Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary
Joanne Lockwood: for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood,
Joanne Lockwood: your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion, belonging, and societal transformation.
Joanne Lockwood: Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a world where
Joanne Lockwood: everyone not only belongs but thrives? You're
Joanne Lockwood: not alone. Join me as we uncover the
Joanne Lockwood: unseen, challenge the status quo, and share
Joanne Lockwood: stories that resonate deep within. Ready to dive
Joanne Lockwood: in. Whether you're sipping your morning coffee or winding down
Joanne Lockwood: after a long day, let's connect, reflect, and
Joanne Lockwood: inspire action together. Don't forget, you
Joanne Lockwood: can be part of the 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.
Joanne Lockwood: So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to
Joanne Lockwood: ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion
Joanne Lockwood: Bites. And today is episode
Joanne Lockwood: 154 with the title, from burnout
Joanne Lockwood: to brilliance. And I have the absolute honor and privilege
Joanne Lockwood: to welcome Emma Parnell. Emma is an l and d
Joanne Lockwood: manager dedicated to fostering safe, inclusive
Joanne Lockwood: environments where people can thrive and unlocking their
Joanne Lockwood: potential to embrace their differences. And when I asked
Joanne Lockwood: Emma to describe her superpowers, she said it is her resilience,
Joanne Lockwood: and she is inspired by people who have faced their toughest times head
Joanne Lockwood: on and won. Hello, Emma. Welcome to the show.
Emma Parnell: Hi, Joanne. Thanks so much for having me. I'm really delighted to be joining
Emma Parnell: you today. And I'm excited to talk about all the things that I'm
Emma Parnell: passionate about around learning and development and how we make sure that everybody's
Emma Parnell: included and no one's left out. Even the even the smallest of voices
Emma Parnell: need to be heard. You're so right. And, you reminded me
Joanne Lockwood: when we first came on in the green room that we met tail end of
Joanne Lockwood: last year at, at L&D Forum
Joanne Lockwood: in, London, if I remember right. That's right. Yeah.
Emma Parnell: Yeah. It was one of the, connect events held at London
Emma Parnell: Wall. Yeah. And we got chatting. We got introduced by a mutual colleague, mutual
Emma Parnell: friend, and, yeah, we got chatting. And one of the really interesting
Emma Parnell: things I found out about that day and certainly talking to you
Emma Parnell: is, you know, the drive for inclusion for
Emma Parnell: everybody. And I've I've certainly seen over my 30
Emma Parnell: something year career. I can't remember exactly how many
Emma Parnell: somethings that is, but certainly 30 years. I've seen a lot of changes
Emma Parnell: in learning and development and a lot of changes in the working environment.
Emma Parnell: And, you know, it's it's changed an awful lot in terms of
Emma Parnell: being able to make efforts to include more people
Emma Parnell: with, you know, differences, be that neurodiversity or
Emma Parnell: other challenges that might be going on disabilities, etcetera. And
Emma Parnell: it's interesting that there's I feel there's still some way to go. But
Emma Parnell: people are generally trying to embrace and trying to
Emma Parnell: understand what diversity and inclusion really means and how they can
Emma Parnell: just, you know, make sure that they employ the best of people. You know, particularly
Emma Parnell: a question that you asked me was what's my superpower. And and I love that
Emma Parnell: word superpower because I think everybody's got their own
Emma Parnell: and it's, it's the responsibility of,
Emma Parnell: child perhaps as well as learning and development and people who
Emma Parnell: manage people to find out what the superpower is of
Emma Parnell: the person that they're hiring, because they can surprise you. And
Emma Parnell: I think that diverse teams, which is not a
Emma Parnell: new concept, but it's something that's still so massively important.
Emma Parnell: Diverse teams where you have people with different
Emma Parnell: different approaches to things. And you know, you'll
Emma Parnell: have, in most teams you have your, your sort of louder people, I
Emma Parnell: guess, people who are very confident, want to talk first. And then you'll have
Emma Parnell: those who might be particularly quiet, but it's
Emma Parnell: actually the quieter ones that you really, as a manager,
Emma Parnell: need to dig down and get to know because quietness
Emma Parnell: doesn't mean that somebody hasn't got something to contribute. You know,
Emma Parnell: quietness can be in traverse, but it can also just be
Emma Parnell: contemplated. Some people think before they speak, and need to hear what
Emma Parnell: everybody else is saying before they talk. And then, you know, and sometimes you
Emma Parnell: find that people come out with things that are absolute genius, that you hadn't
Emma Parnell: thought about yourself. So for all of those
Emma Parnell: reasons, inclusion is so important and dive and diversity.
Emma Parnell: So I really champion that and I, I love to see it happen in the
Emma Parnell: workplace. I love to see it when people come out
Emma Parnell: with surprises. And I also think that
Emma Parnell: by better, better ways to embrace
Emma Parnell: inclusion means that people are more willing to talk about
Emma Parnell: themselves. And, you know, I can give you a really nice example of this, I
Emma Parnell: think, where I worked previously. I worked with a young lady
Emma Parnell: who had bipolar and there were days
Emma Parnell: when it was very difficult for her, and very challenging.
