Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood, and I'm your host for the
Joanne Lockwood: Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I have interviewed a
Joanne Lockwood: number of amazing people, have simply had a conversation about the subject
Joanne Lockwood: of inclusion, belonging and generally making the world a better
Joanne Lockwood: place for everyone to thrive. If you'd like to join me in the
Joanne Lockwood: future, then please do drop me a line to jo.lockwood@changehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: That's S-E-E Change Happen dot co dot uk. You can
Joanne Lockwood: catch up with all of the previous shows on iTunes, Spotify and
Joanne Lockwood: the usual places. So plug in the headphones, grab
Joanne Lockwood: a decaf and let's get going. Today
Joanne Lockwood: is episode 39 with the title, Viewing
Joanne Lockwood: Gender Through A Fresh Perspective. And I have the
Joanne Lockwood: absolute honor and privilege to be joined by Antoinette Dale Henderson.
Joanne Lockwood: Antoinette describes herself as a TEDx speaker, a two time
Joanne Lockwood: author and founder of the Gravitas program. When
Joanne Lockwood: I asked Antoinette to describe her superpower, she said,
Joanne Lockwood: she always chooses to see the best in people, and her superpower
Joanne Lockwood: is enabling others to see that in themselves. Hello, Antoinette.
Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to the show. Hello, Joanne. It's amazing to be
Antoinette Dale Henderson: here. I've been looking forward to this. We've known each other
Joanne Lockwood: a couple of years and through Lockwood, we've not had the chance to catch up.
Joanne Lockwood: So this is gonna be really amazing. So thank you for coming on. I'm looking
Antoinette Dale Henderson: forward to it. So I call this episode Viewing Gender Through a Fresh
Joanne Lockwood: Perspective. What does that mean to you? Well, it's
Antoinette Dale Henderson: interesting because I have, over the past
Antoinette Dale Henderson: 3 years or so, found myself working more and more
Antoinette Dale Henderson: in the space of, helping lead women in
Antoinette Dale Henderson: leadership really further their careers. And and that really
Antoinette Dale Henderson: came as a result of my work in the corporate world. So
Antoinette Dale Henderson: I've worked with men and women, anybody. And,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: you know, what what I noticed was that it was often women who are coming
Antoinette Dale Henderson: to me and saying, I'm experiencing confidence issues. I'm in
Antoinette Dale Henderson: experiencing, you know, that second pandemic of 21st
Antoinette Dale Henderson: century. I'm experiencing imposter syndrome or
Antoinette Dale Henderson: I'm really holding myself back and I I need your help. And
Antoinette Dale Henderson: so I was inspired, probably about 3 years ago
Antoinette Dale Henderson: to to start looking at how I could put together some
Antoinette Dale Henderson: programs and and really some solutions to help further women in
Antoinette Dale Henderson: business. And that coincided with the whole me too movement where,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: women started to call out really inappropriate behavior and and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: stand up for themselves and and and say enough is enough.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And then at the same time, looking at, the gender pay gap
Antoinette Dale Henderson: that that was also starting to happen about 2 years ago.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And so that inspired me to write my second
Antoinette Dale Henderson: book which is, Power Up, The Smart Women's Guide
Antoinette Dale Henderson: to Unleashing Their Perspective. And and so that's
Antoinette Dale Henderson: gone really, really well. And and the TEDx came out of that book
Antoinette Dale Henderson: and, you know, there's been a big focus for me. Now as I say, I
Antoinette Dale Henderson: I work with everyone, particularly in the leadership space, but
Antoinette Dale Henderson: I did find myself working more and more with women and and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: really looking at that theme of gender
Antoinette Dale Henderson: equality. And my take on on
Antoinette Dale Henderson: power is that I think traditionally that there's different
Antoinette Dale Henderson: perspectives on what power is. So you you've got the most traditionally
Antoinette Dale Henderson: masculine powers. She's very strong and directive and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: powerful. And then you've got the more female power which is
Antoinette Dale Henderson: traditionally more about emotion intelligence and influence. And
Antoinette Dale Henderson: you can even hear through my voice when I describe each of those two ends
Antoinette Dale Henderson: of the spectrum. You know, that there's a much more of a softness
Antoinette Dale Henderson: associated with the with the perception around, female
Antoinette Dale Henderson: power. And and I'd I'd thought, well, why on earth should it be like that?
Antoinette Dale Henderson: Why shouldn't everyone be able to access that full range? Why
Antoinette Dale Henderson: couldn't why shouldn't everyone learn from everyone else and be able to tap into their
Antoinette Dale Henderson: full ranges of power? And so,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: yeah, a lot of the perspective was around why should it be
Antoinette Dale Henderson: polarizing? Why should it be binary? Why should it be one thing or
Antoinette Dale Henderson: another? And so I was already started to look at at at what
Antoinette Dale Henderson: gender is and what it means. But still at the same time, you know, I
Antoinette Dale Henderson: was talking about men and women and and looking at it through fresh eyes, this
Antoinette Dale Henderson: has been a very, very recent thing for me. Because clearly, I mean, we we
Antoinette Dale Henderson: met about 3 years ago, didn't we? And I I saw you speak and you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: moved me to tears actually the first time I saw you speak, Joanne.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And listening to your perspective and your
Antoinette Dale Henderson: story and the people that you work with and represent and and the
Antoinette Dale Henderson: whole perspective around trans and non binary and what that means
Antoinette Dale Henderson: already started to just open up my eyes. And then more
Antoinette Dale Henderson: recently, I've got 2 daughters. Right? 14,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: 17. And my youngest, the 14 year old, more recently
Antoinette Dale Henderson: has started to they both go well,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: she goes to a girl school. The other one has moved on. She now
Antoinette Dale Henderson: goes to what originally was a boys school and now is mixed because she's doing
Antoinette Dale Henderson: a doubles. But the point is is that what what she was doing
Antoinette Dale Henderson: was, starting to question why is it that teachers should
Antoinette Dale Henderson: refer to them all as girls And why is it that
Antoinette Dale Henderson: that it should be so simple as the 2 pronouns? And
Antoinette Dale Henderson: and how about, you know, opening up people's eyes and the teachers and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: the
Antoinette Dale Henderson: the whoever they are, and however they are. And so that that's
Antoinette Dale Henderson: really the fresh perspective on gender
Antoinette Dale Henderson: that that really my eyes are being opened up to now through my
Antoinette Dale Henderson: own children and through where I think the world is going.
Joanne Lockwood: That's fascinating to hear because we as parents often
Joanne Lockwood: feel we're the ones to do the educating. But what
Joanne Lockwood: we're learning now is that we are learning so much more from our children
Joanne Lockwood: about their world and about their
Joanne Lockwood: future. And we're now more responsive. And I think maybe
Joanne Lockwood: when we Jo back to our childhood, we didn't believe as children, we had that
Joanne Lockwood: empowerment that we would tend to do as we're told if we
Joanne Lockwood: don't speak, if they're not spoken to, it's kind of attitude. But now we're now
Joanne Lockwood: empowering our children in different ways to speak up. That's
Antoinette Dale Henderson: right. And, and I think that's a beautiful thing.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And and I'm so grateful. I trained to be a coach when
Antoinette Dale Henderson: my youngest was about 2. And I'm so grateful that I did
Antoinette Dale Henderson: that because when I did that, I learned to really
Antoinette Dale Henderson: listen and learn to really just have that curiosity
Antoinette Dale Henderson: around the fact that everyone is different and everyone deserves the right
Antoinette Dale Henderson: to have their own opinions and to be able to express it, which kind of
Antoinette Dale Henderson: inspires a lot of what I do in my professional world.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And so I learn and I trained to do that.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And and I really hope that that kind of finds its
Antoinette Dale Henderson: way into the way that I I am a parent and and how
Antoinette Dale Henderson: I, yeah, how I do empower my young the young people
Antoinette Dale Henderson: around me. It's it's taken
Joanne Lockwood: several centuries of programming by
Joanne Lockwood: the state, by the media, by Hollywood
Joanne Lockwood: to just reinforce this gender binary. The the
Joanne Lockwood: brave strong man and the soft fragrant
Joanne Lockwood: woman, if you like. And that's been reinforced. You look at some of
Joanne Lockwood: the the Disney cartoons of yesteryear, the Snow White, the
Joanne Lockwood: Prince Charming, the the helpless woman, the saved
Joanne Lockwood: saved by the man, slay the dragon stuff. We've really
Joanne Lockwood: had that programmed into us for for decades decades
Joanne Lockwood: decades. And it's really hard to overcome those stereotypes now, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? It really is. But I think it it is interesting
Antoinette Dale Henderson: that corporates are waking up to the
Antoinette Dale Henderson: potential of not thinking that way. I think it's Pixar. I think they've
Antoinette Dale Henderson: got a new movie that they've come out where they've got a a non binary,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: person who's being featured and and and then you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: look at some of the toy manufacturers and then they're they're less like
Antoinette Dale Henderson: that. You know, you you'll have you'll have a mix up. You
Antoinette Dale Henderson: might just have the barbies with, like, the big boobs and the tiny little waist
Antoinette Dale Henderson: and the kind of pink outfit and all of that, but they are mixing up
Antoinette Dale Henderson: a lot more now. And so I think that it's it's all accelerating.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: So I'm I'm fascinated to to be able to kind of project into the
Antoinette Dale Henderson: future to see where we're all going. But I think
Antoinette Dale Henderson: if I if I look back to when I was, a child
Antoinette Dale Henderson: and going through being being a teenager and stuff like that, I mean, being gay
Antoinette Dale Henderson: was illegal. Right? And, you know, and it and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: hidden away. My my uncle was gay and he died of AIDS.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And at that time, my parents could not tell anybody.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: You know, it was secret. It was taboo and it was
Antoinette Dale Henderson: so and and now, you know, that that's at least
Antoinette Dale Henderson: in my my view and and the world that I operate in, that that just
Antoinette Dale Henderson: isn't even a thing anymore. So I think everything is changing.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And I think if if we want to really live in this world, we we
Antoinette Dale Henderson: all need to kinda go into it with an open mind.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: Yeah. I mean, do you think the part of work is
Joanne Lockwood: is really evolving and changing? I mean, I read Mary Porter's
Joanne Lockwood: book, you know, Work Like a Woman. Yeah. I've got it. Yeah. There seems to
