Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your
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Joanne Lockwood: Lockwood, your guide on this journey of exploration into the
Joanne Lockwood: heart of inclusion, belonging, and societal
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Joanne Lockwood: to jo.lockwood@seachangehappen.co.uk
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Joanne Lockwood: So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to
Joanne Lockwood: ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.
Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 115
Joanne Lockwood: with the title from stigma to strength, and I have
Joanne Lockwood: the absolute honor and privilege to welcome Alexandra Parrott.
Joanne Lockwood: Alexandra works in sales for
Joanne Lockwood: an HR tech company that introduced the 1st team based
Joanne Lockwood: psychological assessment tool to the talent market.
Joanne Lockwood: When I asked Alexandra to describe her superpower, she said it is
Joanne Lockwood: her empathy and fire within
Joanne Lockwood: to make the world a safer place, one step at a
Joanne Lockwood: time. Hello, Exandra. Welcome to the show.
Alexandra Parritt: Hi, Jo. Thank you for meeting with me. That was a a groovy little
Alexandra Parritt: song, that. I like that. Thank you. Yeah. I,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, I've recorded it a few years ago. I was supposed a few months ago,
Joanne Lockwood: and it's, yeah. I I quite enjoyed that now. Yeah. Because gets the guest
Joanne Lockwood: and get a bit jiggy before we start. Isn't it? Yeah. Very soothing voice as
Alexandra Parritt: well, actually. Thank you. Yeah. People have often said I've got a bit of a
Joanne Lockwood: late night radio voice. Who cares?
Joanne Lockwood: Is that your dog your dog's joining in the the podcast as well? Well, she
Alexandra Parritt: does like to get involved, to be honest. In in any form of conversation I
Alexandra Parritt: have, she likes to have her say. And and why not? You know, I I
Joanne Lockwood: think the the views of dogs are highly rated in
Joanne Lockwood: terms of mental well-being, care, and, we
Joanne Lockwood: know they can improve people's just whole
Joanne Lockwood: whole feeling of well-being, don't they? So yeah. And she gets Why not?
Alexandra Parritt: Jo Yeah. Maybe she liked the music. Maybe she liked the intro. Maybe that's
Joanne Lockwood: what set her off. So
Joanne Lockwood: we called this episode from stigma to strength. Tell me a bit more about yourself
Joanne Lockwood: and and what what your passion is. Thank you. So, yeah,
Alexandra Parritt: I suppose there's a few different angles from the stigma
Alexandra Parritt: to strength. One that's personal and then one that's relevant to the
Alexandra Parritt: neurodiversity movement, which I am a huge
Alexandra Parritt: advocate of. So from a personal perspective,
Alexandra Parritt: I've I've grown up with a lot of stigma associated with mental
Alexandra Parritt: health and specific mental health condition, and I
Alexandra Parritt: really wanted to use all of that negative energy to
Alexandra Parritt: create something positive. And as you said earlier, try and make the world a
Alexandra Parritt: safer place so that individuals that do face a lot of stigma
Alexandra Parritt: feel a little bit more safe and welcomed and included.
Alexandra Parritt: And that's why the neurodiversity movement really stood out to me
Alexandra Parritt: because I was looking for a community
Alexandra Parritt: that believed in the concept
Alexandra Parritt: of turning negative stigma into something positive and seeing
Alexandra Parritt: the strengths out out of something that
Alexandra Parritt: has had a real negative impact on people's lives.
Alexandra Parritt: And I was hoping that, you know, someone like me could belong to a
Alexandra Parritt: community like that, and I didn't know what neurodiversity was or meant or what the
Alexandra Parritt: umbrella term covered. So rather than just
Alexandra Parritt: sort of googling it, I decided to sign up to a degree in it
Alexandra Parritt: because that's the best way to learn about something and to
Alexandra Parritt: understand myself and others better. So, yeah, I
Alexandra Parritt: started the degree in January. I think, oh my gosh. That was a
Alexandra Parritt: while back now. Yes. To learn a bit more about neurodiversity.
Joanne Lockwood: So you you mentioned that you yourself have
Joanne Lockwood: experienced negative mental health for a lot of your a lot of your life.
Joanne Lockwood: Mhmm. We find that there's still that yeah. We we this this is some
Joanne Lockwood: stigma to strength, this episode, but there's a lot of stigma around
Joanne Lockwood: mental health, neurodiversity, anything that people
Joanne Lockwood: can't see, touch, and feel sometimes. You know? People don't are
Joanne Lockwood: not aware. And I'm I'm
Joanne Lockwood: sure you probably experienced people saying, well, you don't look like you've got a mental
Joanne Lockwood: health condition or a mental health challenge. So people judging
Joanne Lockwood: you, I guess, from from that, are they? Yeah. I think that's, there's
Alexandra Parritt: there's this definite strength and weakness that comes with masking and camouflaging,
Alexandra Parritt: which is a a topic that's very very prominent in the
Alexandra Parritt: neurodivergent, world. And, yeah, it can
Alexandra Parritt: work well in a sense that you really think that you can just get on
Alexandra Parritt: through, and no one's gonna see the real me. So they're just gonna
Alexandra Parritt: we're just gonna get through this to the point where, yeah, you either get or
Alexandra Parritt: you don't look like you have x y zed. But and I think
Alexandra Parritt: at the same time, kind of unrevealing the taking off the
Alexandra Parritt: mask, you think that people are gonna question your capabilities?
Alexandra Parritt: Because in the world of business, people are often seen as just a number or
Alexandra Parritt: a revenue generator, you know, a product of performance,
Alexandra Parritt: and anything that has stigma associated with it comes
Alexandra Parritt: with that that feeling or thought or that bias that
Alexandra Parritt: that hinders your capabilities rather than seeing the strength behind.
Alexandra Parritt: So yeah. As the world moved
Joanne Lockwood: on, yes, You mentioned, I think, in the show notes, you were 19, where
Joanne Lockwood: there was was first sort of uncovered, and you were
Joanne Lockwood: able to talk about it and and not without giving your age away. That sounds
Joanne Lockwood: like a few years ago. And I would talk to you guys. Do you
Joanne Lockwood: detect a different a different attitude in the workplace today? Depends which
Alexandra Parritt: workplace you're in, I think. Some some are still miles behind.
Alexandra Parritt: Actually, my the founder of the company sorry. I'm trying to fiddle with a
Alexandra Parritt: pen subtly, and I just threw it across the desk. The founder of
Alexandra Parritt: the company I work at now was actually the first person that I
Alexandra Parritt: was open to about my mental health
Alexandra Parritt: before joining and in the interview process. Helped that he's a
Alexandra Parritt: psychologist and has a background in CBT and therapy and
Alexandra Parritt: things like that, so I just naturally felt confident and comfortable enough to
Alexandra Parritt: speak to him about it. But I do think that there are still workplaces that
Alexandra Parritt: are miles behind, and it is not the workplace. It's the individuals that you interact
Alexandra Parritt: with each day. Each of them will hold their own thoughts and
Alexandra Parritt: feelings and bias and can make an
Alexandra Parritt: entire workplace difficult because of that. Mhmm.