Emma Parnell: And she may have experienced, you know, emotion,
Emma Parnell: or frustration. And she never
Emma Parnell: never really talked much about that side of herself,
Emma Parnell: which is totally her rights. But actually when she did say
Emma Parnell: something, people around her just
Emma Parnell: went, okay. No, you know, and it was like, it's not,
Emma Parnell: it's not an issue. It's not a problem. I had a conversation with her. I
Emma Parnell: wasn't her direct manager, but I had a conversation with her. And she said, she
Emma Parnell: said, oh, I'm really sorry. You know, it's just one of those days. And I
Emma Parnell: said, so you don't need to apologize. You don't need to apologize
Emma Parnell: for being you. It's okay. And she actually got
Emma Parnell: quite emotional. She said, nobody said that to me before. And, you know,
Emma Parnell: her superpower is that she's really smart at what she does. She's
Emma Parnell: very, very good at what she does for a living. And, yeah, as part
Emma Parnell: of learning and development, she helped create such engaging
Emma Parnell: content for people because she's very, very clever,
Emma Parnell: at creating animations and graphics and things that
Emma Parnell: just pop out on the screen that people wouldn't expect and
Emma Parnell: just really engage people. And she
Emma Parnell: never never really accepted the compliments very well or or
Emma Parnell: realized how good she was at it, but people like her. And there are
Emma Parnell: so many people like her who are who are generally quite quiet and
Emma Parnell: modern modest, but actually needs to be championed sometimes
Emma Parnell: because they're they're exceptional at what they do. And that's
Emma Parnell: for me, a really great example, I think, of of
Emma Parnell: diversity and inclusion is letting someone know that
Emma Parnell: it, whatever you might be going through, it's okay. It's
Emma Parnell: not a problem. Yeah. I completely
Joanne Lockwood: get what you're saying there. I mean, if you oh, where are we now? We're
Joanne Lockwood: by the beginning of 2025 or tail end of January 2025, sort of
Joanne Lockwood: recording this. You look at what's going on in the media,
Joanne Lockwood: the world. If you've discussed spend an hour on LinkedIn,
Joanne Lockwood: there's a whole load of pushback against EDI,
Joanne Lockwood: DNI initiatives. It's got a bad name.
Joanne Lockwood: Oh, you've just given some really good examples where DEI makes sense, how it
Joanne Lockwood: helps. How has it gone wrong? You know, what should people I because I talk
Joanne Lockwood: about positive people experiences. It's not about the DEI. How
Joanne Lockwood: can I create a virus where people can thrive? So how do we how do
Joanne Lockwood: we get back to that so we're not caught up on these acronyms and the
Joanne Lockwood: the negativity that's going around it. I think I think
Emma Parnell: one of the ways is about understanding because I think that
Emma Parnell: organizations know that diversity, equity and inclusion
Emma Parnell: is something they need to be aware of. And there'll be plenty of
Emma Parnell: people who will dive into that and really delve into what
Emma Parnell: it means, but whether enough people do, I'm not sure.
Emma Parnell: So I think there's a danger that people may want to
Emma Parnell: create a a little bit of a tick box exercise
Emma Parnell: around it to be so that they can be seen or can
Emma Parnell: report that they, yes, they are, you know, they
Emma Parnell: promote it and they recruit with that in mind. But I
Emma Parnell: think a better understanding of it
Emma Parnell: means it becomes more natural rather than a thing
Emma Parnell: people have to do. And I think
Emma Parnell: when people are told you must,
Emma Parnell: include this in your process, in your policies, etcetera.
Emma Parnell: Most people will agree quite happily to do it, but whether they'll really
Emma Parnell: understand why is, is the difference. So one of the
Emma Parnell: things that I think would be amazing in the future
Emma Parnell: is if it was part of an organization's DNA
Emma Parnell: and not, don't forget, we need to have a policy
Emma Parnell: on It we wanna see more of
Emma Parnell: this really natural process so
Emma Parnell: that so that nobody has to ask the questions of an organization.
Emma Parnell: Do you include people? Are you inclusive?
Emma Parnell: And how are you inclusive? What does that mean to you? So
Emma Parnell: this it's, it's a deeper understanding, I think, that means that people will think
Emma Parnell: more naturally about it. And it comes back into
Emma Parnell: a space where it doesn't
Emma Parnell: need to be an issue or a challenge. It's
Emma Parnell: just, you know, everybody's different. I mean, the one thing I
Emma Parnell: think that's caught the interest me certainly around, around
Emma Parnell: all of this is that actually, we are all different and have been since
Emma Parnell: the dawn of time. So why is it such a
Emma Parnell: problem for people to
Emma Parnell: perhaps get jobs, you know? Because
Emma Parnell: we are all different. Some differences are maybe more
Emma Parnell: obvious than others, more stand out than others, but we are
Emma Parnell: all different. So why don't we just accept that
Emma Parnell: and get on with life and go, yeah, everybody is different.