Joanne Lockwood: be that perception that in order to succeed as a
Joanne Lockwood: woman, you have to almost adopt male's traits,
Joanne Lockwood: the loudness, the confidence. As you said, the
Joanne Lockwood: feminine powerhouse for EQ and collaboration
Joanne Lockwood: differences skills. Are we losing that sometimes
Joanne Lockwood: when we're trying to create a violence where women feel they have to succeed
Joanne Lockwood: as a man with male traits Or are we are we able to
Joanne Lockwood: push back? I think that has traditionally been the
Antoinette Dale Henderson: case. And and I know that there are people out there who will will
Antoinette Dale Henderson: train women to, speak with a deeper voice or
Antoinette Dale Henderson: to look at bringing in more sort of masculine clothing
Antoinette Dale Henderson: and but I actually think that's, I think that I hope that that's
Antoinette Dale Henderson: in the past now. And so I think the
Antoinette Dale Henderson: more enlightened corporates that are much more open minded
Antoinette Dale Henderson: when it comes to that kind of thing now. You know, I work with
Antoinette Dale Henderson: with men and women. And what I will say is that when it comes
Antoinette Dale Henderson: to gravitas, you know, my definition of that is, you know,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: commanding, respect, getting taken seriously, standing out
Antoinette Dale Henderson: from the crowd, then you you have to think
Antoinette Dale Henderson: about your voice and you have to think about the messages that you're communicating.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And so and and I look at the difference between how approachability
Antoinette Dale Henderson: comes across and, you know, how how that comes across to your voice and you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: can already hear me as I'm saying it, you know, my voice goes lighter.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: It might it might go up at the end of the sentence because it's it's
Antoinette Dale Henderson: got that lightness. But if people want to have that credibility and that
Antoinette Dale Henderson: gravitas, then it will naturally your voice will naturally go
Antoinette Dale Henderson: down. And, you know, I I do share that with
Antoinette Dale Henderson: everybody in all my classes because it's it it it
Antoinette Dale Henderson: does make an impact. But that's not about becoming more
Antoinette Dale Henderson: man. It's it's just about playing with
Antoinette Dale Henderson: depth and gravity and seriousness and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: authority, and and that does come with with with
Antoinette Dale Henderson: having a more powerful voice. I've heard that before from
Joanne Lockwood: someone. They talked about uptalk, which is where you
Joanne Lockwood: speak, you know, higher at the end of the sentence. And that almost
Joanne Lockwood: implies a lack of confidence while you're asking a question. Mhmm. You
Joanne Lockwood: tend to finish a question with an up. And so having the power
Joanne Lockwood: and closure is always down talk, isn't it? You you you land
Joanne Lockwood: that Exactly. You to. Exactly. It's interesting. Earlier this
Antoinette Dale Henderson: week, I was I was running a session and I had 3 Aussies
Antoinette Dale Henderson: on the program. And so I was describing
Antoinette Dale Henderson: this. It's like, you know, the uptake. It does sound like every statement becomes a
Antoinette Dale Henderson: question because it it you're you're asking But you might not be
Antoinette Dale Henderson: asking. And so actually, you know, if you wanna make a point and that actually,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: you know, you you're describing the Aussie accent here.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: Whether it's Aussie or whether it's from LA or whether it's any teenager,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: you know, the uptick is yeah, I mean, you you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: don't want people to become inauthentic or sound like robots, but it's
Antoinette Dale Henderson: just knowing if you really wanna land a point. Then if your voice goes
Antoinette Dale Henderson: down at the end of the point, then it will land.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes. Completely because it's a full stop, isn't it? It really is a
Joanne Lockwood: close. And if you want to get that point, yeah, it's a
Joanne Lockwood: real divide. I made a conscious decision when I
Joanne Lockwood: gender transitioned 4, 5 years ago. I toyed with
Joanne Lockwood: my voice, the confidence I had
Joanne Lockwood: and whether I wanted to change my voice to sound more feminine because it was
Joanne Lockwood: voice coaching. And I decided that it was my
Joanne Lockwood: voice, I didn't want to change who I was that
Joanne Lockwood: much for everybody else, I changed my appearance, my
Joanne Lockwood: identity, everything else. But the thought of change in my voice,
Joanne Lockwood: it would just overburden my thought process. I'd always have to be
Joanne Lockwood: conscious of it, I was actually thinking about how I was speaking.
Joanne Lockwood: And I decided that I was gonna keep my voice and in some ways, I
Joanne Lockwood: guess it's an advantage because I still have that that deep
Joanne Lockwood: gravitas about it, but I'm not I don't uptick at the end
Joanne Lockwood: generally unless I'm asking a question. And also,
Joanne Lockwood: it does create a little bit of shock and awe when I'm on
Joanne Lockwood: Joanne, and I stand there and hold that pause at the beginning
Joanne Lockwood: before I speak. And I've had a number of people Jo who've literally sat back
Joanne Lockwood: in their chair, go, wow, where did that voice come from? Wasn't
Joanne Lockwood: expecting that to be so it's a great attention grabber. So I've
Joanne Lockwood: learned to use it to my advantage and put up with the, I feel like,
Joanne Lockwood: the misgendering or the confusion it causes negatively, if you
Joanne Lockwood: like, because our voice and the way we present is very, very
Joanne Lockwood: powerful, isn't it? It is. Yeah.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And, yeah, it's interesting. I I've I've
Antoinette Dale Henderson: I've I've thought about my voice as well. And and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: and and if you think of gravitas, you know, sometimes people's
Antoinette Dale Henderson: perception of gravitas is it's a statesmanlike. It's a
Antoinette Dale Henderson: statesmanlike quality. That's, you know, how it was originally
Antoinette Dale Henderson: defined by back in Roman times. And so
Antoinette Dale Henderson: the perception that the traditional could be is that if you've
Antoinette Dale Henderson: got gravitas, then you you are a man and, you know,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: statesmanlike qualities emerge like fine wine over the years, and you've
Antoinette Dale Henderson: got the silver hair and all of that. Clearly,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: I'm I'm never gonna be any of those things. You know, as a a
Antoinette Dale Henderson: fairly petite female, blonde female, you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: know. So but my take on it is that,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: yeah, that's great. And so one of the first edition of the book, I chose
Antoinette Dale Henderson: to put my face on the front to say, anyone can have
Antoinette Dale Henderson: gravitas. You know, it doesn't matter who you are. You know, you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: can find a way of developing it, find your own way of developing it.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And I I like that shock and awe. You know, I if you if you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: do the same as everybody else and and conform to what people are
Antoinette Dale Henderson: expecting, then you're just kinda bland. You
Antoinette Dale Henderson: become bland and you merge into the background. I
Joanne Lockwood: mean, I've asked you as I've I've had many conversations
Joanne Lockwood: with other women, you know, either in the bar after the event
Joanne Lockwood: or in coffee breaks, whatever you're taught. I've met many women
Joanne Lockwood: who have a confidence, find they're not
Joanne Lockwood: being heard. And and, of course, my
Joanne Lockwood: socialized brain is listening to the way they're talking, thinking why I
Joanne Lockwood: could completely understand why you're not getting heard because
Joanne Lockwood: you don't have any gravitas in your
Joanne Lockwood: voice. You don't have any, your sentences aren't
Joanne Lockwood: structured in a way where I know what you want. They're kind
Joanne Lockwood: of drifting and I think
Joanne Lockwood: that is some of the some of the challenge that many women I've I've spoken
Joanne Lockwood: to who have kind of lack of confidence is they don't know
Joanne Lockwood: how to be confident to start with and
Joanne Lockwood: put themselves in a situation where they speak with authority that
Joanne Lockwood: that maybe the uptick is occurring because of that nervousness or that
Joanne Lockwood: that that anxiousness they feel, that projection or or
Joanne Lockwood: being talked over maybe. Yeah. Yeah. And and I think that
Antoinette Dale Henderson: that can be the case with men and women. And and I I
Antoinette Dale Henderson: think that it it takes practice and it's absolutely
Antoinette Dale Henderson: learnable. I I think what people often do is they they feel like once
Antoinette Dale Henderson: they finally got the spotlight, they feel like they they they go overboard. They're
Antoinette Dale Henderson: trying to justify. They had all of the information and they just they
Antoinette Dale Henderson: go around the houses and and the the nuggets of information
Antoinette Dale Henderson: or they they get lost. I think when it
Antoinette Dale Henderson: comes to women and and when I wrote the book, Power Up, I
Antoinette Dale Henderson: I I was really clear that I wanted to get tangible
Antoinette Dale Henderson: evidence and and real research to back up what I was saying
Antoinette Dale Henderson: because I, you know, I wanted to make sure that it it the
Antoinette Dale Henderson: research demonstrates this and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And female conditioning, you know, the way the girls are brought up like you were
Antoinette Dale Henderson: talk talking about before, you know, we we do. We get hold to sit
Antoinette Dale Henderson: still, be quiet, not make a fuss, you know, be pretty,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: you know, go play nicely, and and girls are, you know, girls are
Antoinette Dale Henderson: encouraged and conditioned in that way. Whereas boys, you know, they
Antoinette Dale Henderson: go run outside, play, be loud, get into
Antoinette Dale Henderson: fisticuffs, and that's almost celebrated as well. And so,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: you know, those those roles or those expectations get formed really,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: really early on. So that happens.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And then and so, you know, there's that society's conditioning. And
Antoinette Dale Henderson: so I I talk about that there's the glass ceiling
Antoinette Dale Henderson: which, you know, their society's perspectives on on to the
Antoinette Dale Henderson: extent to which women can progress and develop within within organizations and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: who is expected to be at the top of those organizations. There's
Antoinette Dale Henderson: a glass ceiling, but there's also glass bricks that
Antoinette Dale Henderson: women almost have in their own head that stop themselves from
Antoinette Dale Henderson: putting themselves out there. So that conditioning, things like perfectionism,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: imposter syndrome, trying too hard, being the
Antoinette Dale Henderson: good girl. These are all glass breaks which get in the way. So it's not
Antoinette Dale Henderson: surprisingly that when the woman finally gets a chance to speak,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: it comes out jumbled and there's all of this stuff that gets in the way.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: But it doesn't mean that it has to be the case. You know, it it
Antoinette Dale Henderson: is about how do you learn to overcome that? How do you structure your thinking?
