Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary
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Joanne Lockwood: your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion, belonging and societal
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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
Joanne Lockwood: Bytes.
Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 138
Joanne Lockwood: with the title Embracing Full
Joanne Lockwood: Potential. And I have the absolute honour and privilege to
Joanne Lockwood: welcome Clare Payne. Claire is a partner
Joanne Lockwood: in an international law firm, a tribunal judge,
Joanne Lockwood: a non exec director and an academic.
Joanne Lockwood: And when I asked Claire to describe her superpower, she said that she is
Joanne Lockwood: fascinated by people, their stories and potential,
Joanne Lockwood: and that she holds space to allow people to explore who
Joanne Lockwood: they are and step into their own power. Hello,
Joanne Lockwood: Claire, welcome to the show. Hello, nice to be here.
Joanne Lockwood: Absolute pleasure. We chatted a couple of weeks back, I think, and
Joanne Lockwood: I've twisted your arm to come and come on the show, so I'm looking forward
Joanne Lockwood: to this. So, Claire, tell me a bit more about embracing
Joanne Lockwood: your full potential and your passion. So I think for me
Claire Payne: this probably goes back if I can take you
Claire Payne: back to 2016. With myself, I'd gone up
Claire Payne: quite a fast career path in the corporate world, made
Claire Payne: it up to partner in the legal capacity very, very quickly
Claire Payne: and I'd done all the things that you were supposed to do to be
Claire Payne: successful. And I think at or around that time I sort of got
Claire Payne: to the stage where I was getting increasingly frustrated at a
Claire Payne: management level with going around in circles with the same
Claire Payne: conversations and meetings. And I'd also got this feeling
Claire Payne: of, you know, having got to where you're supposed to get to, was that it.
Claire Payne: And everything felt very much constricted. And I
Claire Payne: think for me, I sort of looked around myself and I'm always somebody who looks
Claire Payne: around and thinks, well, surely there's a way we can do this better, what's
Claire Payne: missing? And around about that time I
Claire Payne: became very heavily involved with the Chartered Management Institute and in
Claire Payne: particular looking at diversity. And one of the things I went
Claire Payne: out and started having conversations with other
Claire Payne: organisations about was what does diversity mean to
Claire Payne: you and what impact does it have in your organisation?
Claire Payne: And now statistically at some of them, I was
Claire Payne: finding on paper they had the same
Claire Payne: credentials, they had the same numbers of people from different
Claire Payne: backgrounds, but some of them were seeing huge benefits from
Claire Payne: this and others, absolutely not. And that was sort
Claire Payne: of stepping off on this journey of realising, what's the difference
Claire Payne: here? And it actually all came down to the culture, it came down
Claire Payne: to how much they allowed people to be themselves and bring
Claire Payne: themselves to work. And so that set me off
Claire Payne: on what's been a whirlwind of a journey which after many
Claire Payne: years of doing lots of work with lots of different people, landed
Claire Payne: me sort of a couple of years after that in a field surrounded
Claire Payne: by wolves, looking at. So where
Claire Payne: exactly did humans learn to collaborate and where did
Claire Payne: this idea that we needed some diversity in our groups
Claire Payne: in order to be able to innovate and reach our full potential come from?
Claire Payne: And the answer actually comes from about 100,000 years
Claire Payne: ago, when we first started interacting with wolves.
Joanne Lockwood: Because when we think about wolves, we think about a very
Joanne Lockwood: hierarchical society. But that's not what you found, is it?
Claire Payne: No, it's an absolute myth. There is no such thing as an alpha
Claire Payne: wolf. The way that the wolves family groups
Claire Payne: work is very much that they have
Claire Payne: specifically bred different personalities and
Claire Payne: different perspectives into the group. So each animal that is born into
Claire Payne: the group has specifically
Claire Payne: set rules. And they're very, very different in
Claire Payne: their vision of the world and how they view things and how they deal with
Claire Payne: the world. They're good at some things, they're worse at other.
Claire Payne: But collectively, when you slot the whole together,
Claire Payne: they're stronger for the fact that they've got such a variation in
Claire Payne: different perspectives and that capability to innovate and to
Claire Payne: gather that much information for making decisions. And that really is
Claire Payne: where the heart of their success comes from. I read somewhere that
Joanne Lockwood: when you go back to our prehistory, that the
Joanne Lockwood: Neanderthal species, because we're Homo
Joanne Lockwood: sapiens, Neanderthals, different species, the Neanderthal was bigger,
Joanne Lockwood: stronger, faster, more intelligent than Homo
Joanne Lockwood: sapiens. But the Neanderthals
Joanne Lockwood: died out because they weren't collaborators, whereas
Joanne Lockwood: the Homo sapiens, what we are today, we were
Joanne Lockwood: more community tribal based. So again, the strength in
Joanne Lockwood: numbers, the strength in the diversity of the skill set was
Joanne Lockwood: Neanderthals very much individualistic. It's exactly
Claire Payne: that. Back looking at the Neanderthals, when
Claire Payne: this change, this split first started happening, they
Claire Payne: were very much like Primates, which is all about dominance, which is all about
Claire Payne: me as an individual. And the problem with an individual
Claire Payne: is you're then restricted by your own view of the
Claire Payne: world and your own capability. And the sum of one is
Claire Payne: one. Whereas what we discovered, obviously, as Homo
Claire Payne: sapiens, is that. And what we evolved into is a
Claire Payne: group that looked at diversity and went, you know what? The sum
Claire Payne: of the group is bigger than the sum of the individuals involved in
Claire Payne: it. And what we can achieve as a group is far superior to anything
Claire Payne: anybody's ever going to achieve on their own. So we
Claire Payne: actively started looking to
Claire Payne: work with the strengths of the different individuals
Claire Payne: and started looking at how we can collaborate together
Claire Payne: in order to achieve something bigger. And that's what ultimately allowed us
Claire Payne: to progress. So where did we as humans go wrong then?
Joanne Lockwood: Because if that's how we evolved, what we are seem to
Joanne Lockwood: be now as a species is based on alphas.
Joanne Lockwood: We talk about this bell curve of normality where
Joanne Lockwood: we have to sort of gravitate towards the centre of that bell
Joanne Lockwood: curve. And if you're an outlier, you're seen as less
Joanne Lockwood: valuable. It is interesting how we've ended up here. I mean,
Claire Payne: the best explanation that I've had actually comes
Claire Payne: from a lot of stories that you see in the indigenous people around the world.
Claire Payne: For them, you see, there's a big difference between
Claire Payne: how we in the west, few wolves, we've got our stories of, you
Claire Payne: know, the Three Little Pigs, the Big Bad Wolf, the Little Red
Claire Payne: Riding Hood, we've got, you know, the wolves and the horror stories that
Claire Payne: chase people through the woods and. And we've got a very negative view of them.
Claire Payne: Whereas if you go back to the indigenous people, they see them very much
Claire Payne: still with this view that they are teachers, that they are guides, that they
Claire Payne: are to be looked to as a source of wisdom. And
Claire Payne: across the world, there are variations within indigenous
Claire Payne: people of the same story, which is about humans breaking with
Claire Payne: wolves and this hope that one day that we will rejoin
Claire Payne: with them. And the point at which we broke with them was around about the
Claire Payne: time that we started agriculture, because prior to that, we
Claire Payne: were very much in tune with our environment. So we were in tune with each
Claire Payne: other, and we were also in tune with the environment that we were living in.
