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
Joanne Lockwood: interviewed a number of amazing people and simply had a conversation
Joanne Lockwood: around the subject of inclusion, belonging and generally
Joanne Lockwood: making the world a better place for everyone to thrive.
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Joanne Lockwood: jo.lockwood@seechangehapen.co.uk.
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Joanne Lockwood: can catch up with all of the previous shows on iTunes, Spotify
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Joanne Lockwood: Today is Episode 91
Joanne Lockwood: with the title"Beyond the Corporate
Joanne Lockwood: Robot"". And I have the absolute honour and
Joanne Lockwood: privilege to welcome Sam Warner. Sam
Joanne Lockwood: is a neurodivergent communication specialist, and when I asked
Joanne Lockwood: Sam to describe her superbach, she said, I'm blessed
Joanne Lockwood: with the ability to take very complex subjects and
Joanne Lockwood: simplify them when they need to be explained to others.
Joanne Lockwood: Hello, Sam. Welcome to the show.
Sam Warner: Hello. Hi. It's great to see you again. It
Joanne Lockwood: seems only a week since we were in each other's company
Joanne Lockwood: in a medical centre place in Stoke.
Sam Warner: Indeed. I used to meet people in the most interesting places. Yes,
Joanne Lockwood: it was very interesting. Nice car park, nice sandwiches.
Joanne Lockwood: Lovely. Thank you. So, Sam,"Beyond
Joanne Lockwood: The Corporate Robot"". That's intriguing. Tell me more.
Sam Warner: I shall. So, around about
Sam Warner: 2015, I left
Sam Warner: the world of corporate, and
Sam Warner: there's a really good reason why I left the world of corporate.
Sam Warner: And there'll be some people, I guess, who can relate to this. Maybe even you,
Sam Warner: Joe. I don't know where
Sam Warner: I felt like I was swimming up a river all the
Sam Warner: time and I was tired mentally
Sam Warner: and physically, and it was just really the whole
Sam Warner: square peg in a round hole. I can never seem to do right
Sam Warner: by everybody. If I'm doing right by that person, I'm doing wrong by the
Sam Warner: other. I can't play the political game. They all seem to be playing
Sam Warner: some sort of game and I haven't got the rules. And
Sam Warner: I just got to that point where I was like, okay, I'm done.
Sam Warner: I can't play anymore, I'm out. You carry on playing on your
Sam Warner: own. I need to play a different game.
Sam Warner: And it's only after that, really, that I delved
Sam Warner: very deeply into why I might be feeling like that. I'd
Sam Warner: had some idea already for a few years, dabbled with the idea
Sam Warner: that I might be neurodivergent, which, if you're not
Sam Warner: familiar with neurodivergent, it's quite a new word, I guess
Sam Warner: it's autistic, it's ADHD dyslexia,
Sam Warner: dyspraxia, sensory processing
Sam Warner: disorders, all sorts of stuff like that. And
Sam Warner: as it turns out, when I explored that more and I researched
Sam Warner: it more and I'm really good at research, it became really
Sam Warner: apparent to me that I was wired up so differently to
Sam Warner: everyone else. It was as if it
Sam Warner: was as if, Jo, that you'd picked me up and popped me into japan
Sam Warner: and gone, off you pop, love. Work it out. Because that's
Sam Warner: how confusing it was. The different laws, the different
Sam Warner: ways that you're supposed to express respect to each
Sam Warner: other, the do's and the don'ts, all of that kind of
Sam Warner: stuff. And even just language in general. Because what I've
Sam Warner: discovered is people don't tend to mean what they say and say what they mean.
Sam Warner: It's all this sort of woolly kind of stuff. They were supposed to work it
Sam Warner: out, apparently, so that I found really challenging.
Sam Warner: And I'd reached my zenith,
Sam Warner: I'd reached the end of my tether. And then
Sam Warner: the epiphany I had was, well, there's loads of stuff
Sam Warner: I'm actually really, really good at and it just doesn't suit this corporate world.
Sam Warner: It's not that I can't work, it's that I can't work
Sam Warner: there. And I noticed that as I came from, my
Sam Warner: last job was in it for nearly nine years. I realised
Sam Warner: that there's lots of other people struggling in a similar way to
Sam Warner: me. And then these sort of ideas popped into my brain. They were
Sam Warner: hatching. And I've always loved coaching and teaching
Sam Warner: people very much on a side hustle kind of way. And I
Sam Warner: realised I should be doing this. This is the thing, this is why I'm
Sam Warner: here. If we've got to look for purpose in our lives, I need to
Sam Warner: use my talent to help other people understand
Sam Warner: all of this and thrive. And that's how come Get Your
Sam Warner: Message Across was truly kind of birthed into the world
Sam Warner: as an organisation. And so now I go into
Sam Warner: organisations and I help them to attract
Sam Warner: and retain neurodivergent talent,
Sam Warner: to support them in a fantastic way.
Sam Warner: Reasonable adjustments, accommodations and adaptations,
Sam Warner: usually costing the company nothing, which is
Sam Warner: amazing and actually happy side effects. It
Sam Warner: benefits everybody, there's no losers. And then on the side of
Sam Warner: that, things come to you. I've ended up helping
Sam Warner: individuals who also want to do fantastically well at work
Sam Warner: and thrive, so it
Sam Warner: sort of exploded and I'm really happy about that. So, yeah,
Sam Warner: I'll stop talking so you can get a win in h waste.
Joanne Lockwood: Thank you. No, absolutely. Have a sip of coffee, that would do you good.
Joanne Lockwood: I got to ask, have
Joanne Lockwood: you had a diagnosis or are you self diagnosed or are you
Joanne Lockwood: clinically diagnosed? So I have
Sam Warner: a clinical diagnosis. I got that last
Sam Warner: year because I saved up all my pennies and spent 1500
Sam Warner: pounds getting my Autistic and
Sam Warner: ADHD combined. Diagnosis.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, that was obviously important to you,
Joanne Lockwood: otherwise you wouldn't have invested so much money in it. So what was the big
Joanne Lockwood: game changer? You knew, presumably, you were
Joanne Lockwood: going into the diagnosis expecting to be diagnosed, you weren't going in there to be
Joanne Lockwood: expected to be filed. No. You're not neurodiverse enough.
Joanne Lockwood: Sorry. Yeah, exactly. That's why there's
Sam Warner: all this stuff in the news about so many people being diagnosed
Sam Warner: with ADHD. I'm like, yeah, because all the people who think they've got ADHD
Sam Warner: are going for diagnosis. Duh. It's expensive.
Sam Warner: But for me it was validation. So even though I was
Sam Warner: 99.9% certain because of all the research I'd done
Sam Warner: anyway and met so many people like me,
Sam Warner: there was that 0.1% of me that had impostor syndrome that
Sam Warner: kept going how can you be doing this for other people? How can you call
Sam Warner: yourself the neurodivergent communication specialist if
Sam Warner: you can't prove that you're neurodivergent? What if someone asks you
Sam Warner: for proof? And that was always like this nagging little elf
Sam Warner: on my shoulder. So I flicked the elf off my
Sam Warner: shoulder and I've got it. Not one person
Sam Warner: has ever asked to see my diagnosis. But I did cry for 3 hours
Sam Warner: afterwards because they were validated.