Antoinette Dale Henderson: How did you get clarity in your thinking? And how do you use some of
Antoinette Dale Henderson: those techniques around being heard? Things like pausing
Antoinette Dale Henderson: to make sure your message lands. I
Joanne Lockwood: completely agree. I I've had so many more
Joanne Lockwood: conversations with other women in the last 3 or 4 years than I ever had
Joanne Lockwood: in in earlier in my life. And I've met some amazingly
Joanne Lockwood: strong powerful women who don't speak loudly. They
Joanne Lockwood: don't speak with any aggression or pushiness.
Joanne Lockwood: But they're just so thoughtful, so considered, and they
Joanne Lockwood: really are at the top of their game. And they show me
Joanne Lockwood: every day that you can succeed by really
Joanne Lockwood: being authentic and feminine, but know your mind.
Joanne Lockwood: And I'm not saying don't suffer fools,
Joanne Lockwood: but be wary of the fact that people are going to maybe look
Joanne Lockwood: down at you or undervalue you, hold your ground, hold that strain and
Joanne Lockwood: and say, Jo, I am good enough and my opinion is valid
Joanne Lockwood: and as I have lots of conversation with women And I really
Joanne Lockwood: see that and respect that in them. And it's
Antoinette Dale Henderson: Yeah. And and and it's learned though. It's for all of us,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: it's land. It it comes over time. But I think, you know, that they're
Antoinette Dale Henderson: more powerful blockers in the way for women because of what I've just described
Antoinette Dale Henderson: there than there are for men. And and I meet a lot of women
Antoinette Dale Henderson: who say, oh god. I wish I've met you 30 years ago. You know, I've
Antoinette Dale Henderson: I've wasted so much time getting in my own way.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: If only I knew some of these things when I was in my twenties,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: a lot of meandering, you know, career wise
Antoinette Dale Henderson: or or or vocally, you know, wouldn't have happened.
Joanne Lockwood: Is it is it a male trait that men tend
Joanne Lockwood: to be more competitive or
Joanne Lockwood: more, feudalistic towards each other? There's a
Joanne Lockwood: lot more jockeying for hierarchy
Joanne Lockwood: within within men that is about winning,
Joanne Lockwood: conflicting,
Joanne Lockwood: difficult to say more collaborative, more nurturing, more nurturing, more respectful
Joanne Lockwood: of each other Jo we don't tend to get into those conflict
Joanne Lockwood: conversations with each other. And men have been practicing this
Joanne Lockwood: kind of bravado and socialized into that, which is
Joanne Lockwood: why maybe women struggled in those in those environments where they need to
Joanne Lockwood: have a conflict or be forthright. That
Joanne Lockwood: is a natural skill they've learned over the years. Yeah. Spot
Antoinette Dale Henderson: on. And so, you know, I
Antoinette Dale Henderson: think it's it's how do you approach conflict or challenging conversations? Do you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: go into them knowingly and,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: choose to put yourself out there or or do you shy away from
Antoinette Dale Henderson: them altogether. So that that there's that. It's the choice. It's
Antoinette Dale Henderson: how you behave, but it's also what happens afterwards. Because what often
Antoinette Dale Henderson: happens with women is that we'll hold on to things.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: We'll we'll replay things that have happened and and we'll,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: yeah, we'll and whereas men will just kinda let them go. It's like there was
Antoinette Dale Henderson: a conflict. There was a there was a disagreement. There was a a bit of
Antoinette Dale Henderson: sparring, and then it's just gone. Whereas women would just hold on
Antoinette Dale Henderson: to that, and it will stop them from it then going into a similar situation
Antoinette Dale Henderson: after. Yeah. I I see that from both sides.
Joanne Lockwood: From both sides of my life, I I see the difference
Joanne Lockwood: in Okay. The way that conversations are closed and
Joanne Lockwood: resolved. As you say, a couple of
Joanne Lockwood: broken noses and it's sat on the back in a pint and and it's
Joanne Lockwood: forgotten. Whereas women, it's a it's a lifelong, lifelong,
Joanne Lockwood: disagreement and it's really hard to resolve that cold argument, isn't it? The whole
Joanne Lockwood: argument resolved quickly. The cold arguments, once they freeze,
Joanne Lockwood: they kinda set in, and it's really hard to Jo overcome those.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: Yeah. And I think yeah. And and when women
Antoinette Dale Henderson: don't do that, that perhaps if they if they are colder or
Antoinette Dale Henderson: harder or more direct or stronger,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: then they they'll get labeled in in all different ways. So they're like
Antoinette Dale Henderson: either get labeled a bitch or they'll get labeled a, you know,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: a tyrant or they'll get labeled a a queen bee.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And, and so, you know, a queen bee's, I guess, syndrome is a slightly
Antoinette Dale Henderson: different thing because, you know, a woman has sort of decided to kind of put
Antoinette Dale Henderson: herself in that position and and she'll she'll trample over other
Antoinette Dale Henderson: people to get to that place. So that's a slightly different thing.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: But you you kinda question what would be different
Antoinette Dale Henderson: if it were a man evidencing those kinds of behaviors. And, actually, would those
Antoinette Dale Henderson: behaviors end up getting celebrated and and enable that person to
Antoinette Dale Henderson: kinda rise up through the ranks, as opposed to being held
Antoinette Dale Henderson: back. I don't know. It's, you know, expectations of what we think is the right
Antoinette Dale Henderson: way to be and and isn't. And I think, you know, the fresh pair of
Antoinette Dale Henderson: eyes thing is thinking, well, why should it be like that? Why should any of
Antoinette Dale Henderson: it be like that? Why can't we all celebrate, you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: know, all of our differences? You think about emotional
Antoinette Dale Henderson: intelligence, I I actually think that that is a superpower that we
Antoinette Dale Henderson: all need to develop and, progress with.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And I remember running a session a few years ago now, but it was for
Antoinette Dale Henderson: an investment bank, and it was all men, 20 men and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: me. And it's like, right. Today, we're going to
Antoinette Dale Henderson: explore in emotional intelligence. And you could see 20
Antoinette Dale Henderson: pairs of eyes all rolling. It's like, what is this fluffy stuff I'm gonna talk
Antoinette Dale Henderson: about now? What was she gonna be banging on about now? You know, and it's
Antoinette Dale Henderson: and and I don't think it has changed. I think it is evolving but
Antoinette Dale Henderson: still there's that association that we place on
Antoinette Dale Henderson: the more intuitive hours that that they're softer or they're
Antoinette Dale Henderson: lighter or that they're less valuable. Actually, I think the reverse is
Antoinette Dale Henderson: true. I'll just pick up what you're saying
Joanne Lockwood: about when we try to introduce men to the fluffier side of
Joanne Lockwood: of EQ. And it reminds me, I was I was
Joanne Lockwood: on stage in San Francisco and I was on a panel
Joanne Lockwood: and the topic was effectively gender equality in the workplace,
Joanne Lockwood: how do we level up? And
Joanne Lockwood: I was asked the question and I I as I was asked the question, I
Joanne Lockwood: was thinking, I looked out into the room and there must be
Joanne Lockwood: 600 people, 2 blocks of 300 corridor down the
Joanne Lockwood: middle. I just looked around and said, isn't part the
Joanne Lockwood: problem that we talk about gender equality and the room is full of
Joanne Lockwood: women. There are no men in the audience. Where are the
Joanne Lockwood: men? And okay, there's probably 8 to 10 men in the entire room
Joanne Lockwood: or 600. Yeah. On a session about gender equality and
Joanne Lockwood: gender equality, racial equality, disability
Joanne Lockwood: equality is always occupied by the people with the
Joanne Lockwood: characteristic Yeah. Not by the by the allies and the enablers.
Joanne Lockwood: Mhmm. And changing the
Joanne Lockwood: wealth to be more gender equal, to give more equity to
Joanne Lockwood: women is actually a male challenge, not a
Joanne Lockwood: female challenge. We know what we need, we know what we want.
Joanne Lockwood: How do we get men to listen? How do we get men in those conversations?
Joanne Lockwood: And so it's relevant to them. It can't just be when a man has a
Joanne Lockwood: daughter, he's suddenly become too woke to the idea.
Joanne Lockwood: That's the excuse. Now I've had a daughter, I now get it. Well,
Joanne Lockwood: surely should have got it 20 years ago. Why now? Yeah.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: Yes. Yeah. And it I can relate to that so
Antoinette Dale Henderson: well. And I remember when I launched the book and that this was back in
Antoinette Dale Henderson: the day, we were actually allowed to meet in in physical rooms.