Emma Parnell: And that's great because what sort of world would we be in if
Emma Parnell: we were all the same? So any difference
Emma Parnell: is not a bad thing. It's a good thing. Yeah. Maybe
Emma Parnell: that's a little bit, you know, could you cope? Yeah. No. I I think I
Joanne Lockwood: think that's the the root of it. And sometimes we get hung up
Joanne Lockwood: on 0 sum games or I'm
Joanne Lockwood: getting more than you are. It it's and people may be feeling more
Joanne Lockwood: yeah. People who are used to privilege feeling marginalized because they're not getting the leg
Joanne Lockwood: up that people who are marginalized get. And, yeah, that's not the,
Joanne Lockwood: fundamental purpose of equity. It's about bringing people up, not
Joanne Lockwood: pulling people down. So you're you're in a l and d learning development
Joanne Lockwood: role. As you're talking, I was I was thinking about things like
Joanne Lockwood: Hertzberg's 2 factor theory where we've got the hygiene factors, our
Joanne Lockwood: motivational factors. But in the middle of that, performance or and the
Joanne Lockwood: skills and having the tools in order to perform in that job, the
Joanne Lockwood: capability, if you like. So how do how does how do you as a as
Joanne Lockwood: a l and d professional develop processes, content,
Joanne Lockwood: tracking, and metrics, data, whatever it is, to ensure that we're being person
Joanne Lockwood: centric enough to develop
Joanne Lockwood: learning and enhance skills in an inclusive way?
Emma Parnell: Yes. Yes. An interesting question, Annie. And it's quite a tough one because when
Emma Parnell: you're when you're designing training content, for example, you
Emma Parnell: have as an l and d person, you've got got a lot of
Emma Parnell: factors to consider, actually. So you could be could be designing a
Emma Parnell: piece of content because it's part of organizational strategy.
Emma Parnell: You could be doing it because there's, you know, things going wrong in, in the
Emma Parnell: workplace that need retraining. People need to learn about things.
Emma Parnell: And, you can be to some degree, sometimes a
Emma Parnell: little limited on how engage not
Emma Parnell: engaging, but how wide ranging you can be with a piece of
Emma Parnell: content that you're creating. But I think what you must always do as a
Emma Parnell: creator of training is put yourself in the position of the
Emma Parnell: learner. So forget
Emma Parnell: what you know is almost forget what you know as an L and D professional
Emma Parnell: and go, right. If I'm learning this, what do I need to
Emma Parnell: know, and what's the best way for me to know that? And
Emma Parnell: that kind of leads you to create content
Emma Parnell: that is, bit more
Emma Parnell: engaging and as you are more human centered. And, you know, a lot of the
Emma Parnell: time you can take scenario, real scenarios
Emma Parnell: that people have been in. And that helps
Emma Parnell: because that then makes the training more
Emma Parnell: relatable. Yeah. And there are other aspects that you can,
Emma Parnell: you can always be aware of such as, you know, does the
Emma Parnell: software that you're using to create this training, does it have,
Emma Parnell: accessibility standards attached to it so that we know that, you
Emma Parnell: know, for example, if somebody might be short short of sight or
Emma Parnell: can't hear properly, you know, will they be included in this
Emma Parnell: training? But but also, as I've said, I think
Emma Parnell: the human side of things. So if I give you an example, so if
Emma Parnell: we're creating some training on mental health and well-being, for
Emma Parnell: example, what really hits home for people is when somebody,
Emma Parnell: is on camera and they talk about their own personal experience
Emma Parnell: of something, and that can make a huge difference.
Emma Parnell: So I think there's, you know, there's a variety of ways you can approach it.
Emma Parnell: But I've, I've, you know, I believe really that the scenario based training and
Emma Parnell: the human centered stuff, where you've got somebody on camera who talks about
Emma Parnell: it, who's an expert in it, for example, or has
Emma Parnell: experienced it. That's that's worth its weight in gold.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I oversample that completely because when I when I deliver training
Joanne Lockwood: and develop my training materials, I'm very focused on anecdotes
Joanne Lockwood: and stories that bring bring the example to life. And I've got a
Joanne Lockwood: whole repertoire of examples that been in the news over the last
Joanne Lockwood: 5, 10 years. And, you know, it's sometimes called news jacking where you what you're
Joanne Lockwood: doing is you're taking something out of the news of the moment and putting it
Joanne Lockwood: in because it makes it really live because everyone's seen in the news. It's topical.
Emma Parnell: Mhmm. What's going on at the moment, which means it's it really is relatable. Or
Joanne Lockwood: telling the story about something that happened as if it was only yesterday and
Joanne Lockwood: bringing it to life again. And people I I've
Joanne Lockwood: I've really noticed that people really resonate with that. It also means
Joanne Lockwood: that you're not you're not necessarily giving an opinion on something. You're
Joanne Lockwood: reporting a scenario and getting people to analyze that
Joanne Lockwood: themselves and come up with their own thoughts and conclusions around
Joanne Lockwood: it. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that's, that's the power in
Emma Parnell: it is that rather than just telling people how to think,
Emma Parnell: what to think, when to think it, you just empower
Emma Parnell: them to explore how they feel about it.
Emma Parnell: So, you know, some scenario based or some,
Emma Parnell: people that we get on video, some of what they talk about can be really
Emma Parnell: emotional, but I love that because that get that
Emma Parnell: gets into people. And they go, oh, okay. I, I can
Emma Parnell: either empathize with this or sympathize or understand
Emma Parnell: better. And it allows people to then, you know, question
Emma Parnell: themselves and go, what can I do differently then? What am I
Emma Parnell: learning from this experience? What can I do differently to
Emma Parnell: make it better next time? And those
Emma Parnell: to me are the really the golden nuggets of learning is
Emma Parnell: somebody being able to understand something resonates,
Emma Parnell: and then you can take that back into your job, into your
Emma Parnell: daily life, into your home life, even, you know, and actually
Emma Parnell: do something differently. Behavioral change, that there's the
Emma Parnell: words. So in l and d behavioral change, and that's what
Emma Parnell: most organizations want from a learning
Emma Parnell: experience is behavioral change.
