Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary for bold
Joanne Lockwood: conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood, your guide on
Joanne Lockwood: this journey of exploration into the heart of inclusion, belonging,
Joanne Lockwood: and societal transformation. Ever wondered what it truly takes to
Joanne Lockwood: create a world where everyone not only belongs but thrives?
Joanne Lockwood: You're not alone. Join me as we uncover the unseen,
Joanne Lockwood: challenge the status quo, and share stories that resonate
Joanne Lockwood: the within. Ready to dive in. Whether you're sipping your morning coffee
Joanne Lockwood: or winding down after a long day, let's connect, reflect and
Joanne Lockwood: inspire action together. Don't forget, you can be part of the
Joanne Lockwood: conversation, too. Reach out to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk
Joanne Lockwood: to share your insights or to join me on the show. So adjust your
Joanne Lockwood: earbuds and settle in. It's time to ignite the spark
Joanne Lockwood: of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.
Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 152
Joanne Lockwood: with the title, embracing every mind. And I have
Joanne Lockwood: the absolute honor and privilege to welcome Charlie Hart.
Joanne Lockwood: Charlie, also known as awesome Charlie, and you'll find out in a minute
Joanne Lockwood: why, is a neurodivergent keynote speaker championing
Joanne Lockwood: neurodiversity and LGBTQIA plus inclusion in the
Joanne Lockwood: workplace. And when I asked Charlie to describe their superpower, they
Joanne Lockwood: said, it's just their unwavering dedication to creating a better
Joanne Lockwood: world for neurodivergent and queer youth inspired by their own
Joanne Lockwood: children and the Gen z community. Hi,
Joanne Lockwood: Charley. Welcome to the show. Hi, Jo. Thanks so much for having
Charlie Hart: me. Yeah. We've talked about this for a couple of months, and it's I'm
Joanne Lockwood: really honored you've come on today. I'm really excited to be here
Charlie Hart: because I've been following your work on LinkedIn for quite a long time
Charlie Hart: now. And then we met through the professional speaking association,
Charlie Hart: and I'm really keen to get on this fabulous podcast,
Charlie Hart: which I quite often listen to when I'm on a long walk. Oh, thank
Joanne Lockwood: you. And this you have the honor of being the first
Joanne Lockwood: video version of this podcast. I mean, yes, it'll be published in audio
Joanne Lockwood: only as well on Spotify, iTunes, and the user places, but it's gonna be the
Joanne Lockwood: first one we actually recorded the video as well. So, yeah, I'm excited by that
Joanne Lockwood: as well. So it's gonna be brilliant. Me too. Yeah. So,
Charlie Hart: Charlie, we talked about in the opening there about
Joanne Lockwood: your work championing neurodiversity through your own
Joanne Lockwood: experience and also out of your children and the Gen Z community
Joanne Lockwood: at large. What took you from where you were to
Joanne Lockwood: deciding this was your your passion, your calling?
Charlie Hart: So it's quite a long story as you can imagine, but my
Charlie Hart: background is HR, and I fell into that quite by
Charlie Hart: chance. Analytical and project
Charlie Hart: management side of HR and supporting the HR system,
Charlie Hart: but I've tried to progress, and I ran into
Charlie Hart: difficulties with meeting behaviors. I was frequently overwhelmed,
Charlie Hart: quite often getting burnout that looked like depression, and I
Charlie Hart: just wasn't getting promoted through the ranks like my peers that
Charlie Hart: started at the same time were. Eventually, I eventually, I realized
Charlie Hart: that my child, Iggy, my first born, was
Charlie Hart: autistic, and that so was I. Everything that he
Charlie Hart: learned about his neurotype and the reasons that he struggled
Charlie Hart: with anxiety and getting overwhelmed and having
Charlie Hart: what was actually autistic meltdowns, but he he
Charlie Hart: thought were anxiety attacks. Everything that he realized,
Charlie Hart: I realized was true about me as well. So in
Charlie Hart: 2018, I went through the autism
Charlie Hart: diagnosis, and I discovered the neurodiversity
Charlie Hart: community online. So that to me, it really
Charlie Hart: sparked my interest. After 15 years of
Charlie Hart: feeling like I was somehow broken, there was something
Charlie Hart: wrong with me. There were I realized that there was
Charlie Hart: a concrete reason why I struggled with things that my peers
Charlie Hart: took for granted, and there were concrete reasons that I
Charlie Hart: was losing my call and even tipping into burnout.
Charlie Hart: And it explains so much about me. And then I discovered
Charlie Hart: that actually neurodiversity is a thing. There are
Charlie Hart: differences between each and every human brain and mind.
Charlie Hart: We all process the world and its inputs. We
Charlie Hart: all think, feel, and respond to things uniquely.
Charlie Hart: And that doesn't mean that some people are broken and that some are
Charlie Hart: good. It doesn't mean that some brains are correct and
Charlie Hart: others are wrong. It's a natural part of human
Charlie Hart: diversity, and it's advantageous. So like biodiversity
Charlie Hart: in nature, neurological diversity
Charlie Hart: in a human population, such as a workforce, is
Charlie Hart: advantageous. This really sparked my curiosity.
Charlie Hart: And then I found out I have complex PTSD as well,
Charlie Hart: which a lot of neurodivergent people have who are late diagnosed
Charlie Hart: and have gone through society and work not
Charlie Hart: understanding how to support their own needs. And
Charlie Hart: I also have ADHD, so I'm multiply neurodivergent.
Charlie Hart: And yeah. So it's all I wanna talk about and write about
Charlie Hart: now. Yeah. So I quit my HR job 18 months
Charlie Hart: ago, and now I full time research,
Charlie Hart: think, speak, write, create
Charlie Hart: content about neurodiversity, inclusion, and acceptance,
Charlie Hart: and I'm loving it. You you mentioned there that, you know, we all
Joanne Lockwood: have our own unique minds. We all see the world through our own lens. And
Joanne Lockwood: the way we we the way we think and act and feel. I've always
Joanne Lockwood: wondered when the human species evolved a
Joanne Lockwood: 100000, 200000 years ago, however, we came from our prehistoric
Joanne Lockwood: primitive backgrounds. Who decided that we needed to
Joanne Lockwood: think in a specific way? So it's it's almost like the 21st century, the
Joanne Lockwood: 20, yeah, 2025 where we are now that said, this
Joanne Lockwood: is what we value, these calm, cool, collected,
Joanne Lockwood: logical people. Yes. Our history must have
Joanne Lockwood: been we needed people who had attention to detail. We needed people who were
Joanne Lockwood: creative. We needed people who could get on with stuff, people who are
Joanne Lockwood: did all these different things. So neurodivergent really is is part
Joanne Lockwood: of our historic makeup, and we've just decided that this part is more valuable
Joanne Lockwood: than this part. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's,
Charlie Hart: this neuronormativity, this expectation
Charlie Hart: that we should think and respond to things in a
Charlie Hart: certain way, it is a social construct,
Charlie Hart: really, like gender. So I'm drawing parallels here. If you think
Charlie Hart: back to caveman times, for example, it was super
Charlie Hart: important that some members of the population brought up
Charlie Hart: children and the others were hunter gatherers, but that doesn't
Charlie Hart: need to be attached to gender. It's really about finding out what an
Charlie Hart: individual's strengths are and and what their
Charlie Hart: support needs are. So some people will be super good at some things
Charlie Hart: and will struggle with others. And we can work
Charlie Hart: together and collaborate and be greater than the sum of our parts.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. We certainly didn't have toilets with signs on them a 100000 years ago, did
Joanne Lockwood: we, in in the forest and caves? We were Yeah. Wiping our bottoms on the
Joanne Lockwood: nearest leaf probably or in the stream. Absolutely.
Charlie Hart: So it's it's just another social construct.
Charlie Hart: And one thing that a lot of people
Charlie Hart: may not understand as well, even if they know a little bit about neurodiversity and
Charlie Hart: neurodivergence, is that neurotypical
Charlie Hart: or normal, that's a construct of
Charlie Hart: the dominant culture that you're operating in.
Charlie Hart: It will be completely different between different countries. And
Charlie Hart: a lot of neurodiversity advocates are only seeing things through,
Charlie Hart: a northern hemisphere white western lens, but
Charlie Hart: it's far greater than that. Yeah. You mentioned also that, you know, you were late
Joanne Lockwood: diagnosed and that that's as yeah. We bring gender into this. That
Joanne Lockwood: was it's a gender thing because because people who are assigned male at birth
Joanne Lockwood: exhibit autistic ADHD neurodiversity in
Joanne Lockwood: different ways than people assigned female at birth, don't they? They can do.