Joanne Lockwood: Long days. I know. Can't wait until we go back to that. Last
Antoinette Dale Henderson: January, I I launched PowerUp.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And we had 100 people in the room.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: Within that 100, we had, Alan Stevens,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: came, who's who's, who's a speaker and and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: a coach and a good friend of mine. And he came, and I had the
Antoinette Dale Henderson: cameraman there. He was there, and my husband was there. Right? 3
Antoinette Dale Henderson: men and 97 women and including
Antoinette Dale Henderson: my 2 daughters. And, we came to the q and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: a. And and one of the first questions was
Antoinette Dale Henderson: so, you know, it's great that we're looking at gender equality, but, you know, it
Antoinette Dale Henderson: it it's there's there's a lot of pressure on our young men these days. And
Antoinette Dale Henderson: if you look at the suicide rate and, you know, they're under a huge amount
Antoinette Dale Henderson: of pressure to how how do they need to be? What does their role need
Antoinette Dale Henderson: to be now? And and and I, you know, totally get the question. Totally agree
Antoinette Dale Henderson: with the question and answered the question. But before
Antoinette Dale Henderson: I did, I said, isn't it interesting that
Antoinette Dale Henderson: we've got a large majority of women in the audience
Antoinette Dale Henderson: here tonight? And we're talking about a book that is for women.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And one of the first questions that guest gets asked is how can we make
Antoinette Dale Henderson: it better for our men? And so
Antoinette Dale Henderson: that as well, it's like kind of preaching to the converted
Antoinette Dale Henderson: that you were describing, but also we we, as women,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: we wanna make sure everybody is okay almost to the detriment of
Antoinette Dale Henderson: ourselves. So back to the question of,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: how how can we turn that around and and does it always have to
Antoinette Dale Henderson: be when a man on the board has had a daughter who's had an
Antoinette Dale Henderson: experience who then has a word that he then thinks, oh, yeah. Maybe we should
Antoinette Dale Henderson: look at that. You know, maybe we should look at our quotas.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: You know, what what can we do? And what I find when I'm
Antoinette Dale Henderson: when I'm invited to work in organizations, and I don't know whether you get the
Antoinette Dale Henderson: same thing, but often I get invited by, you know, where
Antoinette Dale Henderson: the gender equality group or or where, you know, we're running a
Antoinette Dale Henderson: session for International Women's Day. And so, you know, it's
Antoinette Dale Henderson: like there is sort of bolt on
Antoinette Dale Henderson: grassroots kind of group of people who want to do something about it.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And so they they have, I guess, a minimal share of voice and a and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: minimal budget to pay for. And I'm like, what if if you do really
Antoinette Dale Henderson: wanna do that, then you need to do top down, bottom up, grassroots, but
Antoinette Dale Henderson: also from the side as well where you're looking at changing policies. You know, you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: look at you need to look at the entire infrastructure of an organization,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: whichever element of diversity and inclusion we're talking about here.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And so, yeah, I I think it does require
Antoinette Dale Henderson: people to push back and and go to,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: actually, what are the business benefits of doing this? You know, if you if you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: look at a truly diverse, and inclusive workplace, look at
Antoinette Dale Henderson: the increased engagement, the increased,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: retention of staff. You you look at the the results that people are delivering
Antoinette Dale Henderson: and and, you know, you look at the staff surveys and look how happy and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: fulfilled people are. Measure. You know, use the
Antoinette Dale Henderson: data to compare. That's how you do it.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: You can hear me Yeah. I mean fired up about this.
Joanne Lockwood: Greg, picking up on something else you're saying earlier about me too movement and how
Joanne Lockwood: that kind of put a fire in your belly as well.
Joanne Lockwood: And we still are not making tangible progress, aren't we?
Joanne Lockwood: We thought it was a middle aged old white
Joanne Lockwood: man problem. And now Noel Clarke, the
Joanne Lockwood: BAFTA award winning Black actor, producer, director,
Joanne Lockwood: a younger person, a millennial is now
Joanne Lockwood: being called into question about his own treatment of his
Joanne Lockwood: female colleagues, people who are subordinate or whatever it may be.
Joanne Lockwood: So it's not just an old white man problem. Is it what we were talking
Joanne Lockwood: about 2 or 3 years ago. Mhmm.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: Yeah. There there's something going wrong there, isn't there? You know,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: that you you think about the role models and how they're behaving and and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: what was perhaps perceived as okay before or or actually
Antoinette Dale Henderson: what's happening that's that's making people think that it's okay to behave like
Antoinette Dale Henderson: that. And and and there's been
Antoinette Dale Henderson: yeah. That there's there's been some dramas at at my my children's
Antoinette Dale Henderson: school recently, and there've been some, attempted adopted adoptions
Antoinette Dale Henderson: as well. And it's
Antoinette Dale Henderson: the way they've coming back and they're kind of reporting on how this has been
Antoinette Dale Henderson: covered in their schools and how it's being communicated is like, girls, you know, you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: need to watch out for yourselves. You You need to keep yourself safe,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: and this is happening. And and they're
Antoinette Dale Henderson: furious. It's like, why should it be on our shoulders to keep
Antoinette Dale Henderson: ourselves safe? You know, where's the education of the
Antoinette Dale Henderson: boys around what is the right way to be?
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And, you know, that that certainly is beyond my expertise. But,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: yeah, I do think it's quite interesting how,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: yeah, how how and why this is happening. You think men
Joanne Lockwood: too easily forgive other men's behaviors because maybe
Joanne Lockwood: inside their own head thinking, yeah, I could've that could've happened to me
Joanne Lockwood: or I could've overstepped. Do you think that's a
Joanne Lockwood: thing? Maybe. Maybe. You know that that phrase boys will be
Antoinette Dale Henderson: boys. Yeah. It's just such a corrosive thing to say. I don't I
Antoinette Dale Henderson: don't know. I think everyone's different And and we have Jo sort of start with
Antoinette Dale Henderson: the people that we know and the people around us, the people we love. And,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: yeah. There are people there are the proportion of men
Joanne Lockwood: who are vocal is a lot less than vocal
Joanne Lockwood: women about that. I'm not saying there aren't men talking
Joanne Lockwood: out, but most of the people talking out about Noel
Joanne Lockwood: Clark, talking out about institutional racism,
Joanne Lockwood: etcetera, etcetera, tend to be black people. Most people talk about sexism,
Joanne Lockwood: tend to be women. It's not the people who are on the
Joanne Lockwood: on the side of, I say the side of the problem, the people who
Joanne Lockwood: have influence in that space, in that privilege. Those
Joanne Lockwood: aren't the people who stand up and say, yes, I could do
Joanne Lockwood: better personally, I know I can do better and I'm gonna do better
Joanne Lockwood: from now on and I'm gonna call it out as well. So we're
Joanne Lockwood: not spreading that that momentum through
Joanne Lockwood: men, through white people, through able-bodied people. I
Joanne Lockwood: was watching a program, on the television last night with Joanne
Joanne Lockwood: from Little Mix talking about tokenism as
Joanne Lockwood: a as a Black person in the in the group and how the Sony
Joanne Lockwood: media executives wouldn't meet and talk about the fact that she
Joanne Lockwood: didn't have any black or or non white support within her crew
Joanne Lockwood: and and just how she'd be felt, how she started to be feeling she's been
Joanne Lockwood: tokenized as the token black girl for media.
Joanne Lockwood: And couple that with her gender, with her
Joanne Lockwood: sex, with the fact she's a girl, a woman, and her color,
Joanne Lockwood: we're still propagating this, and we could still see that the power is
Joanne Lockwood: held by the rich white guy still, and it's
Joanne Lockwood: propagating it. Yes. Yeah. And and absolutely. And if
Antoinette Dale Henderson: we're thinking about kinda looking, at the world through a different pair of
Antoinette Dale Henderson: eyes, of course, that that demographic that you've just described
Antoinette Dale Henderson: there, they don't see any need to look at the world through a different pair
Antoinette Dale Henderson: of eyes. And, actually, for them, it's it's threatening to do
Antoinette Dale Henderson: so because it it it just knocks side where their their whole world view and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: their whole perspective on how things are and how things should be. So do you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: know that it's fear based? And so they're gonna hold on tooth and nail to
Antoinette Dale Henderson: what they know and what they have. And so I
Antoinette Dale Henderson: do think so, with the way culture is evolving
Antoinette Dale Henderson: and and how young people most young
Antoinette Dale Henderson: people are are being educated and are thinking and are influencing
Antoinette Dale Henderson: one another. I do think that things are going to change and develop.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And, yeah. From a
Antoinette Dale Henderson: values perspective, I I think that things are
Antoinette Dale Henderson: are moving on. I think that those kinds of old fashioned behaviors and and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: perspectives, you know, that eventually before too long, those people are gonna
Antoinette Dale Henderson: retire. And and I'd like to think, you know, looking for the future
Antoinette Dale Henderson: that, you know, that will be replaced by a much more open
Antoinette Dale Henderson: minded way of looking at things. I think you're right. I think
Joanne Lockwood: there's a you say protectionism. I think there's a
Joanne Lockwood: feeling that people
Joanne Lockwood: are worried that they're gonna lose what they've got, their their cozy
Joanne Lockwood: world. They've they fought hard to get where they are. They built up
Joanne Lockwood: whatever they built up. Maybe they're concerned that people are gonna come
Joanne Lockwood: at them with pitchforks and burn their house as a as
Joanne Lockwood: a as a racist or a sexist or whatever. And maybe they are there is
Joanne Lockwood: an element of protectionism. Or maybe there's also an element of of
Joanne Lockwood: naivety or ignorance that they really don't believe the problem is
Joanne Lockwood: bad. As as people say it is, maybe the I
Joanne Lockwood: I often hear people, well, racism isn't that bad. I I I've got black friends
Joanne Lockwood: and they're not like that or I know plenty of women and they're not talking
Joanne Lockwood: in this way. And so do some women
Joanne Lockwood: almost give permission to men to say it's not that bad? Are we are we
Joanne Lockwood: is there no solidarity or when women don't experience
Joanne Lockwood: sexual abuse, discrimination, or oppression? They
Joanne Lockwood: they assume that everybody else is like them and that it's okay. They must
Joanne Lockwood: be overreacting. Maybe if they grew up and became more
Joanne Lockwood: mature, they'd be fine or they dress differently or they
Joanne Lockwood: behave differently. Are are other
Joanne Lockwood: women effectively down talking the poppers of other women?