Emma Parnell: So, and particularly around this subject area of
Emma Parnell: diversity and inclusion, behavioral change. We want people
Emma Parnell: to do something differently, but we need people to understand
Emma Parnell: why they want to do it differently. You can't just tell
Emma Parnell: someone, I want you to do that differently. They need to
Emma Parnell: feel inside of them that they know why
Emma Parnell: and that the outcomes will be better.
Emma Parnell: And that that that's the real sort of heart of
Emma Parnell: it, I think. Yeah. That why is so important
Joanne Lockwood: because if you're not careful, what happens is you
Joanne Lockwood: tell them the why. Yeah. And that doesn't land because their
Joanne Lockwood: why is different. So you have to get people to think about what their why
Joanne Lockwood: is. Why why do I care? Why does it bother me? Why
Joanne Lockwood: am I here? What am I doing? Because if you don't if you don't frack
Joanne Lockwood: their why, they'll never act, think, or feel differently
Joanne Lockwood: as a result, will they? They'll just they won't move from a to b. They'll
Joanne Lockwood: just stay where they were because they didn't resonate. Yeah. Completely agree. And I
Emma Parnell: think that, you know, people who are responsible
Emma Parnell: for behavioral change in their organizations need to make sure
Emma Parnell: that the training that's delivered in whatever format that might be, whether that's
Emma Parnell: in a classroom, face to face, online, e learning,
Emma Parnell: podcast, whatever it might be, needs, yeah, it needs to
Emma Parnell: resonate and it needs to land. And that's how
Emma Parnell: you'll see behavioral change in organisations. Yeah. I'm also
Joanne Lockwood: drawn to the, the other Alan d mantra around the
Joanne Lockwood: Aristotle's rhetoric, ethos, logos, and pathos. We've gotta
Joanne Lockwood: tick those boxes, the other models of persuasion where we're we're
Joanne Lockwood: focusing on the emotional. That's also the logical and the ethical side. We've
Joanne Lockwood: gotta try and balance that as well. Yeah. Absolutely. And those things
Emma Parnell: are all very valid and and are all part of
Emma Parnell: what organizations have to go through, particularly where there
Emma Parnell: is legislation that governs, you know, in the the Equality Act,
Emma Parnell: you have protected characteristics. So as soon as any form of
Emma Parnell: compliance or legality comes into it, it kind of gives it a
Emma Parnell: different spin for organizations sometimes, I think, because they go, right. Okay. I need to
Emma Parnell: be really careful. I need to make sure there's a policy. Yes, you do.
Emma Parnell: And I need to make sure that there's learning. Yes, you do.
Emma Parnell: But that's and that's where it goes back to what I think we've just said
Emma Parnell: about what type of learning. You know, what are you what are you gonna
Emma Parnell: do here? Are you gonna tick a box? Are you gonna change behaviors? Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: That that's part of the problem sometimes is, you know, there's no why, a tote
Joanne Lockwood: associated with the policy. The policy is almost like a statement of fact.
Joanne Lockwood: The equality act statement of fact, employment law statement of fact.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes. Some people get the why, but a lot of people go, oh, policy,
Joanne Lockwood: process, procedures. You're boring.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. What's in it for me? What do I care? And then that's when you
Joanne Lockwood: have to bring in the the pathos, the emotional connection, or
Joanne Lockwood: beat them with a stick around the business case, the, you know, the logical.
Emma Parnell: Yeah. I agree. And I think that I can give you another example of I
Emma Parnell: used to create economic crime training, and that's all
Emma Parnell: regulation, legislation, and and everybody knows about
Emma Parnell: things, for example, like anti money laundering. But what I wanted to do when
Emma Parnell: I created training around that topic, albeit that it was
Emma Parnell: purely for compliance reasons, I wanted to
Emma Parnell: draw the learner in to say, to not approach
Emma Parnell: it as, oh, I've been told by my organization, I've
Emma Parnell: gotta do this. Every 12 months, we tick a box and we're done.
Emma Parnell: I wanted to bring some emotion and human
Emma Parnell: behavior into the topic of anti money laundering.
Emma Parnell: So I opened the course with a narrative
Emma Parnell: that, that says, money
Emma Parnell: laundering is not about money.
Emma Parnell: It's actually about people, victims of crime.
Emma Parnell: And that could be people who've been trafficked, been
Emma Parnell: abused, vulnerable people that have been taken advantage of, and
Emma Parnell: people who have been defrauded of money, and this could be
Emma Parnell: any one of us. And I
Emma Parnell: really wanted that message to be really strong because I wanted the
Emma Parnell: learner to go, okay. Maybe I hadn't thought about it like that.