Joanne Lockwood: I felt a bit similar when I was diagnosed as
Joanne Lockwood: trans psychologist and I got my letter
Joanne Lockwood: saying DSM 64 one
Joanne Lockwood: transsexual tick and it was kind of like
Joanne Lockwood: so what? Thank you for telling me something I know already. But
Joanne Lockwood: it was validation. I think that's the whole reason that I and many
Joanne Lockwood: others who are trans, obviously you're neurodiverse or whatever it may
Joanne Lockwood: be, is you want someone to say you're not making
Joanne Lockwood: this shit up almost. This is real, it's
Joanne Lockwood: tangible and it's me. Oh, definitely. And there's
Sam Warner: a real stigma for people who are self
Sam Warner: diagnosed for often gatekeeping by
Sam Warner: diagnosed individuals. Weirdly, even though we're all supposed to
Sam Warner: be part of the same community and supporting each other and you're like,
Sam Warner: hang on a minute, I don't think you've thought about this before
Sam Warner: diving in and attacking someone or accusing them of not being
Sam Warner: diagnosed, therefore not really neurodivergent. Oh no,
Joanne Lockwood: neurodivergent enough. You're not a real neurodivergent. You're pretend
Sam Warner: letter from your mom. And for a
Sam Warner: lot of people it's really hard to get diagnosed. I mean, there's some
Sam Warner: shocking statistics at the moment for trying to be on waiting lists.
Sam Warner: I think I won't name it, but there's one county in
Sam Warner: the UK and their waiting list is seven years.
Joanne Lockwood: I think trans people have it hard because we're looking at
Joanne Lockwood: about six or seven years for first appointment. So yeah, not too
Joanne Lockwood: dissimilar. So many
Joanne Lockwood: parallels because the trans community, we have people who
Joanne Lockwood: are policing people saying, well, unless you got diagnosis, you're not trans enough, you're
Joanne Lockwood: not proper trans person, you're just making it up. It's like it's incredible how we
Joanne Lockwood: do that. My goodness. No, I know
Sam Warner: actually.
Joanne Lockwood: Your respective my respective communities, we're
Joanne Lockwood: about gatekeeping and policing and then the pathway to
Joanne Lockwood: proper diagnosis is either go
Joanne Lockwood: private or sit in the queue
Joanne Lockwood: knowing there's something not right or knowing that you need some validation and
Joanne Lockwood: you have to wait six, seven years. I guess even best
Joanne Lockwood: case, it's going to be four or five years. Even if you get really lucky
Joanne Lockwood: with your postcode. Oh, yeah, for sure. And
Sam Warner: there's another twist to the whole private thing. So for a lot
Sam Warner: of people, particularly with ADHD,
Sam Warner: which for some people sometimes
Sam Warner: medication can help. I'm being very clear that that's
Sam Warner: not. A given written or something like that, is it? All sorts
Sam Warner: of things. They normally give written children, because why. Wouldn'T you give the Bart
Joanne Lockwood: Simpson sort. Of pill or whatever it is to children? That sounds
Sam Warner: wizard, doesn't it? And then, funny enough, when they get to 18, they can't have
Sam Warner: it anymore because it's a controlled substance.
Sam Warner: Yeah, let's not go down that road. But the medication thing
Sam Warner: is, the point I'm making in that if you go down the private
Sam Warner: diagnosis route, you then have to pay for
Sam Warner: your medication privately for the first two years. And it's like
Sam Warner: 200 pounds a month until the NHS will
Sam Warner: agree, hopefully, to take you over so that you
Sam Warner: can have a normal prescription like everyone else has.
Sam Warner: So it's more than just
Sam Warner: scraping together the money you need for your diagnosis. It has
Sam Warner: wider implications financially. It's two and a half thousand pounds a year
Joanne Lockwood: for the meds, isn't it? That's what you're saying as well. It's just horrendous. So
Joanne Lockwood: two year cost is 5000 plus 1500 at six and a half thousand pounds for
Joanne Lockwood: your first two years of being yourself and having been
Joanne Lockwood: validated. And so the whole diagnosis thing becomes a privilege
Sam Warner: for people who can afford and that's why they go,
Sam Warner: oh, is this a big epidemic of people being diagnosed? What's going on?
Sam Warner: No. So we've only been diagnosing autism since about
Sam Warner: 1980. Shockingly. And we've only been
Sam Warner: diagnosing ADHD since 1968, and that
Sam Warner: was mainly men
Sam Warner: and children rather than adults.
Joanne Lockwood: Hyperactive kids, really, isn't it? Disruptive kids? Effectively, yeah.
Sam Warner: There was a real belief that you grew out of it, which is just interesting
Sam Warner: to me, shall we say, was. A bottom set in our schools,
Joanne Lockwood: where there was a whole group of young children or
Joanne Lockwood: children who were the no hopers. They were
Joanne Lockwood: either unsuccessful in exams or
Joanne Lockwood: academically or they would lark around, they were uncontrollable. So the
Joanne Lockwood: bottom set was always the they can go and play with the toys
Joanne Lockwood: all day because there's nothing else we can do with them and just trying to
Joanne Lockwood: teach them what they can. Otherwise they were forgotten children. And just
Joanne Lockwood: I hate to use the word, but labelled as thick or stupid. And that was
Sam Warner: kind of disruptive r word that we don't
Sam Warner: use anymore. Oh, yes. No, the R word. Yeah, we don't use that
Sam Warner: anymore. Which nickel stupid? Either, but yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: the R word, indeed. They would have found that they had
Sam Warner: talents in other areas that just simply weren't academic. And there were people
Sam Warner: like me who were academically gifted. I was able
Sam Warner: to follow the rules and do what I was told, and
Sam Warner: I found the work really easy because I have really logical brain. So you
Sam Warner: just follow what it says and there you go. Bob's your uncle. But I was
Sam Warner: bored, bored out of my head. I wasn't stimulated. There was no curiosity
Sam Warner: fostered, if you could wind the world back
Sam Warner: 40 OD years. I'd have loved to have gone to a Montessori school or something
Sam Warner: like that. That fosters that kind of creative thinking, that
Sam Warner: curiosity, that's exactly the kind of teaching that I
Sam Warner: needed not learn this and then
Sam Warner: regurgitate it in a year's time for over 4
Sam Warner: hours at a desk where you can't talk to anyone. Oh yeah, that's an
Sam Warner: exam. Right. So where in my working life will
Sam Warner: I ever have to do this again? Oh, never.
Sam Warner: What? Doesn't make any sense to
Sam Warner: me at all. At all. So I flew under the radar
Sam Warner: in school because I was a good girl and I did as I was told
Sam Warner: and admittedly I was still a bit of a handful. So I was board
Sam Warner: monitor, milk monitor, playground monitor, and they were trying
Sam Warner: to keep me busy because of my
Sam Warner: hyperactivity, so I get
Sam Warner: it, I'd probably do that as well if I was my teacher,
Sam Warner: but I'd read all the books in the library, they didn't know what to do
Sam Warner: with me. Now, the boys who were academically
Sam Warner: gifted were put up a year, not the girls
Sam Warner: though. Oh no, you have to stay with your peers.
Sam Warner: Why? I don't have any
Sam Warner: friends, in case you hadn't noticed,
Sam Warner: I'm always on my own.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes. So you weren't hanging out with the boys and in the
Joanne Lockwood: playground and doing hopscotch or handstands against the
Joanne Lockwood: no, no. I was frequently to be found on my own
Sam Warner: making up stories in my head. Gosh. I
Sam Warner: don't know if you ever did this as a kid, Joe, but we used to
Sam Warner: get part of a stocking and a tennis ball. And you put the tennis
Sam Warner: ball in the stocking and you stand against a wall, and then
Sam Warner: you hold one end of the stocking and you kind of throw the ball, and
Sam Warner: it goes doof doof, doof, doof, doof either side of you. And then you can
Sam Warner: do it between your legs and above your head, and you try and do all
Sam Warner: sorts of things with it. I did that a lot.
Sam Warner: I remember that, people away from you. If
Joanne Lockwood: I've got too close, you could. Yeah, they're going to get hit by it. Yeah,
Sam Warner: dear, the silly days. Definitely in the East End of London it
Joanne Lockwood: progressed to a snooker ball in the stocking, doesn't it?