Joanne Lockwood: Does does your work impact your mental
Joanne Lockwood: health, or is it a way of, I
Joanne Lockwood: don't know, having an outlet to do something different and distract your
Joanne Lockwood: mind? Sometimes being busy, having an
Joanne Lockwood: activity, engaging in something can can positively impact your
Joanne Lockwood: mental health. But having a stressful job or having
Joanne Lockwood: colleagues or a lack of psychological safety can make it a more
Joanne Lockwood: negative experience. So are you do you find work as a positive experience
Joanne Lockwood: generally? It's an interesting question because, in
Alexandra Parritt: neurodiverse in the neurodiversity world, they often talk about
Alexandra Parritt: how the environment around an individual can impact
Alexandra Parritt: that individual. So they could either have a really negative
Alexandra Parritt: experience. So let's say someone with ADHD or someone with
Alexandra Parritt: autism or a mental health condition, They could join an environment
Alexandra Parritt: and have a really positive experience and still have that condition, or they can
Alexandra Parritt: join an environment and have a really negative experience, but they're still an individual with
Alexandra Parritt: ADHD and autism. So it's almost like it's not the condition that
Alexandra Parritt: is causing just causing that. It's the environment around them
Alexandra Parritt: and the people around them. And I was actually always told
Alexandra Parritt: with my mental health condition to to not have a stressful
Alexandra Parritt: job. Try and find something that's not too fast paced, not too stressful,
Alexandra Parritt: and they certainly would have included sales in that world
Alexandra Parritt: of fast paced and stressful and a hinder to my
Alexandra Parritt: mental health. But, again, I think it's it's less about the job
Alexandra Parritt: role and more about the environment around you, And that
Alexandra Parritt: Thomas Armstrong speaks a lot about ideal jobs for
Alexandra Parritt: that will make make an individual with ADHD or autism
Alexandra Parritt: thrive because of their strengths, so their strengths would make them great at this
Alexandra Parritt: job. And I think that's still a key element of, actually, the working
Alexandra Parritt: environment around them is what can impact them, not
Alexandra Parritt: necessarily the job itself. Yeah. I agree. I mean, even though I I
Joanne Lockwood: work alone well, so my wife and I work together, but, yeah, we we we
Joanne Lockwood: we're a micro business. But but I'm also,
Joanne Lockwood: involved with the professional association, and I chair the board.
Joanne Lockwood: And I'm very keen from a cultural perspective is that people can can
Joanne Lockwood: bring that that whole self to work. That's I hate that buzzword because Oh, I
Alexandra Parritt: know. People wouldn't doubt me. What's that mean? What's that mean?
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Bring yourself to work. But I'm very keen that if I'm
Joanne Lockwood: having a a bad week or I'm having a bad day, or I just say
Joanne Lockwood: stop, I can't, it there's too much buzz in my ears, too
Joanne Lockwood: much noise. Just better press the pause button and say, look, give me give me
Joanne Lockwood: a couple of days. I just need to sort this out, sort my life out,
Joanne Lockwood: get this back on track. I can't over I don't wanna overload. So having
Joanne Lockwood: having working with people around you where you can just without have to go into
Joanne Lockwood: detail, just say, give me 5, give me a day, give me 2 days. Just
Joanne Lockwood: I'm I'm I'm here. Just give me some space. You don't you do offer to
Joanne Lockwood: help me. I'm I'm I'm fine. Just need to say, okay. I'm here
Joanne Lockwood: if you need me. Bye. And it's it's it's so when you talk about
Joanne Lockwood: the environment, the the colleagues, the environment, the culture in which you
Joanne Lockwood: work, it's it's better to have those conversations without them being
Joanne Lockwood: huge conversations all the time, isn't it? Just knowing that that's not another anxiety you've
Joanne Lockwood: got across. A 100000%. My colleague from
Alexandra Parritt: my previous role, worked for SAP, and my colleague, Hannah
Alexandra Parritt: Oakford, she was the one that actually spoke about making the world
Alexandra Parritt: like, different corners of the world a safer place, and she also had a tagline
Alexandra Parritt: of bringing your worst self to work. Like, we want you to feel like you
Alexandra Parritt: can bring your worst self to work. And I suppose that is a spin on
Alexandra Parritt: the authentic self because there's nothing worse than
Alexandra Parritt: having, you know, something that's going on, whether there's Joanne actual
Alexandra Parritt: thing going on or it's just a feeling that you're sat in, and you're really
Alexandra Parritt: trying to force yourself to work and force yourself to play this,
Alexandra Parritt: you know, play this role or have this mask on.
Alexandra Parritt: Actually, I've I've experienced that myself. I I lost my mum 2 years ago, and
Alexandra Parritt: I'd just come back from maternity leave. And I was
Alexandra Parritt: so stressed. I was like, I've just taken maternity leave, and I've just come
Alexandra Parritt: back. I can't then take off any more time for
Alexandra Parritt: compassion leave or anything. I wanted to take time off before she passed
Alexandra Parritt: because I knew it was happening. And, actually, the workplace, it
Alexandra Parritt: was a brand new manager that had taken over whilst I was on mat leave,
Alexandra Parritt: and he was like, this is just a job at the end of the of
Alexandra Parritt: the day. Like, we're we're just selling software. You take the
Alexandra Parritt: time to do what you need to do. And I
Alexandra Parritt: I'd never sort of I hadn't had many managers before that. But
Alexandra Parritt: just that one sentence that they said to me, I knew
Alexandra Parritt: that I didn't have to worry because, you know, that the
Alexandra Parritt: job was was irrelevant at that point. Ideally, as a
Alexandra Parritt: salesperson, you just come in and you start making revenue, but it was the manager
Alexandra Parritt: and the working environment around me that made me feel
Alexandra Parritt: safe. And and, yeah, that was invaluable
Alexandra Parritt: at that point in my life, for sure. Yeah. I could completely relate to that.
Joanne Lockwood: About a year well, just over a year, probably or 14 months
Joanne Lockwood: ago, all four of our parents, so
Joanne Lockwood: Marie's mom and dad, my mom and dad, had a
Joanne Lockwood: spell in the hospital. And at one stage, we had
Joanne Lockwood: a parent in different wards on different floors of the same
Joanne Lockwood: hospital, and we were visiting them up and down the lift. And
Joanne Lockwood: Jo just if if if we had both been working for
Joanne Lockwood: an employer, we both kind of felt that we would
Joanne Lockwood: have pushed their patients probably to
Joanne Lockwood: the edge. Because at some point, you have a job to do, and and no
Joanne Lockwood: matter how flexible an employer can be, they also have
Joanne Lockwood: to there has to be some boundary somewhere, doesn't there? And what
Joanne Lockwood: but the ability to just get up and go
Joanne Lockwood: now when when we needed to without having to explain.
