Joanne Lockwood: Hello everyone, my name is Joanne Lockwood and I am your host for
Joanne Lockwood: the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I have
Joanne Lockwood: interviewed a number of amazing people and simply had a conversation about the
Joanne Lockwood: subject of inclusion, belonging and generally making the world
Joanne Lockwood: a better place for everyone to thrive. If you'd like to join me in the
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Joanne Lockwood: That's S-E-E Change Happen
Joanne Lockwood: dot co dot uk You can catch up with all of the previous shows
Joanne Lockwood: on iTunes, Spotify and the usual places. So plug
Joanne Lockwood: in your headphones, grab a decaf and let's
Joanne Lockwood: get going. Today is episode 81 with
Joanne Lockwood: the title Running on Linux. I have the absolute honor
Joanne Lockwood: and privilege to welcome Sophie Power. Sophie describes herself
Joanne Lockwood: as a talent lead and podcast host for Zinc, which is
Joanne Lockwood: the automated background checking software for Teams. When I asked
Joanne Lockwood: Sophie to describe her superpower, she said that she is a
Joanne Lockwood: people person and great at connecting with near enough anyone.
Joanne Lockwood: Hello, Sophie. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you so much for having
Sophie Power: me. And hello. Hello,
Joanne Lockwood: indeed. Sophie, we were chatting just now and
Joanne Lockwood: we decided to call this episode Running on Linux. Tell me
Joanne Lockwood: about that. Yes, we did indeed.
Sophie Power: So, Running on Linux, sorry, when I can get my words
Sophie Power: out, is a
Sophie Power: lighthearted way of describing my experience
Sophie Power: over the past year of having been diagnosed at the age
Sophie Power: of 32 with autism. It's
Sophie Power: still, it was at the time and still is
Sophie Power: a new experience for me. It's spent the past year kind
Sophie Power: of reframing the way that I've approached things. It's
Sophie Power: obviously very interesting to be reasonably late in life, diagnosed,
Sophie Power: and looking back on the
Sophie Power: past 33 years now at the time of recording, you
Sophie Power: know, the past 33 years of living, I've always had
Sophie Power: the sense growing up, and I've often made the joke, oh I'm not
Sophie Power: wired right. It's been a running joke with some of my long term
Sophie Power: friends, if any of them happen to be listening. They'll know that 1
Sophie Power: well. It was interesting to actually get
Sophie Power: that confirmation, which while it wasn't a shock,
Sophie Power: it certainly was, it kind of was and wasn't
Sophie Power: a shock, I think is probably the best way of putting it.
Sophie Power: It's very strange to
Sophie Power: have the sense that there's got to be a disconnect
Sophie Power: here somewhere. I've always had that feeling like, there are things
Sophie Power: about life I'm not getting. It's not that I'm
Sophie Power: unintelligent. It's not that I'm bad with people. It's not that I'm unempathetic.
Sophie Power: Quite the opposite. But there's something sort of not quite right there. So it was
Sophie Power: really interesting to realize actually, I'm trying
Sophie Power: to, yeah, trying to, you know,
Sophie Power: sort of interact with a world that runs on Windows, if we're going
Sophie Power: to use that analogy. And actually, I'm on a completely different
Sophie Power: operating system and I've been reading the wrong instruction booklet,
Sophie Power: which
Sophie Power: was where the analogy came from. I came up with it in the office,
Sophie Power: sort of as a little bit of a joke, but
Sophie Power: realized actually it kind of hit the nail on the head of my experience
Sophie Power: anyway, very, very well. So that's a
Sophie Power: little bit of what running on Linux is about
Sophie Power: when I say that. So what was it
Joanne Lockwood: that you realised was different about you that
Joanne Lockwood: led you to realise that the operating system was different?
Sophie Power: Yeah, when I was very
Sophie Power: young, like a lot of
Sophie Power: toddlers, but probably more, perhaps more boys
Sophie Power: than girls, but I think that's more a socialization point. That's probably
Sophie Power: another talk for another time. I was obsessed with
Sophie Power: dinosaurs.
Sophie Power: Anyone who's ever met a toddler probably won't be that surprised to hear
Sophie Power: that actually, as my friends have now got toddlers
Sophie Power: of their own. But it went
Sophie Power: beyond just liking playing with the toys. Jurassic Park came
Sophie Power: out when I was a kid, So my
Sophie Power: first cinema trip was to see the Jurassic Park film.
Sophie Power: I was obsessed. I knew every name of
Sophie Power: every dinosaur. You could put up flashcards of
Sophie Power: the most obscure dinosaur and I could tell you what their name was,
Sophie Power: what period they came from. I could tell you a fun fact about
Sophie Power: them, what other kinds of dinosaurs existed around at the time. It
Sophie Power: was precocious. It was uncanny.
Sophie Power: My parents loved it. They thought it was brilliant.
Joanne Lockwood: I I realize now, reflecting back
Sophie Power: with the knowledge I do now, that was probably my first special interest and
Sophie Power: certainly the first example. I am
Sophie Power: terrible at maths. I have actually known for since
Sophie Power: university that I've dyscalculia. And it
Sophie Power: is what it is. I've worked with that for a long time. But
Sophie Power: I was always extremely good at reading. I could
Sophie Power: read and write long before I started school. Often,
Sophie Power: I remember as a kid, I was
Sophie Power: actually told off for reading the wrong sticker
Sophie Power: books. I don't know if they still do this because I don't
Sophie Power: have kids, so I'm not sure what happens in schools now. But
Sophie Power: certainly back in the 90s, you'd have coloured stickers on
Sophie Power: all of the books in the school library and a reading level would be assigned.
Sophie Power: And I'd, right from the get-go, be reading the highest
Sophie Power: sticker, which was purple and blue, if you're wondering, when
Sophie Power: I should have been on red. I
Sophie Power: used to get told off for reading too far above my
Sophie Power: level, which I remember thinking very strange and then being like, well, no, I'm not
Sophie Power: gonna read the Red Book. I read that 2 years ago, I'm not interested. And
Sophie Power: sort of that, again, that kind of precociousness, but
Sophie Power: it didn't translate to later school life as school got more complicated,
Sophie Power: social structures got more complicated, things got more nuanced.
Sophie Power: I started to really struggle. I got bullied a lot at school
Sophie Power: and I wouldn't really understand why. I
Sophie Power: had some really deep, passionate special interests that
Sophie Power: I'd get laughed at for. I was very passionate about drama
Sophie Power: and theatre and drama group.