Sam Warner: I would throw myself at whatever extracurricular activities I could,
Sam Warner: so even in primary school we would do like a bit of music and
Sam Warner: dance or something, or a little play, and I'd be the first one with my
Sam Warner: hand up going be meep, me, pick me, pick me. Because I was desperate for
Sam Warner: stimulation and desperate to be involved and feel like I was useful
Sam Warner: and nourished and mentally
Sam Warner: and then I went to grammar school and I thought, I thought
Sam Warner: everyone at grammar school was going to want to be at school and want to
Sam Warner: learn and be like me. Turns out that's not what it
Sam Warner: was like at all. It was just the kids that passed the Eleven
Sam Warner: Plus. Who probably had the privilege of
Joanne Lockwood: parents who pushed them through it as well and motivated them. Yeah,
Sam Warner: or they were just bright, but they were still horrible.
Sam Warner: Horribly, horribly bullied through school. Hated every second of school
Sam Warner: people. Oh, yes, it's really good. Even if it wasn't good for you,
Sam Warner: you would have learned some really valuable lessons. Yeah, I know
Sam Warner: which people to stay away from. I know where the good places are to
Sam Warner: hide. And I ended up playing bridge with the math
Sam Warner: teachers at lunchtime to get away from the children.
Sam Warner: I mean, what 13 year old plays bridge with the math teachers at
Sam Warner: school? Yeah, we used to play
Joanne Lockwood: chess in our break title. We used to have chess sets and magnetic
Joanne Lockwood: chess to sit outside under the shelters whenever I
Joanne Lockwood: was playing football. Me and a couple of friends used to play chess every lunchtime,
Joanne Lockwood: things like that. But
Joanne Lockwood: my school career, I suppose if I look back on it, I was really
Joanne Lockwood: polarised. So if you looked at my school report, I was either
Joanne Lockwood: A or E. There were subjects I was always
Joanne Lockwood: E and there were the classes I got thrown out of. I had to
Joanne Lockwood: stand in the corner of my hands on my head. There were the ones I
Joanne Lockwood: was disruptive mainly, so things like French,
Joanne Lockwood: geography, history, all those kind of like those sort
Joanne Lockwood: of subjects mass physics, science I was always on the A side.
Joanne Lockwood: And when it came to my exams, I think
Joanne Lockwood: I sat nine GCE at the time, back in the
Joanne Lockwood: early eighty s, and I got five and I did five
Joanne Lockwood: as a walk on part. I don't remember actually revising
Joanne Lockwood: at all. I just walked into Math physics. I only got
Joanne Lockwood: B's, but if I'd have tried I tried to get A's. Yeah. And I was
Joanne Lockwood: completely polarised. Of course. My parents just saw the left hand column, the
Joanne Lockwood: E's. They didn't see the A's. No one twigged and said, give
Joanne Lockwood: this person stimulation on this column and don't try and stimulate them
Joanne Lockwood: in that column because it's not going to work. And that hasn't changed.
Sam Warner: We're 30, 40 years later, and kids are still being trained to look
Sam Warner: at, oh, look, you got a D in such and such. Never mind your ten
Sam Warner: A stars, you got you've got a D in history. They might hate history, they
Sam Warner: might not like the teacher. There could be any number of reasons why history is
Sam Warner: not working out for them, so don't force them to do history.
Joanne Lockwood: But as it happens, I'm actually quite interested in history today.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm interested in it because it intrigues me now. I actually care about it now
Joanne Lockwood: about the intricacies and the detail of it. But then I
Joanne Lockwood: didn't care about Egyptians. Well, yeah, and we did World War
Sam Warner: II. Okay. I think it's important for us to learn about
Sam Warner: those kind of things, but the teacher was awful.
Sam Warner: It wasn't that he wasn't knowledgeable, he was
Sam Warner: let's call him quite the character.
Sam Warner: He used to walk around with a cane that he did not
Sam Warner: need to walk, it was a prop and he
Sam Warner: would whack it on the desk right next to your hand
Sam Warner: and tell us how he'd come from a boarding school where he was allowed to
Sam Warner: hit the kids and all this kind of stuff. He
Sam Warner: was there to terrify us and enjoyed every second of it. Is it any wonder
Sam Warner: my history grade was not good? Really?
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I've still got the dent in my forehead from a geography teacher in the
Joanne Lockwood: board. Rubber. Yeah. He used to throw chalk
Sam Warner: and stuff at us as well. Yeah. I sat in the front row because
Sam Warner: and this is before I knew about ADHD or anything like that, but I found
Sam Warner: it really distracting if I could see the other kids in the class, like lucking
Sam Warner: about and doing all that stuff. So I found if I sat in the front,
Sam Warner: I could block out most of the class and try and
Sam Warner: concentrate on the teacher and I used to tell people it's because I wore glasses.
Sam Warner: Wasn't that until I could see fine. I mean, I did have glasses, but it
Sam Warner: was a great way of explaining why I wanted to sit at the front all
Sam Warner: the time. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: You talked about your diagnosis and I talked about my transiness diagnosis, if you
Joanne Lockwood: like. I've often considered am I on some
Joanne Lockwood: kind of neurodevelopment spectrum? Probably hyper focusing,
Joanne Lockwood: the hypertensive type stuff, rather than the
Joanne Lockwood: disruptive element these days. So I obsess over things,
Joanne Lockwood: so I have to pull it apart, put it together, put it apart, put it
Joanne Lockwood: together, pull it apart, put it together, pull it apart, get together. Right. Board now.
Joanne Lockwood: Next thing, pull it apart. So I've got a whole pile of things I've done.
Joanne Lockwood: I very, really revisit once I've done them, I've done them. I've kind of
Joanne Lockwood: loaded the module in my head sort of thing. But I suppose
Joanne Lockwood: having been through the process to get diagnosed as trans,
Joanne Lockwood: I don't need someone else, I've realised I don't need validation anymore. I just
Joanne Lockwood: need to know that it doesn't matter. I don't need to identify as
Joanne Lockwood: or have a diagnosis as if I am, I am. If I'm not, I'm
Joanne Lockwood: not. If I'm not quite enough, it doesn't matter to me. I've learned to
Joanne Lockwood: cope with myself.
Sam Warner: I think you're kind of the same as me in a way, in
Sam Warner: that you like to sort of
Sam Warner: this might not be the right way. I'm saying this so I quite like the
Sam Warner: idea that I'm holding up a torch and I'm saying, Look,
Sam Warner: I've got an idea how we can do this, the whole being
Sam Warner: a human thing. Come with me and I'll show you what
Sam Warner: I know kind of thing. And I kind of get that feeling that you're like
Sam Warner: that too. It's not that you know it all and you've got all of the
Sam Warner: answers, it's just, look, come with me, I know some stuff and it might help.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. My brain's been processing this in
Joanne Lockwood: the background for like, 30 or 40 years, and
Joanne Lockwood: I've got 30 or 40 years worth of analysis that's occurred in my head.