Joanne Lockwood: So it gives obviously, we we had income challenges. We had to
Joanne Lockwood: earn a living as a freelancer, as a as a self employed person, but we
Joanne Lockwood: had we weren't constrained by somebody else's
Joanne Lockwood: rule. And when Marie's mom eventually passed away
Joanne Lockwood: just over a year ago, we she was able to take all the time she
Joanne Lockwood: needed, and we as a family were able to do that. She could able to
Joanne Lockwood: support her dad and and work and so on. And we we just we sat
Joanne Lockwood: here one night, and it's apparently Jo difficult working
Joanne Lockwood: for an organization. Or or the organization that Marie used to work
Joanne Lockwood: for especially because they were well, I'm not saying they were
Joanne Lockwood: terrible, but they just weren't very progressive. They weren't maybe kind of
Joanne Lockwood: a a rule based HR world where this is the rule. This is what you
Joanne Lockwood: get. Any more than that, it's unpaid or it's
Joanne Lockwood: conversations about, are you going back to work? So, yeah, you're right. The environment
Joanne Lockwood: plays a huge thing, and not having to have that worry
Joanne Lockwood: is is hugely, supportive of it. And I I think
Alexandra Parritt: as well, like, the the experiences that we're covering are experiences
Alexandra Parritt: that anyone can have, whether they've got a mental health condition or neurodivergent
Alexandra Parritt: or not. And it's the concept that inclusion really is an
Alexandra Parritt: individual led world because, you know, you
Alexandra Parritt: can try and be inclusive to people with mental health conditions and to people with
Alexandra Parritt: neurodivergent conditions, but then there's so many things that can
Alexandra Parritt: happen in one's life that will completely change the course
Alexandra Parritt: of their life, and and they will need some leeway and breathing space
Alexandra Parritt: from their employer. And you can't preempt or preplan for that. You
Alexandra Parritt: have to just, you know, work with each individual
Alexandra Parritt: as an individual, which is the same for the the neurodivergent
Alexandra Parritt: world, to be honest, because I think there's I can
Alexandra Parritt: see things happening in the world, but it's still very
Alexandra Parritt: much focused on a stereotypical profile of
Alexandra Parritt: what an individual with ADHD looks like, for example. And there's a
Alexandra Parritt: famous quote, and I can't, for the life of me, remember
Alexandra Parritt: who said it, but it's this quote itself has stuck with me, that if
Alexandra Parritt: you meet one person with autism, you've only met one person with autism,
Alexandra Parritt: and you can extend that across the neurodiverse space. And I think,
Alexandra Parritt: again, there's so much focus and energy
Alexandra Parritt: and effort to be neuro neuroinclusive as a workspace, but
Alexandra Parritt: they're really just looking at the conditions underneath the neurodiversity
Alexandra Parritt: umbrella umbrella rather than the individuals. And if you take a step
Alexandra Parritt: back, it's like, okay. Yes. It's a different space to learn about, different
Alexandra Parritt: worlds to learn about. They're still individuals with their own individual
Alexandra Parritt: experiences and challenges. Not everybody not everybody with ADHD
Alexandra Parritt: needs a fidget spinner, for example, and then they're gonna be absolutely
Alexandra Parritt: fine. It's it's an individual's
Alexandra Parritt: journey. Yeah. Although I
Joanne Lockwood: I went I I sat in on a a training session or no. It was
Joanne Lockwood: a it was a workshop day with another company once, and they put out
Joanne Lockwood: fidget spinners and and tactile play toys, those
Joanne Lockwood: sort of things, on the tables and then and I found myself with a fidget
Joanne Lockwood: spinner. And what I realized by the end of the day is because I had
Joanne Lockwood: the fidget spinner and I was playing with it all the time. I didn't pick
Joanne Lockwood: my phone up. Jo I kinda learned or realized to
Joanne Lockwood: myself that my phone had become my fidget spinner. The playing with
Joanne Lockwood: it, the the the reclusing into it, the the the rhythmic, the
Joanne Lockwood: doomscrolling, whatever it may be. I I found out, Ross, I didn't
Joanne Lockwood: appreciate that I needed to have that kind of something in my Joanne.
Joanne Lockwood: The fidget spinner worked. And my wife, Marie, she she says I
Joanne Lockwood: I I play with my nails a lot and clicking them and and and sort
Joanne Lockwood: of she said, oh, I'm always fiddling my nose. She she keeps saying, stop it.
Joanne Lockwood: Stop playing me now. Stop playing me. I said, well, no.
Joanne Lockwood: I can't promise not to stop playing around now because it kind of
Joanne Lockwood: my brain wants to do it. And, you know, I'm not saying it's stimming or
Joanne Lockwood: or or pitch particularly in that sort of air in that sort of zone, but
Joanne Lockwood: it's definitely I I've got a need to have something going on.
Joanne Lockwood: I don't know. That that that's very similar to having a, as I say, some
Joanne Lockwood: sort of stimulation or something for the brain. When the
Joanne Lockwood: brain's idle, it needs something to be doing in the background. Otherwise, it just runs
Joanne Lockwood: away or just, like, crazy. So Yeah. Yeah. I completely relate to that. And
Alexandra Parritt: having a lab the art really have a fidget spinner, to be honest, because I
Alexandra Parritt: I did I've I've learned to fidget below the camera
Alexandra Parritt: level, so it's not obvious, But I do it with a pen, and the pen
Alexandra Parritt: flies. So to be honest, I probably could do with investing in 1.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And, yeah, when I was growing up, people
Joanne Lockwood: would sit there and doodle in their notepads, wouldn't they? They'd be drawing always
Joanne Lockwood: doodling something, always writing something when the teacher's talking. What are you doing? I'm just
Joanne Lockwood: doodling. What are you doodling for? Pay attention. It's like but that's the same sort
Joanne Lockwood: of thing, but we just didn't have an appreciation of this need
Joanne Lockwood: for the the brain to have a another outlet somehow. And,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, I've actually, look at my desk. It's messy, and I've I've got I've got
Joanne Lockwood: these dice, which you you know Yeah. If you're listening to the podcast, you
Joanne Lockwood: can't see them. But they're 2. They're fitness dice, and one's got the number of
Joanne Lockwood: reps on it, and one's got the exercise you have to do. So if you
Joanne Lockwood: roll the dice, it says how many crunches you gotta do. Not that I would
Joanne Lockwood: do, but I I often sit and play with these. Well, a couple of Duracell
Joanne Lockwood: batteries on my desk because I'm often playing with these Duracell batteries. But it's
Joanne Lockwood: it it is. It's having that that stimulation as a as a
Joanne Lockwood: proper toy or or something else. And, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: when you raised that and mentioned it, I completely relate to it. Yeah. No.
Alexandra Parritt: Exactly. And I think, there's a lot of there's a lot of ways that we
Alexandra Parritt: can make the working environment more inclusive to
Alexandra Parritt: everyone because the whole working from your desk, 9 to 5,
Alexandra Parritt: in the office 5 days a week, you know, expected to do
Alexandra Parritt: x, y, zed. Everybody works in different ways.
Alexandra Parritt: Everybody's brain needs different things. And that's
Alexandra Parritt: sort of the main concept of neurodiversity, is
Alexandra Parritt: to look less at conditions and traits and more at
Alexandra Parritt: the value in having diverse minds and different minds
Alexandra Parritt: you're excluded, sort of thing. And I do think
Alexandra Parritt: working environments are a little bit more flexible than they were because we're sat at
Alexandra Parritt: our desks at home, fiddling with whatever is on our
Alexandra Parritt: desk. I I I do
Joanne Lockwood: wonder. You know, we talk about people who have neurodivergency
Joanne Lockwood: or neurospicy, whatever whatever phrase
Joanne Lockwood: you you people say these days. But I often wonder who who is
Joanne Lockwood: neurotypical? Who is that one person on the bell curve of normality
Joanne Lockwood: that is typical? What does what does what does neurotypical mean?
Joanne Lockwood: I I'm not die I haven't been diagnosed with autism, ADHD. I don't
Joanne Lockwood: particularly think I've got an extreme case of anything if I have
Joanne Lockwood: it, But I have traits and go, yeah. I do
Joanne Lockwood: that. Yeah. I do that. But I wouldn't want to
Joanne Lockwood: declare myself or identify the origin.
Joanne Lockwood: But I often think, well, what is it, really? Is it
Joanne Lockwood: just this broad spectrum where
Joanne Lockwood: everybody's on it somewhere, and it's just towards the edges,
Joanne Lockwood: you have different different needs? And we just have to make sure that we're treating
Joanne Lockwood: people fairly, because who is typical? Who is normal these
Joanne Lockwood: days? Well, I think that's a really good point because I think outside of the
Alexandra Parritt: self advocacy groups of, say, individuals with autism, which
Alexandra Parritt: are thriving communities that are doing incredible work and
Alexandra Parritt: same with ADHD, dyslexia and everything I feel like neurodiversity is a
Alexandra Parritt: social movement that is finally battling against the sense of norm. And the more battling
Alexandra Parritt: against the sense of norm. And the more reading that I do in this degree,
Alexandra Parritt: the more that I'm like, yeah, actually, what is normal? And where did
Alexandra Parritt: even come from? Why do we always have to fit in this box? And
Alexandra Parritt: Professor Amanda Kirby and, Melanie Francis, they have a Do It Solutions
Alexandra Parritt: organization and they said, we're all neurodiverse. They make that
Alexandra Parritt: statement because, yeah, neurodiversity is the concept of us all
Alexandra Parritt: having different minds operating in different ways, thinking, feeling,
Alexandra Parritt: behaving, And and and that's that's
Alexandra Parritt: how, you know, the world thrives. If we were all the same, gosh.