Antoinette Dale Henderson: I I think that can certainly be the case. Yeah. And
Antoinette Dale Henderson: yeah. So so what do you do? Did you try and, like, turn around
Antoinette Dale Henderson: everybody who who is is in denial or holding back or disagreeing?
Antoinette Dale Henderson: Did you try and, like, change all of their minds or Jo would you try
Antoinette Dale Henderson: and go with the people who are who are already
Antoinette Dale Henderson: converted and and supportive of of the
Antoinette Dale Henderson: message, what do you do? And and I I actually
Antoinette Dale Henderson: think, do you know what? I think the story the the answer is about telling
Antoinette Dale Henderson: stories, Telling actual stories of people's true experiences
Antoinette Dale Henderson: and painting pictures of what it actually is like so that
Antoinette Dale Henderson: people can relate to it and and doing it rather than doing in a
Antoinette Dale Henderson: preachy way. Because if someone tells you what to think or what to
Antoinette Dale Henderson: do, you see this in social media all the time, then
Antoinette Dale Henderson: everyone is, you know, the other person is just going to dig their heels in
Antoinette Dale Henderson: and resist. Whereas, if you do it kind of round the back door through
Antoinette Dale Henderson: telling stories and evoking images and, you know,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: painting pictures, then then people are gonna be much more open
Antoinette Dale Henderson: to to starting to think about things in a different way.
Joanne Lockwood: I completely agree. I I run quite a few workshops
Joanne Lockwood: around inclusion, belonging, conscious bias. And the most powerful
Joanne Lockwood: element to those is when I have the privilege of hearing the
Joanne Lockwood: stories of people on the workshop. They're brave.
Joanne Lockwood: They stand up and say, this has happened to me. I've had people who
Joanne Lockwood: are black talking about being stopped and searched, people who are black who've talked about
Joanne Lockwood: being followed by supermarkets, other people who are black who talk about
Joanne Lockwood: various aspects of being denied access to to services or
Joanne Lockwood: just feeling like they're always a threat. I've had young women who
Joanne Lockwood: actually aren't that young, they're in their thirties, are being told down to
Joanne Lockwood: because they appear young. They're they're they're shorter. They're
Joanne Lockwood: smaller. They've got a a very young looking face or their hairstyle is
Joanne Lockwood: long, which makes them look like they're in their early twenties. And how they've
Joanne Lockwood: been passed over, spoken over, assumes they were the junior
Joanne Lockwood: when rather than being the manager. And just hearing these constant these
Joanne Lockwood: experience stories where the pattern is always the same.
Joanne Lockwood: It can't be individuals making this up. I think
Joanne Lockwood: we heard the story when we're talking about Sarah Refford, the hashtag is
Joanne Lockwood: not all men, but then that was repeated by the hashtag, yes, but it is
Joanne Lockwood: all women. Every woman has a story. Every woman
Joanne Lockwood: is could talk about how they'd be denied
Joanne Lockwood: opportunities or or there's been averse sexism. And even women that say,
Joanne Lockwood: well, I'm okay probably become socialized into believing that what
Joanne Lockwood: happened to them was was okay. It's just the way women are. That's what
Joanne Lockwood: happens to women. Yeah. Yeah.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And exactly. And and and I think when you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: start to tell those stories, then people they remember. They they
Antoinette Dale Henderson: think, actually, no, I do remember that happened to me. And in fact,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: whether whether we, you know, we represent
Antoinette Dale Henderson: powerless or we felt squashed
Antoinette Dale Henderson: or or we felt like we couldn't actually express ourselves and and we we felt
Antoinette Dale Henderson: bullied in some way. And, you know, when when you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: take people to that experience and then they relate to it, if you can
Antoinette Dale Henderson: then attach a message around, you know, how can we ensure
Antoinette Dale Henderson: that this doesn't happen to other people, that's when you start to
Antoinette Dale Henderson: inspire change. And and and for me, the
Antoinette Dale Henderson: the story that I told at the start of my TEDx, it's sort
Antoinette Dale Henderson: of an emotional story and I've never told it before and it was, my first
Antoinette Dale Henderson: day at primary school. And, so I grew up just
Antoinette Dale Henderson: speaking French. And it was my first day at school and it
Antoinette Dale Henderson: was in English school. So I I didn't understand
Antoinette Dale Henderson: anything that anyone was saying, and it was loud and people were running
Antoinette Dale Henderson: everywhere, and I didn't know where to go. And I remember lunchtime,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: I had this food put in front of me, and I was like, what on
Antoinette Dale Henderson: earth is this? And I just didn't know what to do with it because it
Antoinette Dale Henderson: was so foreign to me. And I I remember spitting
Antoinette Dale Henderson: out some of the food into a water beaker and the teacher came on
Antoinette Dale Henderson: shouting at me. What have you done? That's disgusting.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: All these children looking at me and just feeling completely powerless
Antoinette Dale Henderson: to speak or defend or say anything. That feeling
Antoinette Dale Henderson: and feeling gagged actually, you know, that feeling that you just can't
Antoinette Dale Henderson: speak. And I think that that feeling
Antoinette Dale Henderson: is the feeling that you get when someone
Antoinette Dale Henderson: is imposing their power over you and you're powerless to do something
Antoinette Dale Henderson: about it, whether you're being attacked or verbally or, you know,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: overtly or whatever it is, that feeling that you're powerless
Antoinette Dale Henderson: is is just such a horrible feeling and we have all had
Antoinette Dale Henderson: it. And I think what people some people do is when
Antoinette Dale Henderson: they when they have experienced that, they kinda toughen up and they think,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: right. My response to that is that I will never let that happen to me
Antoinette Dale Henderson: again. So they then become the person who has the
Antoinette Dale Henderson: power over others. They exert their force and their power and then it
Antoinette Dale Henderson: gets perpetuated. And so it's that feeling of
Antoinette Dale Henderson: vulnerability, that fear, I
Antoinette Dale Henderson: think, that stops people from, yeah,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: from from from allowing themselves to be vulnerable. And I think if if you if
Antoinette Dale Henderson: you tap into that, if you meet people at a place like that,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: then if you do that, you can bring people around.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I think so too. I think sure. Yeah. So
Joanne Lockwood: COVID has been a major,
Joanne Lockwood: in my opinion. It's really set
Joanne Lockwood: back gender equality in the workplace and Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: In in the home environment. We we talk about the rise of violence against
Joanne Lockwood: women and girls because of the lockdown, because of those tension
Joanne Lockwood: situations that they may have, refugees that provide support
Joanne Lockwood: out to to women who suffered domestic abuse at home.
Joanne Lockwood: But also from from a work perspective is that it set back
Joanne Lockwood: careers because women and I and this let's put
Joanne Lockwood: it out there. There are many relationships where there
Joanne Lockwood: are either same sex couples who are men. There are there are modern families
Joanne Lockwood: where the man and the woman share responsibility or the man does most of the
Joanne Lockwood: care. So I'm not talking about those great relationships. I'm talking about the the
Joanne Lockwood: typical majority of the relationships that still exist where the
Joanne Lockwood: woman is still the primary educator, the primary
Joanne Lockwood: caregiver, the primary home admin person.
Joanne Lockwood: And the extra burden through lockdown has meant that these
Joanne Lockwood: people, these women cannot focus on their career.
Joanne Lockwood: They've maybe lost their position in the queue
Joanne Lockwood: for promotion, opportunity, training,
Joanne Lockwood: development, or they're really just barely treading water in their
Joanne Lockwood: role. How how do you see that the society and the
Joanne Lockwood: work world of work correcting this because we've got to play catch up
Joanne Lockwood: now? I think you're absolutely right. I mean, you know, there's
Antoinette Dale Henderson: there's evidence to show that, the pandemic can have put,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: gender equality back by a decade for all the reasons that you've just
Antoinette Dale Henderson: described there where, in extreme cases, women have
Antoinette Dale Henderson: had or have felt like they've had to make the decision to step away from
Antoinette Dale Henderson: their career, still working altogether to take on those care,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: responsibilities, at home. And and,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: actually, another stat which is quite interesting in is that, in the
Antoinette Dale Henderson: in the pandemic, if you look at people,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: who are in research, the submission of research papers
Antoinette Dale Henderson: actually increased by men. So more men,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: submitted clinical papers, you know, research papers,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: to be published in clinical papers compared to women where the research
Antoinette Dale Henderson: papers decreased. So there's something interesting going on
Antoinette Dale Henderson: there with what people were doing with the time that they had when they were
Antoinette Dale Henderson: working from home. But as
Antoinette Dale Henderson: far as what can we do about it is concerned, you know, I certainly noticed
Antoinette Dale Henderson: coaching, women and just eyeballing them, you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: know, through the screen and seeing them in their home environment
Antoinette Dale Henderson: just at their complete wits end
Antoinette Dale Henderson: with juggling, homeschooling, and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: holding down a high powered, high
Antoinette Dale Henderson: stress Jo. And and with no time left for
Antoinette Dale Henderson: themselves at all, no time for anything, really.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And so it it's no it's no wonder that, you know, a lot of people
Antoinette Dale Henderson: have just found it too hard and and stepped away. You know, I I certainly
Antoinette Dale Henderson: remember in the career that I had, I I was in, I worked in
Antoinette Dale Henderson: PR communications before I set my business up.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: We got to sort of the age of where women were
Antoinette Dale Henderson: starting to have families and taking on career responsibilities. It's
Antoinette Dale Henderson: like, where have all the women gone? Because they would just become too hard to
Antoinette Dale Henderson: hold that down, as challenging job
Antoinette Dale Henderson: that's full of, global travel and really
Antoinette Dale Henderson: really long hours pitching the business, all of that.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: Impossible to do that with a young family which is one of the reasons why
Antoinette Dale Henderson: I set my business up actually because I just couldn't do all of that and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: have a family at the same time. Jo you you kind
Antoinette Dale Henderson: of increase you you multiply all of that with with the
Antoinette Dale Henderson: pressures that we've had over this past year, and it's no wonder that
Antoinette Dale Henderson: gender equality has been set back. What can we do about
Antoinette Dale Henderson: it? Well, I have
Antoinette Dale Henderson: observed that what a lot of the more enlightened
Antoinette Dale Henderson: organizations are doing is they're really looking
Antoinette Dale Henderson: at how can they create, an environment of trust,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: where people any, you know, people can
Antoinette Dale Henderson: work more flexibly. And as long as they're delivering results,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: you know, it doesn't matter actually how many hours they're doing or how
Antoinette Dale Henderson: they're doing or where they're doing. None of it matters as long as they're delivering
Antoinette Dale Henderson: results. So I I think that the more successful
Antoinette Dale Henderson: organizations and the more attractive organizations are people are are gonna be the
Antoinette Dale Henderson: ones which are going to make life easier for people
Antoinette Dale Henderson: as a result of the pandemic because in that sense, we've got the pandemic
Antoinette Dale Henderson: to thank for that. Hopefully, cultural change within organizations is
Antoinette Dale Henderson: gonna move in that direction. I hope you're right.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm still seeing so many examples of
Joanne Lockwood: workplace trying to fall back into the traditional back to
Joanne Lockwood: the office, and there's still this kind of if I can't see you, I
Joanne Lockwood: can't trust you. That command and control, that old
Joanne Lockwood: school way of working where we measure people on
Joanne Lockwood: presenteeism, time sat at the desk.