Joanne Lockwood: So things very rarely pop out without a lot of deep
Joanne Lockwood: thinking. And I've learned to realise that what I've got to be careful
Joanne Lockwood: of is I spit out my mouth as a
Joanne Lockwood: complete idea, forgetting that nobody else has had the backstory. So I've
Joanne Lockwood: got to start sometimes I've got to wind myself back and go, okay,
Joanne Lockwood: then there were dinosaurs. Dinosaurs died out through a meteor. Then we got to go
Joanne Lockwood: and eventually we get to the point where Joe has this idea,
Joanne Lockwood: okay, we're all up to the same page now. Yeah. Otherwise
Joanne Lockwood: Marie, my wife, often says to me, what are you thinking about? And I go
Joanne Lockwood: nothing. I've just shut down my external senses because something,
Joanne Lockwood: the processing is going on the back of my head somewhere. I'm not aware of
Joanne Lockwood: what's going on, it's just conjugating and processing. And if you keep talking
Joanne Lockwood: to me, I have to keep stopping, pressing pause, bringing myself back
Joanne Lockwood: into the conscious and impulsive self again and then carrying on the processing. So,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, I do a lot of staring into space processing,
Joanne Lockwood: trying to simulate ideas and put them together and come up with
Joanne Lockwood: thoughts I see in pictures. And everything I do
Joanne Lockwood: is around navigating the world as a virtual
Joanne Lockwood: world in my head. I process everything in that sort of way.
Sam Warner: That's cool because I have aphantasia, so I don't see pictures at all.
Joanne Lockwood: You don't see pictures? Wow. And I'm a professional artist, so write that
Sam Warner: one out. So think of an
Joanne Lockwood: elephant. You're going, what? Well, no, I have a knowing
Sam Warner: of an elephant, right? I have seen an elephant. I
Sam Warner: could draw an elephant for you and it wouldn't be very
Sam Warner: rudimentary, it would look like an elephant, but I do not
Sam Warner: see an elephant. When I close my eyes, there is no picture
Sam Warner: there. It's just sort of I've got this.
Joanne Lockwood: Tachyoderm in a waterhole in Africa somewhere with its
Joanne Lockwood: trunk and this little baby elephant next to it, and there's lions. I've got the
Joanne Lockwood: whole picture, the whole serengeti's out there. It's going on there now.
Sam Warner: And yeah. So places I've been to multiple
Sam Warner: times, particularly rooms, I can
Sam Warner: draw for you from memory accurately and
Sam Warner: with all full perspective, with all of the detail in it. Like
Sam Warner: if there was a window open, usually the window will be open. If there was
Sam Warner: a broken something, that'll be in it. If there's a door in a
Sam Warner: kitchen that's not quite hung, right, that'll be there, because my
Sam Warner: memory remembers it latches. Onto difference or latches
Joanne Lockwood: onto the unique or
Joanne Lockwood: something that's not quite right. So you spot those things as opposed
Joanne Lockwood: to you're optimising out, the defaults spot, the
Joanne Lockwood: difference games. I'm really good at that kind of stuff. I'm
Sam Warner: really good at things like pattern recognition and do you remember, like,
Sam Warner: 52 card pickup with the playing cards face
Sam Warner: down? And the idea is that you'd got to find the pairs. Have
Sam Warner: you ever played that? We used to joke about the playground. Someone says, someone
Joanne Lockwood: comes up the pack of cars, you say, if you play 52 car pickup, they
Joanne Lockwood: go, what's that? You pick up the car, someone throw them in the air and
Joanne Lockwood: go, There you go. You call
Sam Warner: 52 car pickup that isn't that one. Yeah. And you lay them all down, face
Sam Warner: down, and they're all kind of randomised. And the idea is that you
Sam Warner: remember where cards were in order to make. A yes, I know what you mean.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And I just kept winning it all the time.
Sam Warner: I don't know how I remember where it is, I just
Sam Warner: do. I can't tell you the process
Sam Warner: that's going on and then later on in life, I realised that
Sam Warner: there were things that I could relate and match up together,
Sam Warner: like using a metaphor or an anecdote or something like
Sam Warner: that, that would help someone understand something that was
Sam Warner: quite complicated. And then they, oh, yeah, I totally
Sam Warner: get it now. Oh, that's much easier. And I could see little light bulbs going
Sam Warner: off in their eyes and I was like,
Sam Warner: I seem to be quite good at this whole reducing really big,
Sam Warner: complex level down into some sort of simple
Sam Warner: forms. And it became especially helpful working in It,
Sam Warner: when you're often talking to business managers who aren't techie, but they're all
Sam Warner: about the people. So being a project manager, I was able to
Sam Warner: sort of distil translate stuff
Sam Warner: to the business managers, get a decision and then beef that
Sam Warner: back up again in order to translate it back to what technical decision has just
Sam Warner: been made. When I was in It, I
Joanne Lockwood: was my It company, so for me, it was kind of the translation
Joanne Lockwood: was, it's broken? It's going to cost you a lot of money. Do you want
Joanne Lockwood: to buy it? It was kind of sistering it down into sort of simple
Joanne Lockwood: terms that, yeah. You can well, an old honesty piece. So
Sam Warner: a lot of people, when they've got a customer, they don't really like
Sam Warner: telling the customer bad news. They don't like saying, no, I'm sorry,
Sam Warner: you can't have that. I want a blue button. You can't have it. You have
Sam Warner: to have a red one. What do you mean? After I want a blue button?
Sam Warner: It's not possible. That doesn't exist yet. Right. We don't have the
Sam Warner: technology to make it that colour, so you have to have the other colour.
Sam Warner: So that's being honest with the customer, even though it's bad news, even though they
Sam Warner: don't like it, that's a fact. And some people really
Sam Warner: can't cope with that. They feel that's very confrontational. They find it hard to be
Sam Warner: assertive, to stick up for themselves, to ride through
Sam Warner: the customer having to go through that process of grief
Sam Warner: because they thought they were going to get that and they're not going to get
Sam Warner: that, and they're really angry about it. And then they come out the other side
Sam Warner: and they go, okay, well, if that's the way it is, that's the way it
Sam Warner: is, and everything's all right again. But because we're never taught how
Sam Warner: to have that kind of conversation, which be useful, wouldn't it? If we're taught that
Sam Warner: school how to have difficult conversations with people, then we'd be so much
Sam Warner: more honest. There'd be less of this woolly
Sam Warner: pollux that's just said, that
Sam Warner: doesn't mean anything, or it's just a lie.
Sam Warner: And everyone I speak to, whether they're neurodivergent
Sam Warner: or neurotypical, everyone says they want clearer
Sam Warner: communication. I haven't had a single person
Sam Warner: who said, no. I like it when it's really woolly and hard to understand.
Sam Warner: Not one. Not yet.
Joanne Lockwood: So you just use two terms, they're neurodivergent and neurotypical.
Joanne Lockwood: And this is another one of those spectrum conversations where
Joanne Lockwood: everybody's somewhere on the spectrum. It's a bit introvert, extrovert. Well,
Joanne Lockwood: there's also the bid in the middle, where you're not and you're trans, you're non
Joanne Lockwood: binary. Everyone loves a spectrum, don't they? So
Joanne Lockwood: neurodiversity ASD autism.
Joanne Lockwood: Whenever we have a terminology, there's always a spectrum. There's
Joanne Lockwood: really? Really. And not so much over here.
Joanne Lockwood: Surely we are, as a species,
Joanne Lockwood: so diverse and so varied in our brains and everything else,
Joanne Lockwood: is there really a typical
Joanne Lockwood: neurotypical? I don't think there is, which is why the
Sam Warner: DSM Five is such a joke, because it's based on
Sam Warner: a small group of people in
Sam Warner: America, mainly men, mainly men
Sam Warner: who have made a decision about what they think
Sam Warner: normal is or neurotypical is. And therefore, if you
Sam Warner: are not that, then you are divergent from
Sam Warner: that. Therefore, you are then up for
Sam Warner: diagnosing, pathologizing, medicating,
Sam Warner: hospitalisation, the whole works.
Sam Warner: Institutionalisation. I mean, don't forget, it wasn't that long
Sam Warner: ago they were putting women in institutions for being hysterical.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes, menopause. Childbirth. Raise your
Sam Warner: voice. Me. Put her away. Hysteria. That's a
Joanne Lockwood: diagnosis of hysteria. That was a real diagnosis. How dare she?