Alexandra Parritt: Well, we Yeah. Long conversation, would we?
Joanne Lockwood: No. And, you know, you think about
Joanne Lockwood: things like Myers Briggs and those sort of personality testing and dyspophobia.
Joanne Lockwood: Whether you're a fan of those or not, you know, the concept of
Joanne Lockwood: introverts, extroverts, all those kind of theories, Carl Jung and all
Joanne Lockwood: these sort of people. You think about this sort of personality
Joanne Lockwood: types. And I know you work for a psychological assessment organization.
Joanne Lockwood: But that really is just realizing that people's brains think
Joanne Lockwood: differently. And we're trying to we're trying to work out this
Joanne Lockwood: is your type of thinking style. This is your type of personality.
Joanne Lockwood: What role is gonna work best for you? Where are you gonna struggle? And I
Joanne Lockwood: guess what you're doing in your psychological testing around teams is which stars
Joanne Lockwood: are gonna clash, which stars are gonna accelerate each other,
Joanne Lockwood: group think, challenge, stand out. So it's
Joanne Lockwood: looking for the dynamics and team to get a balance. So I think
Joanne Lockwood: neurodivergency is is just recognizing what we've been talking all along
Joanne Lockwood: about these different personality types and different interests and how we react to the
Joanne Lockwood: world. And, yeah, I I I fully accept there are people who
Joanne Lockwood: have, on the ASD, who have
Joanne Lockwood: more extremes, more complex needs, more
Joanne Lockwood: support needed. But most people are kind of able
Joanne Lockwood: to come with life or whatever the way they do once they understand
Joanne Lockwood: who they are. And I think some of that is just down to self acknowledgement,
Joanne Lockwood: isn't it, where you you figure out what who you are, what
Joanne Lockwood: matters to you, what impacts you, how you can support yourself, and then how you
Joanne Lockwood: can advocate for what I need with others. I think that have it creating that
Joanne Lockwood: voice, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, growing up in a world of stigma, you
Alexandra Parritt: lose that sense of self advocacy and self esteem. It's something that we really have
Alexandra Parritt: to work even harder than others on to to build it up.
Alexandra Parritt: And I've actually heard some amazing stories outside of the workplace
Alexandra Parritt: of individuals that have more extreme forms on the ASD spectrum
Alexandra Parritt: and,
Alexandra Parritt: a nonverbal and have autism, and and they have been
Alexandra Parritt: placed in an environment that has been adjusted to them
Alexandra Parritt: and it's had an incredibly
Alexandra Parritt: positive impact to the point where some, not that this would work for all,
Alexandra Parritt: but some children that are non verbal with autism have even
Alexandra Parritt: spoken and said a word when they've been placed in an
Alexandra Parritt: environment that is sort of adjusted and built around
Alexandra Parritt: them. But, yeah, in terms of the personality test,
Alexandra Parritt: it was strange. I was doing reading for my degree
Alexandra Parritt: in neurodiversity, and it was the first time that my both
Alexandra Parritt: worlds came together because there was information about personality
Alexandra Parritt: tests and the concept of the norm and and how this all came about. And
Alexandra Parritt: the Myers Briggs personality test in particular, the origins of
Alexandra Parritt: it were questionable.
Alexandra Parritt: I really had no idea where they'd all come from. I suppose you don't just
Alexandra Parritt: sort of sit back and think about that in a in a day to day
Alexandra Parritt: life, And it was really just testing
Alexandra Parritt: the how safe the organization
Alexandra Parritt: would be to hire this individual from a kind
Alexandra Parritt: of mental health perspective. And
Alexandra Parritt: it it did get me thinking about how accessible and inclusive some
Alexandra Parritt: of the personality test world is. I mean, we go from the
Alexandra Parritt: big five and I think I've kind of joined the company with a
Alexandra Parritt: more inclusive, accessible lens of trying to make that talent
Alexandra Parritt: assessment space a world where you can have, like,
Alexandra Parritt: strength profiles and not look at whether an individual's
Alexandra Parritt: good or bad or if they're right or wrong or can or can't perform a
Alexandra Parritt: job, which is what most competency based assessments do.
Alexandra Parritt: But as you said, it's it's being more strategic in in the world
Alexandra Parritt: of hiring and selection. And looking at the team that you have today
Alexandra Parritt: and the different kind of personalities and preferences and
Alexandra Parritt: values, thinking, okay. Actually, let's let's find
Alexandra Parritt: somebody that's a little bit different in terms of their traits and characteristics
Alexandra Parritt: and their values to to create a more diverse let's say
Alexandra Parritt: you might have a whole team of the same job role, let's say sales,
Alexandra Parritt: but you're not going to want everybody to have exactly the same approach to that
Alexandra Parritt: job. And when I went through the assessment,
Alexandra Parritt: I was lower on the scale of emotion control, which actually means I'm more
Alexandra Parritt: passionate and dynamic than calm and confident and stable
Alexandra Parritt: approach, and I was very low on outgoing because,
Alexandra Parritt: me, I like cup of tea, puzzle book, bed by 9
Alexandra Parritt: PM, which isn't ideal for the world of
Alexandra Parritt: sales and networking, unfortunately. That'd
Joanne Lockwood: be great if you wanna be a fantastic mom. Well, yeah. Exactly. It's it's
Alexandra Parritt: just necessary, I think. I was like that before I had my
Alexandra Parritt: toddler, but,
Alexandra Parritt: but, but it was, you know, it wasn't an assessment to
Alexandra Parritt: say whether I was good or bad at the job. It's just one lens in
Alexandra Parritt: an overall profile of, well, I just spoke like this to the the
Alexandra Parritt: founder and about my mental health, and he saw something in me.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. It's if you've if you've got a whole team full of
Joanne Lockwood: outgoing people who are highly driven
Joanne Lockwood: and go getty, you'll end up with a whole alpha crew all kinda
Joanne Lockwood: compete with each other and conflict and and and not be supportive. So you need
Joanne Lockwood: a balance of of types Absolutely. Especially when you want
Joanne Lockwood: people doing a support role or a,
Joanne Lockwood: well, attention to detail type role, those kind of things. So you do
Joanne Lockwood: need different personality types, and people tend to gravitate. But
Joanne Lockwood: even, I mean, I'm I spent most of my life running an
Joanne Lockwood: IT company. I've been in electronics. And I used to think I had a
Joanne Lockwood: high attention to detail. And what I discovered
Joanne Lockwood: was I'd like there to be detail, but I don't want to be the one
Joanne Lockwood: that does it. So I have got attention to detail
Joanne Lockwood: in the outcome of others. Whereas for me,
Joanne Lockwood: I actually don't like doing the detail. And that's really is it but it took
Joanne Lockwood: me best part of 55 years to realize that.
Joanne Lockwood: When I people used to say, well, you got a really high attention detail. And
Joanne Lockwood: I've got high attention to spotting when detail is not done. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm actually not the person. I'm not the person. I'm an 80% person. I'm
Joanne Lockwood: a person that is good enough. Let's let's just let's just go with it. That'll
Joanne Lockwood: do. We'll figure it out. Whereas, you know, if you really have a
Joanne Lockwood: high attention to detail, you're the 99.999% person. That's not
Joanne Lockwood: me. Mhmm. And it took me a long while to figure that out. Now I
Joanne Lockwood: have. I'm kinda comfortable with that because I go, yay.