Charlie Hart: Yeah. I mean, I'm not gender conforming anyway, so I
Charlie Hart: partially reject that. And, also, when you look through my school
Charlie Hart: reports, they are full of evidence of ADHD. It's full of
Charlie Hart: stuff like, she's a really bright girl and could
Charlie Hart: really excel if she would only fulfill her potential instead
Charlie Hart: of allowing herself to be distracted by her
Charlie Hart: intense hobbies and interests, things like that. And if it was a boy, it would
Charlie Hart: have been picked up. So it isn't that my behavior was different.
Charlie Hart: It's I think it's more that the diagnostic criteria are
Charlie Hart: actually based around unruly, disruptive little
Charlie Hart: boys. So they don't see the
Charlie Hart: they don't see ADHD if it's less evident externally.
Charlie Hart: They think it's about running around being hyperactive.
Charlie Hart: Girls are more socially conditioned, I think, not to be disruptive
Charlie Hart: at school and to sit still if they're expected to and to not
Charlie Hart: heckle the teacher, although I always did. So it's just,
Charlie Hart: there are massive preconceptions about what's actually going on.
Charlie Hart: If the person appears to behave be behaving, they're not too
Charlie Hart: much trouble to the teacher. Nobody takes the trouble to work out
Charlie Hart: what's going on inside of their minds. If they're running
Charlie Hart: 20 tabs and 10 of them are
Charlie Hart: frozen, we don't know where the music's coming from, and we can't stop
Charlie Hart: it. Nobody sees that unless they ask us. They'll ask our teachers
Charlie Hart: whether we're disruptive. They'll ask might ask our parents how we are at
Charlie Hart: home. But if you're a child and you're experiencing the world in
Charlie Hart: that chronically overwhelming way, nobody seems to really want to
Charlie Hart: know about it. Are you aware of what what age were you? Because I
Joanne Lockwood: appreciate ADHD traits and
Joanne Lockwood: the autistic traits are different. Yes. And they exhibit themselves differently.
Joanne Lockwood: And I I I know I've spoken to many parents of autistic children, and
Joanne Lockwood: they're very aware from the early, very early ages of their child in terms of
Joanne Lockwood: developmental differences, learn to speak and read and vocabulary and things
Joanne Lockwood: like that. They're very hyper aware of the the autistic traits.
Joanne Lockwood: When did you become really aware of your your bouncy
Joanne Lockwood: tigger traits? You know, your ADHD, your your your
Joanne Lockwood: the way your brain was white. Yeah. I think it's when I started
Charlie Hart: to really need as an adult to get
Charlie Hart: outside in the countryside and run or walk.
Charlie Hart: Otherwise, I wasn't okay. It's at that point that I realized
Charlie Hart: that I've got a hyperactivity that nobody else had had
Charlie Hart: picked up on. And then the inattentive
Charlie Hart: side of my ADHD, I realized I have that when
Charlie Hart: I tried to repeat my HR professional qualifications. So I
Charlie Hart: completely flunked to university when I was 19. I was a total
Charlie Hart: disaster. I fell so hard off the rails, but I did
Charlie Hart: do my CIPD qualifications when I was in my early
Charlie Hart: twenties. Moved back in with my mom, I did them. She was looking
Charlie Hart: out for me. I had a steady job. Everything was okay, and I got them
Charlie Hart: done. And then 20 years later, I thought I should probably do them
Charlie Hart: again because they're 20 years old. They seem quite
Charlie Hart: irrelevant. And I did that, and I was great. I, you know, I'm quite
Charlie Hart: clever. I can focus and
Charlie Hart: but only if it's something I'm interested in. It's not that I don't
Charlie Hart: have any attention. It's that I've got a very
Charlie Hart: interest based motivation system. So in 2021,
Charlie Hart: I thought, great. We're working from home all year.
Charlie Hart: Some people have returned to the office, but we were refurbishing ours.
Charlie Hart: And I knew that I got time on my hands. I thought I will do
Charlie Hart: my postgraduate diploma in HR management. And
Charlie Hart: I absolutely flew through every subject that I was interested in
Charlie Hart: and really, really struggled with the ones that I wasn't. To the extent
Charlie Hart: that it was right up against the deadline, and I was an absolute
Charlie Hart: nightmare to live with. Just put things off and put things off and then snap
Charlie Hart: to anyone that that interrupting me. But I I
Charlie Hart: could tell I got ADHD then. My husband had just been through the
Charlie Hart: diagnosis, so I knew what the questions were. And all the way along, I was
Charlie Hart: thinking, yeah. Yeah. Me too. But then I
Charlie Hart: actually got diagnosed this year at the age of 48. It's been there all
Charlie Hart: along. I looked through my reports, and it's it's always been there. It's it's interesting
Joanne Lockwood: because I love talking to people who who are a diverse ADHD
Joanne Lockwood: because I'm trying to self diagnose myself and try to figure out if I have
Joanne Lockwood: autistic or probably not autistic, but certainly ADHD. Because I I have
Joanne Lockwood: hyperfocus. I went through a phase in my when I was
Joanne Lockwood: probably about 14 years old, probably a bit of puberty kicked in, and I
Joanne Lockwood: became completely unmanageable and still or
Joanne Lockwood: sorry. Partially, completely so if you look at the left hand side of my report
Joanne Lockwood: card, I was e. Look at the right answer on my report card, I
Joanne Lockwood: was a. Yeah. There was no there's nothing in the middle. I was either full
Joanne Lockwood: on or completely disinterested and troublesome. Yeah. As
Joanne Lockwood: it's the science The ones you're interested in Yeah. Or
Charlie Hart: the ones you were Hyper gifted. Engaged in those. Yeah. The sciences, the
Joanne Lockwood: maths, the, yeah, the the history, the the
Joanne Lockwood: geography, economics, all those kind of sort
Joanne Lockwood: of more theoretical, you know, ethereal sort of things.
Joanne Lockwood: Those were the kind of ones that I just was interested in. Yeah. And I
Joanne Lockwood: was kicked out of class, and I was excuse
Joanne Lockwood: me. I was told I was disruptive, and I I think I found
Joanne Lockwood: that I I'm still there now. I'm either in or I'm out. If I'm in
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I I'm both feet. I'm I'm dissolved. I'm I'm pulling
Joanne Lockwood: it apart. I'm ripping it to shreds. I'm turning it inside out, bringing it back
Joanne Lockwood: together, turning it inside out again. If there's anything else, I'm just gonna, like,
Joanne Lockwood: I procrastinate until it doesn't matter anymore. Just get rid of it.
Joanne Lockwood: So, yeah, I've learned that about myself. I I never I never seen that as
Joanne Lockwood: a a superpower or weakness or anything like that. It's just part of who
Joanne Lockwood: I've always been. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, I
Charlie Hart: don't really subscribe to the superpowers versus
Charlie Hart: weaknesses kind of narrative because
Charlie Hart: every human has strengths, and we all have things we find
Charlie Hart: harder or that we need support with or that we just don't
Charlie Hart: like. So every human's got their own ways of
Charlie Hart: working where they can thrive and
Charlie Hart: and things that they'd rather not be doing or that they need someone to help
Charlie Hart: them through. The difference is when you're neurodivergent,
Charlie Hart: it can mean that the things you're good at, you're particularly good at,
Charlie Hart: and the things you that you struggle with, you're you particularly struggle with.
Charlie Hart: So rather than being a good all rounder, you have what
Charlie Hart: they call in the neurodiversity industry is a spiky profile.
Charlie Hart: So my observation skills are right at the top of the chart,
Charlie Hart: my meeting behaviors right on the bottom, that kind of thing. And and
Charlie Hart: everyone has a profile that looks different, but particularly if
Charlie Hart: you're autistic or ADHD, there will be things that you're shit hot at
Charlie Hart: and things that you're constantly told you're not good enough at.
Charlie Hart: Yeah. But it is from the dominant perspective, the dominant
Charlie Hart: cultural perspective. Yeah. No. I get that. Because I also I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: you've met my wife, Marie. I I also recognize that there's elements of
Joanne Lockwood: her personality, which should probably through
Joanne Lockwood: menopause have probably become more exaggerated. So I know due to the her
Joanne Lockwood: age, her her her hormone balance, other things where she's become much
Joanne Lockwood: more I I describe as bouncy, bouncy, ticker sort of over various things.
Joanne Lockwood: And but she also has a an inclination to
Joanne Lockwood: be slightly manic and slightly reserved. So
Joanne Lockwood: she goes through this you can tell this cycle about certain things, and it's she
Joanne Lockwood: has to go into a hyperplanning mode, or she has to go into something else.
Joanne Lockwood: So absorb it. Yeah. And it's different to me. And we we
Joanne Lockwood: we I think I've learned that how to be
Joanne Lockwood: with her and absorb spikes and the and the troughs and
Joanne Lockwood: everything else. And I guess my family have have adapted to me. But, yeah, it
Joanne Lockwood: it's interesting talking to other people with their experiences. They're similar characteristics. It's
Joanne Lockwood: different, aren't they? Dynamic, and me and my husband have the
Charlie Hart: same. So we're both ADHD.