Sam Warner: Good job I wasn't born back then. I can tell you.
Joanne Lockwood: We need to steal her property offer that a recent deceased father left
Joanne Lockwood: her. We need to lock her away. Either marry her off or lock her away.
Joanne Lockwood: And we can tell. So we've still got a long way to go
Sam Warner: in terms of how we interpret our
Sam Warner: brains and what that means. But you're
Sam Warner: right, Joe. If we put that all to one
Sam Warner: side and we just make
Sam Warner: sure that everybody at work, which is where I
Sam Warner: thrive, I work with people who are in work. If
Sam Warner: we just allow them to have all the reasonable adjustments, accommodations and
Sam Warner: adaptations they need to be their very best selves at work,
Sam Warner: regardless of what's going on in their head, surely that. Is
Sam Warner: the answer. There is no stigma. Everyone can
Sam Warner: choose what they need and the organisation can
Sam Warner: put parameters on things. I mean, if someone's a
Sam Warner: driver of a logistics firm, you might not be able to
Sam Warner: allow that driver to take multiple breaks during the day, start
Sam Warner: late and do the things that they might need to do to preserve their energy.
Sam Warner: Perhaps that's not the right job for them.
Sam Warner: Yes, perhaps there's a different kind of job that
Sam Warner: will allow them to do that. Maybe still a driving job,
Sam Warner: if that's what they want to do. Maybe a taxi driver
Sam Warner: might be a better job where you can start later. And you can
Joanne Lockwood: Uber. Amazon delivery, not
Sam Warner: so much. You're under the Kosh on that one, I think.
Sam Warner: But there are other jobs that might be more
Sam Warner: suitable with different kinds of rules and boundaries.
Sam Warner: I think we have to make sure we don't frighten organisations by saying,
Sam Warner: oh, yes, you just got to let all your workforce do whatever they want. No,
Sam Warner: that's not what we're saying, and some organisations are scared of that.
Sam Warner: What we're saying is, if you have a neurodiversity policy,
Sam Warner: which many places do not have, yet, you are
Sam Warner: able to describe what this organisation will tolerate
Sam Warner: in terms of reasonable adjustments, accommodations and adaptations,
Sam Warner: and to reassure the employee that that's not an exhaustive
Sam Warner: list, a conversation can be had. The starting point.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, starting point. What we say we will agree, and that's
Sam Warner: hunky dory. And you need to talk to your team leader about how that fits
Sam Warner: into the team dynamic, how it's communicated, et cetera, et cetera.
Sam Warner: And some things might have a pound sign cost. It might be that
Sam Warner: someone needs some specific software, just like any other person
Sam Warner: who might be disabled and need something that's a bit
Sam Warner: special. But the greatest analogy I've ever heard, Joe, I've got
Sam Warner: to share this with you, right, is if I'm sat next to someone at
Sam Warner: work and they are not wearing glasses because they do
Sam Warner: not need glasses, right, if I take
Sam Warner: my glasses off, right, I'm now
Sam Warner: the same as them, right? That's equality, right.
Sam Warner: However, I can't see. I'm blind as a bat. Minus eight. You're both
Sam Warner: eyes, right? Now, my reasonable
Sam Warner: adjustment is putting these fantastic glasses on, which means
Sam Warner: I can now see like the person next to me.
Sam Warner: Do I have an unfair advantage now?
Sam Warner: No. I was disadvantaged
Sam Warner: and now I'm at the same place as the person who can see without
Sam Warner: glasses. And that's what reasonable adjustments are.
Sam Warner: They are an opportunity to put everyone on step
Sam Warner: one. So actually, it's making the whole
Sam Warner: workforce a fairer place to work.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And I think you touched on it at the beginning that
Joanne Lockwood: don't see a workplace adjustment,
Joanne Lockwood: accommodation as something just benefiting one
Joanne Lockwood: group or one minority or one characteristic.
Joanne Lockwood: The lift, the elevator benefits all, not
Joanne Lockwood: just the people who are wheelchair users or
Joanne Lockwood: immobile. It's recognising that by putting things in
Joanne Lockwood: place, it benefits all. You may go skiing, come back with a broken
Joanne Lockwood: leg. You are not technically disabled, but you are at that moment for
Joanne Lockwood: six to eight weeks. So we're all
Joanne Lockwood: one frivolity away from a broken leg or a broken arm or a cracked
Joanne Lockwood: skull. So I think we got to recognise that these adjustments we're
Joanne Lockwood: putting in other people benefit, like quiet rooms.
Joanne Lockwood: It's not just the people who are yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I would consider myself an introvert.
Joanne Lockwood: I can exhaust myself in about an hour of higher
Joanne Lockwood: networking or involvement in things. I just want to go and shut the door
Joanne Lockwood: and I want to work around a quiet room, because the default is you don't
Joanne Lockwood: talk to me, you come in or maybe wink at each other or
Joanne Lockwood: nod gently. But apart from that, there's no pressure to talk.
Joanne Lockwood: If you start talking, I'm just going to ignore you, because that's the rules of
Joanne Lockwood: the quiet room, which is what annoys me on trains, when there's suddenly
Joanne Lockwood: there's a whole family of people getting all kind of chatty. I said,
Joanne Lockwood: Just want to I want my own space to do nothing here,
Joanne Lockwood: so get out of my head. So quiet rooms,
Joanne Lockwood: prayer rooms, faith rooms, all of those things benefit everybody,
Joanne Lockwood: not just somebody who you think it's there for. Absolutely. Same as a
Sam Warner: disabled loo. So everyone thinks a disabled loo is for a wheelchair user and
Sam Warner: nobody else. And I'm like, okay, so quite often I have to use the disabled
Sam Warner: loo, mainly because there are
Sam Warner: hand dryers in so many loos and there is no soft
Sam Warner: furnishings in public lose. And so the sound of the
Sam Warner: hand dryer bounces around the room and it's that
Sam Warner: percussion shock I experience on my ears.
Sam Warner: Literally feels like someone is boxing my ears. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
Sam Warner: And I'm escaping and trying not to cry,
Sam Warner: it's so horrible. And so
Sam Warner: I end up having to go into the disabled loo so that
Sam Warner: I don't have to experience that, because I just can't cope.
Sam Warner: I just freeze and turn into a five year old with my fingers in my
Sam Warner: ears, like, no, stop it. You know, and I'm 50,
Sam Warner: it's not good. And there are
Sam Warner: lots and lots of hidden disabilities, lots of reasons why people might need
Sam Warner: to use a private loo. All sorts of
Sam Warner: conditions, like crohn's, IBS, all sorts of things. That where you might need to be
Sam Warner: in a very private space, because we don't
Sam Warner: tend to have sinks inside the cubicles. You might need to get to a sink
Sam Warner: for some reason. If you've got a colostomy bag
Sam Warner: yes.
Sam Warner: Where you need to have running water to deal with that, to change
Sam Warner: anything. Do you really want to be doing that out in a sink in a
Sam Warner: public loo? Everyone's going to go, it's going to be
Sam Warner: horrible. If you're a gentleman, there's very rarely any sanitary
Joanne Lockwood: disposal or bins in the gent toilets, so it's
Joanne Lockwood: embarrassing. And, yeah, at least in the female
Joanne Lockwood: toilets. You probably get more empathetic people and disposal facilities in
Joanne Lockwood: the female toilets. Well, can you believe
Sam Warner: most of the time there is no bin in female
Sam Warner: toilets? No bin. So you might have
Sam Warner: the sanitary bin? Sanitary bins, yeah, in the cubicle, but.