Joanne Lockwood: I get it now. And and I I I just like I've just
Joanne Lockwood: done now, I share that with people and say, I don't have a
Joanne Lockwood: high attention to detail myself, but I I expect high level of detail in others.
Joanne Lockwood: And I look out for it. So, yeah, it's
Joanne Lockwood: yeah. I think understanding self is really important as well.
Alexandra Parritt: No. Absolutely. And I think that's a journey that a lot of individuals have to
Alexandra Parritt: go on regardless of, you know, whether they have a neurodivergent condition or
Alexandra Parritt: anything, and it's I I think a lot of people haven't
Alexandra Parritt: been on that journey. So whether you're looking at it from the perspective of those
Alexandra Parritt: that are getting late diagnosis and going on this whole reflective journey of, oh
Alexandra Parritt: my gosh. This all makes so much sense now, and thinking back on how they've
Alexandra Parritt: behaved. I think even if you don't have that
Alexandra Parritt: before I joined this workplace, like, I found myself at a complete
Alexandra Parritt: crossroads where yeah. So a lot of very big life events had
Alexandra Parritt: happened, and I was suddenly like like, who what what do I
Alexandra Parritt: want? Who who am I? Like, what do I value? And what do I wanna
Alexandra Parritt: do with my life? And and all this kind of stuff, which 9 times out
Alexandra Parritt: well, I mean, at least 50% of the time, if you're looking for a new
Alexandra Parritt: role, you might well be in that headspace because your
Alexandra Parritt: career takes up most of your life. And I really just I'd never really
Alexandra Parritt: looked inwards in that sense of of what can I bring
Alexandra Parritt: to the table, but what do I also want?
Alexandra Parritt: And I was actually googling tests that could just tell me, like,
Alexandra Parritt: what's my dream career? Like, what do I want? What do I value? Because I
Alexandra Parritt: just sat there with an empty notepad, like, I don't know. I've never really thought
Alexandra Parritt: about this. So before I even came to
Alexandra Parritt: work where I work, the recruiter I was had
Alexandra Parritt: built up a connection with sent me the assessment because they sort of
Alexandra Parritt: run through all candidates through it. And I I got the the report because when
Alexandra Parritt: I tried to Google it, I yeah. You take the whole test, and then you
Alexandra Parritt: have to pay for it at the end. I was like, well, I don't wanna
Alexandra Parritt: do that. So, yeah, I just got this report, and it it just had it
Alexandra Parritt: all there for me. And I was like, oh my goodness. You know,
Alexandra Parritt: 31 years, and I've never really taken the time to think,
Alexandra Parritt: what what do I want? It's always about, well, can I do I have the
Alexandra Parritt: skills? Do I have the experience for this company to wanna hire me,
Alexandra Parritt: and do I have what they want? I've never thought about
Alexandra Parritt: what what do I want? And it's,
Alexandra Parritt: it's quite quite mad that we never really take the time to
Alexandra Parritt: to reflect on ourselves like that. Well, here's a question for you, though. Goodness.
Joanne Lockwood: So what what do you want? What what is your have you figured that oh,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah. You see? So what what does it tell you about yourself that you
Joanne Lockwood: didn't know before? I think it it kinda gave me
Alexandra Parritt: my profile of of sort of what I bring to the table.
Alexandra Parritt: I always knew what my weaknesses were and what I couldn't do,
Alexandra Parritt: but I hadn't ever looked to anything in a positive light. And and
Alexandra Parritt: this is very, very, like, neutral in the way that it presents traits and
Alexandra Parritt: scales and and characteristics in that there is no good or
Alexandra Parritt: bad either end of the scale. And, actually, the
Alexandra Parritt: emotion control one was interesting because I always thought from a mental
Alexandra Parritt: health perspective that perhaps I don't have
Alexandra Parritt: the correct way of managing emotions for
Alexandra Parritt: any kind of fast paced job because that's what I was always told.
Alexandra Parritt: And then I realized, okay. Maybe I'm not calm and
Alexandra Parritt: stable in my approach. I can just sort of, like, you know, fluctuate
Alexandra Parritt: with the stresses of sales. But, actually, if you look at that
Alexandra Parritt: from the terminology of passionate and dynamic,
Alexandra Parritt: it really starts to give a bit more oomph and it give us give
Alexandra Parritt: you a strength trait rather than something that I always saw as a weakness as
Alexandra Parritt: a result of stigma. And and and that was something that I was
Alexandra Parritt: never able to to do myself. Yeah. Looking at the kind of
Alexandra Parritt: work values as well, like, what I what I kinda wanted from a from a
Alexandra Parritt: company, I never really knew. I just kinda looked at the benefits that companies
Alexandra Parritt: offered. Money, holiday, health care.
Alexandra Parritt: Yeah. And then I realized that that stuff actually wasn't that
Alexandra Parritt: important because I've had a lot of that before and and wasn't necessarily happy
Alexandra Parritt: within the working environment, hence why I joined a start up because I definitely
Alexandra Parritt: did. You don't join a start up for the benefits. That like, that's for sure.
Alexandra Parritt: You you join it because of the the team environment that you're
Alexandra Parritt: joining and the kind of values that they have and the individuals.
Joanne Lockwood: Jo get shit done as they say. It's it's kind of fast paced, isn't it?
Joanne Lockwood: You're not no no huge layers of bureaucracy. It's it's
Joanne Lockwood: everybody trying to drive change forward quickly. It's it's kind of startup
Joanne Lockwood: mentality, isn't it? Yeah. It's a completely different world. I've not been in this
Alexandra Parritt: world, and I was a very big company mentality
Alexandra Parritt: before, and I love the fluidity of
Alexandra Parritt: the start up world. And, actually, if anything,
Alexandra Parritt: if I was advised away from the fast paced kind of job role and I
Alexandra Parritt: went for sales, I certainly would have been advised away from
Alexandra Parritt: the the dynamics of the start up world, but I just don't
Alexandra Parritt: really like to listen to people's advice sometimes.
Joanne Lockwood: That's a good thing. Yeah. Because, I always say we don't
Joanne Lockwood: listen to ourselves enough, and we want we need validation.
Joanne Lockwood: We need someone to say, yes. You can go for that. It's that that sort
Joanne Lockwood: of imposter syndrome, limiting beliefs. Sometimes we need permission, don't we? Yes.
Alexandra Parritt: Absolutely. Like, is this the right thing to do? Joanne, why I Googled.
Alexandra Parritt: It doesn't help. I don't recommend that, by the way.
Joanne Lockwood: But it's chat GPT now, can't we? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Put put put your stuff
Joanne Lockwood: in there and go, what what what should I do? Here's a bit of me.
Alexandra Parritt: What what should I do with my life? Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I'd Yeah. Just try that later. See what it
Joanne Lockwood: says. But I I've tried electronics. I've tried IT, and now I'm
Joanne Lockwood: trying HR, EDI, speaking and training consulting.
