybody could do that,
Joanne Lockwood: there'd be something else we hadn't considered.
Penny Pollan: Well, hope that's probably why I'm using so many
Penny Pollan: stories in in the books that I write because I think,
Penny Pollan: yes, I can present the facts and I can present checklists and tips and
Penny Pollan: all sorts of ways to make it as easy as possible. I think the most
Penny Pollan: powerful thing that people remember are the stories
Penny Pollan: of the differences can make, and also what happens when it
Penny Pollan: all goes horribly wrong. And some of the most horrific stories are
Penny Pollan: ones when I was in charge. I actually once shouted at an
Penny Pollan: American lawyer in a very high powered meeting
Penny Pollan: in Brussels with all these very senior people. I shouted, shut up.
Penny Pollan: Anyway, I analyze it in the book, not quite as long as I've analyzed it
Penny Pollan: in the past, I think, 15 years or so.
Penny Pollan: Anyway, it's not what I advocate. But lots of little things like that
Penny Pollan: just bring it to life and make it real.
Joanne Lockwood: That must have been kind of horrifying but gratifying.
Joanne Lockwood: Did you get did you get looks around the table going, well said?
Penny Pollan: I was horrified, and I thought, oh, no. I have
Penny Pollan: committed the ultimate sin as a workshop facilitator.
Penny Pollan: I can remember looking around and they and what I saw in everybody else's
Penny Pollan: faces was relief. We had 60
Penny Pollan: minutes, and this guy had spoken for, what, 10 minutes and
Penny Pollan: 32 seconds, and other people had been trying to say something, and he just carried
Penny Pollan: on.
Penny Pollan: But but I was so shocked that I'd actually said something so awful
Penny Pollan: and been so disrespectful. I was completely flabbergasted.
Joanne Lockwood: But we do find those people at our workshops, don't we? But they ask a
Joanne Lockwood: question. They actually launch into a huge monologue, which is all
Joanne Lockwood: about their opinion or their thoughts on how they would do it differently.
Joanne Lockwood: And you wonder where the question is. Yeah. He didn't say anything for
Penny Pollan: the rest of the meeting, and I apologize afterwards. But actually, he
Penny Pollan: funny enough, he's only really an observer. He wasn't even a core part
Penny Pollan: of the
Joanne Lockwood: So if people wanna get a hold of you, I mean, we talked about your
Joanne Lockwood: book coming out in July, 99 PM Kindle
Joanne Lockwood: or or go for the full paperback if you want to with with the downloadable
Joanne Lockwood: workbook. But what how do people get ahold of you?
Penny Pollan: LinkedIn or website? They can get the workbook if they, if
Penny Pollan: they get the Kindle as well. I probably shouldn't be, saying that today. Yeah. If
Penny Pollan: people want to get hold of me, Penny Poulan, p u, double
Penny Pollan: l, a n, not e n. If you type that anywhere
Penny Pollan: into Google or LinkedIn or anything like that, Twitter, I'm the only one,
Penny Pollan: as far as I know in the world, may at least the only one
Penny Pollan: who's who's really
Penny Pollan: producing books and writing and talking. It would be lovely to connect.
Penny Pollan: If you want to connect with me though, please do introduce yourself because I get
Penny Pollan: loads of connections that, I tend to only
Penny Pollan: interact with those who actually say, hi,
Penny Pollan: I've heard Joanne's podcast and I've got some questions. If you
Penny Pollan: connect like that on LinkedIn or send me an email or leave
Penny Pollan: a contact message on my website, which is www.makingprojectswork.co.u
Penny Pollan: k. There should be apennypullen.com as well when this
Penny Pollan: goes live. So if there isn't, then there's
Penny Pollan: Spanner in the works with website presence. But, anyway,
Penny Pollan: hopefully, it should be easy for you to find me, and I would love to
Penny Pollan: hear what you have to say and to respond.
Joanne Lockwood: I can confirm. I have as you were speaking, I have Googled you,
Joanne Lockwood: and you do occupy the first page of Twitter almost exclusive
Joanne Lockwood: sorry. 1st page of Google almost exclusively. So you are easy
Joanne Lockwood: to find. Jo, yeah, p u. A n. Almost
Penny Pollan: exclusively. How do you find anyone else with
Penny Pollan: the same name? Because I haven't so far, but you never know. There might be
Penny Pollan: an n one. You're right. I have there is nobody else on that list. So
Joanne Lockwood: the first page, you do own it in various
Joanne Lockwood: guises whether it's your book, as a speaker,
Joanne Lockwood: on Amazon, or another site. So, yeah, you're quite correct. You
Joanne Lockwood: are the only one on the first two pages. So, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: that's it's very handy when you own
Joanne Lockwood: your name in terms of marketing and brand and PR, isn't it?
Joanne Lockwood: So yeah, you are the only one, which is fantastic.
Joanne Lockwood: Easy to find it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I've got a friend called
Penny Pollan: Alison Jones, who's actually the public owner of the publishers of my
Penny Pollan: book. And I think there are lots
Penny Pollan: of Alison Joneses, whereas Penny Pullen.
Penny Pollan: Yeah, thanks to my husband. He Pullen's spelled
Penny Pollan: strangely. There is a Penny Pullen, but that's not me.
Joanne Lockwood: Jo I've just been to your website, making projects work, and I can see there
Joanne Lockwood: your virtual leadership book, your little bio, your search and
Joanne Lockwood: case studies. So that's, yeah, good stuff. There's some plenty of information. People want to
Joanne Lockwood: find out more about you there or on LinkedIn, or
Joanne Lockwood: Twitter. I follow you everywhere. So, yeah, anyone
Joanne Lockwood: listening, please do get in contact with Penny. Please do do
Joanne Lockwood: buy her book. She'd love that. And then tell her how much you've enjoyed it
Joanne Lockwood: and how you put it into practice. I think that's the feedback that every author
Joanne Lockwood: wants, isn't it? Or if you disagree if you disagree,
Penny Pollan: that'd be great too. Yeah. Absolutely fantastic. Yes.
Joanne Lockwood: For sure. So thanks, Penny.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm sure the listeners would agree. There's lots of inspiration, lots to
Joanne Lockwood: ponder there, and some resources that people can get hold of if they want to
Joanne Lockwood: find out more. So huge thanks, to
Joanne Lockwood: you, the listeners, for tuning in, for listening, for coming
Joanne Lockwood: back. So do subscribe if you're a first timer,
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Joanne Lockwood: inspired by them over the next few weeks, Please do subscribe.
Joanne Lockwood: And of course, if you're listening and you'd love to be a guest, then drop
Joanne Lockwood: me a line to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.
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Joanne Lockwood: we hate. And finally, my name is Joanne Lockwood, and
Joanne Lockwood: it's been an absolute pleasure Diversus podcast for you today.
Joanne Lockwood: Catch you next time. Bye.