Sam Warner: Anything else but that in it. So if you have other
Sam Warner: things that you might need to dispose of, like because you might
Sam Warner: be changing your stoma or something else, you can't put it in that bin.
Sam Warner: And there are no other bins because they have got no towels, they've got hand
Sam Warner: dryers. So in their head, there's no reason for you to need a
Sam Warner: bin or you've got a bit of
Sam Warner: rubbish, or you've just taken a plaster off. What do I do with this? Where
Sam Warner: do I put it? There's nowhere to put it.
Sam Warner: So a lot of things that are supposed to be perfectly okay for
Sam Warner: everybody are not fit for purpose. For everybody. Anyway,
Sam Warner: at the minimum, how many times have you opened a stall door and you've had
Sam Warner: to smoosh up next to the toilet in order to shut the door? Why
Sam Warner: is that about? You have to sort of do the Okie cokey, don't you? It's
Sam Warner: like self over the loo. Great. Get your boobs out of the way. Hang on
Joanne Lockwood: a minute. And someone said to me, well, you can't have
Sam Warner: opening outwards because then you'd smack someone in the face. And I'm like,
Sam Warner: when was the last time someone stood directly outside the
Sam Warner: door waiting for it to open? And even if they did, you
Sam Warner: could put a sign on it saying, this door opens outwards,
Sam Warner: could you? Yeah. The issue is that
Joanne Lockwood: toilet cubicles are designed for men. They're not designed for women, because
Joanne Lockwood: there's no room for the sanitary disposal. You end up trying to sit on the
Joanne Lockwood: loo and one bum cheek is on the sanitary disposal. You end
Joanne Lockwood: up standing on the pedal and it flips open where you get on the loo.
Joanne Lockwood: They try and get in and out with your handbag, your coat. You try and
Joanne Lockwood: lift your skirt and you dress up. It's like there's absolutely no room in there.
Joanne Lockwood: And you actually need to be about six inches wider. And I think they'd been
Joanne Lockwood: designed for skinny men 50 years ago. Yeah,
Sam Warner: well, and there's obviously a bug standard size,
Sam Warner: because if I found out there wasn't a bug standard size and they could have
Sam Warner: made it bigger, that's worse. Well, I'm pretty sure they're
Joanne Lockwood: all saying, because I've studied this. So the sanitary disposal units
Joanne Lockwood: are pretty much a standard size and they literally squeeze
Joanne Lockwood: between the porcelain and the wall, aren't they? Or the
Joanne Lockwood: cubicle size. They must have decided that is the standard
Joanne Lockwood: unit of sanitary disposal size, because. It tends to
Sam Warner: fit the cubicle itself, the length of
Sam Warner: it, or whatever you call it, and
Sam Warner: not having a hook on the back of the door. I know so many
Sam Warner: women don't just have a handbag. Some women don't have handbags shopping.
Sam Warner: We will have a coat they want to take off or shopping or a
Sam Warner: hat or whatever it is. They want to be able to hang up because they're
Sam Warner: doing something else. Right now, I
Sam Warner: know when I go. To the cinema, the floor
Joanne Lockwood: when I go to the cinema, I know that some of the cubicles don't
Joanne Lockwood: have hooks and I know the ones that do, so I always go to the
Joanne Lockwood: ones that do. So, again, you can hang your coat, put your egg on the
Joanne Lockwood: back of the door or do something, because you don't want to be trying to
Joanne Lockwood: one. Down the end where you can open it outwards, because I feel less
Sam Warner: yes. That'S the accessible one generally, isn't it? Because it's the one that's
Joanne Lockwood: wheelchair accessible. Tends to open out, doesn't it? Yeah, it's funny,
Sam Warner: isn't it? But it's relatively simple to solve
Sam Warner: these problems. I've even been to some places
Sam Warner: where the cubicles were
Sam Warner: like brick, so fully enclosed, like a little
Sam Warner: room, if you like, and the door opened inward, there
Sam Warner: was no gap, no window, so if you
Sam Warner: fainted and collapsed behind the door, you're staying there,
Sam Warner: love. There's no getting out and there's no getting to you. You'll die
Sam Warner: if it was major. I'm like, that's so
Sam Warner: dangerous.
Sam Warner: Mind blown, completely blown. And that was a council
Sam Warner: property. I was like, really? Yeah. I think it's just old
Joanne Lockwood: design that no one's stood back. You've become
Joanne Lockwood: kind of blinkered to the world around you. You walk in there, you see it
Joanne Lockwood: every day, you don't necessarily question it unless you're new to the space, and
Joanne Lockwood: then you go, It's obvious. And you say to everybody, what about that? They go,
Joanne Lockwood: oh, yeah, I never thought of that. It's obvious, isn't it? You go, yeah. And
Sam Warner: they do nothing about it. Yeah. How to it's
Joanne Lockwood: like, well, we've got no budget for that. That means knocking the block down. This
Joanne Lockwood: refurbishment, that's 20 k's worth, we haven't got that budget, blah,
Joanne Lockwood: blah, blah. Yeah, I suppose. Hey
Sam Warner: ho, hey ho. So going back to we
Joanne Lockwood: talked about the spectrum earlier. We talked about some of your experience of workplace
Joanne Lockwood: adjustment. Neurodiversity, or neurodivergence
Joanne Lockwood: or neurotypical has become
Joanne Lockwood: a buzword probably in the last 18 to 24 months. Before that,
Joanne Lockwood: it wasn't largely spoken about, really,
Joanne Lockwood: in the workplace. The last couple of years, there's been
Joanne Lockwood: a boom, if you like, of practitioners,
Joanne Lockwood: consultants, talking about university, bringing the profile up, talking
Joanne Lockwood: about it, some high profile
Joanne Lockwood: examples talking about it. Workplace are now
Joanne Lockwood: becoming neurodiverse, jury version, friendly, et cetera, et
Joanne Lockwood: cetera.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm sure you're going to say, no, our workplaces doing enough right
Joanne Lockwood: now. What is one little thing they could be doing that they're
Joanne Lockwood: not? So I'm glad to report that some are doing a
Sam Warner: really great job. Can I name Cheque
Sam Warner: One? I'd like to name Cheque one. So PebblePad
Sam Warner: are doing a fantastic job. One of my clients here in
Sam Warner: Telford. They were already doing a great job when
Sam Warner: they got me in and I was able to confirm what a
Sam Warner: great job they're doing. And we made a couple of very small tweaks, and there
Sam Warner: are a poster child for what you can do.
Sam Warner: You can do it, right? It's like this. Look, they're already doing it.
Sam Warner: So even that quiet space would be a fantastic first step,
Sam Warner: right? So if you're bringing everyone back to work either every day of the week
Sam Warner: or one day a week, they're still going to need that space. So
Sam Warner: whether it's a meeting room that's hardly used or even a broom cupboard with a
Sam Warner: chair in it, let's face it, I wouldn't mind if it was a broom cupboard
Sam Warner: with a chair in it. As long as I don't feel too claustrophobic and I
Sam Warner: won't get locked in, I'm good. I'll use a broom cupboard and
Sam Warner: you. Can open the door without having to sort of shimmy around it.
Sam Warner: Yeah, that'd be nice. But even a stairwell, as long as
Sam Warner: that's not too noisy, somewhere where I can go, where people are just going to
Sam Warner: leave me alone for a little bit, would be fantastic.