Claire Payne: We worked with the seasons, we worked with what was available to us. We
Claire Payne: foraged, we hunted, and that's very much how we survived.
Claire Payne: The change came when we started agriculture,
Claire Payne: when we started manipulating our environment, when we started
Claire Payne: saying, actually, we're not going to do with what's Actually there
Claire Payne: naturally occurring, we're going to start cultivating things to serve
Claire Payne: us. And at that point the wolves also split. And that's how
Claire Payne: we ended up the domesticated dogs, which are the ones that stuck with us
Claire Payne: as we almost domesticated ourselves and the wolves who carried
Claire Payne: on being the wolves. And the more we've domesticated ourselves,
Claire Payne: I mean, we've had huge leaps forward in terms of what we've achieved
Claire Payne: as a species, huge leaps forward in what we are capable
Claire Payne: of. But unfortunately, somewhere along the line we also lost
Claire Payne: some bits of the operating manual. So I think we forgot
Claire Payne: about the benefit of having that diversity and of having those
Claire Payne: outliers and realising that quite often that's where
Claire Payne: the innovation comes from. That's where the interesting challenge
Claire Payne: or the different way of seeing a problem or seeing a
Claire Payne: solution comes from. That lets us leap forward. But
Claire Payne: we also lost a number of other things that help us reach our potential.
Claire Payne: So for example, now we are, we are particularly poor at regulating
Claire Payne: our own neurological systems. I mean, wolves are an
Claire Payne: absolute master of ensuring that they keep in
Claire Payne: regulation. So what, what's happened with us is
Claire Payne: we've, we've got this system and you probably hear people talk about
Claire Payne: polyvagal system, but
Claire Payne: essentially in a nutshell, if we are in a
Claire Payne: regulated state, we are in the ventral vagal system, which means we're open and we
Claire Payne: can connect to lots of people. It means we're in connection, we can see
Claire Payne: opportunities, we're ready to take in board information, we can take
Claire Payne: in lots, lots of different ideas and we can make
Claire Payne: decisions much quicker. The difficulty about modern life
Claire Payne: is it keeps us in the parts of that system that are our fight, flight
Claire Payne: or freeze. Because a lot of us are overstimulated and we're not
Claire Payne: regulating ourselves. And what that does is when you pull
Claire Payne: yourself down into that stressed part of your
Claire Payne: neurological system and you start permanently living there, you
Claire Payne: start finding it more difficult to connect with people. You
Claire Payne: start wanting to focus on where's the threat coming from as opposed
Claire Payne: to where's the opportunity. And at that point,
Claire Payne: things that are different from us or ideas that are coming
Claire Payne: in are at best seen as a bit overwhelming
Claire Payne: or at worst seen as being something of a threat. And at
Claire Payne: that point we actually actively stop collaborating with each other.
Claire Payne: So it's not just been about as wanting to
Claire Payne: control, it's also been about this gradual
Claire Payne: disconnect. We've almost started programming into
Claire Payne: our neurological system. But the really good thing about it is
Claire Payne: all the hard wiring is still there and we are perfectly capable
Claire Payne: of reversing that if we just bring some consciousness around how we're
Claire Payne: managing ourselves and how we're interacting with each other, particularly in the
Claire Payne: workplace. I think it's fascinating.
Joanne Lockwood: I agree with completely. And our vagus nerve, which
Joanne Lockwood: is, I guess what you're talking about here is when you're referring to it, it's
Joanne Lockwood: connected directly to our adrenaline glands, our digestive
Joanne Lockwood: system and that fight flight freeze mechanism. And we are
Joanne Lockwood: often in a state of heightened alert. And it's very difficult
Joanne Lockwood: to live in modern society
Joanne Lockwood: without being on that lookout. I guess you've got to go cheque out
Joanne Lockwood: of, of the modern world, live in a commune, go
Joanne Lockwood: back to nature in order to step out those stresses which
Joanne Lockwood: we're all facing. I mean, you work in the legal profession,
Joanne Lockwood: that's a very, well, traditionally male
Joanne Lockwood: dominated alpha type environment, especially if you're in the
Joanne Lockwood: city. It is, absolutely. And I think this is
Claire Payne: why I became so acutely aware of this as well. Because very much
Claire Payne: in the legal environment you don't show weakness.
Claire Payne: And I think particularly as a litigator,
Claire Payne: when I'm working in conflicts, there is this
Claire Payne: idea that you are out there on your own
Claire Payne: and that you are fighting the good fight and that
Claire Payne: quite often there is, there is no room for compromise. And this is
Claire Payne: how parties end up at loggerheads. Of course, a more modern
Claire Payne: way that we're, that a lot of people are coming around to in terms of
Claire Payne: conflict resolution is thankfully these days we're
Claire Payne: seeing a lot more things like mediation and like people having
Claire Payne: conversations and bringing each, you know, bringing parties to the table
Claire Payne: to actually see how they can collaborate and finding a solution rather than just
Claire Payne: digging themselves into a trench and hurling things at each other from either
Claire Payne: side until one of them gives in. Yes, I think that's
Claire Payne: something I'm a lot more sensitive to being in the legal profession,
Claire Payne: particularly being a litigator where I'm dealing with contentious
Claire Payne: environments because people become very entrenched and they don't want
Claire Payne: to talk to each other, they don't want to communicate, they don't want to collaborate.
Claire Payne: And they become very stuck in this,
Claire Payne: in this world where they've closed down and everything is a
Claire Payne: threat and everything is taken in a
Claire Payne: negative way. And actually one of the joys of
Claire Payne: the direction in which modern legal sort of
Claire Payne: litigation work is going is that we're seeing a lot more
Claire Payne: mediation now, a lot more people willing to get into
Claire Payne: a meeting and lawyers willing to get their clients to the
Claire Payne: table to have a discussion where they can start collaborating about how
Claire Payne: they can Find a solution and find a way forward.