Joanne Lockwood: So yeah. Well, it's something you truly believe in. Yeah. It
Joanne Lockwood: is. It's I've I often talk about Ikigai, the the Japanese art
Joanne Lockwood: of finding a happy life, which is where you try to find those quadrants where
Joanne Lockwood: you Jo, what what the world needs, what I'm good at, what
Joanne Lockwood: I get paid for, but also what I what truly
Joanne Lockwood: inspires me. And I I always found that I could do 3 of them, but
Joanne Lockwood: I never found that thing what truly inspired me, the passion. And
Joanne Lockwood: now I've got something I'm good at, the world needs, and I've got passion for,
Joanne Lockwood: and I'm and I'm okay at it. Jo, yeah, but bringing them all
Joanne Lockwood: together, you find that sweet spot. And I always say that if you
Joanne Lockwood: if you find that that magic sweet spot in the middle there,
Joanne Lockwood: work that never feels like work again. You know, I don't I don't need to
Joanne Lockwood: retire because I'm doing what I love to do. Yeah. And
Alexandra Parritt: bad. It's it's not as you if you blend that in with,
Joanne Lockwood: sufficiency and not gluttony. So we're not looking
Joanne Lockwood: to have more than we need. We always work on what we need, the
Joanne Lockwood: sufficiency. And we're not we don't need bigger, faster, stronger. We just
Joanne Lockwood: need good enough, what keeps us going, what makes us
Joanne Lockwood: happy. And she bent those together. It it it's really helped my
Joanne Lockwood: mental health, my stress levels, where I'm not trying to chase
Joanne Lockwood: something all the time. I'm going, it's okay. I can I can I
Joanne Lockwood: can free wheel downhill for a bit? I'm cool. Doesn't matter. I can
Joanne Lockwood: say, well, take the pressure off. Or, Jo, I'm out. Don't need to
Joanne Lockwood: do it. It's immensely empowering as well to be able to have that that
Joanne Lockwood: sort of self, yeah, self self empowerment to say
Joanne Lockwood: no and stop and I'm off. Yeah. Absolutely.
Alexandra Parritt: And and, exactly, like, being at a cross roads, it it
Alexandra Parritt: feels impossible to find something that fits
Alexandra Parritt: all of those angles. And and taking the degree in
Alexandra Parritt: neurodiversity was something I never thought I'd do because I was like, look. I've always
Alexandra Parritt: wanted to study psychology, but I've got a family now, and I need
Alexandra Parritt: to stick with the job that pays. And how on
Alexandra Parritt: earth am I gonna pay for and fit in a degree and change my
Alexandra Parritt: career entirely? Because I thought, well, gonna have to be a
Alexandra Parritt: psychologist then. But this just sort of came my way where it
Alexandra Parritt: blends the world of psychology, sales, and
Alexandra Parritt: inclusion and accessibility. I mean, I brought that myself. I was like, I'm only
Alexandra Parritt: joining if you allow me to join with this lens of how we can make
Alexandra Parritt: this world more inclusive. Just as you
Alexandra Parritt: said, where where you're you're sat today, where you're you're finally
Alexandra Parritt: combining all of those together, Yeah. That's that's sort of
Alexandra Parritt: what happened with me. And, you know, not everyone it's very difficult
Alexandra Parritt: to get to that place, isn't it? But I think the first step is actually
Alexandra Parritt: understanding what what drives you and what are you passionate about
Alexandra Parritt: and Yeah. Yeah, really reflecting on yourself first. I
Joanne Lockwood: think I I grew up as a as a Gen x person
Joanne Lockwood: with that mindset where you would kind of had
Joanne Lockwood: this expectation of a job for life or a job for long term. It was
Joanne Lockwood: kind of a career was 10, 20 years type thing.
Joanne Lockwood: And without, again, without casting any judgment on
Joanne Lockwood: your age, I would suspect you're probably a millennial. And that
Alexandra Parritt: me. Oh, not at all. Well, on the on the cusp.
Joanne Lockwood: And there's a very much more
Joanne Lockwood: transactional work concept these days where you
Joanne Lockwood: work is is part of your life, not the only part of your life. You're
Joanne Lockwood: not sucked into it. You you want more out
Joanne Lockwood: of it than just the money. And I think I I grew up with that,
Joanne Lockwood: you know, want wanting bigger, faster, stronger, and it's it's getting off that
Joanne Lockwood: bandwagon. I think I'd like to think yeah. I'd like to think that in
Joanne Lockwood: in 5 years' time, you you you have the flexibility in your own head to
Joanne Lockwood: say, actually, it's not working for me. Let's try something
Joanne Lockwood: different. And you you you will have that empowerment not
Joanne Lockwood: to feel obliged to to stick with what you decided when you left school. And
Joanne Lockwood: I think that was kind of my parents when I I left school to
Joanne Lockwood: join the Royal Air Force Electronics Engineer. And when that didn't work out after
Joanne Lockwood: 3 years, they were kinda like, but what are you gonna do now? It's
Joanne Lockwood: like, I I I don't know, but I'll figure something out. And I kinda
Joanne Lockwood: fell into IT. So and I gave that a go for a while, and then
Joanne Lockwood: I fell out of love with that. And I I felt so
Joanne Lockwood: empowered by not hanging on to something that didn't make
Joanne Lockwood: me happy. And I think that's what we're gonna try and focus on is is
Joanne Lockwood: keep looking at what makes us happy and what fulfills us, what
Joanne Lockwood: drives us. And then you'll get we talk about discretionary effort
Joanne Lockwood: and going the extra mile and and putting our passion to things.
Joanne Lockwood: That's really where we wanna put people, isn't it? Yeah. And it is interesting that
Alexandra Parritt: you mentioned that concept of you, like you start a path
Alexandra Parritt: and you have to stick to that path and that path you know, because it
Alexandra Parritt: starts from sort of school, doesn't it, when you've gotta whittle down your subjects and
Alexandra Parritt: then do some further education in a more specific subject, and then you've gotta go
Alexandra Parritt: down that path that's related to that. And the amount of people that stick to
Alexandra Parritt: that path is is very little, but those that really try
Alexandra Parritt: without actually wanting to, it it has a
Alexandra Parritt: profound impact on them. And, yeah, it's it's interesting
Alexandra Parritt: looking at the different generations. The talent world is always trying to do that, looking
Alexandra Parritt: at Gen z now in the early career space and the talent that they're bringing
Alexandra Parritt: in and what's important to them. And I think even, yeah,
Alexandra Parritt: even less so is it that they they have to have a
Alexandra Parritt: career to get by and they they're questioning the corporate space.
Alexandra Parritt: They're questioning the corporate jargon and being sold to by businesses.