Sophie Power: Passionate about politics, like a lot of
Sophie Power: teenagers to be fair. That's not unusual, but I joined the student council,
Sophie Power: the local town council, and I'd very earnestly run
Sophie Power: campaigns to get people in sixth form child bus fares. I
Sophie Power: was successful, I'd just like to say, because I was very persistent, very
Sophie Power: polite pest. It
Sophie Power: would often be viewed as, I'd realize
Sophie Power: people weren't laughing with me, but I wouldn't quite know
Sophie Power: why they were laughing at me, which is extremely disorientating
Sophie Power: and confusing when you're already going
Sophie Power: through the joys of being a young person. I wouldn't be a teenager
Sophie Power: again for all the size 6
Sophie Power: genes in the world. Then
Sophie Power: as I became an adult, I started to, in
Sophie Power: my mid to late twenties, reflect back on a pattern of
Sophie Power: relationships, friendships, romantic relationships, and realizing I
Sophie Power: often got taken advantage of
Sophie Power: and not quite realized the steps that were happening as they were happening, and
Sophie Power: sort of not see these patterns of behavior. So I'd go
Sophie Power: take myself to the therapist's office. And then eventually
Sophie Power: I had a therapist say, I
Sophie Power: don't know how to help you. And I was like, oh, it would have been
Sophie Power: nice if you told me that before we'd spent 6 months, me
Sophie Power: paying 6 months of invoices, but okay. And so
Sophie Power: that led me to kind of question what and why. And I think that sort
Sophie Power: of coincided with a growing movement
Sophie Power: of more adult women realizing that their
Sophie Power: neurodivergence exhibited itself
Sophie Power: very differently to the stereotypes of ADHD and autism as being something
Sophie Power: that happens to middle class white boys.
Sophie Power: It's very
Sophie Power: real and very valid for
Sophie Power: them as well. And they still don't get the support they need, I
Sophie Power: think. When I reflect back on the boys at school I went to school with
Sophie Power: who had ADHD and the stigmatism
Sophie Power: that they faced. And I remember that. You
Sophie Power: know, it's something that flew under the radar for me. And rather than,
Sophie Power: you know, Sophie, Sophie is autistic. It was just, Sophie's weird.
Sophie Power: She wears weird clothes because
Sophie Power: she doesn't see the point of wearing the fashionable clothes just because everyone
Sophie Power: else is. You know, a little bit of sort of that oppositional
Sophie Power: kind of tendency. So yeah, it was a lot of things. And then
Sophie Power: yeah, it sort of culminated in end of twenties, spending my... I turned 30 before
Sophie Power: the pandemic, but my early thirties spent 2 years sat alone in my
Sophie Power: flat because I lived alone and was single and self-employed. So
Sophie Power: triple whammy of solitary confinement for lockdown
Sophie Power: and realizing that 1, I'm
Sophie Power: actually okay on my own. Yeah,
Sophie Power: I haven't noticed it's been 2 years. Oh, right, okay.
Sophie Power: And realizing I've dived into another special interest and
Sophie Power: Now I'm surrounded with loads of
Sophie Power: art and things I've created and that's really cool. I'm realizing
Sophie Power: actually I do really well in online communities and
Sophie Power: living online. I'm realizing it's because there are
Sophie Power: rules and there's rules for internet forums, there's
Sophie Power: their structures, there's ways that you converse and things you do and don't say
Sophie Power: and it's all very kind of fixed and literal. And
Sophie Power: then I think the absolute catalyst for going
Sophie Power: forward and getting a diagnosis was going out for
Sophie Power: a catch-up dinner with an old uni friend who herself had
Sophie Power: been diagnosed with ADHD. And she said
Sophie Power: very sensitively and very empathetically,
Sophie Power: Have you thought about it for yourself?
Sophie Power: Because a lot of the things that we
Sophie Power: shared as a struggle, she was a course mate, we sat together
Sophie Power: every day for 3 years. Just sort of, you know, Some of the things we
Sophie Power: struggled with together, and it was just a joke and a, ha, ha,
Sophie Power: ha, love deadline mode, lol. Actually,
Sophie Power: it turns out it was just classic ADHD symptoms. That
Sophie Power: led me to, through Psychiatry UK with the NHS,
Sophie Power: looking at ADHD. And then actually, the
Sophie Power: more I spoke to my psychiatrist, she said that it's, I think,
Sophie Power: the underlying issue that's really driving a lot of
Sophie Power: sort of the things that you're talking about struggling with is actually autism. And
Sophie Power: then from there ended up getting a diagnosis and it
Sophie Power: was like, you know, sort of mind, quite
Sophie Power: mind-blowing in a slightly long
Joanne Lockwood: nutshell. So getting the diagnosis,
Joanne Lockwood: what difference did that make to your life? Just that diagnosis.
Joanne Lockwood: So what changed as a result of that?
Sophie Power: Um, in some ways, absolutely nothing.
Sophie Power: Um, so in some ways, like, you know, I kind of told some people and
Sophie Power: they were like, yeah, I'm not surprised. Like, oh, did you not know?
Sophie Power: Was how some of my friends responded, which was quite, I mean,
Sophie Power: I'm a big fan of just not taking life too seriously and
Sophie Power: having a bit of a giggle, as you probably tell by the suggested title
Sophie Power: of this podcast. So, you know, I found, you know, sort of some of them
Sophie Power: were like, yeah, yeah, we know, babe. It's okay, we
Sophie Power: love you anyway, which is wonderful. And then,
Sophie Power: you know, sort of other folks, it's sort of the classic,
Sophie Power: you don't look autistic comments, which
Sophie Power: I'm not really sure how to unpack. I don't know how I feel about them
Sophie Power: actually. It's only been a year. I don't really know. I don't have enough
Sophie Power: of data to do a retro on that.
Sophie Power: And then in other ways, there
Sophie Power: was a period of reframing my
Sophie Power: whole life's experiences, and that
Sophie Power: has been very tiring. So
Sophie Power: as I've talked a lot about school so far already, but also
Sophie Power: my professional life. There's been so many times
Sophie Power: and references that are in my report as well,
Sophie Power: talking about, you know, incidences at work where I've just
Sophie Power: been blindsided by things and been really shocked
Sophie Power: by, you know, that or I've said something that
Sophie Power: I think is completely innocent, and then somebody's reacted like I've
Sophie Power: threatened their firstborn, and it's really blown my mind. I'm like, why
Sophie Power: are you so angry? I've just asked the question.
Sophie Power: I'm not understood why People have had
Sophie Power: quite extreme reactions to what I think are quite innocent things.
Sophie Power: I'm a nice person. I do nice things. I
Sophie Power: like to help people. I'm always looking for
Sophie Power: the best way of doing things, doing the right thing,
Sophie Power: and invoking community is really important to me.
Sophie Power: Having that reaction sometimes has always been quite shocking.
Sophie Power: It's been a period of reframing all of those experiences and going, well,
Sophie Power: actually, me and this
Sophie Power: other person are just reading, seeing off completely different hymn
Sophie Power: sheets to pick a colloquialism.
Sophie Power: We're approaching things with a completely different way of
Sophie Power: seeing and experiencing the world. And that's,
Sophie Power: sometimes yeah, there's been a lot of feelings with that.
Joanne Lockwood: And now I understand that I feel things quite strongly and why.