Claire Payne: That's not to say people's viewpoints aren't entirely valid, that's not
Claire Payne: to say their emotions aren't entirely valid, but finding a
Claire Payne: way in which they can release those in a positive
Claire Payne: fashion, gain some understanding between each other, and actually
Claire Payne: get to the point where they've got a solution which would be far better than
Claire Payne: anything a court could ever order is really,
Claire Payne: really helpful. So I think there is definitely a
Claire Payne: recognition now, certainly within legal, the legal
Claire Payne: industry, of moving away from this being it's all
Claire Payne: about me on my own. And I can't show any weakness to being able to
Claire Payne: say, well, hang on, maybe it's a case of just having a bit of understanding,
Claire Payne: of perspective. I'm not sure I would say it's gone as far as having
Claire Payne: some empathy yet, but it's certainly starting to
Claire Payne: take steps in the right direction. And I think the solutions that people
Claire Payne: are seeing in terms of being able to craft
Claire Payne: answers to problems and being able to find ways forward that
Claire Payne: don't end up costing a fortune and years of
Claire Payne: litigation in court are making a significant difference to the business
Claire Payne: world. That must be a change in strategy from
Joanne Lockwood: within the judicial system, I guess, because the judicial system
Joanne Lockwood: effectively breeds its clients. And if you're engaging
Joanne Lockwood: with an advisor, a solicitor, a lawyer, and
Joanne Lockwood: they want you to litigate, they want to earn their fee,
Joanne Lockwood: then they're going to push you in that route because it's that
Joanne Lockwood: feudalistic conflict that the legal system seems to thrive
Joanne Lockwood: on. And you look at divorce, you look at
Joanne Lockwood: tribunals, you look at companies and individuals,
Joanne Lockwood: the first stop hasn't always been talk first, has it? It's always
Joanne Lockwood: been build your army and get
Joanne Lockwood: support. It has. And I think, I think certainly in the legal world it's
Claire Payne: changing for a number of reasons. One of them is that the courts are now
Claire Payne: very much looking at promoting mediation
Claire Payne: first with parties. There is an expectation there that
Claire Payne: parties should have had those conversations. So we saw
Claire Payne: back in the 1990s the introduction of pre
Claire Payne: action protocols, which required parties to set out their cases to
Claire Payne: try and get some level of understanding and encourage them to start
Claire Payne: talking. That's now progressing to the point
Claire Payne: where we've got ordered mediation in certain cases and we've also
Claire Payne: got judicial mediation. So, for example, in my tribunal, there's a
Claire Payne: number of us that are trained mediators and if we say, see
Claire Payne: a case where we think, actually, do you know what would be really helpful is
Claire Payne: actually these parties just need to get in a room and talk to each other.
Claire Payne: We can order that and facilitate that before we send
Claire Payne: it to anybody to start making orders for them to do disclosure
Claire Payne: and make judicial decisions on what's presented to us. Because
Claire Payne: actually quite often that means that there is a much better long term solution for
Claire Payne: those parties. Particularly because I work in the area of property where people have to
Claire Payne: carry on living with each other or working with each other afterwards.
Claire Payne: That's increasingly important. I think from the other side,
Claire Payne: the day of the traditional law firm where everything is
Claire Payne: on billable hours is numbered. There are still some
Claire Payne: firms out there where the solicitors working for
Claire Payne: them or basically all of their targets are based on how many
Claire Payne: hours have you stuck on the clock and how many hours have you billed the
Claire Payne: client. And for them, that does drive very much
Claire Payne: a culture where they will get
Claire Payne: each individual case to last as long as it possibly can and they want
Claire Payne: it to go to court because they're going to make more money out of it
Claire Payne: bluntly, and they're going to get more hours on the system. The difference that you
Claire Payne: have when you start pushing back at that model,
Claire Payne: and it's certainly something that Gunnar Cook, which is the firm that I'm
Claire Payne: part of, has done. The reason we're called a challenger firm is because
Claire Payne: we don't run on hourly. We don't have targets of
Claire Payne: hours on the clock or hourly rates that we've billed or anything.
Claire Payne: What we judge ourselves on is the net promoter score,
Claire Payne: which is at the end of a case, we ask a client,
Claire Payne: on a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend us to
Claire Payne: someone else? I have, we done a good job. And as long as
Claire Payne: they've said we've done a good job, we're happy with the
Claire Payne: outcome and we do fixed fees as much as we can. And when you're
Claire Payne: doing fixed fees and when you're looking to get the best outcome for a
Claire Payne: client, it changes very much how you come at
Claire Payne: managing that dispute. Because what you're looking for is an early
Claire Payne: solution. And you know, it might sound
Claire Payne: counterintuitive, but actually that's when you see clients
Claire Payne: where you build a real long term trust relationship with them. That's when they come
Claire Payne: back to you time and again because you solve the problem. So they come back
Claire Payne: to you with the problem after that and the problem after that, and the problem
Claire Payne: after that. The other thing is you do an awful lot less
Claire Payne: marketing because they're delighted with the work that you've done
Claire Payne: and they tell everybody that they know that they should instruct you.
Claire Payne: So actually it's not curtailed the amount of profit
Claire Payne: the law firm can make. If anything, it makes the profits
Claire Payne: higher and it makes it more sustainable. But it is counter to how
Claire Payne: law firms have worked for a long time. So there's a push from both sides
Claire Payne: to recognise that. And I think there is also a big push from
Claire Payne: clients who are waking up to see that actually they don't
Claire Payne: want their businesses stalled whilst we have arguments with each
Claire Payne: other. So I think in the legal industry things
Claire Payne: are starting to change. I think what I see from my,
Claire Payne: with my non exec director hat on is in the boardroom things are
Claire Payne: starting to change as well because I have noticed
Claire Payne: that there is less box ticking going on with a lot of the
Claire Payne: organisations that I work with. So they're not just looking for somebody who
Claire Payne: ticks a box for diversity, they're also looking for
Claire Payne: somebody who brings a very different perspective to the table. They want
Claire Payne: someone who's had different life experiences, they want someone who's got a
Claire Payne: different background, they want something who's got a different skill set and they want
Claire Payne: all of that to be at the table in the boardroom so that when they're
Claire Payne: having discussions about solving problems, again, it's not
Claire Payne: just groupthink with one viewpoint going around in circles,
Claire Payne: they're actually genuinely getting a number of different solutions
Claire Payne: on the table and they're genuinely getting the right questions asked to
Claire Payne: explore things from different perspectives. So I think we are, we are in a
Claire Payne: very exciting time where, you know, as I said, the
Claire Payne: indigenous people have got this story about this time when we almost come back
Claire Payne: round to the way that the wolves think. And for
Claire Payne: me, I think I'm starting to see that curve naturally starting
Claire Payne: to happen in the way that we are driving ourselves
Claire Payne: now. But the world at large seems to be getting worse. I
Joanne Lockwood: mean, we've just, we're recording this mid November, in fact,
Joanne Lockwood: Armistice day on the 11th, the 11th.
Joanne Lockwood: And we've just come off the back of a US presidential election where it's very
Joanne Lockwood: much driven by divisive politics. And our
Joanne Lockwood: own two party system in the UK is also a
Joanne Lockwood: divisive in government and opposition. The opposition
Joanne Lockwood: have to oppose everything the government do. We're not a collaborative
Joanne Lockwood: government in the uk, are we? No, I agree, I agree. And it's
Claire Payne: very divisive and I think politics, modern politics, does breed that
Claire Payne: in some ways. But I think it is
Claire Payne: interesting in the way in which we
Claire Payne: consume our news, because we consume our news focused
Claire Payne: on the negative. What we don't consume our news on is focused on
Claire Payne: how many people perhaps voted for something that was a bit more
Claire Payne: liberal and a bit more collaborative. And I think,
Claire Payne: you know, because of the way we are wired
Claire Payne: to look for threat, people who are selling newspapers, who
Claire Payne: are selling, you know, social media stories and everything else
Claire Payne: will promote the thing that is a threat. What they
Claire Payne: won't do is tell you the hundred good news stories, the
Claire Payne: hundred little moves here, there and everywhere else, the things that have happened
Claire Payne: day to day in the lives of real people and the shifts that are happening
Claire Payne: and the thinking and the way in which people interact with each other on a
Claire Payne: personal basis in favour of looking at these
Claire Payne: big. These bigger stories. Now, I'm not belittling
Claire Payne: at all or suggesting you ignore
Claire Payne: the seismic shifts that are happening, but I think it's a case of
Claire Payne: getting some perspective on it. And I think you get a choice of how you
Claire Payne: get to view the world and you get a choice of how you want to
Claire Payne: interact with the world. And you can choose to view it as
Claire Payne: doom and gloom and there's no hope, or you can choose to look for the
Claire Payne: hope and to continue making the change in your own sphere of
Claire Payne: influence. And if we all keep doing that, imagine what we could achieve between
Claire Payne: us. Yeah, you're preaching to the choir here.