Alexandra Parritt: They wanna join a business and be part of the conversation, whereas
Alexandra Parritt: I suppose before, we're much we're very much like, well, this is our this is
Alexandra Parritt: what our space in the business, and we must not go outside of that space
Alexandra Parritt: or question why we're stuck in that space or
Alexandra Parritt: and and the empowerment, the level of empowerment has increased with
Alexandra Parritt: each generation, I think. Yeah. So
Joanne Lockwood: COVID had a huge impact on on the world,
Joanne Lockwood: probably outer space as well, no doubt. But, yeah, it had a huge impact on
Joanne Lockwood: the world, how people perceived the world of work,
Joanne Lockwood: well-being. And we're now 40 years past
Joanne Lockwood: it. And we're starting back, aren't we? I do think we're starting back into kind
Joanne Lockwood: of can't do it that way anymore. No. No. Can't do it. We're having a
Joanne Lockwood: COVID apnesia or is it Yeah. Yeah. No. I
Alexandra Parritt: I'm noticing that very much so, especially with, like, the actual working environment
Alexandra Parritt: of of there was a lot of, companies that
Alexandra Parritt: kind of went down the path of flexibility, flexible working in
Alexandra Parritt: terms of where you could work and and when and, you know,
Alexandra Parritt: things like that. And that that was positive for the majority of
Alexandra Parritt: the neurodivergent community in that they could sort of work in an environment
Alexandra Parritt: that worked for them. Then to be thrust back
Alexandra Parritt: into you know, the hiring process where you've gotta come
Alexandra Parritt: on-site in person for the interview, putting them in an environment that's gonna
Alexandra Parritt: stress them out incredibly. And then in a workplace, right, well, that's your
Alexandra Parritt: designated workspace and desk, not thinking about any kind of
Alexandra Parritt: adjustments. It does seem like we've gone very much backwards
Alexandra Parritt: even though we we were in that flexible workspace world
Alexandra Parritt: not long ago, and, you know, it seemed to be working out pretty well. And
Alexandra Parritt: our company is trying to reel back that control of of putting us all
Alexandra Parritt: in this box. Yeah. And and not
Alexandra Parritt: everybody's not every individual or individual's
Alexandra Parritt: brain can work and thrive in in that particular environment. So,
Alexandra Parritt: yeah, and and it's not it's not inclusive or flexible for a lot of other
Alexandra Parritt: people either. So, yeah, it's been a very interesting conversation,
Alexandra Parritt: hasn't it, in the workplace? Yeah. We we see a lot in the
Joanne Lockwood: news from often our politicians
Joanne Lockwood: driving this we've become too woke. We've become too
Joanne Lockwood: woke. Yeah. We've got too many snowflakes who want the world to
Joanne Lockwood: bend over backwards for them. You know, the the majority of people just wanna get
Joanne Lockwood: on with stuff and wave our British flag around, and and
Joanne Lockwood: we're we're we're I think I saw it the other day. We're pandering to small
Joanne Lockwood: minorities. We have to bend over backwards to keep them happy. We've gotta stop
Joanne Lockwood: it. And that that seems to be the pervasive kind of political message
Joanne Lockwood: at the moment, doesn't it? Yes. It think I
Alexandra Parritt: developed a twitch in my eye as as you spoke
Alexandra Parritt: about that. I I I just think that,
Alexandra Parritt: it can be a reflection of the
Alexandra Parritt: the great work that these minority communities are doing to
Alexandra Parritt: self advocate because a response like that
Alexandra Parritt: means that our kind of work
Alexandra Parritt: is getting somewhere and it's irritating those that want that sense of
Alexandra Parritt: norm and that that this is the the way that the world should work
Alexandra Parritt: because the only reason they would react like that is that we are being
Alexandra Parritt: heard of not as much as we should be, but,
Alexandra Parritt: the royal way. And and things are happening and changes are happening
Alexandra Parritt: adjustments are being made. I don't even like the word adjustments, to be
Alexandra Parritt: honest, because adjustments suggest that you're bending over backwards
Alexandra Parritt: for these minorities, whereas adjustments are
Alexandra Parritt: very much enablers and should be seen as just standard practice.
Alexandra Parritt: But, yeah, they do seem to be fighting back on
Alexandra Parritt: the great work that things like the neurodiversity movement are doing,
Alexandra Parritt: but I think I think it's a sign of
Alexandra Parritt: of of the success that these communities are having, actually. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I I think if you look back in history where where change happens,
Joanne Lockwood: it's as a result of people really coming
Joanne Lockwood: together, really starting a movement for change, and then we see the
Joanne Lockwood: inevitable backlash. We we saw it. We still see it around
Joanne Lockwood: anti racism in the US and in the UK, the belief that
Joanne Lockwood: things are better now. There's not things aren't necessarily better.
Joanne Lockwood: They're they're different, but the fundamental's still there. And I
Joanne Lockwood: think you look at the LGBT community, there's
Joanne Lockwood: still stigma around being gay, being a lesbian, being
Joanne Lockwood: bi, and also almost certainly being trans these days
Joanne Lockwood: is better. But it's still a long way, I guess, when we
Joanne Lockwood: talk about people with poor mental health, well-being
Joanne Lockwood: needs, low socioeconomic state status, educational
Joanne Lockwood: challenges, neurodiversity, all those things.
Joanne Lockwood: Again, the the typical person is going, well,
Joanne Lockwood: hang on a minute. What about me? What about me? Why not? I can't be
Joanne Lockwood: looking. You know, I'm I'm I've got needs too. I think
Joanne Lockwood: that's that's the rise of the the incumbent, if you like, the person with
Joanne Lockwood: privilege saying, I feel my privilege is being eroded. And
Joanne Lockwood: that's that's the danger, isn't it? Where it's trying to involve everybody in these
Joanne Lockwood: conversations and not I'm a great believer that we can't we can't
Joanne Lockwood: remove marginalization by marginalizing somebody else. We can't
Joanne Lockwood: further inclusion by excluding others. It's trying to have
Joanne Lockwood: these weak conversations as you described it and,
Joanne Lockwood: moving things forward and shuffling up, taking
Joanne Lockwood: their space ourselves, recognizing that fairness is around
Joanne Lockwood: everybody having a bit of a look in. It's a bit like the
Joanne Lockwood: the, the baggage collection at the airport, isn't it? You you
Joanne Lockwood: if you look at the the people behaviors, there's these people will stand right
Joanne Lockwood: next to the collection belt staring down the down the belt
Joanne Lockwood: looking for their suitcase. And there's the other people who who get off the
Joanne Lockwood: plane last, who goes to the toilet, who wander
Joanne Lockwood: around, have a drink, talk to their talk to their family, and then
Joanne Lockwood: look over the top and go, oh, my case is here now. Walk straight up,
Joanne Lockwood: put on, like, a toilet, and walk off. That that's me. That's what I do.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. So I'm not I'm not pasting it because you don't get out
Joanne Lockwood: any quicker by standing there waiting. You just stress yourself out. So
Joanne Lockwood: I think what we need to do is encourage everyone to get off the plane
Joanne Lockwood: last. Well, no, I actually don't because I wanna get off the plane last.
Joanne Lockwood: There's no there's no there's no benefit to rushing on the plane or
Joanne Lockwood: rushing off the plane. So it's just It's on human dynamics,
Alexandra Parritt: isn't it, really? Yeah. But I do I do truly think, you know, you've got
Alexandra Parritt: you've got 2 worlds at the moment. You've got the world of talent where there's
Alexandra Parritt: a very, very obvious skill shortage
Alexandra Parritt: in in so many areas, and then you've got individuals that
Alexandra Parritt: are just not being given the opportunities
Alexandra Parritt: to have the kind of the right education needed or given any
Alexandra Parritt: opportunities in the place of work. And they're saying, well well, how about us?
Alexandra Parritt: Why don't, you know, why doesn't the world think about
Alexandra Parritt: things in a different way and look at at widening
Alexandra Parritt: the talent pool and making some
Alexandra Parritt: necessary progress to include more people,
Alexandra Parritt: and then you've got the people in the middle like, well, what about us? It's
Alexandra Parritt: like, hey, you're already in the world of work. There's
Alexandra Parritt: so many Jo much opportunity for people to be
Alexandra Parritt: upskilled, reskilled, enter the world of work, But adjustments are
Alexandra Parritt: necessary because the the world isn't is not built
Alexandra Parritt: to be inclusive, and it should be. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I I think, you know, it's it's right that if someone says, well, what
Joanne Lockwood: about me? What about us? Whoever that may be. And by
Joanne Lockwood: removing social stigma from a lot of the things that are stigmatized,
Joanne Lockwood: flexible working, talk about mental health,
Joanne Lockwood: parental leave, shared parental leave,
Joanne Lockwood: both both parents involved in bringing up their child on a on an equal
Joanne Lockwood: footing, that will allow people to say, well, what about me?
Joanne Lockwood: To say, I actually wouldn't that benefit you as well? And they go, well,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah. But but I I don't want it because there's a stigma.