Joanne Lockwood: We're still not even after even after the pandemic, we're still
Joanne Lockwood: still haven't learned about how they can manage
Joanne Lockwood: people asynchronously, set set work, set milestones,
Joanne Lockwood: set objectives, not being constantly in
Joanne Lockwood: interactive meetings. We can message people
Joanne Lockwood: and get responses tomorrow. Set the agenda so that you don't
Joanne Lockwood: have to keep track on everybody day by day or minute by minute.
Joanne Lockwood: But this this is still going on, and I I see so much pressure now
Joanne Lockwood: to push people back into the office without considering the anxiety. I
Joanne Lockwood: mean, we're still even on the news today and last night, we're talking about this
Joanne Lockwood: Indian variant variant of the COVID.
Joanne Lockwood: I would predict we're still not gonna be allowed on
Joanne Lockwood: public transport or in shops without masks
Joanne Lockwood: for a while, wherever that while may be. So
Joanne Lockwood: people's journey to work isn't gonna be as it was. People's
Joanne Lockwood: workplace experience isn't as it was. You know, there's no longer do
Joanne Lockwood: we get each other coffee because we have to have our own cup. There's
Joanne Lockwood: glass screens around everything, there's we're social distancing our office.
Joanne Lockwood: So people have got anxiety now about going back into the
Joanne Lockwood: workplace. And just by the very
Joanne Lockwood: nature of how women we are socialized, we have more anxiety
Joanne Lockwood: because we're worried about our impact on others, our caring
Joanne Lockwood: responsibilities, our elderly parents, our children.
Joanne Lockwood: We're not self centered. We're not just a
Joanne Lockwood: man often just thinks about themselves and go, I'll be fine and
Joanne Lockwood: minimizes the risk. So the difference in approach to return to the office
Joanne Lockwood: is completely different from a from a gender perspective, I believe. And
Joanne Lockwood: we've gotta be careful. We don't ignore the anxieties and the feelings of
Joanne Lockwood: women pushing themselves back into an environment where their mental
Joanne Lockwood: health, their their well-being is gonna be suffer
Joanne Lockwood: as a result of this. I think, as you say, some
Joanne Lockwood: companies are looking holistically at people,
Joanne Lockwood: speaking to people, to individuals, understanding their anxieties, and
Joanne Lockwood: building a work shape that works for them rather than
Joanne Lockwood: being a cookie cutter. Everybody's in the office. Everybody does this. And
Joanne Lockwood: I think that's gonna define the good companies and the bad companies
Joanne Lockwood: is how person centric they are and how they listen and
Joanne Lockwood: really communicate with their people about what is the best way of working for everybody.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: Yeah. Yeah. You know, I was speaking to,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: head of HR earlier this week, and she was
Antoinette Dale Henderson: saying it's it's it's really challenging actually for people working in
Antoinette Dale Henderson: HR at the moment because they've got such a wide spectrum of
Antoinette Dale Henderson: people who were working for them. So for so people
Antoinette Dale Henderson: from one extreme where people are like, I don't see what the problem is. I
Antoinette Dale Henderson: wish you all go back to the office now anyway, and it's gonna be fine.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And let's let's just crack on and get bit moving again,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: all the way to the other extreme where people are are still
Antoinette Dale Henderson: terrified of even leaving their homes. And so how can you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: be inclusive, and cater to that entire
Antoinette Dale Henderson: spectrum of people? And and they simply don't know the answer to that question.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: You know? But, ultimately, that there needs to be some
Antoinette Dale Henderson: form of decision or stake in the ground.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: But how are they gonna do that? So you might have people who who are
Antoinette Dale Henderson: happy in the office. They forget to put a mask on, and then,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: you know, they meet someone else who who is who is
Antoinette Dale Henderson: really out of their comfort zone with that. So and then it's
Antoinette Dale Henderson: it's it then becomes the responsibility of the individuals to be
Antoinette Dale Henderson: assertive enough to say, I need you to put your mask on now, which is
Antoinette Dale Henderson: a challenge in itself. You know, you you see it on public transport all the
Antoinette Dale Henderson: time. So I don't know. It's a unique challenge, isn't it?
Antoinette Dale Henderson: None of us have ever done anything like this before. So,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: yeah, it'd be fascinating to see My wife was furloughed in the early stages,
Joanne Lockwood: And then she she was, I say
Joanne Lockwood: forced. She was put in a position where she had to return to the office
Joanne Lockwood: on her own while other people were fellows. She was
Joanne Lockwood: literally the only person permanent in the office every day apart from engineers
Joanne Lockwood: visiting to collect parts for 3 months. And she found
Joanne Lockwood: that very stressful because that was in the middle, probably about
Joanne Lockwood: summer last year where it was kind of wasn't locked up. It was locked down,
Joanne Lockwood: but it wasn't enforced at home, I think. So she was feeling very
Joanne Lockwood: uncomfortable here about being there anyone in the office. She couldn't fight back. She couldn't
Joanne Lockwood: push back to come and say, well, actually, I don't feel it safe. She could
Joanne Lockwood: have worked from home because lo and behold, when the go stay at
Joanne Lockwood: home order was given in December, magically she was given a
Joanne Lockwood: laptop, magically she was given a phone, so she could work from home. So we
Joanne Lockwood: know that she could have back then. And of course, now what happened into early
Joanne Lockwood: April, the government advice kind of changed Joanne
Joanne Lockwood: then they wanted everyone back in the office, but we know she can work effectively
Joanne Lockwood: from home. And so their culture and their organization
Joanne Lockwood: is one about pushing people back into the office,
Joanne Lockwood: knowing full well that they work very adequately,
Joanne Lockwood: spread desperately from home because they have the cost of the
Joanne Lockwood: office. They've got a traditional kind of management structure
Joanne Lockwood: where they want to see people and count people and check they're there.
Joanne Lockwood: And they haven't evolved, they're not evolving. And this is okay. There was I
Joanne Lockwood: say there was small business, probably 50, 60 people. But given that most
Joanne Lockwood: people in the UK are employed by small medium businesses,
Joanne Lockwood: 67%, I think it is, that that pervasive culture is gonna
Joanne Lockwood: be within our society and people are gonna be pushed back. An organization's
Joanne Lockwood: because they're paying £3,000 a month for their office, they wanna they wanna get
Joanne Lockwood: some value from it. Sure. That's perfectly fine. So is there an
Antoinette Dale Henderson: engineering firm? My wife works for
Joanne Lockwood: a, yeah, it's a installation service company
Joanne Lockwood: for heavy plant. Yeah. Right. So I wonder whether there's gonna be a
Antoinette Dale Henderson: distinction between the the more,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: mechanical engineering, you know, traditionally,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: I guess, masculine type organizations compared
Antoinette Dale Henderson: to to others. So are you Creative.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: Yeah. Exactly. Marketing, you know, white colliery
Joanne Lockwood: type stuff. Yeah. Exactly. Are you, do you do you speak of a
Antoinette Dale Henderson: FISTISH? I don't I don't speak of Vistage.