Joanne Lockwood: I completely converted. I'm seeing a lot of
Joanne Lockwood: pushback on edi, dei, whatever
Joanne Lockwood: acronym you want to use. And what you're saying is you're
Joanne Lockwood: seeing a shift in the legal profession towards mediation
Joanne Lockwood: in the EDI space. People are kind of dismissing it.
Joanne Lockwood: It's become too entrenched in identity politics, become too entrenched
Joanne Lockwood: in this, that the other. It's not delivering any benefits
Joanne Lockwood: anymore. We need to cancel all the EDI budgets, fire all the
Joanne Lockwood: EDI teams. Was EDI ever
Joanne Lockwood: doing anything worthwhile in business? I think. And I think
Claire Payne: this comes back to what I was saying about the box ticking.
Claire Payne: And, you know, there are organisations, and there are a lot of organisations out
Claire Payne: there that are dealing with so much regulation now that
Claire Payne: actually EDI has just been put on the regulation pilots. Another hoop
Claire Payne: that they need to jump through. So they need to collect data, they need to
Claire Payne: tick boxes, they need to make sure things are worded in a certain
Claire Payne: way. And what they're doing is they're jumping through hoops without
Claire Payne: really looking at why this would be of benefit to them as an
Claire Payne: organisation. And I think at that point it
Claire Payne: does become a chore, it becomes something that actually loses
Claire Payne: the meaning behind it. Whereas I think those
Claire Payne: organisations that are smart, those organisations that are
Claire Payne: reporting that huge seismic shift in the. In the
Claire Payne: bottom line. Those huge impacts on workplace culture
Claire Payne: are the ones that have actually understood
Claire Payne: the underlying driving principle of our own, why
Claire Payne: having equality, diversity and inclusion is so important. And
Claire Payne: it is about having all of those
Claire Payne: points all together. One of them doesn't work. You know this.
Claire Payne: Having equality doesn't work if you haven't got inclusion
Claire Payne: and you haven't got diversity in there. You've got to have all three of
Claire Payne: them as part of this mixture. And what it's about is, it's
Claire Payne: about creating that diverse group of
Claire Payne: people where everybody is empowered to
Claire Payne: bring themselves to the table and included in the discussion so
Claire Payne: that you can get the absolute best from them. And it's not just,
Claire Payne: you know, we're not just talking about in the boardroom, we're talking about
Claire Payne: everybody from, you know, your cleaners, your reception
Claire Payne: staff, right up to your senior managers,
Claire Payne: because they will all have input,
Claire Payne: ideas, things that they notice, things they realise. And if they've gotten a
Claire Payne: voice, a voice and that empowerment to be able to contribute, that you are
Claire Payne: then harnessing the potential of your people, which is your greatest asset in
Claire Payne: the business. And I think if people started treating
Claire Payne: EDI like that consistently
Claire Payne: across the board, then this idea that it's this sort of
Claire Payne: tired piece of regulation
Claire Payne: book ticksing work would change. And I think that,
Claire Payne: I think that is where organisations are going wrong. It's not about the
Claire Payne: red tape, this is about how do you get your
Claire Payne: organisation into a situation where, you know,
Claire Payne: where can innovate. This is one of the biggest things that people complain
Claire Payne: about. There's no innovation in our organisation. Nobody is looking at better ways
Claire Payne: of doing things. Well, they won't be if you haven't got that
Claire Payne: inclusive culture. It's all about the culture. The other thing that they
Claire Payne: complain about is, you know,
Claire Payne: how do we get to the point where we're
Claire Payne: getting potential out of everybody? How do we get to the point where we've not
Claire Payne: got people disengaging and doing the bare minimum
Claire Payne: Again, that at the heart of it has got to be in a culture that
Claire Payne: empowers people to feel included, to feel they've got a voice, to feel
Claire Payne: that they are part of the vision, that they are part of
Claire Payne: this community that is driving forwards towards a common
Claire Payne: goal. And so the heart of it is really going to come in cultural change.
Claire Payne: And the organisations that are nailing that are going to get the benefit of
Claire Payne: edi, the organisations that aren't are going to be there
Claire Payne: scratching their head, going, I don't understand why we have to keep going through this.
Joanne Lockwood: So how do we get our leaders to wake up to this
Joanne Lockwood: prehistoric wolf, ancient human
Joanne Lockwood: modality, where we're. We're focusing on
Joanne Lockwood: the right side of our vagus nerve, rather the wrong side of our vagus
Joanne Lockwood: nerve. How do we get leaders to shift their perspectives on that?
Claire Payne: I think one of the things that I have found is, sadly, you can
Claire Payne: talk to people about this until you blew in the face,
Claire Payne: but the best way they can pick it up is to actually feel it, is
Claire Payne: to actually experience what it's like. And that's either
Claire Payne: by going into an organisation, which is nailing this and
Claire Payne: which is getting it right and seeing how that culture works and
Claire Payne: looking at best practise, or in my case, what I
Claire Payne: found is actually I take groups of leaders out
Claire Payne: and I teach them what that regulated state feels like. I
Claire Payne: take them in to meet the wolves, to feel what it feels like to be
Claire Payne: part of that pack, part of that community. And you feel it at
Claire Payne: such a visceral level. And people are so
Claire Payne: surprised at how calm it makes them feel, how
Claire Payne: controlled they feel, how empowered they feel
Claire Payne: to be able to then bring their own strengths to the fore. And I think
Claire Payne: it's one of those things that empowerment very much starts with
Claire Payne: the individual leader. If they are
Claire Payne: putting on a mask to try to fit a mould that somebody has
Claire Payne: told them, you've got to be this way in order to be an executive, in
Claire Payne: order to be a director, a CEO, a manager, whatever position they're
Claire Payne: in, if they're masking in order to try and do it and not bringing their
Claire Payne: whole self to the table, they're going to struggle to do that with the rest
Claire Payne: of their team. So it is one of those things where it does come
Claire Payne: back to that personal development, that reconnection with
Claire Payne: themselves and that ability to empower
Claire Payne: themselves to bring everything to the table. And then what they will naturally
Claire Payne: find is they will see the benefits for them and they will naturally start
Claire Payne: bringing that to their team and the culture will start changing around
Claire Payne: them. It's. It's like ripples in a pool. You start one and it does
Claire Payne: start going out. Because one of the other things that we've got, which is a
Claire Payne: phenomenal capability for humans,
Claire Payne: is we can regulate ourselves. But because we have
Claire Payne: this neurological system throughout our entire body, with mirror
Claire Payne: neurons, we can also influence and co regulate other people
Claire Payne: around us. So that feeling of regulation, that connection, that
Claire Payne: empowerment, you can, when you're really tuned into it,
Claire Payne: actually push that out into a group when you're working with them as well.
Joanne Lockwood: You work leaders and Teams and I also work with many leaders.