Joanne Lockwood: What we're trying to do is remove stigma and have conversations about these things
Joanne Lockwood: so that you are part part of the the people benefit from this as
Joanne Lockwood: well. You could say, oh, stop. Push the button. Hang hang on a minute. I
Joanne Lockwood: wanna I've gotta pick my child up from from here. I've gotta go to the
Joanne Lockwood: school play, or I've gotta it's it's my my turn to to be in charge
Joanne Lockwood: of shopping and and food today or or whatever. Go listen to
Joanne Lockwood: my child read tonight, so I can't stay late. By removing the
Joanne Lockwood: statements, we're we're actually creating a world where everybody
Joanne Lockwood: can succeed. And I'm a great believer that I am part of
Joanne Lockwood: everybody. So if everybody if everybody succeeds, that that's me
Joanne Lockwood: as well because I'm everybody as well. And I think that's what we gotta try
Joanne Lockwood: and do is what I'm saying. Not just about you and your minority or your
Joanne Lockwood: your your particular characteristic or lived experience. We're just trying to make it better
Joanne Lockwood: for everyone, and you everyone as well. You're in there. Absolutely.
Alexandra Parritt: I don't think our mindset is particularly common, though,
Alexandra Parritt: because I'm exactly the same. You know, I advocate for
Alexandra Parritt: worlds that I do not understand the
Alexandra Parritt: lived experience of those worlds because I do not
Alexandra Parritt: identify as that, but I advocate for everyone to have the
Alexandra Parritt: same opportunities and the same safety. And,
Alexandra Parritt: you know, I just I can't see why anyone wouldn't,
Alexandra Parritt: but I don't really understand how you wouldn't want the world to be
Alexandra Parritt: a better place for everybody. I know it sounds really lame and cliche, but, I
Alexandra Parritt: think that's it's not adjustments for minorities.
Alexandra Parritt: It's opening up the talent world and the world of work and
Alexandra Parritt: opportunities to anyone and everyone because everybody deserves a fair
Alexandra Parritt: Joanne. Businesses are going to benefit from it. You see these social
Alexandra Parritt: mobility projects now. Where were they years ago?
Alexandra Parritt: Why were they not part of the conversation? So something's
Alexandra Parritt: happening. Something. Very slow, though, isn't it? It's all very slow. Isn't
Alexandra Parritt: it? I was the World Economic
Joanne Lockwood: Forum. They published their gender equity report. They do it every year. And I
Joanne Lockwood: think the last one is still predicting best
Joanne Lockwood: part of 80 odd years for gender equity in the western
Joanne Lockwood: world. If you I think if you look at globally, it's a 160
Joanne Lockwood: odd years. And in certain parts of the world, it's 200 or plus
Joanne Lockwood: years. And we can imagine, you know, South Asia, Middle East, there's all
Joanne Lockwood: places, China, Russia, Afghanistan, you know,
Joanne Lockwood: all these places where we can see gender equity going backwards. And
Joanne Lockwood: it's, who wants to wait 80 years? I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: who who wants to wait 40 years? Who wants to wait 20 years? Who wants
Joanne Lockwood: to wait 5 years? And it's it's it's the frustration
Joanne Lockwood: that the pace of change is glacially slow sometimes. And
Joanne Lockwood: you can only see it by looking backwards to see how far we've come. We're
Joanne Lockwood: we're a different world than we were in 19 sixties than we were in 19
Joanne Lockwood: fifties than we were in the 1800. But you look forward, you
Joanne Lockwood: think, wow, that dot on the horizon is so small. It's so far away.
Joanne Lockwood: And we've gotta kinda keep the faith that every step forward is a step forward.
Joanne Lockwood: And, yeah, the reflection of where we come from is is is hugely
Joanne Lockwood: important. It keeps us keeps us motivated, baby. Well, I think that's
Alexandra Parritt: as well change the goalpost is always moving for change because the goalpost
Alexandra Parritt: of where we wanna be and where we think we should be is always
Alexandra Parritt: gonna change With the more individuals that speak up about
Alexandra Parritt: their experience and their stigma and their challenges, you're like, oh, yeah,
Alexandra Parritt: no, we should include that in the conversation Jo that the goalpost is always changing.
Alexandra Parritt: It's always going to feel far away, but as long as you're moving towards
Alexandra Parritt: it and not backwards, then you're
Alexandra Parritt: succeeding. You're making an impact. And and that's what's important. Absolutely.
Alexandra Parritt: Wow. In each shot. We could we could we could carry on we could carry
Joanne Lockwood: on for another hour, I'm sure. So, Alexandra, tell us a bit about how
Joanne Lockwood: people can get in touch with you because I'm it's a fascinating conversation. I'm sure
Joanne Lockwood: people would love to catch up and find out more about your your views of
Joanne Lockwood: the world. Yeah. Yeah. If anyone wants to listen to my views of the world,
Alexandra Parritt: I've got so many, but I also like listening as well.
Alexandra Parritt: Yeah. So I, on LinkedIn, I'm Alexa Carter
Alexandra Parritt: 292. I had to look up my URL earlier because I I don't often,
Alexandra Parritt: plug that, but, I speak a lot about mental health
Alexandra Parritt: inclusion, the the assessment world. I work for
Alexandra Parritt: My People Group, and I'm working on trying
Alexandra Parritt: to we're bit of a disruptor in the assessment space, but I'm trying to make
Alexandra Parritt: us more neuro inclusive and more accessible. We've done some amazing
Alexandra Parritt: work with some companies on doing that, and I'm
Alexandra Parritt: often just do you know what? I'm not often behind my desk. I'm often working
Alexandra Parritt: from my sofa. Don't tell anyone. Usually sat next
Alexandra Parritt: to my dog working on my sofa. I just thought I'd come to my study
Alexandra Parritt: for the podcast.
Joanne Lockwood: Wow. Actually, honestly, I mean, I'll let you into a secret as well.
Joanne Lockwood: Sometimes, I I deliver training in my pajamas.
Alexandra Parritt: Not that. But I'd but I put a hoodie on. Yeah. Yeah. I I I
Joanne Lockwood: I I I I've never worn a hoodie today. I have got dressed. So and
Joanne Lockwood: that's the that's the flexibility of of working from home.
Joanne Lockwood: What what I wear isn't affecting my ability to
Joanne Lockwood: deliver anything. It it just affects your ability to perceive me as someone
Joanne Lockwood: who's who is worth listening to. So, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: sofa, office. It it's it's about productivity
Joanne Lockwood: and output, not how you how how you deliver that. Still gets the
Alexandra Parritt: job done, doesn't it? Still gets the job done. So
Joanne Lockwood: maybe we'll have another chat in the future around getting the
Joanne Lockwood: job done no matter where you're sitting. And I'm all for
Alexandra Parritt: wearing as well. Theo Smith was talking about that not long ago. And, you
Alexandra Parritt: know, what you wear doesn't define you. So I'm all for that.
Alexandra Parritt: Theo, if you're listening. Yeah. As
Joanne Lockwood: a transgender woman, I can relate to that completely. Yeah. What was deemed
Joanne Lockwood: professional for me 10 years ago is is different today.
Joanne Lockwood: So, yeah, it's it's completely relative to time and
Joanne Lockwood: space. I would say it's a bit of a TARDIS thing from Doctor Who where
Joanne Lockwood: it's all time and relative dimension in space. Our sense of
Joanne Lockwood: self, our identity, who we are, how we perform is all is
Joanne Lockwood: all is all a Tardis, and it's all relative. Well, there's another
Alexandra Parritt: episode for you. There is. Alexandra,
Joanne Lockwood: thank you. As we bring this conversation
Joanne Lockwood: to a close, I want to express my deepest gratitude to
Joanne Lockwood: you, our listener, for lending your ear and
Joanne Lockwood: heart to the cause of inclusion. Today's
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Joanne Lockwood: your voice heard. Until next time. This is Joanne
Joanne Lockwood: Lockwood signing off for the promise to return with
Joanne Lockwood: more enriching narratives that challenge, inspire,
Joanne Lockwood: and unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world
Joanne Lockwood: one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.