Joanne Lockwood: Is anybody neurotypical? You know, we talk about being
Joanne Lockwood: normal. Normal is such a very fine line on the bell
Joanne Lockwood: curve of extremes. Who is neurotypical? Because
Joanne Lockwood: everything you're describing, I think, yeah, I get obsessed about that. Yeah, I can do
Joanne Lockwood: that. I was very polarized in my school years.
Joanne Lockwood: Maths and physics, I was completely in tune with. So I
Joanne Lockwood: was A grade maths and physics and chemistry
Joanne Lockwood: and biology. But Z grade if there was a Z grade in
Joanne Lockwood: other things like French and German and some of the
Joanne Lockwood: maybe economics, those sort of things. So I'm either in or
Joanne Lockwood: I'm out. If you look at my report card, there was nothing in the middle.
Joanne Lockwood: It was either loved it or hated it, which is
Joanne Lockwood: a classic symptom of assessing and pulling things apart and getting to the
Joanne Lockwood: bottom of it. If it's in your frame, if it's not, it's just
Joanne Lockwood: not relevant to you. So is anyone actually neurotypical
Joanne Lockwood: or is everybody on this, I hate the word spectrum,
Joanne Lockwood: But we are all different. And who said that 100, 000
Joanne Lockwood: years ago, when our species started evolving into communities,
Joanne Lockwood: that we had to be typical? I always think about dyslexia.
Joanne Lockwood: Dyslexia is... Who decided that we were designed to write and read?
Joanne Lockwood: Who decided that? We haven't evolved to read and write. So who says dyslexia
Joanne Lockwood: is abnormal? Dyslexia could be our default position and
Joanne Lockwood: we've just decided the social construct we've created says that dyslexia is
Joanne Lockwood: wrong or not as good. I think, so who says that neurodiversity, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, your traits that you special, your superpower,
Joanne Lockwood: would have given you significant advantage in certain, and they
Joanne Lockwood: probably still do in certain situations, where you can hyperfocus, you can get really stuck
Joanne Lockwood: into something and block everything else out to get a task done or to
Joanne Lockwood: achieve something. And I think we often see people as
Joanne Lockwood: different, when really we're just, we're
Joanne Lockwood: all different. I wonder if you've experienced that kind of feeling as
Joanne Lockwood: well. Yeah, definitely.
Sophie Power: Yeah, there's really a sense of we all
Sophie Power: bring different things to the table and we're all good at different things and we
Sophie Power: all, you know, there are some things I'm absolutely
Sophie Power: atrocious at. The 7 times table, sorry
Sophie Power: mum. Long division, awful.
Sophie Power: To be honest, budgeting, again, my dad's an accountant, sorry dad.
Sophie Power: But then there are other things I'm really good at, which is,
Sophie Power: I am 1 of those rare people that is quite comfortable walking
Sophie Power: into a room full of strangers on her own and going and
Sophie Power: making friends. And again, I
Sophie Power: reflect back and I've traveled all over the world on my own. And to me,
Sophie Power: it's like, yeah, sure, why not? Her first
Sophie Power: solo trip was when a friend pulled out and was like, I'm really sorry. I
Sophie Power: know you really wanted to go. And I was like, oh, I'm still going. She
Sophie Power: was like, what? I was like, yeah, I'll just go on my own, it's fine.
Sophie Power: And I didn't really appreciate at the time, 20 years
Sophie Power: old as I was, that was quite an unusual
Sophie Power: thing to do. But it just never occurred
Sophie Power: to me to be any other way. And then you realize,
Sophie Power: yeah, we've all got different strengths.
Sophie Power: Some of my friends are very analytical, some of
Sophie Power: my friends are very social, and some of my colleagues are very creative.
Sophie Power: Some are very data and numbers driven.
Sophie Power: Some are very pragmatic. Some are very energized
Sophie Power: and their thoughts jump all over the place. I see it happen in meetings.
Sophie Power: You've got people who come out with
Sophie Power: 20 different ideas in the space of about 10 minutes, and then you've got other
Sophie Power: people who are more methodical and analytical who
Sophie Power: sit there and we go, right, okay, well, let's put these in order and
Sophie Power: let's have a think about how we're gonna, you know, make some of these ideas
Sophie Power: happen. Do they relate back to this? You know, and then you've got somebody who
Sophie Power: goes, right, okay, cool. Well, if we get 0.1 done by
Sophie Power: Friday, I'll get it done.
Sophie Power: You know, And so if you have people, if you have a
Sophie Power: meeting room to relate it back to work,
Sophie Power: if you have a meeting room full of purely analytical people who just sit
Sophie Power: there and drill through numbers and no creative people and no kind of people
Sophie Power: who can just get stuff done,
Sophie Power: nobody's going to tell you what to do with the data. So you're going to
Sophie Power: have loads of really interesting data, but where's the insight?
Sophie Power: Where's the action that comes from the insight? Where's the
Sophie Power: progress? So you need people with lots
Sophie Power: of different ways of approaching things, whether that be the way we evolved
Sophie Power: thousands of years ago, or the way that we work now. So yeah, I
Sophie Power: agree. Normal is, you're
Sophie Power: right, Jan, such a narrow definition and I don't think it
Sophie Power: serves anyone, let alone somebody working
Sophie Power: on a different operating system. Yeah, and you could
Joanne Lockwood: probably appreciate I was operating on a, I
Joanne Lockwood: think MS-DOS when I was growing
Joanne Lockwood: up, I'm that old. In fact, pre-MS-DOS punch card, I think I was
Joanne Lockwood: operating on. And it took me to my teens and 20s and into
Joanne Lockwood: my 40s to realize that I was running on the wrong hardware.
Joanne Lockwood: And I had to do a shift. And I often think that the
Joanne Lockwood: fact I'm left-handed, the fact that I'm transgender, it's just
Joanne Lockwood: my brain has a different set of wiring and it's no different to being neurodiverse
Joanne Lockwood: or whatever it may be. And some might argue that some of my traits have
Joanne Lockwood: a touch of autistic or ADHD or ADD about them because of
Joanne Lockwood: who I am. But I kind of think like you, they're just who I am,
Joanne Lockwood: they're my superpower. And I remember seeing a
Joanne Lockwood: psychologist or psychiatrist, whichever the definition was, at the gender
Joanne Lockwood: clinic. And I remember coming out with a bit of paper and it said, you
Joanne Lockwood: are trans, DSM 64.2. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Transsexual. And I went, yay, I'm official, I'm real,
Joanne Lockwood: I exist. I'm not making this stuff up. And sometimes
Joanne Lockwood: just that bit of paper or that diagnosis
Joanne Lockwood: gives you permission to be you and then put everything in place.
Joanne Lockwood: And it unlocks a lot of the history of you. I
Joanne Lockwood: relate to that completely. Yeah, definitely that. It was
Sophie Power: a really surreal feeling because the whole assessment was
Sophie Power: over a video call. And I was actually, I wasn't
Sophie Power: working at the time, so I was waiting to start at
Sophie Power: MyNow Companies Inc, having had a pretty
Sophie Power: major operation actually. So it was very surreal
Sophie Power: to just be like, okay, I've had a really major operation on
Sophie Power: my body and my whole body's going to be different now.