Joanne Lockwood: One of the biggest barriers is this fear of getting it wrong. Because
Joanne Lockwood: edis team is such a minefield. So many different
Joanne Lockwood: identities, so many politics gets involved,
Joanne Lockwood: conflict, us versus them, me versus you, all this kind of
Joanne Lockwood: stuff. How does the leader overcome that fear
Joanne Lockwood: of getting it wrong? And it is. That fear of failure is
Claire Payne: absolutely huge. And it does come back to this idea of, you know,
Claire Payne: I've got to be out there on my own, I can't show any weakness. I
Claire Payne: think, I think there are huge benefits to failing,
Claire Payne: huge, huge benefits to failing, because if you never fail, you never
Claire Payne: progress, you never learn, there's a cycle to
Claire Payne: progressing. And what we get stuck in is we get stuck in the first two
Claire Payne: steps of it. We plan and we do. We plan and we do. We plan
Claire Payne: and we do. What we very rarely do in the modern world is
Claire Payne: reflect. And actually, if you want to up your game,
Claire Payne: you plan it, you do it and then you reflect on it. And
Claire Payne: even things where things, everything's felt like it's gone really well,
Claire Payne: there will be certain bits that you could have done better and there's never
Claire Payne: anything, there's never a situation which is a complete
Claire Payne: failure. And the reason for that is because even when it's gone wrong,
Claire Payne: there will be absolute nuggets of gold to be gathered there
Claire Payne: that tell you how to get it right next time, what can we do better
Claire Payne: next time? What can we do to make sure that the next time we give
Claire Payne: this a go, it's a bigger success? And I think if you come
Claire Payne: at that idea of failure as being a learning
Claire Payne: opportunity, you open yourself up to the opportunity
Claire Payne: to innovate and to progress. And I think in the EDI space
Claire Payne: as well, I think it's giving each other permission to get it wrong.
Claire Payne: And I think, you know, with political correctness, a lot of people
Claire Payne: are very worried to actually ask the questions, to
Claire Payne: actually put themselves in a position of saying, you've got a
Claire Payne: perspective and an experience. I don't understand. I would like to know
Claire Payne: more because they're so worried about offending somebody
Claire Payne: if they do that. Whereas I think, you know, the key to a lot of,
Claire Payne: a lot of inclusion is understanding. And so I think,
Claire Payne: you know, there is, there is something there to having an
Claire Payne: organ, to having an organisational culture where you can say to
Claire Payne: people, I I'm not sure I understood where you were coming from.
Claire Payne: I'm interested, please, could you explain that? Or if somebody
Claire Payne: does get it wrong and says something that perhaps is
Claire Payne: offensive, is to have that unconditional positive regard
Claire Payne: for people, that was very clear that that was their intention.
Claire Payne: It's a question of a lack of knowledge, not a question of them intentionally
Claire Payne: trying to be offensive. And actually a quiet conversation that
Claire Payne: says, you know, taking them off to one side and saying, I don't know if
Claire Payne: you realise, but actually when you mentioned that, that was quite upsetting for
Claire Payne: me. And this is why, because if you do it in that way with people,
Claire Payne: most people will say, oh, my goodness, I didn't realise, I didn't know. But
Claire Payne: now that I do, I'm aware of that. And that's how they learn, that's how
Claire Payne: they develop, that's how the understanding grows. And I think we've got
Claire Payne: to not be scared of talking to each and realise
Claire Payne: that for the most part, everybody is doing the best they
Claire Payne: can with what they've got. And everybody does have a
Claire Payne: different background and a different knowledge. And most people are willing
Claire Payne: to learn and are willing to try, but you've just got to give each other
Claire Payne: a bit of a chance sometimes. Yeah, I think
Joanne Lockwood: we set ourselves up in this. Men versus women,
Joanne Lockwood: white versus black, straight versus gay, trans
Joanne Lockwood: versus not trans, neurodiverse versus neurotypical. All this kind
Joanne Lockwood: of. You've either got it or you haven't got it. If you haven't got it,
Joanne Lockwood: you don't understand what it's like to have it and vice versa. And then
Joanne Lockwood: the poor person who's in the middle of the bell curve of normality is
Joanne Lockwood: going, what about me? I feel left out here. There's nothing for me to
Joanne Lockwood: be normal. Everybody else gets all the benefits
Joanne Lockwood: by being something and I don't. And I think we need to take
Claire Payne: it back to our shared humanity in a lot of ways, because,
Claire Payne: I mean, there's two things we're always going to have far more in common than
Claire Payne: we have different. And there's some lovely exercises you can do when you
Claire Payne: stick a bunch of people in a room who think they've got nothing in common
Claire Payne: and start talking to them and you realise they've got loads in common, apart from
Claire Payne: maybe one or two things that they disagree on. So I think we've got
Claire Payne: more in common than we have, that's different, but also converse to
Claire Payne: that we're also all individuals and there is no
Claire Payne: way that I would ever fully understand the
Claire Payne: perspective of another individual, whether they are in one of those
Claire Payne: boxes that have been ticked or not. And I think in a way
Claire Payne: we've got to stop putting people in boxes and start recognising people
Claire Payne: as individuals rather than trying so desperately to
Claire Payne: categorise everybody, because somebody is
Claire Payne: not their, you know, neurodiverse
Claire Payne: tag or their sexuality tag or their gender
Claire Payne: tag. That is one aspect of a
Claire Payne: hugely complex individual who will have so many
Claire Payne: other different things about them. That's just one thing. It happens to be
Claire Payne: about them. And I think, you know, if we start viewing each other like that,
Claire Payne: about these complex, fascinating individuals and
Claire Payne: knowing that there are going to be things we have in common and other things
Claire Payne: that are different, and my goodness, doesn't that make life exciting? Because if we were
Claire Payne: all the same, it would be blooming boring then. I think that, you
Claire Payne: know, that is the key to us starting to be able to have a better
Claire Payne: understanding and to be able to work with each other more. That's kind of the
Joanne Lockwood: fundamental route of mediation, isn't it? It's trying to work out what our
Joanne Lockwood: core common objective is, what we have in common. In fact, we
Joanne Lockwood: both want to resolve this in some way and we don't want to
Joanne Lockwood: keep fighting the battle forever. We want to move on. We want to be able
Joanne Lockwood: to get on with our lives, our businesses, and I
Joanne Lockwood: always call it things like destination planning, where we're trying to work out,
Joanne Lockwood: where we're trying to get to. And whilst we have to acknowledge the
Joanne Lockwood: past, we don't need to keep bringing the past up, putting it back on the
Joanne Lockwood: table all the time. You just have to say, in order to move on, we
Joanne Lockwood: have to accept the past has happened and now we need to work on the
Joanne Lockwood: steps to get to where we're trying to get to. Whilst acknowledging the past doesn't
Joanne Lockwood: go away. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, as a mediator,
Claire Payne: when I'm sitting as a mediator, it's a hugely privileged position
Claire Payne: because you get to see right inside both sides,
Claire Payne: or sometimes three, four sides of the argument, which the other people
Claire Payne: don't have the privilege of having that perspective. And I think
Claire Payne: there's a couple of things that we do need to recognise. One of them is
Claire Payne: emotions. We all have emotions.