Charlie Hart: That is we're both autistic and ADHD,
Charlie Hart: but he's been told that his autism
Charlie Hart: isn't quite meeting the diagnostic threshold, which is
Charlie Hart: arbitrary anyway. Let's face it. I'm not saying I
Charlie Hart: would never say everyone's on the spectrum, but you can quite
Charlie Hart: often notice ADHDers who have
Charlie Hart: quite significant autistic traits, but wouldn't get through the
Charlie Hart: diagnosis because the medical model wants
Charlie Hart: us to draw the line somewhere. But he he's ADHD,
Charlie Hart: and everyone that knows him knows that he's autistic as well, despite what
Charlie Hart: the clinicians might say. And I'm autistic,
Charlie Hart: and it was a bit of a battle for me to get my ADHD
Charlie Hart: recognized by the medical profession, partly
Charlie Hart: because it's very easy to think, well,
Charlie Hart: everything that she's talking about could be a combination of
Charlie Hart: autism and complex PTSD and menopause.
Charlie Hart: But, yeah, I think it's you can't
Charlie Hart: draw a neat line around the autistic part of my brain and
Charlie Hart: the ADHD part. So there's no way of knowing if I
Charlie Hart: spend 10 hours doing a particular piece of work that I'm really
Charlie Hart: engrossed in. There's no way of knowing whether that's me
Charlie Hart: leaning into that monotropic flow state that autistic people
Charlie Hart: get, which is where we get our highly focused special
Charlie Hart: interests that are in the diagnostic criteria. There's no way of knowing whether
Charlie Hart: it's that or whether it's the ADHD hyper
Charlie Hart: focus. If somebody says something that makes
Charlie Hart: me feel like crap and I have a meltdown, there's no way
Charlie Hart: of knowing if that is an autistic meltdown or if it's an ADHD,
Charlie Hart: emotional dysregulation thing, a rejection sensitive ADHD, emotional
Charlie Hart: dysregulation thing, a rejection sensitive dysphoria reaction. I don't have 2 brains. It's just all
Charlie Hart: ADHD. Yeah. When you look at it like that,
Charlie Hart: I I don't know many people that I would say were just just autistic
Charlie Hart: or just ADHD. It starts to feel like it's all
Charlie Hart: one spectrum. I was speaking to a lady on on this
Joanne Lockwood: show the other day, and she was saying that her child is
Joanne Lockwood: autistic. She has an autistic child. And it manifests
Joanne Lockwood: itself in her child as he is nonverbal. He
Joanne Lockwood: also has a very limited vocabulary, which so that's how it manifests
Joanne Lockwood: itself. So so that's how he is developing as a
Joanne Lockwood: nonverbal autistic child. Yes. How would
Joanne Lockwood: you describe your autistic because, you know, people listen to this show, hear the
Joanne Lockwood: term autism, hear the term neurodiversity, hear the neurospicy, neurospicy, all these
Joanne Lockwood: kind of buzzwords. What's different? Or where where where where is the
Joanne Lockwood: sort of So I have the kind of
Charlie Hart: autism which doesn't come with intellectual
Charlie Hart: disabilities, and it doesn't come with a a language development
Charlie Hart: delay. That used to be called a Asperger's syndrome. They call
Charlie Hart: it all autism spectrum disorder now.
Charlie Hart: I don't identify as having a disorder, so I call
Charlie Hart: myself autistic. I don't think I'm
Charlie Hart: better or more valuable to society than people
Charlie Hart: who are autistic and have intellectual disabilities.
Charlie Hart: So I don't use terms like high functioning or low
Charlie Hart: functioning either. So it's just
Charlie Hart: autism. Yeah. It's labeling people. Autism. We're saying.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, high fashion, low functioning. Person with autism because it
Charlie Hart: goes without saying that I'm a person. And to me, if
Charlie Hart: anyone insists on saying, no. You're not autistic. You have
Charlie Hart: autism. You're a person with autism. To me, they are
Charlie Hart: saying autism is a bad thing, and you shouldn't make
Charlie Hart: it part of your identity. And I reject that
Charlie Hart: because I think it's a neutral thing, and it's an
Charlie Hart: adjective. So I'm happy to be described as autistic
Charlie Hart: because it's an adjective. If you say, oh, no. You can't use it like a
Charlie Hart: a normal adjective. You have to distance yourself from it. That's
Charlie Hart: telling me they think that there's something wrong with being autistic. So just
Charlie Hart: loads of really ableist with me. Yeah. I I think it's probably been
Joanne Lockwood: inherited for the the physical disability community who
Joanne Lockwood: use with, don't they, as a as a kind of a it's evolved as a
Joanne Lockwood: kind of language. Yeah. The healthcare professionals,
Charlie Hart: it doesn't come from the community. No. It's a medical model
Joanne Lockwood: versus the societal model of disability. Yeah. So
Charlie Hart: if you get taught person first language,
Charlie Hart: it's usually because you're in a support role or you're a
Charlie Hart: diagnostician or a teacher, or it's not because that's
Charlie Hart: what the community have said they wanted. Back in the nineties, you might remember we
Charlie Hart: had this, politically correct thing where they changed a lot of
Charlie Hart: their language and dress things up in flower euphemisms,
Charlie Hart: and it really didn't do diversity and inclusion
Charlie Hart: any favors at all. And one of the first communities that came
Charlie Hart: out of that saying no bollocks to all that was the deaf community.
Charlie Hart: So in the politically correct is when people were saying, you
Charlie Hart: have hearing impairments and you should say you're hard of
Charlie Hart: hearing or you have a hearing impairment,
Charlie Hart: Don't describe yourself as deaf because there's more to you than that. You're a
Charlie Hart: person person. It was the deaf community that said bollocks to
Charlie Hart: that. We're deaf. And they put a capital d at the beginning
Charlie Hart: Yeah. And became the deaf community. The
Charlie Hart: autism community were hot on their tails. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: When I when I talk about adjectives or describing words or anything like this,
Joanne Lockwood: like we're talking about now, is I tend to try and mix up the language.
Joanne Lockwood: So I always say, a person with a disability or a disabled
Joanne Lockwood: person, almost in one sentence. Because I know there are some people who I who
Joanne Lockwood: would identify as 1 and one people who identify as so you try to be
Joanne Lockwood: inclusive Yes. Cover all the terms possible. That's so
Charlie Hart: really great. Approach. Yeah. Capital d deaf is
Joanne Lockwood: important to people who are born deaf. Yeah.
Charlie Hart: So I know other people who don't use I mean, there's I
Charlie Hart: know a deaf speaker from the Speakers Collective who describes herself
Charlie Hart: as deaf with a capital d and another deaf speaker
Charlie Hart: in the professional speaking association who says that
Charlie Hart: she has profound hearing impairments. So it's never gonna be the same for
Charlie Hart: everyone, but you can look at what the community
Charlie Hart: asks for and want and prefer as a whole rather than just
Charlie Hart: being learning about something in a training course and thinking, oh, yeah. That must be
Charlie Hart: the wishes of the community. Yeah. You'd never say someone has seeing
Joanne Lockwood: impairment, would you? You'd say they were blind Yeah. Or hearing or
Joanne Lockwood: sight loss or, short sighted, long sighted
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Or myopic or, glaucoma or
Joanne Lockwood: something. So you'd say, yeah, you have sight loss or Yeah. You're
Joanne Lockwood: blind or going blind. ADHD is a funny
Charlie Hart: one because there isn't really a noun. There isn't really an adjective for
Charlie Hart: ADHD. So we use ADHD as a
Charlie Hart: adjective, sometimes under noun. You might say, I'm an
Charlie Hart: ADHDer or describe yourself as ADHD, but
Charlie Hart: that's technically not correct because if you look at what it stands for, that's
Charlie Hart: just grammatically nonsense. But still, a lot
Charlie Hart: of us have done that just because we're trying to say it's part of our
Charlie Hart: identity. It's part of who we are. It's how our brains are wired.
Charlie Hart: So it's it's not something we can distance ourselves from.
Joanne Lockwood: I've heard people use ND for neurodiverse, or I've heard people use
Joanne Lockwood: neurospicy other terms. Yeah. I guess it's down to them, isn't it? I
Joanne Lockwood: mean, it's not a totally down to them. I personally don't
Charlie Hart: like neurospicy because I think that it
Charlie Hart: it it's kind of one of those euphemisms that
Charlie Hart: plays down our, quite real disabilities and
Charlie Hart: support needs. But The trivializing joking about it, obviously.