Joanne Lockwood: No. But I know all of them. Okay. So I'd I'd speak for Vistage, and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: and so they're a global organization. And, it's for
Antoinette Dale Henderson: for MDs and CEOs from small, to
Antoinette Dale Henderson: medium sized businesses predominantly, and different
Antoinette Dale Henderson: groups all around the world. And so what I speak, for
Antoinette Dale Henderson: Vistage. So I'd I, through the pandemic and before that, was
Antoinette Dale Henderson: speaking to different Vistage groups around the UK. And
Antoinette Dale Henderson: through the pandemic, what I've noticed is is that, you know, for in those
Antoinette Dale Henderson: organizations where it's more about, you know, sort of be an engineer or
Antoinette Dale Henderson: factories or, you know, those kinds of organizations
Antoinette Dale Henderson: and, companies, then there's been much more of a push
Antoinette Dale Henderson: to go back to the workplace. And and clearly, it would
Antoinette Dale Henderson: be if you've got factory workers. You know, if you if they're manufacturing product,
Joanne Lockwood: and they need to be in the Yeah. You have to. Right. You have to
Joanne Lockwood: put something boxes and and check and load and return.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: Yeah. So it's much The area my wife works in is
Joanne Lockwood: the office side. And they have field engineers. Yeah. So they
Joanne Lockwood: don't manufacture, they have field engineers, they service. And
Joanne Lockwood: they bring in stock to install. They don't manufacture stock,
Joanne Lockwood: not in that office. Jo, yeah, it's it's it's
Joanne Lockwood: I think it's tradition. It's just the office exists, therefore, we're
Joanne Lockwood: using it. Culture. Yeah. The perspective and the perception.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: Whereas on the other side, you know, I've heard, a number
Antoinette Dale Henderson: of the banks. So I think Metro Bank, they've closed down their office
Antoinette Dale Henderson: in London. You know, everyone is going to be working from home. The office there.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Right. So everyone is gonna be working from from home now. And you think
Antoinette Dale Henderson: about the Googles and the Facebooks and, you know, the large, advertising
Antoinette Dale Henderson: firms and all all of those, a lot of my clients said that they're
Antoinette Dale Henderson: not going back to work in the foreseeable. And many of
Antoinette Dale Henderson: them possibly won't. So yeah. But but that's a
Joanne Lockwood: challenge for the government for infrastructure because then what do you do
Joanne Lockwood: with all the trains? What do you do with all the underground? What do you
Joanne Lockwood: do with the public services and transport in inner cities? What do you do
Joanne Lockwood: with all Jo much buzz? The infrastructure's built up around servicing those
Joanne Lockwood: office blocks. So it's a real dilemma for government Yeah. And infrastructure
Joanne Lockwood: to be able to make sure that you're not losing jobs in one hand by
Joanne Lockwood: creating flexible jobs on the other. Exactly. Because if the city of London
Joanne Lockwood: empties, just think of the millions or certainly hundreds of thousands of
Joanne Lockwood: people whose jobs are at risk because there's no one for them to surface
Joanne Lockwood: anymore. That's right. And you also think about the psychological
Antoinette Dale Henderson: impact that it's having on us as humans.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: You know, I'd I I used to travel around all the time. I'd be, you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: know, on the train to London. It's 4 days out of 5,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: possibly one day out of the weekend. Always always, you know,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: hauling my bag around and doing my thing, you know, live in person.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And now, you know, not even though things have opened up, just the thought of
Antoinette Dale Henderson: going up to London, it's just like a bit of an effort. Do you know?
Joanne Lockwood: Don't want to. I know. It's gotta be bothered. And so, you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: know, we just need to get out more as well, I think, as human beings.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: Otherwise, we're gonna forget how to be sociable and then how
Antoinette Dale Henderson: to to to practice those kind of interpersonal skills
Antoinette Dale Henderson: that we all need to bring richness and life to
Antoinette Dale Henderson: to ourselves and to the world. But we do need to learn how to
Antoinette Dale Henderson: break through that. Well, I often say that being people keep
Joanne Lockwood: saying we need to socialize at work, about
Joanne Lockwood: how work is this magic thing when we meet partners, we develop
Joanne Lockwood: relationships, all those things. I said, well, how about we change the
Joanne Lockwood: paradigm? We actually need to socialize at home and locally.
Joanne Lockwood: If we have more time in our lives without community, more time in our lives
Joanne Lockwood: where we have the flexibility at home, then maybe we have more time in our
Joanne Lockwood: lives to do extracurricular activities, join a club, join
Joanne Lockwood: society, have a hobby, do outside interest, and we can bring
Joanne Lockwood: that socialization into our home environment and not feel that we've missed it
Joanne Lockwood: from our work environment. I mean, we keep trying to retrain ourselves back into the
Joanne Lockwood: office to say, well, that's where we get our socialization only because that's
Joanne Lockwood: our mindset. We've we've commuted for 2 hours there, 2 hours back. What time we
Joanne Lockwood: go home at 8 o'clock in the evening? We're burnt out. Right. We don't wanna
Joanne Lockwood: socialize at home. And if I if I if I
Joanne Lockwood: finish work at 5:30, I turn my computer off, I stand up, and it's
Joanne Lockwood: sunny, I'll sit in the garden Right. Have a cup of coffee, enjoy the
Joanne Lockwood: sun, or I might go for a walk or go for a cycle or do
Joanne Lockwood: something else. I've definitely got the freedom of choice about what I want to engage
Joanne Lockwood: in. But I think when we're slave to the rhythm, we're slave to that machine
Joanne Lockwood: of work, then that's what people are trying to force us
Joanne Lockwood: back into is is to is to switch
Joanne Lockwood: back into the old way of thinking. And I think we need to just change
Joanne Lockwood: what I want from life. It's less commuting, less
Joanne Lockwood: time where I have no control over myself and more opportunity
Joanne Lockwood: to live my life and that work life balance yet still work
Joanne Lockwood: hard, deliver Yeah. Earn a good living
Joanne Lockwood: and be in contact with people. So it's trying to find that balance. It
Antoinette Dale Henderson: is. Yeah. Yeah. What what are your thoughts? So don't end up on
Joanne Lockwood: a plane. You you not fly around the world anymore. Don't wanna do
Antoinette Dale Henderson: that anymore. You know? Jo you wanna see yourself back on a stage in San
Antoinette Dale Henderson: Francisco? I think I would do it
Joanne Lockwood: differently. I think Might say yes to Francisco. I've
Joanne Lockwood: got an opportunity to speak in Newcastle at the end of June.
Joanne Lockwood: And I've got a bit of anxiety about that because
Joanne Lockwood: the talk I'm giving, I created virtually online. I've never given
Joanne Lockwood: this talk face to face. Jo I've got this stage anxiety about, you know, I've
Joanne Lockwood: currently got monitors, I've got screens, I've got lights, and I've got all this control
Joanne Lockwood: with a push of a button. And suddenly, I'm now vulnerable on a stage
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Trying to engage with real people. Wow. That's I'm not gonna do that.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: You're gonna absolutely love it. I think yeah. Just sort of
Antoinette Dale Henderson: questioning whether how I feel about going back out there
Antoinette Dale Henderson: and delivering, you know, whether it's courses or whether it's keynoting
Antoinette Dale Henderson: live again. And I never thought I'd say this, but
Antoinette Dale Henderson: there's a lot to be said from for just doing it from
Antoinette Dale Henderson: your office. And you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: can sparkle. You can engage, and you can get
Antoinette Dale Henderson: amazing feedback even if you're speaking to, like, a bad light
Antoinette Dale Henderson: screen and staring into your camera, you can still get the vibe
Antoinette Dale Henderson: that you could still feel when you're connecting, can't
Antoinette Dale Henderson: you? Yeah. I mean, I used to find it really challenging
Joanne Lockwood: to deliver where I couldn't see the audience. So, you know, a traditional
Joanne Lockwood: webinar format where literally you, everyone can see but you can't see anybody.
Joanne Lockwood: I used to find that really too hard but I saw nobody. But suddenly my
Joanne Lockwood: brain just gone, it's okay, I know they're there. Right. It doesn't matter. I know
Joanne Lockwood: they're there. I know they can hear me. And I get a round of applause
Joanne Lockwood: at the end, so I'm fine. But what I still struggle with is the pre
Joanne Lockwood: record. So I'm talking to the camera. I can't
Joanne Lockwood: go over that, that not live because my brain knows
Joanne Lockwood: it's not live. My brain says, oh, I made a mistake. Let's do that again.
Joanne Lockwood: Oh, I made a mistake. Do that again. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas if I'm
Joanne Lockwood: delivering it live, my brain knows there's a one take and it's
Joanne Lockwood: fine. But as soon as I know I can edit it, my brain just
Joanne Lockwood: crumbles. Yeah. I've gotta I've gotta try and learn how to talk to that
Joanne Lockwood: black mirror Yeah. With nobody on the other side of it and one
Joanne Lockwood: take in the same way I would even if I couldn't see the audience. And
Joanne Lockwood: that's that's what I struggle with. I guess it's that perfectionism that we were
Antoinette Dale Henderson: talking about right at the star, isn't it? It just starts rearing its head. It's
Antoinette Dale Henderson: like, oh, it could be better. It could be better. You could do it again.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: Oh, come on. Let's do it again then.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm I'm I'm delivering a a talk to the the French
Joanne Lockwood: Professional Speakers Association. I think it's next month. And when I applied,
Joanne Lockwood: I thought, okay, this sounds good. I knew it was gonna be online and I
Joanne Lockwood: get an email saying, oh, we want all the speakers to send a
Joanne Lockwood: prerecorded video and then be available on the day Yeah. To
Joanne Lockwood: do like a live q and a after the event. I thought, you want me
Joanne Lockwood: to record this? And I had a deadline of I think it was last Friday
Joanne Lockwood: or the Friday before. Yeah. And I left it like we do. You
Joanne Lockwood: leave it to the last minute and think, well, okay. I've got I've got the
Joanne Lockwood: opportunity here for 3 takes. I delivered the first one. I was 8 minutes over.
Joanne Lockwood: I thought, okay. I'm gonna try and chop 8 minutes off of this.
Joanne Lockwood: Deliver the second one, and I was so worried about going over Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: That I kinda lost my train. I found out that and I watched it back
Joanne Lockwood: and thought. I loved the the energy in the first one, but it was too
Joanne Lockwood: long. The energy in the second one, I thought was a bit flat, but it
Joanne Lockwood: was just the right length. I thought Yeah. Go ahead. I'm just gonna send you
Joanne Lockwood: the one that's the right length. I just gotta send it to you. And I'm
Joanne Lockwood: being overcritical. I I know it was probably my own mindset
Joanne Lockwood: that I was wrestling with. Yeah. Rather than why I delivered. So I sent it
Joanne Lockwood: off to them and they said it was great, it's fine, it's on the agenda.