Claire Payne: Particularly in the uk, we are very much trained from an early
Claire Payne: age to ignore our emotions. We push them down, we don't
Claire Payne: process them. Whereas actually, emotions need to be processed
Claire Payne: through. They're there, they're indicators. You know, you get angry because a
Claire Payne: boundary has been challenged, you get fearful because you're out of your
Claire Payne: comfort zone. You know that these. These are natural emotions that
Claire Payne: are there in our body, they're there for a reason, for
Claire Payne: us to then trigger thinking, to trigger being able
Claire Payne: to then manage the situation. I'm scared of this. Am I out of my comfort
Claire Payne: zone? Am I actually in danger? No, I'm not. But you've got to be able
Claire Payne: to process it in order to have that conversation with yourself. And I
Claire Payne: think part of the problem that you get to is, you know, if you just
Claire Payne: get to the point where you say, well, let's just forget the past
Claire Payne: without letting people voice the emotion that was attached to it
Claire Payne: and get it through their system, all they're doing
Claire Payne: is pushing it down below the surface, and it's still there trying to erupt. So
Claire Payne: it does just keep coming back up and it's. And. And so one of
Claire Payne: the things that, you know, in mediation, there is a certain
Claire Payne: benefit there at the. At the beginning to letting people just get it all out
Claire Payne: there on the table. I mean, you know, it's just, you know, and
Claire Payne: whether that's, I need to have a rant where the other party can
Claire Payne: hear it, or I just need to have a rant at someone and be
Claire Payne: heard, get it out of there. And then you draw the
Claire Payne: line and say, yeah, exactly what you just said. Okay, what
Claire Payne: do we both want? And the joy of being the mediator is be able to
Claire Payne: sit there and go, I've heard from both of you, and actually there is common
Claire Payne: ground. There's this playing field in the middle here where
Claire Payne: both of you are actually willing to step onto it, and there's this. This
Claire Payne: almost golden space where there is a solution
Claire Payne: here. And, you know, it's seeing how far each
Claire Payne: party where they're willing to come to and what that space looks like.
Claire Payne: And it's very interesting because part we also make huge amounts of
Claire Payne: assumptions about other people, huge amounts of assumptions. And
Claire Payne: of course, we need to be able to do that in order to navigate the
Claire Payne: world. But quite often our
Claire Payne: assumptions about what the other person wants, what their
Claire Payne: agenda is, what they're trying to get to, you know, what's in it for
Claire Payne: them is quite different to their perspective.
Claire Payne: And actually, when you come down to it, it's this
Claire Payne: idea that people are doing the best they can with what they've
Claire Payne: got. And they have emotions too, and they have
Claire Payne: drivers behind them, and they have reasons as to why they've
Claire Payne: responded that way or why they're looking at things that way, whether it's
Claire Payne: intrinsically part of their personality or it's part of their background,
Claire Payne: their experience of the world and so on, but
Claire Payne: recognising that they're doing the best they can with
Claire Payne: what they got and having that unconditional positive regard as
Claire Payne: A starting point means that you get to that common ground
Claire Payne: so much faster. But sometimes it just takes someone
Claire Payne: standing in the middle to see it, to step back as a neutral
Claire Payne: observer and go, do you actually realise that there is
Claire Payne: a common ground here? You know, if we can
Claire Payne: just share this information and understand the perspective,
Claire Payne: you're already there. I spent a good chunk of my life
Joanne Lockwood: providing IT support to customers. Most of the
Joanne Lockwood: customers were in a position where there was something wrong and they
Joanne Lockwood: wanted it right. Whether it was their backups weren't working, their server had died,
Joanne Lockwood: they lost all their data, whatever it may be, machines broken.
Joanne Lockwood: And I learned quite quickly
Joanne Lockwood: that you almost might start the conversation, what are you looking
Joanne Lockwood: for out of this situation? And most people
Joanne Lockwood: don't actually know what they want. They know, they know they want a
Joanne Lockwood: resolution, they know they want to be right, they know they want the other person
Joanne Lockwood: to be wrong and they want some sort of compensation
Joanne Lockwood: or something. But when you say, okay, what would a
Joanne Lockwood: satisfactory resolution look like to you?
Joanne Lockwood: I don't know. I'm so caught up in my emotion here, I don't actually know
Joanne Lockwood: what I want. So it's a very good way of disarming people to say,
Joanne Lockwood: pour the emotion out, let me hear your vent and
Joanne Lockwood: rant, and then say, okay, what does good look like
Joanne Lockwood: for you from here on in? What can I do to resolve this for you?
Claire Payne: Absolutely. I mean, I've, I. And in my work as a. As a lawyer,
Claire Payne: mediator, judge, business consultant, it's always the
Claire Payne: same. It is always the same. People are.
Claire Payne: They can see all the problems, they can see all the issues, they
Claire Payne: can see how unfair the world is, they can see how unreasonable someone is.
Claire Payne: And when you get through all of that and say, yes, but, you know, we
Claire Payne: are where we are, what. What do you want to wake up to
Claire Payne: tomorrow? And you do get that pause and you go,
Claire Payne: and I think again, if people were able to put that
Claire Payne: pause in for themselves when they hear something from someone else
Claire Payne: or feel uncomfortable or feel unsure and just
Claire Payne: go, what outcome do I actually want from this interaction?
Claire Payne: What. What do I actually want to get out of the end of this project?
Claire Payne: What is the, you know, when I'm looking at the culture of how we deal
Claire Payne: with things in this workplace or in this team, what is
Claire Payne: it? I'm actually trying to get out of this? And if you went from
Claire Payne: that end goal backwards, then how you
Claire Payne: react to things and how you decide to deal with things would change
Claire Payne: dramatically. Sometimes actually, what people want
Joanne Lockwood: without realising it is just de escalation to Better lay down
Joanne Lockwood: their arms to better lay down the argument and walk away with
Joanne Lockwood: faith without feeling they've lost. But they settle
Joanne Lockwood: their disagreement by being heard. I think is probably
Joanne Lockwood: restorative justice, as I would call it, rather than
Joanne Lockwood: actually wanting to punish somebody any further. Just
Joanne Lockwood: acknowledgement of your perspective,
Joanne Lockwood: maybe. I mean, that's absolutely true because
Claire Payne: that, that whole holding all that emotion in and
Claire Payne: staying angry and fighting is
Claire Payne: so exhausting. It is absolutely
Claire Payne: exhausting. And you know, particularly, I mean particularly in conflict
Claire Payne: situations or, you know, in, in high pressure situations
Claire Payne: in business where you're trying to get projects across the line and so on.
Claire Payne: It's, it can, it can take over your entire life if you get yourself
Claire Payne: into that loop. And this is when, you know, people find themselves waking up at
Claire Payne: three in the morning with their head racing. And, and actually
Claire Payne: when it comes down to it, you say to people, what do you really want?
Claire Payne: I would really like a good night's sleep and to not have to be thinking
Claire Payne: about this every time. Every time I pause, every time I
Claire Payne: have a cup of tea, every time I sit down, this comes
Claire Payne: back into my head again and I'm thinking, how am I going to solve this?
Claire Payne: It's hanging over me. I just don't want it there anymore. I want a
Claire Payne: solution. I want it moving forward. I want to feel like we're making some
Claire Payne: progress towards something. And that's what most people do want.