Charlie Hart: That's the word. Yeah. But, I heard from members of
Charlie Hart: the global majority have said, actually, some
Charlie Hart: Asian women, are described as
Charlie Hart: spicy in a derogatory way. So it's
Charlie Hart: it could be potentially I don't know if problematic is
Charlie Hart: going a bit too far. Potentially insensitive, culturally
Charlie Hart: insensitive. But then I'm not gonna tell people
Charlie Hart: how to identify. So if you have got someone that does like to call
Charlie Hart: themselves neurospicy, that's fine. But if they buy me a badge that says
Charlie Hart: neurospicy on it, I'm not likely to wear it. So, I mean, you
Charlie Hart: the audience and and you are obviously aware that I I'm a transgender woman or
Joanne Lockwood: a woman with a transgender history. That to
Joanne Lockwood: me, the more I talk about it, that's just a difference in brain development. It's
Joanne Lockwood: just a a different way of wiring up. Absolutely.
Charlie Hart: My blue wire is connected to my red wire, not not to another blue wire.
Joanne Lockwood: So that's all it is really. It's a really good way of looking at it.
Charlie Hart: And, I mean, I think it is a neurodivergence as well. I think it's part
Charlie Hart: of the neurodivergent umbrella. It's it's a brain
Charlie Hart: wiring which is different from society's idea of typical.
Charlie Hart: There's also a huge correlation. So if you're
Charlie Hart: autistic, you're far, far more likely to be trans
Charlie Hart: or non binary. If you're trans or non binary,
Charlie Hart: you're way, way more likely to have at least some
Charlie Hart: autistic traits, whether it's diagnosed or meeting the
Charlie Hart: diagnostic threshold or not. So there's been quite a few
Charlie Hart: studies done on this, and I'll send you those links for the show notes
Charlie Hart: if you like. But, yeah, there's a huge
Charlie Hart: correlation. So,
Charlie Hart: this is one of the reasons why my niche, when I'm talking about
Charlie Hart: neurodiversity inclusion, my thing that I get asked for more than anything
Charlie Hart: is I get asked to talk about the double rainbow, and that's
Charlie Hart: an intersecting identity. It's when you're both neurodivergent
Charlie Hart: and LGBTQIA plus. And I'm
Charlie Hart: particularly interested in that because I'm multiply neurodivergent.
Charlie Hart: I'm bisexual or pansexual. I don't know which because both definitions
Charlie Hart: fit me. I'm gender nonconforming. So, yeah, I'm a woman,
Charlie Hart: but I am also a tomboy and I don't really
Charlie Hart: identify as a woman. I don't know. But I'm more like George from the
Charlie Hart: famous 5, really. So it's me, but then it's also
Charlie Hart: my kids. My, my first born, Nicky, he was he was
Charlie Hart: gay and gender questioning. He was autistic. He was
Charlie Hart: probably ADHD as well. We don't know. My teenage kids
Charlie Hart: constantly changing their gender identity because there's no hurry to work it out.
Charlie Hart: Is there? But, they've had all kinds of different names and
Charlie Hart: pronouns. They are autistic as well, and the older one, I mean, has got
Charlie Hart: ADHD too. And I've got transgender autistic people
Charlie Hart: in my family as well, but I'm not going to out them because they're not
Charlie Hart: public about it. So it's a very queer and autistic family
Charlie Hart: that I'm in, defying all the gender
Charlie Hart: laws. So this is my area of interest. And there's
Charlie Hart: really no point just looking at one identity either because none of
Charlie Hart: us is a single issue human. I think it was Audre
Charlie Hart: Lorde who said that. She was a a black
Charlie Hart: lesbian feminist poet, and she says
Charlie Hart: there's no such thing as a single issue human. And
Charlie Hart: anybody that is working in the diversity and
Charlie Hart: inclusion space, it's really important to understand that we are a blend
Charlie Hart: of characteristics. Some of them we're born with. Some of
Charlie Hart: them are a response to our environment and our experiences,
Charlie Hart: but we're all really complex. So you kinda need to look at the
Charlie Hart: whole package of the human. Yeah. I remember in my in my
Joanne Lockwood: probably my thirties and early forties, I used to describe myself
Joanne Lockwood: as low maintenance. I think coming out as trans, I had to
Joanne Lockwood: re rebrand myself as high maintenance. But maybe we all have
Joanne Lockwood: a a perception of ourselves that we're we are low maintenance. But, actually, if
Joanne Lockwood: you start asking people around it, they go, actually, no, and, actually, this and, actually,
Joanne Lockwood: the other. Yeah. Oh, okay. That's part of a bit of emotional
Joanne Lockwood: intelligence, getting in touch with who you are, isn't it? Absolutely.
Charlie Hart: Emotional intelligence, there's an interesting concept. I know a lot
Charlie Hart: of people who regard themselves as having really high
Charlie Hart: emotional intelligence. But to me, I what I'm observing is a
Charlie Hart: lot of social scripting and saying the right things with
Charlie Hart: the right facial expressions because that's what we've learned
Charlie Hart: from other people, and it's like a chameleon behavior rather
Charlie Hart: than a innate empathy. I've seen a lot of
Charlie Hart: autistic people being misunderstood as not being empathic
Charlie Hart: and having low emotional intelligence when actually the reverse is
Charlie Hart: true. So it's really quite interesting to
Charlie Hart: unpick that. Yeah. I I've noticed that because if you look at the the the
Joanne Lockwood: stereotype of femininity, women are supposed
Joanne Lockwood: to be more empathic and more empathetic, more more softer, more kind, more
Joanne Lockwood: more caring. And I thought, hang on a minute. I have to be all these
Joanne Lockwood: things, do I? Then I then I kinda realized that I was, and I was
Joanne Lockwood: judging myself unfairly. I I was just maybe putting a shell on
Joanne Lockwood: myself, stopping be being too caring and too empathetic
Joanne Lockwood: because, you know, in my own world, it doesn't necessarily win you any
Joanne Lockwood: battles being Yeah. Kind, caring, fashion. Did you work in
Charlie Hart: tech before you got into I did IT and tech. Yeah.
Charlie Hart: Yeah. So, it's kind of a a role where
Charlie Hart: you're expected to be rational and logical and methodical and
Charlie Hart: analytical and all those things. Yeah? Yeah. But it doesn't mean
Joanne Lockwood: that you haven't got creativity and empathy at the same time.
Joanne Lockwood: I I think, you know, going back to what you're saying earlier about hyperfocus, things
Joanne Lockwood: like this. You know, when I was deep in hyperfocus on
Joanne Lockwood: a on a IT problem, you know, trying to rebuild someone's server in the middle
Joanne Lockwood: of the night, working all night in a computer data center in a freezing
Joanne Lockwood: cold with a coat on trying to fix something, I I didn't have any brain
Joanne Lockwood: capacity for anything other than the problem. All of this
Joanne Lockwood: all the empathy, all of the human contact stuff was pushed to the edge,
Joanne Lockwood: and I was beeping techie mode. And so I'm curious
Charlie Hart: some resources about monotropism. So this
Charlie Hart: this is a theory. It links to that diagnostic
Charlie Hart: criteria about the highly focused special interest that
Charlie Hart: you have when you're autistic, but it's it's way more than
Charlie Hart: that. It's about being able to put the blinkers on and
Charlie Hart: have tunnel vision to the thing you're researching or the problem that
Charlie Hart: you're trying to solve. And it's widely regarded as being an
Charlie Hart: autistic trait rather than an ADHD one, but it looks a lot
Charlie Hart: like ADHD hyperfocus. I think you'd be really
Charlie Hart: interested to read that stuff. Yeah. We'd
Joanne Lockwood: we'd we'd we'd discussed the idea of superpower earlier, but I I always saw it
Joanne Lockwood: as part of my my technical skill is
Joanne Lockwood: to better really get onto a problem. Yeah. My time in the
Joanne Lockwood: RAF, electronic engineer, most of that course and that training was all about fault
Joanne Lockwood: finding, finding faults in circuits. And I was
Joanne Lockwood: very good at working out, you know, half splitting
Joanne Lockwood: in the middle, in the middle again, in the middle again, in the middle again,
Joanne Lockwood: in the middle again, narrowing it down to sort of like a square centimeter. I
Joanne Lockwood: go, must be that component. So I was very good at that. Yeah. It was
Joanne Lockwood: a good designing circuits, but I was very good at finding out what's wrong with
Joanne Lockwood: things. I'm not so surprised. Yeah. Yeah. So my husband's doing that
Charlie Hart: now. So he worked in IT for quite a long time. He's doing an
Charlie Hart: occasional speaking event now, and he's a musician. But his his
Charlie Hart: current hyperfocus is tinkering with
Charlie Hart: electronic things and fixing them. So he'd buy
Charlie Hart: a a secondhand amplifier that's sold as
Charlie Hart: it's a really good amp, but it's a bit broken, and then he'll fix it.
Charlie Hart: Teaching himself as he goes along, and he's done the same with
Charlie Hart: record players and and laptops and all sorts. And I
Charlie Hart: think that it's a special skill to know when to
Charlie Hart: keep digging, but to know when to leave it because you're just wasting your
Charlie Hart: time after a while. But, when I worked in char and like I say, I
Charlie Hart: was in an analytical role. I was supporting HR systems and projects.