Emma Parnell: So when you tell the learner that in their job within, you know, if
Emma Parnell: they're working in a bank, for example, and they're front line, so they're facing
Emma Parnell: customers. When you tell them that actually
Emma Parnell: that person standing in front of you could be a victim of
Emma Parnell: crime, they could be being forced into doing something.
Emma Parnell: And that can happen to absolutely anybody.
Emma Parnell: Then you get a different response from people. People go, oh,
Emma Parnell: okay. Now I'm getting it. Now I'm understanding
Emma Parnell: actually why this is so important. And I got a bit of feedback
Emma Parnell: from a learner. And what and what they wrote on
Emma Parnell: the feedback was, now I understand my role in this.
Emma Parnell: And for me, that was a win. That was a total win because that's as
Emma Parnell: an L and D professional, that's what you want. You want people to go,
Emma Parnell: oh, okay. Get it. And see it differently because
Emma Parnell: the behavior changes. And for me, that was that was a that was a
Emma Parnell: great day because that's what you're aiming for. I always get a
Joanne Lockwood: huge amount of satisfaction end of session wrap up, you know, the
Joanne Lockwood: feedback session, the, the what have I learned? What am I gonna do now?
Joanne Lockwood: You know, go around the room and say, what's the one thing you're gonna take
Joanne Lockwood: away from today? And you hear all the things that you've been thinking that we're
Joanne Lockwood: gonna resonate with. They're all picking them out. Brilliant. I've done
Joanne Lockwood: my job because you're actually repeating back to me what I thought was the key
Joanne Lockwood: elements of this, and you've you've got it. And that's and also
Joanne Lockwood: you're hearing it as social proof because you hear from your colleagues as well. That
Joanne Lockwood: stops being me telling you and they're telling each other and becomes more real
Joanne Lockwood: then, doesn't it? Yeah. I very much so. It almost it gives
Emma Parnell: gravitas or kudos to what you've just done. Because for so much of what you
Emma Parnell: do in learning and development, sometimes it can be, that, okay,
Emma Parnell: this is a course I've got put together and I've got to roll it out
Emma Parnell: and get it done. And sometimes there, you know, that is the case. And it
Emma Parnell: might be that actually you are rolling out a piece of learning and
Emma Parnell: development that is going across an entire organization, which could
Emma Parnell: be a huge organization. It could be 5,000 people
Emma Parnell: who are all getting the same message at the same time, on
Emma Parnell: particular subject area. But it should never stop you
Emma Parnell: from just trying to bring in that human center every
Emma Parnell: time, because that is the way to get people to
Emma Parnell: shift their mindset. So that is my
Emma Parnell: approach. And I wouldn't call it a mantra because it's too leopardy for a
Emma Parnell: mantra, but it is my approach. It it's, it's about drawing people
Emma Parnell: in Because as as a person who takes a lot of
Emma Parnell: time and effort to create training, you just
Emma Parnell: do want to want people to give you feedback, and you do want to know
Emma Parnell: that what you're doing is making a difference. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: So I I suppose in my early days of of delivering
Joanne Lockwood: training, you you don't realize or or you just maybe not focusing on
Joanne Lockwood: it. But I've now come to realize that the danger is when
Joanne Lockwood: people get up off their chairs and they leave the room, half of what
Joanne Lockwood: you've given them is gets left on the desk. They don't take it with them
Joanne Lockwood: or at worst if the phone rings. They they they kind of rush for a
Joanne Lockwood: train. By the time they've done the next thing, the previous 4
Joanne Lockwood: hours have have almost vanished from their thought process. So it's it's
Joanne Lockwood: really trying to create stuff that really does stick, isn't it? That's where the little
Joanne Lockwood: anecdotes and the stories. They may not remember the detail, but they'll remember that
Joanne Lockwood: story for days or weeks, hopefully years afterwards. Yeah. Because they remember how
Emma Parnell: they felt. And that's the keyword. How did they feel?
Emma Parnell: Yeah. If something makes you feel something, as you say, you won't necessarily
Emma Parnell: remember all the details, but you'll remember that feeling. And
Emma Parnell: that's that's great. Yeah. I also get a lot of satisfaction by if
Joanne Lockwood: I can train an entire cohort of, you know, all of the senior leadership
Joanne Lockwood: team, all of the the SLT, whatever it may be. Then even if it's not
Joanne Lockwood: in the same session, you then given them shared language, shared stories.
Joanne Lockwood: And they can then repeat stuff without having to explain stuff to each other. They
Joanne Lockwood: can just say, ah, remember the story. Yeah. Yeah. We remember that. And
Joanne Lockwood: suddenly, the whole culture of the organization is
Joanne Lockwood: embedded with these these fables, if you like, or these sagas
Joanne Lockwood: that they've learned together. And it becomes a new shared language they can use. And
Joanne Lockwood: I think that's really powerful as well because it embeds into the culture and that's
Joanne Lockwood: where the real change happens, doesn't it? Yeah. I completely agree. And I think that
Emma Parnell: what's so important about training at a senior leadership level is
Emma Parnell: that the filtering down. And I don't know that a lot of
Emma Parnell: that happens all of the time because there is a, there is
Emma Parnell: a, there is a challenge that I see a lot, particularly when you apply for
Emma Parnell: jobs. You see a lot of, a lot of,
Emma Parnell: recruited recruitment mentioning learning culture.