Sophie Power: And Also so is my brain. I'm going to move house and start
Sophie Power: a new job. Why
Sophie Power: am I so tired all the time? I don't get it.
Sophie Power: In a way it was really energising though, because it gives you
Sophie Power: this, yeah, like that sense of, yeah, you
Sophie Power: put it really nicely, permission to, or sort of a,
Sophie Power: like a, what is the word, permission,
Sophie Power: mandate, a mandate to be yourself. Yeah, mandate,
Joanne Lockwood: I like that, yeah, it's good as well. It's, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: you've got the authority to be you, haven't you? And it's, and you're authentic, You're
Joanne Lockwood: not playing at this. Yeah. I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: I want to take you back to the dinosaur comic. Because I
Joanne Lockwood: remember when I was in my childhood and I remember there being a
Joanne Lockwood: comic, you know the comics used to come with that really, really low quality newsprint.
Joanne Lockwood: And I remember having 1 and it was a case of over the over like
Joanne Lockwood: 6 to 8 weeks, you had to read this comic strip and
Joanne Lockwood: identify all the dinosaurs that were in the story.
Joanne Lockwood: And you then had to work out from the images of them. So
Joanne Lockwood: I spent hours in the local library with my mum. This is way
Joanne Lockwood: before the internet. This is in the mid seventies. So we're in the local library
Joanne Lockwood: with my mum getting books on dinosaurs out and trying to work out which dinosaur
Joanne Lockwood: was which. And so I entered the competition with like a list of 20
Joanne Lockwood: dinosaurs. You know, this picture, this picture, this is what? And I won.
Joanne Lockwood: I got every dinosaur right. It was like, so we're just
Joanne Lockwood: talking about being obsessed with dinosaurs. Um, way
Joanne Lockwood: before Jurassic Park. But 1 thing I was looking at the other day, there's a
Joanne Lockwood: TikTok reel or something on Facebook or something that came up, someone had
Joanne Lockwood: made an 8 foot high, I guess it was a velociraptor,
Joanne Lockwood: just from the Jurassic Park type thing, made out of chocolate, made out of
Joanne Lockwood: chocolate. And this thing was absolutely, I mean, you
Joanne Lockwood: could have made it out of any mouldable material, but he was a chef
Joanne Lockwood: and he made it out of chocolate, it's absolutely incredible.
Joanne Lockwood: In fact the comments in the chat underneath was the dinosaur's teeth
Joanne Lockwood: are too perfect, they didn't have dentists,
Joanne Lockwood: the teeth wouldn't have been that shiny. So I thought it's a fantastic thing but
Joanne Lockwood: when you said you know interesting fact about all these dinosaurs
Joanne Lockwood: what's your interesting or funny fact about a pterodactyl then? I really want to know
Joanne Lockwood: what what's interesting and funny about a pterodactyl. Oh gosh
Sophie Power: um do you know what the the really the even funnier thing
Sophie Power: is that I, to my great shame, don't remember a lot of
Sophie Power: it. So I remember the obsession, I remember the fun,
Sophie Power: I remember the excitement. I have actually quite a lot of
Sophie Power: dinosaur themed clothes in my wardrobe. If my colleagues are
Sophie Power: really lucky I might wear my dinosaur dress to work 1 day.
Sophie Power: Last time it had an outing was my friend's
Sophie Power: son's second birthday party, which was dinosaur
Sophie Power: themed. But yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: pterodactyl. There's something in the way the names
Sophie Power: made. So ptero is
Sophie Power: a number and dactyl refers to fingers.
Sophie Power: So, the wings, they've got a certain amount of fingers
Sophie Power: and that's where the name comes from because they obviously they're winged.
Joanne Lockwood: They are lizards with skin between their body and their arms, aren't
Joanne Lockwood: they? Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah, which is quite cool.
Sophie Power: And, yeah, and then my parents, of course, having a kid
Sophie Power: that was obsessed with dinosaurs, took me to the Natural History Museum in London. And
Sophie Power: they were really excited for me to see the big animatronic
Sophie Power: I was terrified, absolutely terrified.
Sophie Power: It looked, when you're tiny, it looked very real. It is pretty
Sophie Power: scary. And I was
Sophie Power: apparently cried and cried and cried
Sophie Power: and didn't actually want to see it because it looked too real.
Sophie Power: Because yeah, they felt very real. I had no
Sophie Power: concept of what 70 million years ago might feel like. None
Sophie Power: of us do.
Sophie Power: Then I went back as an adult when I had a random day off work,
Sophie Power: as you often do when you spend some periods being
Sophie Power: self-employed. And I was like, oh,
Sophie Power: 0, it was a really nice trip down memory lane. It was just
Sophie Power: before Dippy went on holiday. But
Sophie Power: yeah, so that was really cool to see.
Sophie Power: To see sort of all of the... Yeah. Yeah, all of the... I've got
Sophie Power: an Instagram boomerang of the T-Rex at the Natural
Joanne Lockwood: History doing its growl and sort of thing. I've got a little boomerang on my
Joanne Lockwood: Instagram. Oh, amazing. Yeah, I found it quite interesting. I think
Joanne Lockwood: when we went to Florida, I think it was Disney, there was a ride where
Joanne Lockwood: you're either on a boat or something and you're going along and you got to
Joanne Lockwood: this cliff edge and this T-Rex or some big dinosaur pops
Joanne Lockwood: its head over the edge and like, oh my god, I wasn't expecting this. I
Joanne Lockwood: guess it's called the dinosaur Jurassic, it must be called the Jurassic Park, right?
Joanne Lockwood: We were in a jeep or something, that's probably what it was, yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: And this big T-Rex thing pops over and it's like, oh, I remember
Joanne Lockwood: my children were really, really frightened of that. Oh yeah,
Sophie Power: it's very scary when you're little and
Sophie Power: everything looks so much bigger for a start, and everything's so
Sophie Power: much louder and what have you.
Sophie Power: There's 1 place I haven't been yet, actually, is Crystal Palace
Sophie Power: Park. I don't know if you know. It's
Sophie Power: in South London, for anyone
Sophie Power: unfamiliar with the geography of outer London.
Sophie Power: There are lots of statues of Victorian
Sophie Power: dinosaurs, so Victorian impressions of dinosaurs
Sophie Power: from the Great Exhibition of 1888.
Sophie Power: I want to say 88, but I'm not a historian.
Sophie Power: I'm making that up. Around that time.