Claire Payne: Absolutely. But again,
Claire Payne: I think a lot of people feel very vulnerable to admit
Claire Payne: that because we've still got this hangover of this idea of
Claire Payne: you need to be out there on your own, you need to be fighting. And
Claire Payne: I think, you know, it, particularly if you are talking
Claire Payne: about, you know, a very, a very sort of masculine
Claire Payne: corporate world where, you know, the testosterone is there and it's all
Claire Payne: about pushing through. You can't back down. It's
Claire Payne: not, you know, and, and actually it's not about backing
Claire Payne: down, it's about getting to where you want to get
Claire Payne: to. And, and I think that that is a,
Claire Payne: is a, is a shift that is still, is still not quite
Claire Payne: there. It's still not quite there in a lot of corporate environments. I, I was
Joanne Lockwood: unfortunately the recipient of a bit of a hate crime.
Joanne Lockwood: I don't know if this is Shades of Grey. Can you have a bit of
Joanne Lockwood: a hate crime? It's either it's probably quite binary. It either is a hate crime
Joanne Lockwood: or it's not. And the police told me it was a hate crime. So I
Joanne Lockwood: guess it is a hate crime that someone has sent me some quite
Joanne Lockwood: Quite nasty emails, unsolicited emails, quite personal, quite
Joanne Lockwood: attacking. So I reported the police online like you
Joanne Lockwood: do, and the police officer came around, we had a good
Joanne Lockwood: chat, took all the evidence away and a few weeks later he came back and
Joanne Lockwood: said, look, we're pretty sure we tracked down this person, but we're
Joanne Lockwood: reluctant to take it any further because this person has a history of mental health,
Joanne Lockwood: poor mental health, and we don't think that anything's going to be
Joanne Lockwood: served by progressing it with them, other than
Joanne Lockwood: potentially them reacting badly and having more goes at me or whatever
Joanne Lockwood: else. And they said, what do you want to do? And I said, look, all
Joanne Lockwood: I was ever after in this process was for the person
Joanne Lockwood: involved to be made aware of the fact that
Joanne Lockwood: what they've done is wrong, it is a hate crime. And I was
Joanne Lockwood: just after restorative justice, an apology, and then the officer at the
Joanne Lockwood: time explained to me that they did. The court system didn't work on restorative
Joanne Lockwood: justice anymore, they had to punish hate crimes. So
Joanne Lockwood: I thought, well, actually, all I really want is a. Just, you know and I
Joanne Lockwood: know and you know and I know that this is wrong and I'm happy
Joanne Lockwood: to drop it, but the system, the judiciary system at that point
Joanne Lockwood: was pushing me down to an argument. And when they said this person,
Joanne Lockwood: it's not worth pursuing because of all these mental health
Joanne Lockwood: scenarios, do you really want to pursue it? Because if you do, we will.
Joanne Lockwood: Although I've never, after being
Joanne Lockwood: vindictive or punishing anybody, I just wanted that person to wake up and
Joanne Lockwood: know what they did wasn't acceptable. And you're saying
Joanne Lockwood: that this, anything I do now isn't going to result in anything
Joanne Lockwood: productive, then I'm happy to move, I'm happy to step out of this. She
Joanne Lockwood: does it again, fine. But if nothing ever happens again, I'm
Joanne Lockwood: happy to drop it and. But the system is set up for me to push
Joanne Lockwood: that button for more bigger argument.
Claire Payne: It is, absolutely. And it is, it is very sad because one
Claire Payne: of the things that can, can never be really ordered in the court is an
Claire Payne: apology. There is an order for someone to do something or to
Claire Payne: pay something, but there will not be an order
Claire Payne: to apologise because,
Claire Payne: wish as you might, you can't make someone else feel something,
Claire Payne: so you can't make someone else feel sorry. And I think you
Claire Payne: know that it's a very natural feeling when somebody has
Claire Payne: deeply hurt you. You want them to understand
Claire Payne: how you're feeling and to empathise with it. And you
Claire Payne: can't, but you can't make that happen. And that is, and
Claire Payne: that is quite difficult. And I think, I think one of the best
Claire Payne: conversations I've ever had around this was with a lady
Claire Payne: called Dr. Jane Lewis, who, she is
Claire Payne: an academic and an expert in Hawaiian
Claire Payne: culture. And of course in Hawaiian culture, they have a big
Claire Payne: culture of forgiveness. And forgiveness for them is not
Claire Payne: about the other person. It's not about turning
Claire Payne: the other cheek, it's not about making the other person feeling
Claire Payne: better. It's about saying, what you've done no longer
Claire Payne: has any power over me. So I am going to let it go. I'm
Claire Payne: forgiving you because I don't want what you've
Claire Payne: done, said act, how you've acted, to have any power over me
Claire Payne: whatsoever going forwards. And I think
Claire Payne: that's where the distinction has had to land for me
Claire Payne: in that, in terms of justice, if
Claire Payne: this person was persisting or they were likely to do it again, then in
Claire Payne: that case the court system can very much put a stop to it.
Claire Payne: If it was, it's happened and it's
Claire Payne: not likely to happen again. You're never going to be able
Claire Payne: to get that person because they could. Even if they were told they had to
Claire Payne: write a letter of apology, whether they meant it or not,
Claire Payne: you're never going to be able to make them feel something that you want them
Claire Payne: to. So unfortunately, the best thing to do though, is to, is
Claire Payne: to put it down and say, I'm going to let go of the power that
Claire Payne: you've got over me with this. I am going to several times to
Claire Payne: this and I'm going to forgive you in that way. And it is, it is,
Claire Payne: it is a hard thing to do because you want, you don't
Claire Payne: feel like your emotions have been validated and
Claire Payne: that's difficult. It is very difficult. It is.
Joanne Lockwood: But I think you're right. I think that's the key. It's.
Joanne Lockwood: It's taking that emotion, the screwed up bit of paper, popping it in a bin
Joanne Lockwood: and saying, you no longer have power over me. Whatever you say from here on
Joanne Lockwood: in doesn't matter to me anymore. Your opinion is your
Joanne Lockwood: opinion, not mine. Yeah, it takes
Joanne Lockwood: the strength of character to get to that point, doesn't it? And it's, it does.
Joanne Lockwood: Especially if you've got some PTSD or, you know, trauma as a result
Joanne Lockwood: of it. Yeah, and it does. And again, it
Claire Payne: comes back around in circle to two things that the wolves are exceptionally good
Claire Payne: at. One is the regulation. Because if you can regulate
Claire Payne: yourself, you can put that pause in to go before I
Claire Payne: react to this. What Do I want. What do I want the outcome to be
Claire Payne: here? What am I going to achieve by doing this?
Claire Payne: The other thing is having that
Claire Payne: absolutely unconditional positive regard for yourself and being so
Claire Payne: secure in your own personality. The wolves don't have
Claire Payne: any judgement of each other. Their response
Claire Payne: to everything is, that's interesting. You know, they've got somebody in the
Claire Payne: group that's really good at this, but they're not very good at that. They've got
Claire Payne: somebody in the group that messes something up. They're shown what they've done
Claire Payne: wrong. That's interesting. It won't happen again.
Claire Payne: They just have this view of themselves, of regardless
Claire Payne: of what happens, it doesn't take away from their own intrinsic value.