Emma Parnell: So you might come in as an l and d manager, and they will say,
Emma Parnell: well, we want you to help embed a learning culture. And
Emma Parnell: there is only so much that an l and d manager can do
Emma Parnell: with that. And it not yeah. It's not all the l
Emma Parnell: and d's responsibility. It absolutely must
Emma Parnell: promote it. But actually, if you've got senior
Emma Parnell: leaders, who've done some really great training and enjoyed it, They should
Emma Parnell: be telling people, they should be letting people know in
Emma Parnell: whichever way they communicate with their organization, but they should be
Emma Parnell: talking about it because that will make a huge difference.
Joanne Lockwood: Learning has to be fun. Doesn't it? Or if it's not, you know, it's like,
Joanne Lockwood: when when people ever whenever someone says to me, I haven't got time for that
Joanne Lockwood: or we we're too busy. What you mean is, what you consider
Joanne Lockwood: thing you're too busy for, you don't prioritize or it's not fun or you're not
Joanne Lockwood: enjoyable because you've always got time to have fun or chill out or do
Joanne Lockwood: something you wanna do. So it's about priorities at that point. So how do
Joanne Lockwood: we make learning fun and a priority, in which case you'll
Joanne Lockwood: do it? Yeah. And I think that, you know, doing things
Emma Parnell: together as a team or competing on something even, you know, some
Emma Parnell: people really enjoy competition, and they want to, you know, do better than the next
Emma Parnell: person sitting next to them, but in the in the spirit of banter and
Emma Parnell: team relationships. And I think I think sometimes senior
Emma Parnell: management really enjoy that, actually. They like a bit of that. You know?
Emma Parnell: It reminds them that they're really good at something and that the you know, how
Emma Parnell: important that is to them. But, yeah, making making
Emma Parnell: learning fun is is always important where you where it's
Emma Parnell: appropriate to do so. And I think that when you can get people together in
Emma Parnell: a room and give them a challenge, a problem to solve together,
Emma Parnell: So that you, as a facilitator, you lead the session, but you let them
Emma Parnell: do the work, do it all, and discover it, and lead it, and
Emma Parnell: enjoy it, and come to their own conclusions. Those
Emma Parnell: are really great sessions as well because they're lively and
Emma Parnell: everybody is different in that group, and they will each have something to
Emma Parnell: offer. Some form of some people might be really good at strategy
Emma Parnell: and might think of a really cool way to get to do something. Other people
Emma Parnell: might be really good at communication and, and draw and driving a team
Emma Parnell: forward. So all those are great things. If you can get people in a
Emma Parnell: room to problem solve,
Emma Parnell: that's always a really cool way to, to, to get people
Emma Parnell: into things, and energize them because people
Emma Parnell: don't have a lot of time to learn. And
Emma Parnell: when you want people to make time to learn, you've gotta give
Emma Parnell: them, an incentive, really. You've gotta give them some
Emma Parnell: sessions that they go, God, I really enjoyed that. Actually, it was worth the 1
Emma Parnell: hour I took out of my day. Yeah. And a lot of a lot
Emma Parnell: of employees want to know how organizations
Emma Parnell: will develop them. It's a question that employees ask, how are
Emma Parnell: you gonna develop my career? And then you might find that those
Emma Parnell: people come in and go, I've got time for my training. I know I've got
Emma Parnell: to do a bit of training, but I haven't got time this week. I'll put
Emma Parnell: it off till next week, or I'll do it the week after that. And it's
Emma Parnell: kind of there's, you know, there's a two way street here. You know, lots
Emma Parnell: of organizations will provide you with the learning. You've got to
Emma Parnell: put the time in, and you can do, but you've gotta be attracted to it
Emma Parnell: as well. You've gotta want you've gotta want to. To. You mentioned,
Joanne Lockwood: the buzz phrase, psychological safety in in your show notes. I think you mentioned it
Joanne Lockwood: in your in your intro. One of the core tenets of psychological
Joanne Lockwood: safety is is learner safety, isn't it? And the fundamental principle of that
Joanne Lockwood: is being able to make mistakes in a safe environment. So that's
Joanne Lockwood: often scared to get it wrong because we're gonna be filled with vibrated,
Joanne Lockwood: humiliated, laughed at, whatever it may be. It's so important for
Joanne Lockwood: organizations to create sandboxes where people can play, isn't it? Yeah.
Emma Parnell: I absolutely agree. And, you know, I've, I've been there, you know,
Emma Parnell: before I was in learning and development, I was working in a, in an
Emma Parnell: operational team in a bank and, you know, and I made, I made a
Emma Parnell: mistake, that actually cost a little bit of money, but nothing
Emma Parnell: huge, but it, you know, it and I was terrified,
Emma Parnell: but my manager was just so brilliant. And
Emma Parnell: he's he said to me, look, we all made mistakes.
Emma Parnell: Make sure you learn from it. Don't let it happen again, but it's okay.
Emma Parnell: It's okay that you made a mistake. And I felt comfortable to tell him because
Emma Parnell: I actually knew I'd made the mistake. And when I realized
Emma Parnell: it, I said, oh, I have to go and tell him.