Sophie Power: I really want to see them, but I live in North London so it's a
Sophie Power: bit of a trek and life is busy. 1 of the
Sophie Power: things that's really interesting about them is that they're actually very historically inaccurate
Sophie Power: because they were based on what few fossils they had
Sophie Power: and obviously modern science and modern paleontology is caught up and said actually
Sophie Power: these aren't accurate. So it's sort of like Victorian impressions
Sophie Power: of dinosaurs based on all these bones they started finding
Joanne Lockwood: on the Jurassic coast and things like that. Even now, they're trying to
Joanne Lockwood: rewrite some of the thinking about dinosaurs, about the color,
Joanne Lockwood: even some of the shapes and the skin texture, some of maybe having more
Joanne Lockwood: feathers than they probably imagined because we
Joanne Lockwood: can't establish colour or some of those things have obviously deteriorated over
Joanne Lockwood: the years but they're now trying to reimagine dinosaurs with
Joanne Lockwood: a new more modern light rather than say based on that Victorian
Joanne Lockwood: just a skeleton. Yeah, which is really interesting.
Sophie Power: Speaking of Facebook and Instagram, I did see quite
Sophie Power: a funny meme about dinosaurs a couple of months ago.
Sophie Power: I think I sent it to 1 of my mates being like, lol, how'd you
Sophie Power: do? It
Sophie Power: was a comment that basically said,
Sophie Power: we have no idea if dinosaurs had hair or not because fossils don't preserve
Sophie Power: hair. So imagine a dinosaur looking like this. It was a picture
Sophie Power: of a diplodocus with a long head of brown hair,
Sophie Power: just randomly, which was quite like a little drawing that
Sophie Power: somebody had stuck some, you know, drawing of some hair over, which was quite funny.
Sophie Power: And yeah, maybe, you know, in another sort of
Sophie Power: 20, 30 years, there'll be a completely different framing
Sophie Power: for what we know about dinosaurs then.
Joanne Lockwood: Going back to the topic we were talking about,
Joanne Lockwood: if anyone's listening, you can probably gather we could probably talk about dinosaurs or anything.
Joanne Lockwood: We could obsess over anything for hours. This is great. I
Joanne Lockwood: love this conversation. Going off, just talk about random stuff.
Joanne Lockwood: I see a lot of, you know, you're in recruitment,
Joanne Lockwood: I'm in EDI, HR space, we obviously hang out on
Joanne Lockwood: LinkedIn a lot. And you see a lot of memes,
Joanne Lockwood: stories around autistic superpower,
Joanne Lockwood: how autistic people have got this sort of extra spidey
Joanne Lockwood: sense or this fixation with data. What worries me
Joanne Lockwood: sometimes is we're trying to categorise or
Joanne Lockwood: stereotype autistic people as rain man, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, data experts. Is that setting up people to
Joanne Lockwood: fail sometimes because I'm autistic, but I'm
Joanne Lockwood: not a mathematical genius. Are we creating a stereotype?
Sophie Power: Yeah, I think so. I think there's a lot of, it's
Sophie Power: well-intended, like a lot of these things are.
Sophie Power: You know, It's born out of a desire to celebrate and
Sophie Power: champion with the best of intentions.
Sophie Power: But I think when we create this view of the autistic
Sophie Power: savant, and if you look to media, There's a lot of that as
Sophie Power: well. I've not seen
Sophie Power: the show, but there's a Korean detective show, The Extraordinary
Sophie Power: Dr. Woo, we want to say. There's also Sherlock
Sophie Power: Holmes, another famous, more readily recognizable 1.
Sophie Power: They're often autistic coded characters. It's like these genius,
Sophie Power: analytical savants. And
Sophie Power: 1 of the things that I think I realize now I'm
Sophie Power: very good at is that's often seen as Spidey sense,
Sophie Power: quote Marx, but it's pattern recognition.
Sophie Power: I'm very good at spotting tiny little
Sophie Power: changes in people's behavior. I am the
Sophie Power: absolute worst person to watch a film with, because
Sophie Power: I very quickly have worked out how it's going to end. I also have a
Sophie Power: degree in comparative literature, so I've read pretty much every book
Sophie Power: there is to read and made an
Sophie Power: extensive study of all the different types of stories
Sophie Power: that could possibly exist. There's a little bit of that as well. But
Sophie Power: I'm really good at watching it and going, yeah, no, it wasn't the
Sophie Power: husband. It was the cousin.
Sophie Power: And people watching this detective film, people
Sophie Power: go, wait, what? And then it turns out to be right. And
Sophie Power: then I realized, I think it's brilliant. So I'm like, oh, great. And I've sat
Sophie Power: there and I've worked out. My friend sat with me watching is
Sophie Power: frustrated because I've just bought it for them. And for them, the surprise is the
Sophie Power: journey. I hate surprises. So like that
Sophie Power: pattern recognition, that perception,
Sophie Power: that analysis, I think can be really
Sophie Power: harmful because ultimately, the way I see it, is it frames autistic
Sophie Power: and neurodivergent people as, you know, it frames
Sophie Power: them in as much as their use to
Sophie Power: the wider population. I
Sophie Power: feel like the 1 thing people have always said is, what's
Sophie Power: your superpower? Oh, well you just have to find your superpower,
Sophie Power: is 1 thing somebody said when I told them I was autistic and they
Sophie Power: meant well. I'm not
Sophie Power: offended or anything, but it obviously puts pressure
Sophie Power: on the neurodivergent person to almost prove their
Sophie Power: worth. What use have they got? If you're going to
Sophie Power: be disabled, what value can you provide?
Sophie Power: Is it the more sinister
Sophie Power: kind of message? I don't
Sophie Power: love that view. It's well
Sophie Power: intended and I don't think anybody's ever meant
Sophie Power: it in a harmful way, but I think it puts a lot of pressure
Sophie Power: on people. Because sometimes actually, you
Sophie Power: know, The burnout is real and the exhaustion
Sophie Power: is real. It's very tiring. I was
Sophie Power: always confused by where people got their energy from.
Sophie Power: Just going a whole day of being at work, socializing,
Sophie Power: talking. I love socializing. I love talking.
Sophie Power: And then also the executive functioning around going home and managing a
Sophie Power: household if you've got children, managing a household with children,
Sophie Power: which is a whole other board game. And, And,
Sophie Power: you know, and then kind of doing all of that and then also having the
Sophie Power: time to go to the gym, have hobbies, like have long-term goals,
Sophie Power: you know, work on a long-term project, you know, saving for a
Sophie Power: house, you know, planning a big trip, you know,
Sophie Power: organizing a wedding, like take your pick, you know, where do people get all
Sophie Power: the energy from? And to then also
Sophie Power: have to think about your superpowers and how to present them
Sophie Power: and how to find them and how to unpack them and
Sophie Power: show them. That's also really tiring
Sophie Power: when you're also swimming against the tide.