Charlie Hart: But I think one of the things I was particularly good at is getting to
Charlie Hart: the underlying cause of the problem. So I could help people in my
Charlie Hart: team pass error messages. I could find work arounds. I could
Charlie Hart: teach them how to do things. But if
Charlie Hart: there's tough data I need to be able to establish where the
Charlie Hart: learning need is that's causing something to be input incorrectly,
Charlie Hart: if there's an error message that keeps cropping up, I need to know where in
Charlie Hart: the process it's coming from or whether there's a glitch that
Charlie Hart: needs to be fixed by the system vendor. And I just
Charlie Hart: don't cross it off my list until I've got to the bottom of it. Tenacity,
Joanne Lockwood: that, dog with a bone. Yeah. You keep chasing it. Yeah. So I
Charlie Hart: think that's why in IT, if you look at IT with, like,
Charlie Hart: this kind of service model where you've got the service desk people, and then if
Charlie Hart: it's something more technical that they can't they can't fix it
Charlie Hart: there and then they will refer it to a resolver group. That
Charlie Hart: resolver group quite often has a lot of autistic people that are
Charlie Hart: really tenacious and excellent at problem solving.
Charlie Hart: So what workforce what workplaces need to
Charlie Hart: understand, employers even, is if you want the people with
Charlie Hart: those skills, then you're gonna have to not
Charlie Hart: have neuro normative expectations on how they get
Charlie Hart: through the recruitment process, what support they need in the
Charlie Hart: role, what their interpersonal skills are like, and
Charlie Hart: that kind of thing. You've won the best person for that job, not the best
Charlie Hart: person at passing an interview and getting on well with their colleagues
Charlie Hart: and making the right small talk on a Monday morning. I I was at a,
Charlie Hart: a mini conference once, and we were doing these sort of roundtable discussions that we
Joanne Lockwood: were talking about. I think it was probably CultureFit or something like that
Joanne Lockwood: came up. There's an owner of a of a business there who
Joanne Lockwood: was, I think, a technical or a SaaS platform, a cloud platform, something like
Joanne Lockwood: that. And he was talking about he has he basically said, I've got a couple
Joanne Lockwood: of members of my staff. They really don't wanna join in with anything we
Joanne Lockwood: do. You know, at lunchtime, when we wanna go to the pub, at lunchtime, when
Joanne Lockwood: we wanna have a little bit of a giggle and laugh, all they wanna do
Joanne Lockwood: is go and take their lunch, sit in their car for an hour, and then
Joanne Lockwood: come back. I said, I was thinking about firing them. They just don't get on.
Joanne Lockwood: They're just not they're just not part of the team. And I thought, blimey.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. What you're doing here is you're what you're saying is judging people by
Joanne Lockwood: your culture. And, you know, when people don't fit into your
Joanne Lockwood: definition of normal, and you're you're you're writing them off as being not team
Joanne Lockwood: players. You think, hang on a minute. These are probably your best resources
Joanne Lockwood: at writing code and problem solving. And They're
Joanne Lockwood: recharging themselves. How to think. Yeah. They are. Yeah. They're working in an
Charlie Hart: open plan office with the a lot of different noise going
Charlie Hart: on and and people asking them things and calls coming
Charlie Hart: in, and they're trying to solve the problem. They've they've got a
Charlie Hart: lot of inputs. Then if they need to spend their lunch hour
Charlie Hart: without those social inputs, at least, probably without the
Charlie Hart: sensory inputs as well, if they've chosen their own sensory
Charlie Hart: environment that they can curate like a car, They're
Charlie Hart: recharging themselves so that they can come back and be productive in the afternoon.
Charlie Hart: That should be tremendous. It's a neuro normative expectation that
Charlie Hart: they sit around and continue to do the peopling. Yeah. I I I
Joanne Lockwood: had a clash with one of my team in the past where they wanted the
Joanne Lockwood: radio on, and I couldn't stand any background or
Joanne Lockwood: noise or chat or something like that. It was like well, like, the radio just
Joanne Lockwood: kept taking my brain off of the task. It's like, go away, Eva. Just
Joanne Lockwood: turn it off. Yeah. And they but they needed it on because that's how they
Joanne Lockwood: thought. So it's trying to find that that balance and Quite often it is.
Charlie Hart: So when you're looking at neuro inclusion
Charlie Hart: in the workplace, it's quite often balancing
Charlie Hart: conflicting needs. And when you do it in in the
Charlie Hart: home, it is as well. So I had that problem in the pandemic. I'd
Charlie Hart: already been working from home a couple of days a week, so my husband was
Charlie Hart: quiet on those days. But when the pandemic hit, I was working from home
Charlie Hart: every day. And he liked music on and TV on
Charlie Hart: at the same time, and I wanted neither.
Charlie Hart: So we had to find our ways of co in cohabiting
Charlie Hart: without wanting to kill each other, and we did. It just took a while
Charlie Hart: in the workplace. In my in my last, HR job,
Charlie Hart: I was working from home all the time, but I had a manager who didn't
Charlie Hart: like to type things into a chat or send a lot of emails.
Charlie Hart: She had a lot of issues with her shoulders and her wrist aching,
Charlie Hart: and she wanted to just ask me things verbally like we're in a normal
Charlie Hart: office. So she dropped into Teams video calls with me
Charlie Hart: like we're in an office, and she was just, tapping on my shoulder
Charlie Hart: and saying, can you have a quick look at this? She was doing it all
Charlie Hart: through the day. And I said to her, I can't work like this. It's so
Charlie Hart: overwhelming. And I started to send a a lot
Charlie Hart: of text messages on Teams, and she was saying to me, I can't work like
Charlie Hart: this. It's hurting my shoulders and my wrist.
Charlie Hart: So we work together, and we compromise, and that's what you've gotta
Charlie Hart: do. Yeah. Our son is, he
Joanne Lockwood: he's an IT techie. He he was diagnosed as being
Joanne Lockwood: dyslexic in his early teens, and
Joanne Lockwood: he was given, allowances and exams and all that as well.
Joanne Lockwood: But he he doesn't respond to text messages. He might not even
Joanne Lockwood: read them, me, or just say, haven't you responded? So, you know, I don't do
Joanne Lockwood: text. Oh, yeah. So you give him a voice note or you just ring him
Joanne Lockwood: up. He'll answer the phone and reach out with you. But if you start texting,
Joanne Lockwood: because probably it's the rest of the family, we have WhatsApp groups. And we wanna
Joanne Lockwood: what we wanna do is it pops out in the WhatsApp group. He coming around
Joanne Lockwood: later. He doesn't respond. Is he doing it or is he? So you have to
Joanne Lockwood: send him another one, which is a voice note, which he then responds to. Yeah.
Charlie Hart: We have So he's just learning. Similar issues. Yeah. So my kids, neither of
Charlie Hart: them like making phone calls, but they're quite comfortable
Charlie Hart: to chat to people online when they're gaming, and they're quite
Charlie Hart: comfortable to send voice notes and video notes. It took me a really
Charlie Hart: long time to get used to that because I'd rather be typing. Seems
Charlie Hart: a bit funny now because I've been a professional speaker for 18 months,
Charlie Hart: but I communicate a lot better in the written form. I hope all the
Charlie Hart: friends as well. They send me a voice note, and I'll listen to it, and
Charlie Hart: I'm typing back to them while I'm listening to it. That's what I
Joanne Lockwood: do. Someone voice notes me. I reply back by text. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Because I I I keep my phone on silent all the time. I don't it
Joanne Lockwood: doesn't make a noise. It doesn't squeak. LinkedIn,
Joanne Lockwood: wherever I'm scrolling, all the videos, they haven't got subtitles. I'm not
Joanne Lockwood: interested. Even though I I'm also find it I I
Joanne Lockwood: think I've I've got sight dyslexia as well. I find or maybe it's my my
Joanne Lockwood: neurodiversity. I I don't know. I can't I find it really difficult to read vast
Joanne Lockwood: amounts of text. I lose track. My brain wanders off halfway through
Joanne Lockwood: the page. But I can consume little 2 or
Joanne Lockwood: 3 liners. No problem at all. One bite sized chunk, I can do that. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I prefer to text, not not voice notes because I I don't
Joanne Lockwood: wanna turn the volume up. It's like, oh, go. You're invading my space. I could
Charlie Hart: always put earphones in to listen to a voice note because I just don't wanna
Charlie Hart: disturb the people around me as well. But,
Charlie Hart: sometimes I think when we get big blocks of text that it would be
Charlie Hart: easier to read it and pay attention to it if it was broken up
Charlie Hart: into, like, a you have a sentence and then a blank line
Charlie Hart: and then another sentence. So these are tips that you can get
Charlie Hart: off the British Dyslexia Society, I think they're called, website.