Sam Warner: But really, not making assumptions is the big thing
Sam Warner: because how many people have I talked to
Sam Warner: where I'll be starting the conversation? We'll be talking about
Sam Warner: neurodiversity. Oh, I know all about neurodiversity. I've got a
Sam Warner: nephew who's six and he's autistic and I know all about it. And
Sam Warner: I'm like, okay, so you know your nephew who's six who's
Sam Warner: autistic. That's fantastic that you've got to know him super well
Sam Warner: and you can support him and help him, but he's just a
Sam Warner: guy with autism
Sam Warner: or who is autistic, and he's
Sam Warner: probably got a personality, an upbringing, a culture,
Sam Warner: lots of different layers of personality can really change the way you
Sam Warner: present. I know lots of people who are neurodivergent, who are
Sam Warner: assholes, as well as lots of very lovely people. Just because you're
Sam Warner: neurodivergent doesn't mean you've got a halo. Really
Sam Warner: doesn't. And
Sam Warner: the whole assuming that because you've heard about
Sam Warner: something somewhere, you know it all that's dangerous. That's where
Sam Warner: you get into a sticky wicket. So my biggest advice, I guess, apart from the
Sam Warner: quiet room area, if you can do one, is don't make assumptions,
Sam Warner: ask, and don't embarrass the person when you
Sam Warner: ask. Take them to one side and ask, depending
Sam Warner: on where they are today, if you've ever heard of spoon
Sam Warner: theory, that's a really great way of people explaining how much energy they've got
Sam Warner: today to just function. And they might be able to express
Sam Warner: that with you, who are a team leader, and say, do you know what? I've
Sam Warner: got about three spoons today, so what do you want me to work on?
Sam Warner: Because that's all I'm doing. And then they might what do you.
Joanne Lockwood: Want me to do with it? I can hit you on the forehead with it
Joanne Lockwood: or you can leave me. Alone, this project, but don't
Sam Warner: talk to me. An extra spoon to have to stop and talk to
Sam Warner: you because extra energy shift. It doesn't mean that person
Sam Warner: can't work, it just means they might need to change they work today, change the
Sam Warner: way that they work today. And that whole,
Sam Warner: I think I know what you need is not a
Sam Warner: good thing. It becomes very parental.
Sam Warner: And in fact, there's someone else who talks about this, I think it was Andrew
Sam Warner: Bryant, who talks about the fact that when you're at work and you're
Sam Warner: a team leader or a supervisor or a manager or whatever,
Sam Warner: you are not their parent. And a lot of
Sam Warner: managers manage like a parent. We don't want
Sam Warner: another parent. Some
Sam Warner: people are done with parents.
Sam Warner: We actually just want a leader, show us the way and
Sam Warner: support us and have our backs and all that kind of stuff. So a
Sam Warner: lot of the work I've been doing more recently is helping
Sam Warner: leaders by giving them the language they might need when they're
Sam Warner: giving and receiving feedback, giving them the language they might need when
Sam Warner: they're giving instructions to people.
Sam Warner: Like, if I was going to give you a set of instructions, instead of just
Sam Warner: going, I want you to do this, this and this is that. All right, Joe?
Sam Warner: I would go, I want you to do this, this and this. Joe, can you
Sam Warner: repeat back to me what I've said so I can cheque that I've told you
Sam Warner: everything. And that means we've made sure we've
Sam Warner: got group understanding. Yeah. And if you can't, you might say,
Sam Warner: actually, could you pop that in an email for me? And I'll
Sam Warner: tell you if there's anything I don't know. Brilliant. Now we're communicating
Sam Warner: honestly. Now we're finding my wife says that all the time.
Joanne Lockwood: She said, you're going past the shop. Can you get me this, this and this
Joanne Lockwood: and this? And I go, no. She doesn't totally mean no. I said, if
Joanne Lockwood: you text me the list, I'll get it, but don't expect me to
Joanne Lockwood: remember five things. But I remember the bread, that's all. I'll
Joanne Lockwood: come way back with bread. She said, what about the other things? I only remembered
Joanne Lockwood: bread. It's like a generation game
Sam Warner: cuddly toy. But the other thing she does, she adds one more
Joanne Lockwood: item onto the list after a whole load of other text messages, I said, no,
Joanne Lockwood: that's no good. You have to cut and paste the entire list to add one
Joanne Lockwood: item on. Otherwise I can't cope with going back up the list and trying to
Joanne Lockwood: work out what I've got, what I haven't got. I want one list, one list,
Joanne Lockwood: and then I can process it. But yeah, so I get that. And
Sam Warner: how great that you've had that communication between you. She
Sam Warner: knows that about you. Texas, 36 years. Yeah,
Sam Warner: I know. Well, so with my hubby so we've been together for
Sam Warner: 1617 years and he can't have
Sam Warner: more than one task at a time.
Sam Warner: And also, he has pathological demand avoidance and so do I.
Sam Warner: So we don't respond very well if people tell us what to do,
Sam Warner: and I'll give you a scenario. So, when I was a kid, my mum was
Sam Warner: a clean freak and I knew that if I spontaneously went and got the Hoover
Sam Warner: and vacuumed the lounge, mum would be really pleased and happy
Sam Warner: with me, because I'd done it and I hadn't been asked. As I walked towards
Sam Warner: the Hoover, my mum said, can you go and vacuum the lounge?
Sam Warner: And I went, well, now I can't, because you've told me to do
Sam Warner: it. Which doesn't make any sense when you say it out loud, really,
Sam Warner: but that's how my brain works. And people who've
Sam Warner: got pathological demand avoidance
Sam Warner: acutely can even go so far as ending up homeless, because they
Sam Warner: can't respond to phone calls, they end up with CCJs, they can't pay
Sam Warner: bills, they can't work, there's all sorts of things they can't
Sam Warner: do because their brain goes, that was a demand, not
Sam Warner: doing demands. And it can be really disabling in
Sam Warner: that way with Dave and I. We're not that bad, but
Sam Warner: I still have to give him a choice. So I'll say the washing up needs
Sam Warner: doing and the Hoovering needs doing, which would you like to
Sam Warner: do? So it's a given, it's going to happen. But he does
Sam Warner: get a choice which one he wants to do and I'll do the other one.
Sam Warner: And that has really worked for us, as long as we both do the chores
Sam Warner: at the same time. Yes,
Joanne Lockwood: that's fair. Yeah, I get that. I can get that. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: So we talked about neurodivergency or neurodivergent,
Joanne Lockwood: we talked about this spectrum and there's loads of different
Joanne Lockwood: phrases and terminology within that. So things like
Joanne Lockwood: ASD autistic spectrum disorder, Asperger's, which I
Joanne Lockwood: understand is kind of an older term, not used so much these days.
Joanne Lockwood: That high functioning, whatever that may mean to people. Yeah,
Sam Warner: we don't use that one. Dyspraxia dyslexia dyscalculia.
Joanne Lockwood: The demand avoidance, all this kind of stuff. So there's all these terms
Joanne Lockwood: all under this. This is just like trans, honestly, you've got
Joanne Lockwood: this umbrella, umbrella term of all these things underneath it. So
Joanne Lockwood: neurodivergency is kind of an umbrella term for all of these different
Joanne Lockwood: characteristics that people may or may not have in
Joanne Lockwood: small or large quantities. Barely, I guess people have all of
Joanne Lockwood: them. They are either grouped my sister in.
Sam Warner: Law, some area my sister in law is the most neurotypical person I've ever met
Sam Warner: in my life. I've even tested her unofficially.
Sam Warner: Yeah, she is the polar opposite to me.
Joanne Lockwood: Logical and empathetic.
Sam Warner: She's not those things. Yeah, you're logical and
Joanne Lockwood: empathetic and she isn't. I don't think that's neurotypical, then, is
Joanne Lockwood: it? Well, so neurotypical people this is
Sam Warner: really going to be problems here. So
Sam Warner: neurotypical people generally think that they're really empathetic, but they're not. They're
Sam Warner: sympathetic most of the time, and what they seek is
Sam Warner: sympathy from others, and they call it empathy. And that's why a lot of
Sam Warner: neurodivergent people get labelled as, oh, you haven't got any empathy.