Joanne Lockwood: As an
Sophie Power: autistic person, I suddenly realized, I talked about it with Theo Smith, sorry,
Sophie Power: but just before Christmas and, you
Sophie Power: know, sort of things like sensory sensitivities
Sophie Power: and lighting and all of these things, you know, Stimming
Sophie Power: and fidget toys and things, yeah. Yeah, and a lifetime of being told to
Sophie Power: stop fidgeting and being put in detention or told I look like I'm
Sophie Power: not enjoying things because I'm fidgeting in a meeting. It's just like,
Sophie Power: yeah, I've got a couple of- Sorry, I'm just holding up
Joanne Lockwood: my squidgy, I've got some squidgy teddy bears here, which I
Joanne Lockwood: often play with. I've
Sophie Power: got a couple of poker chips that I fiddle
Sophie Power: around with. Don't even play poker.
Sophie Power: Not remotely good at it. But I've got a couple of poker chips that I
Sophie Power: fiddle around with like off camera when I'm in meetings and it really
Sophie Power: helps. It actually helps me focus, so I look like
Sophie Power: I'm fidgeting and not paying attention, but I'm actually more focused for doing
Sophie Power: that. Yeah, 1 thing I
Joanne Lockwood: noticed, I was at a workshop that
Joanne Lockwood: I was facilitating for a charity I'm a trustee of actually,
Joanne Lockwood: and 1 of the things they did to prepare the
Joanne Lockwood: environment was to be neurodiverse aware. So what they did
Joanne Lockwood: was they made sure there was no strong lighting. So they turned them for
Joanne Lockwood: sensory person review that they didn't use the main room lighting. They put table lamps
Joanne Lockwood: on every table and they put fidget toys out and
Joanne Lockwood: people who want to stim or fidget or play or occupy their hands.
Joanne Lockwood: And I'm holding 1 now, it's like a bit of a plastic mesh with a
Joanne Lockwood: marble inside. I picked up this, I've also got another 1, which is a kind
Joanne Lockwood: of a key ring type thing, which you just flip over. And
Joanne Lockwood: 1 thing that I've suddenly realized after a couple of hours of
Joanne Lockwood: playing with these that I hadn't touched my phone.
Joanne Lockwood: And what I realized that I'm picking up my phone, I'm playing with it, I'm
Joanne Lockwood: stimulating myself, I've got this obsession with checking it, I
Joanne Lockwood: can't handle any red notification
Joanne Lockwood: icon on my app, so I've got to close them all. And I realised that
Joanne Lockwood: you can actually turn the notifications off, so I started going around to turn the
Joanne Lockwood: notifications off so I don't have to close them. But I found that after a
Joanne Lockwood: couple of hours of just playing with these fidget toys, I wasn't picking my nails.
Joanne Lockwood: I often pick my nails. I'm very guilty of that. And I
Joanne Lockwood: wasn't picking my phone up. So I realized that actually
Joanne Lockwood: my brain needs something to fiddle with. And,
Joanne Lockwood: and I, it was a real awakening for me. And I shared that when people
Joanne Lockwood: talk about fidget toys from a neurodiversity point of view. And I don't
Joanne Lockwood: know if I'm neurodiverse, I haven't had a test or haven't even considered it.
Joanne Lockwood: But what I have identified is that I do benefit from
Joanne Lockwood: a fidget toy in a way of helping
Joanne Lockwood: me put my phone down and maybe start having
Joanne Lockwood: conversations and being more attentive because
Joanne Lockwood: I'm not fidgeting in the background, if you like. Yeah, yeah,
Sophie Power: it's definitely, I think it's something a lot of people can benefit
Sophie Power: from. I mean, you'll probably know better than me
Sophie Power: given your line of work, but I think we call them
Sophie Power: accommodations for disability, but actually they're things that
Sophie Power: benefit everyone, regardless of neurotype.
Sophie Power: There are a lot of people who could probably focus much
Sophie Power: better on meetings when they doodle on their notepad or they
Sophie Power: twiddle a couple of poker chips to do
Sophie Power: something with their hands rather than bite their nails. I am a nail biter. I
Sophie Power: was for my entire childhood. I was constantly nagged about it. Realistically,
Sophie Power: I was probably stimming
Sophie Power: because you weren't allowed to fidget. You had to
Sophie Power: sit stock still, stare at the front of the class, not say a word, not
Sophie Power: move. And if you did, you were told off, sent to the corner or put
Sophie Power: in detention. And so
Sophie Power: yeah, so we, you know, 1 of the things I've done recently at Zinc
Sophie Power: is write a sort of, not a
Sophie Power: policy policy, it's a bit heavy handed in a 30
Sophie Power: person seed stage startup.
Sophie Power: But just write what equality means at Zinc
Sophie Power: and what it means in practice. Because I think
Sophie Power: a lot of it was done in an unspoken way. And actually,
Sophie Power: for those of us who need things outlined, it's very useful. So
Sophie Power: I outlined it. And 1 of the things we talked about was
Sophie Power: like, do you need to use fidget toys? Do you need to, Is it
Sophie Power: helpful to wear sunglasses in the office sometimes?
Sophie Power: Does your hyper focus look like dancing at your desk with some
Sophie Power: headphones in while you've got 3 browser tabs open?
Sophie Power: Because that's what it looks like for me.
Sophie Power: My colleagues are very patient when I need
Sophie Power: to work that way. And then it makes it easier
Sophie Power: for me knowing that They're comfortable with letting
Sophie Power: me work my way and supporting that, which gives
Sophie Power: me the energy back to help them when their
Sophie Power: way of focusing and knuckling down is silence and not talking.
Sophie Power: You spend 20 minutes being like, right, okay, let's put
Sophie Power: some music on and have a bit of a chat. It seems like,
Sophie Power: great, I've got loads of work done now. Okay, right, I'm going to
Sophie Power: go make a cup of tea and
Sophie Power: go and sit and do things. Then
Sophie Power: we'll have some quiet time. I
Sophie Power: switch my diary around because some days I sit and get my head
Sophie Power: down. Those are work from home days. Then I try and do the
Sophie Power: more people-focused things. But yeah, there's
Sophie Power: also been times when I've worn sunglasses in the office. And my
Sophie Power: team have been really good at just not
Sophie Power: making a comment, actually. I turned up on a video call at a
Sophie Power: previous company once wearing sunglasses because I was just over
Sophie Power: just too the sun was like beaming into my flat and I was
Sophie Power: like oh I can't even anymore. And instead of sort of like
Sophie Power: making a big comment about it everybody just put the zoom sunglasses filters on
Sophie Power: So we ended up like an entire call of people wearing sunglasses, which I
Sophie Power: thought was quite funny.
Sophie Power: Um, but yeah, um, I can certainly relate to
Joanne Lockwood: what you're saying around the, the noise, what you have noise in the
Joanne Lockwood: background, sometimes you do sometimes you don't. I mean I'm 1 of these people that
Joanne Lockwood: I walk around my house telling Alexa to stop
Joanne Lockwood: because Alexa's often got radio too on in the background
Joanne Lockwood: and when my wife sets it up she tends to have it at a kind
Joanne Lockwood: of a background hum level And when it's because my hearing is faded
Joanne Lockwood: as I got older or not, I find this like, noise where I
Joanne Lockwood: can't quite hear the vocal, I can hear the music, but I can't hear the
Joanne Lockwood: spoken. It just really, really, I gotta go, just turn it off, either
Joanne Lockwood: turn it up or turn it off. I can't handle the hum level.