Emma Parnell: And he was brilliant. And he just, you know, he had
Emma Parnell: he said what he needed to say, but I felt psychologically safe to go
Emma Parnell: and tell him, and that's the sign of good management. But
Emma Parnell: everybody should feel safe to be able
Emma Parnell: to say when they're worried about something, when things are going
Emma Parnell: wrong. And, you know, I've had I personally had
Emma Parnell: the challenge of being in an environment where I didn't feel I
Emma Parnell: could say what was happening. And, you
Emma Parnell: know, it caused it caused me some issues. That's
Emma Parnell: yeah, that was, it was a difficult experience to go through, but, and
Emma Parnell: it does, but it does happen to people. But it is so important
Emma Parnell: that organizations realize that the promotion of psychological
Emma Parnell: safety is, is paramount because if your staff can't
Emma Parnell: talk to their managers or can't talk to someone in an
Emma Parnell: organization about what might be happening, then you potentially
Emma Parnell: could lose really good people. Because
Emma Parnell: they're, they're fearful of what the outcome might
Emma Parnell: be, or they, you know, they might have a perception
Emma Parnell: of how they might be thought of or perceived.
Emma Parnell: So it's psychological safety is it's for some some teams I've
Emma Parnell: worked in, it's quite natural, actually. It's, you know, everybody
Emma Parnell: respects everybody else and everybody can speak when they need to. And say
Emma Parnell: if they're not happy about something or say if they need something to be
Emma Parnell: different. And you know, and this, you know, includes things like setting
Emma Parnell: boundaries, which I think is a really difficult thing to do.
Emma Parnell: Actually, sometimes it can be really challenging
Emma Parnell: to be at work and set boundaries of, you
Emma Parnell: know, how people might talk to you about certain things, you know, what
Emma Parnell: one person finds really funny and banter somebody else may
Emma Parnell: not. And, you know, and trying
Emma Parnell: to show people how how you want them to work with
Emma Parnell: you without, you know, coming across as like,
Emma Parnell: oh, okay. Well, that that could be awkward. That could be difficult.
Emma Parnell: Something I an example of it, I a really good example I I read
Emma Parnell: recently on LinkedIn, I think it was, a lady wrote an article, and she
Emma Parnell: just essentially joined a new organization, quite a senior level.
Emma Parnell: And she said, right. I don't answer emails after 6 o'clock at
Emma Parnell: night, and you won't get an email from me after 6 o'clock at night.
Emma Parnell: I don't work weekends, and you will not hear from me at weekends.
Emma Parnell: And if you try to contact me on a weekend, I won't contact you
Emma Parnell: back. Actually, what she was doing is setting boundaries
Emma Parnell: so that she has a good work life balance and doesn't
Emma Parnell: have to worry about, oh, God. What happens if I, you know, if I
Emma Parnell: miss that email or if I don't take that phone call? And
Emma Parnell: feeling psychologically safe to be able to
Emma Parnell: speak like that and be so upfront about your boundaries,
Emma Parnell: I found it a a real breath of fresh air, actually, and I
Emma Parnell: admire it greatly. And I think certainly in
Emma Parnell: my next role, that's what I will do. I will
Emma Parnell: set boundaries because a lot of us don't do
Emma Parnell: it when we should do, and we need to.
Emma Parnell: Because otherwise, people don't know what we
Emma Parnell: will deal with, what we won't deal with, and
Emma Parnell: it's fair to set your own boundaries. It just makes life
Emma Parnell: easier for you, easier for other people. But it's quite
Emma Parnell: can be quite scary. People can be quite afraid of it. And, this
Emma Parnell: is something that I find that I find really interesting. And the more I analyze
Emma Parnell: it and talk to my friends about it, the more I realize is that in
Emma Parnell: actually lots of aspects of life, we don't set the boundaries that we should,
Emma Parnell: because we're afraid of conflict or things like that. So we
Emma Parnell: don't we just don't do it, but we pay the price if you don't set
Emma Parnell: boundaries. Actually, you are perfectly entitled
Emma Parnell: to say what works for you and what doesn't work for you.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And when I when I'm leading teams and,
Joanne Lockwood: I I adopt this, almost like creating an about
Joanne Lockwood: me page on your website, about me. And I
Joanne Lockwood: encourage team members, maybe we're starting a new project, we've got new
Joanne Lockwood: people around the table, to do a quick round the table about me.
Joanne Lockwood: What makes me happy? What makes me sad? What makes me effective? What makes me
Joanne Lockwood: less effective? And I often describe it as, you know, you go into the
Joanne Lockwood: kitchen in the office above the and you've got on the back of the cupboard
Joanne Lockwood: door a little sheet, how I like my tea and coffee. Mhmm.
Joanne Lockwood: Milk, 2 sugars, whatever it is. If it's coffee, I wanted this. I want decaf.