Charlie Hart: They're aimed at people who are dyslexic, but it helps
Charlie Hart: as well if English isn't your first language, if you've got ADHD,
Charlie Hart: all kinds of things. So you tend to find most of these neuroinclusion
Charlie Hart: tips will make things better for far more people than
Charlie Hart: they're intended to. Yeah. Whenever I'm writing
Joanne Lockwood: articles and and reports, I always make sure there's a a good space
Joanne Lockwood: between paragraphs. Yeah. I'm I would do 2 spaces after a full stop to
Joanne Lockwood: break the sentence up. I like I like some white amongst the black. You know,
Joanne Lockwood: I like I like it to look, of course, all these things. You know? I
Joanne Lockwood: I like to capitalize the first letter of titles, things like this. And everyone's
Joanne Lockwood: like, no. You shouldn't do that. You shouldn't. It's just a capital at the beginning.
Joanne Lockwood: I well, I don't read it that way. So yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it's just
Charlie Hart: aesthetics as well, isn't it? It's what It is. Looks pleasing to you. But,
Charlie Hart: that's exactly it. It's about look how it is. It sort of look nice, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? Yeah. There's some dyslexia friendly fonts that
Charlie Hart: are just not attractive at all to look up, but then there are others that
Charlie Hart: are. We've been going on a lot of tangents, haven't we? I went to a
Charlie Hart: Future is ND event about inclusive design and advertising
Charlie Hart: and creative industry, and I've picked up a lot of stuff about fonts
Charlie Hart: and spacing and things. So I'm building like a mind
Charlie Hart: palace of information about neuro inclusion. But
Charlie Hart: a a lot of times you read something and think, well, that's gonna help everyone.
Charlie Hart: And do you know what? That's what gen z want. They are the
Charlie Hart: workforce of the future. And if they've got preferred ways of
Charlie Hart: working, preferred hours or flexibility
Charlie Hart: or media, all of these things, they're used to
Charlie Hart: expressing that preference and not being told, no, you've got to
Charlie Hart: work in this place from 9 till 5, Monday to Friday, and do as you
Charlie Hart: told. It's they know how to advocate for
Charlie Hart: their individual needs and preferences, and they're going to expect work to
Charlie Hart: fit into their lives and not the other way around. Yeah. That that's that's
Joanne Lockwood: definitely, what I'm hearing. Our children
Joanne Lockwood: are are 30 seconds, so they're millennials, really. They're not they're not
Joanne Lockwood: not really Gen z. But even they have,
Joanne Lockwood: different trace because I because I my background's tech. They were
Joanne Lockwood: pretty tech included from day 1. They had all the gadgets. They had
Joanne Lockwood: phones early. They had, so as soon as it was available. So,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, they they weren't tech tech. So I suppose
Joanne Lockwood: from the age of 10, they were they were pretty tech included. So yeah. But
Joanne Lockwood: I I've seen a lot of examples. I've talked to people of of, yeah, the
Joanne Lockwood: gen z age group where they have a different relationship with
Joanne Lockwood: the world because of the way they're communicating with each other. Yeah.
Charlie Hart: Definitely. And all these I don't know how topical I can be here, but
Charlie Hart: of this idea of American the
Charlie Hart: American administration and big tech companies in America
Charlie Hart: abolishing d and I DEI programs, it's so
Charlie Hart: blinkered and counterproductive because
Charlie Hart: those companies will die out when the workforce is made up of
Charlie Hart: Gen z's. They are going to want to be able to
Charlie Hart: talk about their needs and ideas and to have those needs met.
Charlie Hart: So they're not gonna stand for working in a company that
Charlie Hart: doesn't have that corporate social responsibility
Charlie Hart: and doesn't care about human needs and individuality and
Charlie Hart: being protected from discrimination and bullying and
Charlie Hart: all that stuff. They're gonna want more than that. Yeah. My my
Joanne Lockwood: view is that people have latched on to the the
Joanne Lockwood: negative side of DEI initiatives rather than the positive
Joanne Lockwood: side. Yeah. I think what what people are trying to say is we want to
Joanne Lockwood: stamp out the negativity around forced quotas and
Joanne Lockwood: forced this. And I think we hey. You know, you you gotta find out How
Joanne Lockwood: many people do that? They're kind of
Charlie Hart: behind the times with that view because we really don't do that. I
Charlie Hart: mean, a lot of people in diversity and inclusion realize that
Charlie Hart: there are minority groups that unfairly experience some
Charlie Hart: barriers to education, employment,
Charlie Hart: progression, etcetera. But nobody's ever
Charlie Hart: saying you can't have a job here if you're a cisgender,
Charlie Hart: middle aged, white, affluent, heterosexual man.
Charlie Hart: That's just never been a case. It shouldn't be for for sure. No. I mean
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I always say that you can't have an inclusive environment by
Joanne Lockwood: excluding people. No. And you can't exclude the typical person
Joanne Lockwood: either. You have to include everybody in this. So it's about breaking down those
Charlie Hart: barriers rather than saying, no. We want
Charlie Hart: we want a workforce full of people who
Charlie Hart: are not that a cishet white, middle class dude. I think
Joanne Lockwood: some some of it for me comes down to defining more clearly
Joanne Lockwood: the meritocracy because meritocracy isn't always
Joanne Lockwood: bigger, louder, faster. Sometimes it's more I can never
Joanne Lockwood: say that word, empathic, empathetic. Sometimes it's about being better listening
Joanne Lockwood: skills, more team management skills, more more creativity. So some of these
Joanne Lockwood: things are often excluded from the definition of meritocracy because
Joanne Lockwood: they're not seen as valuable. Or they're you know, to quote
Joanne Lockwood: Zuckerberg, we we need more masculine energy in our businesses. Actually,
Joanne Lockwood: we need a balance of energy. Yeah. Not not
Joanne Lockwood: labelled masculine or feminine. We're labelled it. We need to change abandon
Joanne Lockwood: those labels as being a a neurotype, if you like, and think about the
Joanne Lockwood: actual core skills people are bringing in, not soft skills, not hard skills. That's, again,
Joanne Lockwood: labelling things in the wrong way. It's not the wrong system. Time though, hasn't
Charlie Hart: it? We've been talking about team dynamics. And though,
Charlie Hart: you know, those team roles, I forget what they're called now. It's Belkin
Charlie Hart: and all that stuff. For a long time, everyone knows that you need
Charlie Hart: different kinds of people to make a team work, and that some
Charlie Hart: people need to have leadership skills, and
Charlie Hart: some people need to have the ideas, and others need to be the completer
Charlie Hart: finishers, and all that. Learned all about that over
Charlie Hart: 20 years. Yeah. Probably 25 years ago now, I did my HR
Charlie Hart: qualifications the first time around. So I just I can't
Charlie Hart: believe we're even type a people, type b people. We've got Hertzberg. We've got
Joanne Lockwood: all these things going on in the the HR psychology stuff. And Yeah. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: People are people. And you're right. We need a we need a a
Joanne Lockwood: colorful box of Lego to make it to make the fire station, don't we?
Joanne Lockwood: Absolutely. So what what's the biggest challenge you're finding
Joanne Lockwood: when you're working with, organizations? Where do they need to
Joanne Lockwood: educate most around, you know, your your field?
Joanne Lockwood: The, you know, the neurodiversity, the ADHD Neurodiversity position.
Charlie Hart: Yeah. One of the challenges I've had is that they think
Charlie Hart: it's a novelty, nice to have HR hot topic kind of
Charlie Hart: thing rather than something that really needs a lot of
Charlie Hart: thought. So it was to me, I noticed it gathering a lot of momentum
Charlie Hart: before the pandemic. And then with the
Charlie Hart: pandemic, we started to think about a lot more about the whole self
Charlie Hart: to work and psychological safety. So this is
Charlie Hart: turning up to work. And if you're having issues because your kids are at
Charlie Hart: home and they're anxious and you're trying to do a job at
Charlie Hart: home school at the same time and there's a global pandemic, that you're
Charlie Hart: not just putting on a brave face and only showing a professional veneer, but
Charlie Hart: you can actually say what you're up against and
Charlie Hart: know that it's not gonna be used against you. But
Charlie Hart: then we had the Black Lives Matter movement, and we've
Charlie Hart: had me too. And it just seems
Charlie Hart: like the businesses are kind of latching
Charlie Hart: on to the current big thing and putting a lot
Charlie Hart: of resources into that and then forgetting about the other stuff.
Charlie Hart: And any kind of disability, neurodiversity,
Charlie Hart: accessibility, that stuff's bubbling away,
Charlie Hart: but it never seems to be particularly high on an agenda.