Joanne Lockwood: But I can find myself sitting in silence for hours without even, and go,
Joanne Lockwood: oh yeah, I've been sat in silence. Or sometimes I get in the
Joanne Lockwood: car and I haven't turned the radio on, I haven't put any music on or
Joanne Lockwood: anything, and I've driven to Manchester and I get to Manchester and I realize
Joanne Lockwood: I've just done that in silence. I haven't had any other stimulation.
Joanne Lockwood: My brain has been focusing on obviously the drive but also it's been
Joanne Lockwood: into thinking mode or exploring ideas mode
Joanne Lockwood: and yeah I can be perfectly happy. I think you said earlier you can spend
Joanne Lockwood: all day on your own and have a great time and you don't need anybody
Joanne Lockwood: else to sort of join in sometimes. Oh, there's enough going on up there
Sophie Power: to be honest. Yeah. It's been busy for hours. Like, yeah, it's interesting.
Sophie Power: Like I definitely have days where, yeah, I need the stimulation.
Sophie Power: But then I also have days where, God, I would love to just hit
Sophie Power: pause. And those are definitely the days where,
Sophie Power: yeah, I'd prefer a quieter day, lower lighting, less
Sophie Power: music. And it's actually not because I'm lower in energy, it's because I've got too
Sophie Power: much. And as well as being, you know,
Sophie Power: sometimes under stimulated, like there have definitely been times when I've been
Sophie Power: overstimulated. And I've, I've been like
Sophie Power: way too up. And then, you know, sort of, I've
Sophie Power: got other people in the office where we sort of hype each
Sophie Power: other up and then it's, you know, I'm up in the ceiling and I'm just
Sophie Power: like, oh God, I've got to go home and try and go to bed and
Sophie Power: calm down now. And yeah,
Sophie Power: so that's always a fun 1. So it's sort of, yeah, it's, and
Sophie Power: it's interesting because I just didn't have any clue about any of
Sophie Power: this until a year ago. So these things were
Sophie Power: happening and I just assumed that these were experiences that everybody had and that was
Sophie Power: normal and well, you know, normal, quote, mark,
Sophie Power: widely experienced, you know,
Sophie Power: and it turns out that actually
Sophie Power: less widely experienced than I realized it. But 1 thing as
Sophie Power: well is that understanding about yourself helps you to find your tribe
Sophie Power: and your people. And I've always felt a sense when I was younger
Sophie Power: of not fitting in and not feeling like
Sophie Power: I've met my people, that kind of sense
Sophie Power: of belonging. And I feel I'm much closer to that now I have a
Sophie Power: better understanding of where I belong
Sophie Power: and what belonging means which is really important.
Joanne Lockwood: So in your job you are a talent acquisition
Joanne Lockwood: specialist. Yeah, for the person on the
Joanne Lockwood: street, that's a recruiter. I know it's a... Yep.
Joanne Lockwood: Whatever. You place people into roles for a company.
Joanne Lockwood: So as someone who is neurodivergent, has
Joanne Lockwood: ASD, autistic, ADHD, whatever terminology you use,
Joanne Lockwood: what do you think is important for people in the TA
Joanne Lockwood: process, talent acquisition process, to think about when engaging with
Joanne Lockwood: candidates who are specifically around neurodiversity?
Joanne Lockwood: What are the good things? Because there's still lots of myths and you should do
Joanne Lockwood: this and should do that. What really makes a difference? Yeah
Sophie Power: so Things around
Sophie Power: like the typical sort of social
Sophie Power: markers of confidence, credibility and
Sophie Power: success are very much rooted in
Sophie Power: what that looks like for a neurotypical person.
Sophie Power: Eye contact, a firm handshake, less ums
Sophie Power: and ahs, minimal pausing,
Sophie Power: sounding certain, sounding assertive, projecting your voice clearly.
Sophie Power: Now, I
Sophie Power: had a lot, I used to go to theater school in my spare time, so
Sophie Power: I've had a lot of training in these things from a young age.
Sophie Power: It's a passion of mine. I was at the theater on Monday.
Sophie Power: So these are things I realize now are a big part of my masking.
Sophie Power: But actually when I'm very tired, they're things I really struggle with. And I realize
Sophie Power: I catch myself stammering and I find eye contact
Sophie Power: painful. And, you know, oh, don't
Sophie Power: touch me. Don't shake my hand. Don't gently pat me on the
Sophie Power: arm. Like, ooh, leave me alone. Yeah,
Sophie Power: and, but then, you know, sort of
Sophie Power: when I've got more energy, these things I don't struggle with, but that isn't
Sophie Power: the experience of everybody. You know, and so for a lot of candidates,
Sophie Power: like 1 of the things we put on our website about accessibility at Zinc is,
Sophie Power: you know, if you need to make us aware that you're
Sophie Power: uncomfortable with eye contact or you don't want to do handshakes or
Sophie Power: you need softer lighting in your interview room, then let us know.
Sophie Power: The lighting is probably the 1 I'd need the most notice about because I need
Sophie Power: to work something out with our office manager. But
Sophie Power: it's not insurpassable. We can overcome
Sophie Power: and sort of work with all of this. So, you know, none
Sophie Power: of these things are difficult. And I
Sophie Power: think as a company, as an employer, as a
Sophie Power: recruiter, it's just a matter of letting people know that they're available
Sophie Power: to be asked for as well. The burden doesn't always have to be
Sophie Power: on the disabled person to
Sophie Power: guess what you're able to provide. Let
Sophie Power: them know what you can do straight off the bat, what you
Sophie Power: understand, you know, because it also shows that you're an employer
Sophie Power: and a business that thinks about these things proactively, which
Sophie Power: means that they are, you know, when I'm looking at things, I know that I'm
Sophie Power: more likely to be more comfortable because these are people
Sophie Power: that think about this stuff before I've asked them to because it's stuff
Sophie Power: they care about and it means something to them.
Sophie Power: Also, none of these things are expensive. None of these things are time consuming.
Sophie Power: None of these things actually impacts an ability to do a job.
Sophie Power: You know, unless your job's a professional eye contact and
Sophie Power: handshake tester, that job doesn't exist. You
Sophie Power: know, it's absolutely fine, you know, to
Sophie Power: sometimes just not say a word if somebody's wearing sunglasses
Sophie Power: and headphones in the office, like they're getting the job done. It's
Joanne Lockwood: cool. I've said that before when people are transfixed
Joanne Lockwood: about grammar and spelling on CVs. And I say, Look,
Joanne Lockwood: you're hiring and recruiting a forklift truck driver.