Claire Payne: It doesn't take away from who they are, what they are, what anybody
Claire Payne: else says, thinks, looks at them funny. They.
Claire Payne: They're just not bothered about it. They're just like, oh, that's interesting. It's
Claire Payne: interesting that you think that. It's interesting that you do that a different way.
Claire Payne: It's just information. It's not, it's. It's not a
Claire Payne: personal reflection on who I actually am or
Claire Payne: whether I've got any value or not. And I think, you know, in a
Claire Payne: world where we're reduced to likes on
Claire Payne: social media and needing to people please and needing to
Claire Payne: be liked and accepted and feel like
Claire Payne: we fit in all the time, we're pushed to do that.
Claire Payne: It's very, very hard to do that as a human being in this modern
Claire Payne: world. I mean, it was very interesting
Claire Payne: some of conversation with somebody else the other day about this. This
Claire Payne: idea that the difference between the opposite of fitting in is
Claire Payne: belonging and actually truly belonging is being so
Claire Payne: comfortable in your. In your own skin that
Claire Payne: no matter whatever anybody else thinks, wants, does, judges you,
Claire Payne: anything else, you still know that you've got your intrinsic value.
Claire Payne: And it's very hard to find your intrinsic value when you
Claire Payne: are trying to fit, you know, a mask over
Claire Payne: yourself every day to fit a certain mould that someone's told you, this is what
Claire Payne: a successful person looks like, or this is how you are
Claire Payne: supposed to be, or this is the line you've got to tool. And not letting
Claire Payne: you be yourself, it does make you doubt your own
Claire Payne: intrinsic value. And that starts right from when we're in school.
Claire Payne: So it's a challenge. It really is a challenge.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Fitting in is changing yourself. Belonging is being accepted
Joanne Lockwood: for who you are. Yeah. It's a fundamental difference.
Joanne Lockwood: You put in the show notes about fire walking, glass
Joanne Lockwood: walking and breaking arrows, and the difference between breaking through and
Joanne Lockwood: pushing through. Do you want to expand on that a little bit? Yeah,
Claire Payne: there is a huge, huge difference. There's this
Claire Payne: idea, again, it's come from, particularly in corporate
Claire Payne: culture, of this idea of when the going gets tough, the tough get
Claire Payne: going. So, you know, when things get difficult, man
Claire Payne: up or chin up, however you want to put it, and
Claire Payne: you're just going to push through, you're just going to put yourself through
Claire Payne: that stress. You're just going to be exhausted. You're just going to, you know, get
Claire Payne: on with it, because you need to get on with it. And actually,
Claire Payne: in a crisis, yes, that might be the appropriate thing to
Claire Payne: do. In a life or death situation,
Claire Payne: that is something we've got the capability to do because in that split
Claire Payne: second that would save our lives. But we're not meant to live
Claire Payne: in a crisis. We're not meant to spend, you
Claire Payne: know, 99% of our lives in a burning house
Claire Payne: trying to escape that. That's not what our system was built
Claire Payne: for. So the difference between breaking through
Claire Payne: and empowering through is that breaking through is going,
Claire Payne: where is the edge of my comfort zone here? Where is the edge of my
Claire Payne: capability now? What do I need to support myself
Claire Payne: to get through that? And it can be.
Claire Payne: Whereas, you know, sometimes it's a sense of inner strength,
Claire Payne: sometimes it's a what limiting belief have I got here that is holding me
Claire Payne: back? Where is my energy at right now? How am I feeling right now?
Claire Payne: Is there emotion around this that I need to have a think about and address
Claire Payne: before I can move forward? Am I just plain flipping
Claire Payne: exhausted? And what I actually need is a good night's sleep
Claire Payne: and then to look at this in the morning and it is, it is
Claire Payne: slower, but actually, if you start getting into the habit
Claire Payne: of having that neuroplasticity
Claire Payne: where you stretch your comfort zone in a way
Claire Payne: that allows room for growth without putting you under
Claire Payne: stress, you find that you're able to continue stressing
Claire Payne: it. And so one of the things that I do with
Claire Payne: clients is we play with that. And it is very much playing with
Claire Payne: that elasticity and it's doing things that can be quite scary. I mean,
Claire Payne: it is quite. There is something in your, you know, your, your,
Claire Payne: your really primal brain that says putting my foot on
Claire Payne: a pile of broken glass and deciding to walk across it might
Claire Payne: not be the best idea I've ever had. But actually, when
Claire Payne: you slow yourself down and you
Claire Payne: take stock of the situation and give yourself that
Claire Payne: pause to think, what do I want to get out of this? Where am I
Claire Payne: going with this, how am I going to approach this? What do I need? Do
Claire Payne: I need a shoulder to lean on whilst I walk across this?
Claire Payne: Do I need some support? Do I need someone to talk me through? Do I
Claire Payne: need to express how I'm feeling? You suddenly find
Claire Payne: that actually something you thought was incredibly difficult becomes
Claire Payne: very easy. And the sense of empowerment you get from that, because
Claire Payne: you feel it in your system, you feel it in your
Claire Payne: body is huge. And then the next time you
Claire Payne: get that feeling of, oh, I don't know if I can do this,
Claire Payne: instead of pushing through, you gather your
Claire Payne: resources and look at where you are and you,
Claire Payne: you expand and have that expansive feeling
Claire Payne: rather than having that pushing through and putting my body under
Claire Payne: stress feeling. And as I say, yeah, so I have lots of fun with walking
Claire Payne: across glass, getting arrows and breaking them, where you put the point
Claire Payne: in your throat and the other end on a wall and you walk towards it
Claire Payne: and it snaps, which, yeah, people cringe when they hear me say
Claire Payne: that. But if you have a look on social media, there's some videos of me
Claire Payne: doing it. These are all things that are possible and they're in a very
Claire Payne: contained, specific way of doing it,
Claire Payne: which is very, very empowering and a lot of fun, actually. And
Claire Payne: that's. And that's the thing, you know, if life isn't fun, then what's the point,
Claire Payne: really? You know, we put ourselves under so much stress. You only get
Claire Payne: one, you know, we get one life here to enjoy it.
Claire Payne: We should be making the best out of it and seeing what we can experience
Claire Payne: along the way. I agree completely, Claire. What a fascinating
Joanne Lockwood: conversation. How do people get hold of you? So the best
Claire Payne: ways of getting hold of me is you can have a look at our website,
Claire Payne: which is orthelion.com or have a
Claire Payne: look for me on Facebook under Clare Payne. It's P A Y N E
Claire Payne: or I'm on LinkedIn as well. And I put out lots of things on a
Claire Payne: near daily basis with hints and tips and little things that people can
Claire Payne: try. Play around with it, see what works for you, Take the bits that do
Claire Payne: and leave the bits that don't. And that's very much our philosophy of how we
Claire Payne: work at Orthelion. Fantastic, Claire. That's absolutely superb.
Joanne Lockwood: And I love talking about the wolves. I've loved talking about your
Joanne Lockwood: mediation and your view of the world. And I'm sure our
Joanne Lockwood: listeners will be in touch. Thank you so much. Thank
Claire Payne: you. As we bring this conversation to
Joanne Lockwood: a close, I want to express my deepest gratitude to
Joanne Lockwood: you, our listener, for lending your ear and
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Joanne Lockwood: inclusive world one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.