Charlie Hart: So what I would like to see is that people realize
Charlie Hart: that your workforce is neurodiverse. Even if you think you don't have
Charlie Hart: any autistic employees, and every company will, but every
Charlie Hart: workforce is neurodiverse because it is made up of
Charlie Hart: human individuals who think, fail, and process in different
Charlie Hart: ways. So what we need to be doing is working out how to
Charlie Hart: accommodate each individual so that they can thrive in their
Charlie Hart: roles and that it isn't some nice to have. It isn't
Charlie Hart: some tokenistic tick box exercise. It's just about
Charlie Hart: ensuring that you've got employee engagement and that everyone's
Charlie Hart: doing a good job and that people aren't leaving in
Charlie Hart: droves, that they're not having a lot of time off with with work
Charlie Hart: related stress or depression. But everyone is okay
Charlie Hart: and doing the best work they can. And
Charlie Hart: it's really not about doing nice things for disabled
Charlie Hart: people. It's it's the right thing to do,
Charlie Hart: and it's good for business because you've
Charlie Hart: got employees who are engaged. They're doing good work. It's
Charlie Hart: gonna keep you out of tribunals. It's an absolute no brainer to
Charlie Hart: me. Let's treat adults in the work force
Charlie Hart: like like adults who can have
Charlie Hart: needs and preferences and should be safe to voice them.
Charlie Hart: Let's take them seriously. Let's meet their needs so they can thrive in their
Charlie Hart: roles. It's good for everybody. Not so much today, but in the past,
Joanne Lockwood: I've seen branding, for want of a better way to describe it, branding neurodiverse
Joanne Lockwood: people in this superpower. We we don't like that word.
Joanne Lockwood: Instead of saying, you need an autistic person to do that task because they
Joanne Lockwood: will be hyper they will be able to do this. And you're almost saying, well,
Joanne Lockwood: if you're if you're an autistic person who isn't a mathematical genius,
Joanne Lockwood: what's wrong with you? You know, you should be you should be like Rain Man.
Joanne Lockwood: And it's almost like setting people up to being the stereotype of
Joanne Lockwood: 1 type of autism or one type of really helpful.
Charlie Hart: Yeah. So even, no, even with dyslexia, I
Charlie Hart: mean, GCHQ, for instance, they did a
Charlie Hart: dyslexia hiring program because dyslexic people
Charlie Hart: apparently have superpowers of, pattern
Charlie Hart: recognition and, code cracking and all that. Not all
Charlie Hart: of them, I'm sure. It's great to acknowledge the strengths that can come
Charlie Hart: with each neurotype, but they're always going to be individual to the
Charlie Hart: employee, to the person. So, yeah, I mean, that that would be my take on
Joanne Lockwood: some of this is look into the person. Look into
Joanne Lockwood: the spec you want, and not everybody who is neurodiverse,
Joanne Lockwood: ADHD, trans, straight, non bi whoever you want to describe
Joanne Lockwood: yourself. But everyone's gonna fit that role for a tick box.
Joanne Lockwood: I think that's what we need to do is look into the heart, but give
Joanne Lockwood: that person the opportunity, the equity, the tools, opportunities here.
Charlie Hart: Yeah. Exactly. Assume. Yeah. So let's
Charlie Hart: consciously include people that have been previously
Charlie Hart: excluded. Let's break down barriers to inclusion
Charlie Hart: and success, dismantle some systemic barriers, and
Charlie Hart: give everyone the chance to show what they can do, how they can contribute.
Charlie Hart: But the other thing is, though, all humans have got
Charlie Hart: value even if they don't have a job. So isn't all about how
Charlie Hart: many of us are in the workforce? Yeah. It is. And I think I think
Joanne Lockwood: you're right there. It is and and it's also around
Joanne Lockwood: creating aspiration. You have belief, trust in the process because
Joanne Lockwood: a lot of, when you're when you're not atypical, you you're on that middle
Joanne Lockwood: of the line. You tend to see other people who are more
Joanne Lockwood: capable. You your imposter syndrome kicks in. You don't see anybody else
Joanne Lockwood: doing it. The language around the the job role or the job spec
Joanne Lockwood: isn't doesn't shout out to you that they care about you. So
Joanne Lockwood: we're actually creating barriers just in the language, the employer
Joanne Lockwood: branding, the recruitment marketing we're putting out there, not just not just
Joanne Lockwood: some of the other things that we turn people off. It needs to be all
Charlie Hart: big overhaul. And you see so many job
Charlie Hart: descriptions even now that expect people to work autonomously.
Charlie Hart: I'm part of a team to communicate effectively at all levels
Charlie Hart: and what other bullshit is there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's that mean? Do you
Charlie Hart: want to roll in a fast paced environment? I
Charlie Hart: read that and think, no. That means they're understaffed and badly
Charlie Hart: managed, and it's overwhelming. That's not for me.
Charlie Hart: Dynamic and fast paced. Yeah. They want young people that are full of
Charlie Hart: energy that they can lean on more and put more pressure
Charlie Hart: on. It's ages. Yeah. Some of that, as
Joanne Lockwood: you say, ageist, some of that is is gender cosas as well.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Your typical cosas you say is a lot of dynamics
Joanne Lockwood: in those in those bland statements that we've just been
Joanne Lockwood: cutting and pushing. And mask racism as well and
Charlie Hart: it's yeah. Good fit for culture. Is your
Charlie Hart: culture that you will go down the football on a Saturday afternoon and then
Charlie Hart: talk about it on a Monday? How many people is that gonna exclude?
Charlie Hart: Does it actually mean that you have, better productivity
Charlie Hart: or better innovation? I don't think so.
Charlie Hart: Yeah. Yeah. I I I is the best way
Charlie Hart: to prevent innovation. I'm a person who's teetotal. I
Joanne Lockwood: don't drink anymore. So talk about going to the pub or even putting on dinners
Joanne Lockwood: where alcohol is a is a is a major part of it. I'm also
Joanne Lockwood: doing weight management. So wanting to go out for a meal and
Joanne Lockwood: have alcohol is, like, a double turn off. And it's, there there are many people
Joanne Lockwood: out there, certainly the younger generation, whose lives don't revolve around alcohol and eating
Joanne Lockwood: anymore. But that's a very old school human thing, isn't it?
Charlie Hart: Yeah. So I I have a complicated relationship
Charlie Hart: with alcohol, and it's generally not great to say
Charlie Hart: you're only part of the team if you can go and work hard and play
Charlie Hart: hard. Because I will drink too much
Charlie Hart: to cope with the difficult social situation and difficult sensory situation. Social
Charlie Hart: situation and difficult sensory situation, and
Charlie Hart: then have all kinds of anxiety about how I might have come
Charlie Hart: across, what wrong thing I might have said to the wrong person.
Charlie Hart: And I just wake up full of dread. It's so
Charlie Hart: necessary. Got that t shirt myself. Yeah. That's one of the things that I realized
Joanne Lockwood: that I was focusing on drinking too much
Joanne Lockwood: because I didn't know how to have fun or how to interact Yeah. Without
Joanne Lockwood: the alcohol. And then I I took the alcohol away and then found that, actually,
Joanne Lockwood: I don't wanna be in this environment anyway. I don't like it. It's like, what
Joanne Lockwood: if I wanna be here with the drunk people? It's no fun. So I, now
Charlie Hart: I'm self employed. It's great because I just work in a way that suits me.
Charlie Hart: If someone says, can we go out for a drink? I wanna pick your
Charlie Hart: brains about a work thing. I'll say,
Charlie Hart: decaf coffee, but, yeah, I'm not I now I don't mind a coffee. I don't
Joanne Lockwood: mind a decaf coffee, but, yeah, I'm not I now self
Joanne Lockwood: exclude from alcohol focused events and
Joanne Lockwood: food focused events because I'm no good with either of those. I eat too
Joanne Lockwood: much if I'm get your visit in front of me, and I'll drink too much
Joanne Lockwood: if it's there. So I find it because it's a dumb meal really quite
Charlie Hart: stressful with a lot of people. It's mostly the Skip.
Charlie Hart: The noises, though, the competing noises. You know, someone's trying to talk to
Charlie Hart: me, but I'm hearing 10 conversations at once. So I
Charlie Hart: don't think that's an an expectation to join into the
Joanne Lockwood: conversation. Actually, sometimes I my brain just wants to shut off and
Joanne Lockwood: zone out, eat my dinner, and stare into space. I'm quite happy with that sometimes.
Joanne Lockwood: But you wanna I feel obliged to talk to you, then I feel obliged to
Joanne Lockwood: talk to you Mhmm. And then feel obliged to contribute to the and I think,
Joanne Lockwood: well, I was drinking. It was fine because my down cold just kicked in and
Joanne Lockwood: kept me bubbly. But now it's just like, sorry. You're boring. I don't
Joanne Lockwood: mean that rudely, but I'm just not interested in having a small talk
Joanne Lockwood: conversation anymore. It's I feel so much happier not.