Joanne Lockwood: So And that's the thing, isn't it? Is that is a classic glass brick you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: just described there. It's like, it needs to be perfect, and we're not
Antoinette Dale Henderson: gonna get there. I remember when I applied for my
Antoinette Dale Henderson: TEDx. And, again, I kinda left it until the last minute. I got an
Antoinette Dale Henderson: email on the day before saying, well, thank you for the written submission, but we
Antoinette Dale Henderson: need a video from you. And I open only opened that email
Antoinette Dale Henderson: when we we were literally driving down to the Kent Coast to go
Antoinette Dale Henderson: camping. And I was like, oh, well, normally, if I was
Antoinette Dale Henderson: gonna record something like that, I get it all set up, do the lighting,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: make it all nice, But I was in a field
Antoinette Dale Henderson: with my phone. So I slept on some lippy, and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: my family's like, Antoinette, why are you putting lipstick on now? We're camping. I was
Antoinette Dale Henderson: like, I just need to go and do something in the car. Put
Antoinette Dale Henderson: myself in the car. And there were people putting tents up all around us,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: noise of, you know you know, children running around and stuff.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And I just recorded this thing and managed to get just about
Antoinette Dale Henderson: enough reception to send it and sent it. And it was
Antoinette Dale Henderson: fine. You think why should I put so much pressure on ourselves to make
Antoinette Dale Henderson: things perfect? I know. I know. I know. Well, that's
Joanne Lockwood: it. You know? 10 minutes is enough. Yeah. And there's a
Joanne Lockwood: huge psychological difference between live and recording yourself.
Joanne Lockwood: I I I I'm sure you you probably felt the same that that suddenly you've
Joanne Lockwood: got this this perception, but you can watch it back and go, I don't like
Joanne Lockwood: that. Yeah. But if you're live, you don't see yourself, do you? No. I never
Joanne Lockwood: watch I never watch the recordings of me back. I
Joanne Lockwood: don't wanna do that to myself. Oh, I do. I I watch the recordings
Antoinette Dale Henderson: back, you know, because I I always ask my clients if I can
Antoinette Dale Henderson: record it and, you know, put together show reels and things.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And I watch them back and I'm like, oh, I remember that bit when I
Antoinette Dale Henderson: fluffed that thing or Dora said that completely wrong or forgot forgot to do. I
Antoinette Dale Henderson: remember that that laughing to myself on the inside of my
Antoinette Dale Henderson: head and pressing on regardless. And I often say
Antoinette Dale Henderson: this to people when I'm coaching them around that, you know, have Joanne They're like,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: oh god. You know, I'm worried that I wanna forget something and all this.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: No one knows and no one cares. Even if they do
Antoinette Dale Henderson: notice, they don't care. So just have a little laugh
Antoinette Dale Henderson: on the inside and keep going. And actually, it made you more
Antoinette Dale Henderson: authentic, wasn't it? Yeah. You're right completely.
Joanne Lockwood: And I've I have listened to some of my stuff back, but I've gone to
Joanne Lockwood: subtitle it and things like this. And what I realized is there are so many
Joanne Lockwood: times when I was speaking I don't finish the sentence. I get half it through
Joanne Lockwood: a sentence and then go off on something else. I think I
Joanne Lockwood: didn't base why I just said this didn't make sense. I didn't feel what I
Antoinette Dale Henderson: was gonna say. That's deliberate, though, isn't it, though, Joanne? That's a nested loop right
Antoinette Dale Henderson: there. You open the loop, and then you come back to it later, don't you?
Joanne Lockwood: I think that's oh, yeah. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it just goes to
Joanne Lockwood: show that when we're talking in real life, that we must do
Joanne Lockwood: that all the time. Conversation gets interrupted. Sentence gets
Joanne Lockwood: interrupted. We wander off. We come back. And but when we
Joanne Lockwood: just ourselves back, we we spot this because we knew what we've we're gonna
Joanne Lockwood: say. We didn't say it. But
Antoinette Dale Henderson: that's that's what makes a lovely authentic conversational style, I
Antoinette Dale Henderson: think. I mean, we we don't like that sort of back to the
Antoinette Dale Henderson: statesman like gravitas. I'm going to deliver a powerful
Antoinette Dale Henderson: message. You know, it's all scripted in advance. We
Joanne Lockwood: Oh, the Toastmaster style. Oh, yeah. The God. It just doesn't
Antoinette Dale Henderson: work, does it? I remember coaching this
Antoinette Dale Henderson: guy, and it was it was a 2 day authentic presentation skills course
Antoinette Dale Henderson: in America. And there was a guy, and he came in, and he is like
Antoinette Dale Henderson: one of those classic kinda silver haired fox types. And I was like,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: oh, this is gonna be interesting. And, he said, yeah. I've
Antoinette Dale Henderson: taught myself. I've ironed out every verbal tick.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: I have no more sos and likes and you knows and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: things like that. And it was true. When we when he first did his first
Antoinette Dale Henderson: presentation, it was like, this is like listening to an actual
Antoinette Dale Henderson: robot because it was just
Antoinette Dale Henderson: it was just message, message,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: message delivered completely dispassionately. And it's like,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: right. We need to bring back some of you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: into the way you talk. By the end of the second day,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: it was so much more engaging. So
Antoinette Dale Henderson: I think, you you know, often people get coached. Do this. Do that.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: Talk deeper. You know, leave these things out. Say this. Be
Antoinette Dale Henderson: authentic. You know, do this gesture, and you you end
Antoinette Dale Henderson: up ironing out the whole lesson of your life. Like this and a power pose
Joanne Lockwood: and Often we get
Antoinette Dale Henderson: told fake it till you make it. It's like, for goodness sake,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: that's please don't do that. Now don't try and be
Antoinette Dale Henderson: somebody else until you finally figured out who you are. Start with who
Antoinette Dale Henderson: you are and build out from there. People will love you
Joanne Lockwood: for it. People will love you for being you. If you love yourself, you're happy
Joanne Lockwood: with yourself. Be yourself. And that's that's all you could ever ask, isn't it?
Antoinette Dale Henderson: That's what most people. Yeah. That that and and
Antoinette Dale Henderson: we all need to come back to that, I think.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: There's one we do, and then we might change that. We've been rabbiting on as
Joanne Lockwood: we as we have. We're absolutely engaging conversation.
Joanne Lockwood: And so how tell tell us a bit more about your book. Tell us a
Joanne Lockwood: bit more about how people can get in contact with you. And,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, please, yeah, tell us all about that. Okeydokes. Well, there are
Antoinette Dale Henderson: 2 books. There is the Leading with Gravitas, and I've
Antoinette Dale Henderson: literally just about to launch the 2nd edition of that on
Antoinette Dale Henderson: the 4th June, in 3 weeks time from now.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And that is all around what this intangible thing called
Antoinette Dale Henderson: gravitas is, how you can create your own version of it rather
Antoinette Dale Henderson: than trying to be like anybody else. There's a whole load
Antoinette Dale Henderson: of content in there around remote communication and how you can make the most
Antoinette Dale Henderson: of communicating in a virtual environment. There's a brand
Antoinette Dale Henderson: new chapter on leading your yourself, your teams, your
Antoinette Dale Henderson: organizations leading through change. So that's the first one.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: And then the second one is the one that I mentioned launching a year
Antoinette Dale Henderson: ago, which is Power Up, the smart women's guide to
Antoinette Dale Henderson: unleashing her potential. And and, really, that's for anyone who
Antoinette Dale Henderson: wants to accelerate their career, through their
Antoinette Dale Henderson: organization, by starting with who they are. Both of those, you
Antoinette Dale Henderson: can get on my website or Amazon or any online bookstore.
Antoinette Dale Henderson: So those are the books. And then if people are interested in working with me,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: I run a couple of, open programs. There's a gravitas master
Antoinette Dale Henderson: class a couple of times a year that people can come along to. There's a
Antoinette Dale Henderson: 2 day gravitas for women course. All information on all
Antoinette Dale Henderson: of that is on my website, antoinettedalehenderson
Antoinette Dale Henderson: dotcom, as well as information on my coaching as
Antoinette Dale Henderson: well. Do you need LinkedIn? People can
Joanne Lockwood: track you down there. Yeah. So LinkedIn and Instagram,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: Antoinette Dale Henderson. And, yeah,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: come and say hi if you got any questions. Let's link in. Let's connect,
Antoinette Dale Henderson: and, I would love to have a conversation with you. I'll put all
Joanne Lockwood: of those details in the show notes. So if you look below, you can click
Joanne Lockwood: on them and and find out. Jo, well, thank you. I've really enjoyed
Joanne Lockwood: that. I could have carried on talking for another hour. It's absolutely amazing and
Joanne Lockwood: fascinating to have a a really deep conversation with you. I really enjoyed it as
Antoinette Dale Henderson: well. Thank you. Yeah. Brilliant. And a huge thank you to
Joanne Lockwood: the listener. Amazing that you stuck with us. Tell us what you
Joanne Lockwood: think. If you've got, friends and colleagues, please tell them.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm sure that you're not alone. So please do tell them about the Inclusion Bites
Joanne Lockwood: podcast. That's B-I-T-E-S. Do subscribe to keep updates
Joanne Lockwood: on future episodes. I've got a number of other exciting guests lined
Joanne Lockwood: up, and I'm sure you'd be inspired by it over the next few weeks months.
Joanne Lockwood: And, of course, if you'd like to be a guest, let me know. I'd welcome
Joanne Lockwood: any comments, feedback, or suggestions on how we can improve the show. So
Joanne Lockwood: email me, jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: So finally, my name is Joanne Lockwood, and this has been an absolute pleasure to
Joanne Lockwood: host this podcast for you today. Catch you next time.
Joanne Lockwood: Bye.