Sam Warner: Well, actually, that's not true. I've got so much empathy, I
Sam Warner: can't control it sometimes, which is why I wail
Sam Warner: when I see the donkey advert about the poor donkey with the hooves that are
Sam Warner: all wrong and the cats and the dogs and the orange PCA. I have so
Sam Warner: much empathy, I can't stop. Not just for animals, for
Sam Warner: humans as well. Usually if I see someone else cry, I
Sam Warner: will tap into that emotion and I will feel it just as strongly as they
Sam Warner: do, even though they're acting or someone I don't know.
Sam Warner: However, sympathy a lot more challenging. So if you came
Sam Warner: to me, Joe, and said, oh, I want to share a problem with you, I
Sam Warner: need your empathy. What you're generally saying, if you're a neurotypical person, is, you
Sam Warner: want me to go, oh, they're there. Yes. Feel sorry for
Joanne Lockwood: you. Feel sorry for me, rub it better for me. Oh, yeah,
Sam Warner: exactly. Right. Which is the same as small talk. It's pointless. Right. So
Sam Warner: I can't stand it. And I tell people who know me, don't come to me
Sam Warner: for sympathy. I don't do sympathy. I am an
Sam Warner: empath. So not only can I stand in your shoes and imagine
Sam Warner: what it's like, not only can I feel the same emotions as
Sam Warner: you, I now want to take away your pain and solve your
Sam Warner: problem. Because there's three different types of empathy and I feel all of
Sam Warner: them, usually simultaneously. But what people want is they
Sam Warner: want to see the progression of me going, oh, they're there. Oh, I feel as
Sam Warner: bad as you do. Oh, do you want to fix it? Only I
Sam Warner: don't. I don't want to feel all the pain. I just go straight to I
Sam Warner: move very quickly through them and I go straight to, let's fix it. Let's take
Sam Warner: away your pain. So, again, I tell people, don't come to me
Sam Warner: for sympathy, come to me if you want me to fix your problems.
Joanne Lockwood: The analogy I use is, remember Baba off the Green
Joanne Lockwood: Mile when he sucks all of the bad stuff out of people?
Joanne Lockwood: That's kind of how I do it. As you say, I'm not really interested in
Joanne Lockwood: we didn't talk about it for half an hour. I get it right now, as
Joanne Lockwood: you say, go to the fix, go to the solution, and if you're not interested
Joanne Lockwood: in, let me help you, then go away. Absolutely. Come back when you
Sam Warner: are. Yeah. Don't ask me for help and then not
Joanne Lockwood: listen. Yeah, that is very frustrating, for sure. And quite often I'll
Sam Warner: say when it's not clear that they
Sam Warner: want help, or it's not clear how I can help, because they obviously don't
Sam Warner: want a fix or it's not possible for me to fix it's out of my
Sam Warner: hands. I'll have to actually be really upfront and I'll go,
Sam Warner: what can I do for you? How can I help you?
Sam Warner: And sometimes they'll go, I just want you to listen.
Sam Warner: And a little bit of me inside dies.
Joanne Lockwood: I've got to tell you this. I've got to tell you this. Marie knows
Joanne Lockwood: that I don't have active listening, so you
Joanne Lockwood: have to give me a wake up word in order to get me to listen.
Joanne Lockwood: So Marie's learnt this. Now she just stops talking. I missed
Joanne Lockwood: the first two sentences or something. She now has to say, Are you
Joanne Lockwood: listening? I don't hear that either. Joe, are you
Joanne Lockwood: listening? I go, yeah, get on with it then.
Joanne Lockwood: You've now occupied my brain for almost 30 seconds and you haven't told me anything.
Joanne Lockwood: I need to know. You've got my attention now. Just get on with it. Tell
Joanne Lockwood: me. I'm bored again. I'm bored. I'm off.
Sam Warner: Yeah, we have to put pause on the TV because
Sam Warner: if I haven't got Dave's full attention, he tunes me out.
Joanne Lockwood: Well, what I do is I'm so engrossed in the TV
Joanne Lockwood: marine to talk to me, I have to pause it because I have to say
Joanne Lockwood: that I can't concentrate on you because I'm engrossed with it. So I have to
Joanne Lockwood: stop and then do one and then come back. And then if you finish now,
Joanne Lockwood: can I carry on? It's like click. And I do reassure Dave and I say,
Sam Warner: Dave, the reason why we use the pause button is because you're more important than
Sam Warner: the telly. So I will pause the telly. I can watch.
Sam Warner: More interested in what you've got to say than what the telly's got to
Sam Warner: say that may or may not be true.
Joanne Lockwood: It depends if it's strictly on the telly or not, or something like.
Sam Warner: Love me a bit of David Tennant.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes. Yes. This little super special has been really good.
Joanne Lockwood: I really enjoyed Sam. It's almost an
Joanne Lockwood: hour. I can't believe this. We've been well and minutes in the green room as
Joanne Lockwood: well. We've been yaking on and nattering and thank you
Joanne Lockwood: so much. How can our listeners get in contact with you if they want
Joanne Lockwood: to find out more about creating a
Joanne Lockwood: more neurodivergent, welcoming
Joanne Lockwood: environment? At work, at home, at play, in
Joanne Lockwood: society? Yeah, well, there's a couple of places. So I'm on LinkedIn.
Sam Warner: So if you go into LinkedIn and you just put
Sam Warner: LinkedIn.com in Sam Warner
Sam Warner: slash, there I am, nice and easy to find.
Sam Warner: I'm the one wearing the cat eyeglasses and the hair up. I look
Sam Warner: like something from a different age, but that's okay. That's just my look.
Sam Warner: And I've also got a website with all those of stuff on it,
Sam Warner: so that's get your
Sam Warner: Hyphen message
Sam Warner: across. I know. Bit of a gobble. Turns
Sam Warner: out gaima G-Y-M-A is a drink. And it's loads of
Sam Warner: other stuff. It's loads of products, so couldn't shorten it, but
Sam Warner: Get-Your-Message-Across.co.uk with Hyphens in between. And that's my website. Fantastic.
Joanne Lockwood: Maybe you should change it to beyond the Corporate Robot
Joanne Lockwood: or something. B-T-C-R.
Joanne Lockwood: Beyond the corporate robot, maybe.
Joanne Lockwood: Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you so
Joanne Lockwood: much. And also thank you to the
Joanne Lockwood: listener who you've tuned in. You've got to this far, you got to the end
Joanne Lockwood: of the podcast. Yay. Go you. Thank you. Please do
Joanne Lockwood: subscribe. If you're not already subscribed, subscribe. Click the little button, ring the bell, you
Joanne Lockwood: get notified. All the usual things that people tell you to do, because then you'll
Joanne Lockwood: get notified of future episodes of the Inclusion Bytes Podcast as bit. Yes.
Joanne Lockwood: So this is episode 91. It's going to be episode 100 soon, and I
Joanne Lockwood: can't wait to see who that's going to be. They're going to be exciting. Sorry,
Joanne Lockwood: Sam, you came out too early. But yeah, maybe I'll have a
Joanne Lockwood: hundredth birthday celebration and get some other guests back and do a special
Joanne Lockwood: one. So I've got a number of other exciting guests lined up over the next
Joanne Lockwood: few weeks and months. Also, if you'd like to be a guest, drop me a
Joanne Lockwood: line. And also if you've got any suggestions or feedback, I'd love to hear them.
Joanne Lockwood: So my email address is
Joanne Lockwood: jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. And
Joanne Lockwood: my name is Joanne Lockwood. It's been absolute pleasure to host this podcast for you
Joanne Lockwood: today. Catch you next time. Bye.