Charlie Hart: Yeah. It's great, isn't it, when you can
Charlie Hart: identify what makes you tick and and what sort of massive
Charlie Hart: drain and just decide what's worth doing and what you're not gonna do
Charlie Hart: anymore. Yeah. I again, you've met Marie,
Joanne Lockwood: my wife. She has some social anxiety exaggerated by
Joanne Lockwood: menopause and COVID and isolation.
Joanne Lockwood: But when you engage her in a networking situation,
Joanne Lockwood: she is brilliant. She'll work the room. She'll form conversations. She'll go up to people
Joanne Lockwood: who are complete strangers and sell or or or or share.
Joanne Lockwood: And I just can't do that. I can do it, but it's not my comfort
Joanne Lockwood: zone. I just wanna go I just wanna go. I'm gonna sneak off now. It's
Joanne Lockwood: so sad. My comfort zone as well. You know? I'm quite confident
Charlie Hart: when I'm talking about things I know about, but small talk is
Charlie Hart: horrendous. That future is future is n d
Charlie Hart: accessible design event. I mentioned I offered to help with that. And one
Charlie Hart: of the things that needed to be done is meeting people in reception and
Charlie Hart: going up the lift with them to the conference room. And
Charlie Hart: I was just so tongue tied and awkward. It was ridiculous.
Charlie Hart: But I wanted to help. So I volunteered to do things and then
Charlie Hart: think, oh, this isn't me at all. But I can get up on a stage
Charlie Hart: in front of a 1,000 people and deliver a speech, and I'll answer questions as
Charlie Hart: well, unprepared, you know, off the hoof. And I'm completely
Charlie Hart: fine with all of that. But going up up a couple
Charlie Hart: of floors in a lift with someone who I'm expected
Charlie Hart: to make polite small talk to, no. That's
Charlie Hart: so out of my comfort zone. But I take a turn with
Charlie Hart: me to get out. Working. Yeah. Yeah. If you've already got
Charlie Hart: someone there with you, then it's easier to talk
Charlie Hart: to additional people. So that's why you see me and my
Charlie Hart: friend, Lucy Hobbs, going everywhere together. Yeah. I I do like a a
Joanne Lockwood: buddy at those sort of events, but I found the danger is if I if
Joanne Lockwood: I'm there with somebody I know and they're not particularly bothered about
Joanne Lockwood: networking, we'll just talk to each other. Yeah. We won't actually do anything else. So
Joanne Lockwood: you say, well, what are we here for? You know, I forced myself into this
Joanne Lockwood: environment, and now neither of us wanna be here. So we just should we go
Joanne Lockwood: now? Should we? We just sort of sneak off. But, yeah, it's which is
Joanne Lockwood: why I picked a very specific yeah. You wanna leave
Charlie Hart: stupidly early, but without having to do a lot of goodbyes and
Charlie Hart: reasons why. So just, like, quietly slink off and
Charlie Hart: then send people a text saying, I've gone.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Sorry. I I just I realized my train was coming and Yeah?
Joanne Lockwood: Off. Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely a thing. You go in the
Joanne Lockwood: entire room 5 times, so it never quite gets saying goodbye. It's so
Joanne Lockwood: freeing, to be honest, though, I think. When you when you can when
Charlie Hart: you feel safe to actually give people the real reason
Charlie Hart: and you don't think they're gonna mock you for it, it's so liberating.
Charlie Hart: I got invited to a wedding, and the the person realized she'd invited
Charlie Hart: way too many people. She said, would you mind if you and I just come
Charlie Hart: to the evening do and not the daytime? And I said, do you know what?
Charlie Hart: Neither of us really like weddings. Do you mind if we don't come at
Charlie Hart: all? And and she said, thank
Charlie Hart: you so much for your honesty. Yeah. That's absolutely fine. And I
Charlie Hart: thought, we should've traveled to this wedding, spent a fortune, had a
Charlie Hart: miserable time, probably had a row when we got back to the hotel.
Charlie Hart: One sentence of honesty with someone that respects me for my honesty, and
Charlie Hart: we were spared all that. Yeah. I mean, I I find these days because
Joanne Lockwood: people are are more aware of these these attributes and
Joanne Lockwood: traits of of people. I'm just quite comfortable saying, look, my my
Joanne Lockwood: introvert nature is is saying my batteries are flat. I need I've had
Joanne Lockwood: too much. You burnt me out. I've I've got no more energy to give you.
Joanne Lockwood: So I I need to go and recharge. Sorry. I'm off now. Yeah. After an
Joanne Lockwood: hour or so. Yeah. Often people said to me, wish I
Joanne Lockwood: could go as well. You know, we stick off together.
Joanne Lockwood: But I'm more than I'm more than okay with having one to ones or
Joanne Lockwood: small conversations with people. Well, that's not small talk. It's good
Joanne Lockwood: talk in in very intimate conversation. I can like, look. We're talking now. I could
Joanne Lockwood: talk to you all day, one to 1. And maybe even 3 of us, maybe
Joanne Lockwood: I could do. But anything more than that where it becomes
Joanne Lockwood: free calling you have to really try to make it happen. It's like, oh, I'm
Joanne Lockwood: done now. It's like, bye. Yeah. Yeah. It's meant
Charlie Hart: to be interesting and fun, isn't it? Having a conversation, not
Charlie Hart: some kind of test of your interpersonal skills.
Joanne Lockwood: It's like Game of Thrones networking, isn't it? Last
Joanne Lockwood: person standing. Darling, it's been an absolute pleasure having a
Joanne Lockwood: chat with you. I can't believe we've been nattering away now for just over an
Joanne Lockwood: hour. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. Thank you for being so
Joanne Lockwood: open, so honest, and, sharing with everybody. How can people get a hold of
Joanne Lockwood: you? So you'll find me on LinkedIn under,
Charlie Hart: Charlie Hart or Awesome Charlie. Awesome with an AU for
Charlie Hart: autistic because I'm openly autistic. Same thing on Facebook
Charlie Hart: and Instagram, but I may well leave them. Who knows? I've got a website.
Charlie Hart: Guess what? It's www.awesomecharlie.co.uk.
Charlie Hart: And the YouTube channel as well. That that's about it. And
Charlie Hart: let me guess that's Awesome Charlie. Yeah. Awesome Charlie.
Charlie Hart: In AU. I'm on Blue Sky. So I've still got an
Charlie Hart: account on Shitter with an x as I call it now, but I
Charlie Hart: don't use it. I just don't want someone to take over my handle. But,
Charlie Hart: but I'm on Blue Sky as well, which is like that, but
Charlie Hart: it's way friendlier and more inclusive. But
Charlie Hart: yeah. I'll stick all of that in the show notes underneath this, and
Joanne Lockwood: you're gonna send, you're gonna signpost a a resource, won't you, which I'll,
Charlie Hart: so My ADHD brain can't remember what it was right now. Oh,
Charlie Hart: monotropism. Yes. I will. Yeah. Anything
Joanne Lockwood: that's in there, I'll I'll I'll share in the in the notes, and then we'll
Charlie Hart: It's the tension tunnels that give us the flow where we can
Charlie Hart: really, really get into our expertise
Charlie Hart: and change the world, really. If I'm really honest, I
Joanne Lockwood: can't remember what you said you were gonna give me either. I just knew you
Joanne Lockwood: said something. I play along and see see see if it becomes obvious after a
Joanne Lockwood: while. But, yeah, it's you learn that about yourself sometimes that you don't have to
Joanne Lockwood: remember everything. You just have to have coping mechanisms. My favorite
Charlie Hart: ADHD advocate, doctor Ned Hallowell, he says, my
Charlie Hart: thoughts are like butterflies. They're beautiful, but they fly away. So
Charlie Hart: that that's my brain. Yeah. They do come back eventually.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Well, you know, they're there somewhere. You just gotta hunt them down, don't you?
Joanne Lockwood: But you get your nest out and try to catch them. Johnny, thank you so
Joanne Lockwood: much. Thank you. As
Joanne Lockwood: we bring this conversation to a close, I want to express my deepest
Joanne Lockwood: gratitude to you, our listener, for lending your ear and
Joanne Lockwood: heart to the cause of inclusion. Today's discussion struck called
Joanne Lockwood: Consider subscribing to Inclusion Bites and become part of our ever
Joanne Lockwood: growing community, driving real change. Share this journey with
Joanne Lockwood: friends, family, and colleagues. Let's amplify the voices that matter.
Joanne Lockwood: Got thoughts, stories, or a vision to share? I'm all ears. Reach
Joanne Lockwood: out to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk,
Joanne Lockwood: and let's make your voice heard. Until next time, this is Joanne
Joanne Lockwood: Lockwood signing off with a promise to return with more enriching
Joanne Lockwood: narratives that challenge, inspire, and unite us all. Here's to
Joanne Lockwood: fostering a more inclusive world one episode at a time. Catch you on the next
Joanne Lockwood: bite.