Joanne Lockwood: Does it really matter? What you're looking for is, are they competent and
Joanne Lockwood: safe for driving a forklift truck? So often
Joanne Lockwood: we create this normative expectation and
Joanne Lockwood: biases about who this person must be in order
Joanne Lockwood: to be good enough. And we're just not
Joanne Lockwood: thinking about what the requirement for the role is and the great
Joanne Lockwood: attributes we're looking for. We're creating all this other stuff.
Joanne Lockwood: And I've seen the debates again on LinkedIn around
Joanne Lockwood: the do or don't around sending the interview questions in
Joanne Lockwood: advance to the candidate. And people will say, well, if you send the
Joanne Lockwood: interview questions, that's cheating. They'll be able to rehearse them and practice
Joanne Lockwood: and do some research. You think, well, hang on a minute, in my
Joanne Lockwood: job, when I'm doing things, I rehearse, I
Joanne Lockwood: investigate, so what we're trying to do here is we're saying you've got to
Joanne Lockwood: have a fantastic memory and be able to recall facts and figures, or you're
Joanne Lockwood: actually saying that in the real world, we don't expect you to shoot from the
Joanne Lockwood: hip. We want you to think about things in advance. I think it's a
Joanne Lockwood: great way. And... Yeah, I mean, when you actually get
Sophie Power: the job, you're expected to prepare for meetings. You
Sophie Power: know, if I turn up to a meeting with my management
Sophie Power: team and I've done absolutely no prep and I've got no idea what I'm doing
Sophie Power: and I'm just rocking up and winging it, that would
Sophie Power: not go down well. I've got a lovely team, but they wouldn't be happy
Sophie Power: with me. So what's wrong with helping people
Sophie Power: feel prepared? Some people don't. And I think
Sophie Power: another thing as well is like, what I will say, because I've experienced
Sophie Power: this as well, I have been offered to be sent questions ahead of time and
Sophie Power: I have accepted and gone, thank you. I have sat there, gone through the questions.
Sophie Power: I've not written a script, but I feel prepared and organized. And then I've gone
Sophie Power: into an interview and been asked completely different questions.
Sophie Power: Deviating from a fixed plan is probably 1 of the easiest
Sophie Power: ways to intensely stress out
Sophie Power: a lot of autistic people I have interacted with and certainly
Sophie Power: myself. That was probably 1 of the most stressful
Sophie Power: interviews I've ever had because I don't
Sophie Power: like surprises and I had
Sophie Power: prepared to be interviewed for this job this way because I'd been told that was
Sophie Power: how it was going to be. So that's probably another thing I'd say to be
Sophie Power: mindful of. If you are going to do it, commit to it. Stick with it.
Sophie Power: But yeah, It's another way of showing if they really want the job,
Sophie Power: they'll take the questions and prepare. So if they've prepared, they're showing you that they
Sophie Power: care about the job. They're showing you how they'll turn
Sophie Power: up to meetings prepared and organized. You can send them
Sophie Power: the questions, but they might not necessarily read them, prepare them,
Sophie Power: use them, make the most of the opportunity. If they don't, that in
Sophie Power: itself is data that you may or may not want
Sophie Power: to use. It's not cheating.
Sophie Power: If you've got to that point in the interview, they've obviously at least shown, at
Sophie Power: least on paper, that they've got potential. So you're
Sophie Power: expecting them to have experience or the right
Sophie Power: attributes or whatever. Yeah. Is that
Joanne Lockwood: modernizing the recruiting profession, isn't it?
Joanne Lockwood: And opening people's eyes and ears and minds
Joanne Lockwood: to. What would be, I hate the phrase
Joanne Lockwood: diverse talent. I hate that with impassion but I keep using it. What
Joanne Lockwood: I mean is people of all experiences making sure that we're valuing
Joanne Lockwood: people, making accessible, making it available to all and
Joanne Lockwood: recognizing the equity we need, the extra support people need and whatever it
Joanne Lockwood: may be so that people can succeed. Yeah.
Sophie Power: Yeah, and neurodiverse folks
Sophie Power: are notably underemployed,
Sophie Power: either because they've been working,
Sophie Power: again, in a system that isn't set up for their success.
Sophie Power: They are literally underemployed. They're not hitting the potential they could
Sophie Power: with even minimal support. But then also,
Sophie Power: there are lots of people that have a desire
Sophie Power: and a want to do work but are struggling to get through the door and
Sophie Power: actually would be able to do lots of different
Sophie Power: jobs and provide lots of sort of value to
Sophie Power: their own lives and their self-esteem and also the workforce
Sophie Power: but you know are being held back by
Sophie Power: silly outdated practices.
Joanne Lockwood: And on that note, I think it's been fantastic chatting to
Joanne Lockwood: you over the last, well, we've actually been talking away for about an hour and
Joanne Lockwood: a half before we started. And no
Joanne Lockwood: doubt we could keep talking about, well maybe even dinosaurs. I got
Joanne Lockwood: obsessed with planets when I was younger, sort of the solar
Joanne Lockwood: system and I used to write whole projects for myself on
Joanne Lockwood: the planets, do all the researches and yeah, the temperature on the
Joanne Lockwood: surface when it was in front of the sun or behind the sun, it was
Joanne Lockwood: kind of all this kind of stuff. Oh wow. Yeah, we could go on for
Joanne Lockwood: hours. Sophie, how can people get hold of you? Yeah,
Sophie Power: So if folks wish to get a hold of me, the easiest
Sophie Power: way because I go on there more than any other form of social media is
Sophie Power: probably LinkedIn. I am on LinkedIn as Sophie Power and
Sophie Power: then in bracket she, her, mus, which are my pronouns because I
Sophie Power: updated it before they put the pronoun feature in. And
Sophie Power: I, yep, I'm at Sophie Power, working at Zink
Sophie Power: Work as a talent lead. And I'm also can be found
Sophie Power: via Talent Hacks for Scale-Ups, which is the name of my own podcast.
Joanne Lockwood: Fantastic. That's absolutely amazing. And thank you
Joanne Lockwood: to you, the listener, for tuning in, for getting this far. I
Joanne Lockwood: really appreciate your time, and hopefully you've enjoyed this. I have.
Joanne Lockwood: Please do subscribe, if you're not already, to keep updated on future
Joanne Lockwood: episodes of the Inclusion Bites podcast. That's B-I-T-E-S.
Joanne Lockwood: Please tell your friends and your colleagues, please share the love. I'm sure they'll
Joanne Lockwood: enjoy it as well. As you can imagine, I've got a number of other
Joanne Lockwood: exciting guests lined up that I'm sure you'll be equally inspired by over the next
Joanne Lockwood: few weeks and months. And of course, that may well be you. If you'd like
Joanne Lockwood: to be a guest, then please let me know. Or if you've got other comments,
Joanne Lockwood: feedback, or suggestions on how I can improve, then just drop me a line
Joanne Lockwood: to jo.lockwood at seachangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: And finally, my name is Joanne Lockwood, and it's been an
Joanne Lockwood: absolute pleasure to host this show for you today. Catch you next
Joanne Lockwood: time. Bye!