Joanne Lockwood: We're all happy to declare how we take our tea and coffee, but we're
Joanne Lockwood: less willing to declare how we like to be communicated with the times
Joanne Lockwood: of day. If you if you see me looking down, give me space to come
Joanne Lockwood: around before I look up. Don't pounce on me. If you're gonna send me
Joanne Lockwood: an email, I'm I'm a literal person. I'll take whatever you write without
Joanne Lockwood: without emotion. So if you mean it to be funny, you need to say, I'm
Joanne Lockwood: trying to be funny. Here's here's what I'm saying. So Yeah. If we if
Joanne Lockwood: we all have the have the have the opportunity to to declare our about
Joanne Lockwood: me, then we could all start to interact. And
Joanne Lockwood: once you've said it out loud and someone says, oh, I forgot. You go, hey,
Joanne Lockwood: you just say that, didn't you? So my bad. So and again, if
Joanne Lockwood: if the leader or the person in charge around the table
Joanne Lockwood: invites people to share the about me, starting with themselves. This is how I this
Joanne Lockwood: is how I work. This is yeah. And then that sets the tone where everybody
Joanne Lockwood: feels that they can be themselves and set their own
Joanne Lockwood: boundaries. I think what you're saying there is really, really important. Yeah. It's very
Emma Parnell: effective. I've I've worked in a team where that happens, actually exactly that
Emma Parnell: situation, where the the, manager
Emma Parnell: said, right. We're gonna do an about me, and we're each
Emma Parnell: gonna write down how we'd like to work to with each other.
Emma Parnell: What's acceptable, what's not acceptable. And, and it was interesting, and we
Emma Parnell: learned things about each other that we didn't know before either.
Emma Parnell: And, Yeah. Yeah. So it's a worthwhile thing to do, and it's an important
Emma Parnell: thing to do to set boundaries. Yeah. Also, some of that
Joanne Lockwood: is around the the cause the content of
Joanne Lockwood: emotion intelligence is around being self aware. Actually, someone says to
Joanne Lockwood: you, tell me about your communication style. Tell me about this. Tell me
Joanne Lockwood: about it. Most people go, I've never really thought about it, but now you've asked,
Joanne Lockwood: da da da da da. And then suddenly you start to understand more about
Joanne Lockwood: who you are and what makes you happy, what makes you sad, how much you
Joanne Lockwood: tick that you may not even consider without being challenged or
Joanne Lockwood: asked to describe it. Yeah. And you mentioned emotional
Emma Parnell: intelligence, which I think is another really key aspect
Emma Parnell: of, organizations, and, you know, learning
Emma Parnell: and development. I'll talk about it and write about it and do courses on it,
Emma Parnell: and it's it's massively important. And I think that subject
Emma Parnell: on its own has grown legs, so a lot more
Emma Parnell: people are aware of emotional intelligence and what it means and
Emma Parnell: how to use it. And, again, it just creates a more
Emma Parnell: inclusive environment if particularly
Emma Parnell: management are emotionally intelligent and empathetic
Emma Parnell: and can appreciate listening to other people
Emma Parnell: rather than making assumptions about things and using
Emma Parnell: emotional intelligence to ensure that they treat everybody
Emma Parnell: as individuals and not just a blanket view of how
Emma Parnell: to manage people, for example. And that, you know, managers
Emma Parnell: managers come under a lot of stress, I think, and a lot of responsibility,
Emma Parnell: around trying to be all things to all people and
Emma Parnell: try to be different. You know, everybody expects their manager to
Emma Parnell: understand them and and, and treat them as an individual. And
Emma Parnell: if you've got, you know, a lot of people to manage, that could be quite
Emma Parnell: a hard thing to do. But emotional intelligence
Emma Parnell: is, is an interesting topic
Emma Parnell: area because it's important, but not
Emma Parnell: everybody has it. So what
Emma Parnell: do you do with people who perhaps who don't have a
Emma Parnell: well developed emotion intelligence, but are actually in a
Emma Parnell: role where they need to be more
Emma Parnell: inclined in that way. It's it's can be quite a difficult thing to
Emma Parnell: to overcome. No. We we called this, episode, for
Joanne Lockwood: burnout to brilliance, and you have your own burnout journey. Do
Joanne Lockwood: you wanna just if you don't mind sharing, tell us tell
Joanne Lockwood: us that story. Yeah. Absolutely. I,
Emma Parnell: I discovered that I was going through burnout in, October of
Emma Parnell: last year. And what kind of led
Emma Parnell: me to that point was that I had started a really,
Emma Parnell: really great job. Just as I was so excited for
Emma Parnell: it. But, there'd been some
Emma Parnell: events leading up prior to that I hadn't really dealt with,
Emma Parnell: and I hadn't been looking after myself very well. So when I went into
Emma Parnell: this new job, I actually found myself myself almost paralyzed,
Emma Parnell: almost incapable of doing it. And I was really stressed out and
Emma Parnell: really unhappy, very emotional, cried a lot. Don't
Emma Parnell: mind admitting there was a lot of tears and stress, and I just
Emma Parnell: felt incapable of doing the job I'd been hired
Emma Parnell: for. And I didn't know why. So it was a little bit like
Emma Parnell: an out of body experience in the sense that I could, I could almost see
Emma Parnell: myself looking down on me at my desk thinking, why
Emma Parnell: aren't you doing the things you need to do? What's stopping you? What is going
Emma Parnell: on? And in, in the end, I resigned from that
Emma Parnell: role because I just didn't know what on earth was going
Emma Parnell: on. And, shortly after,
Emma Parnell: resigning, I did some reading around how I was
Emma Parnell: feeling, and it became very obvious, certainly to
Emma Parnell: me then that, burnout, is
Emma Parnell: what I was experiencing. And I'm still
Emma Parnell: recovering from that now. And it forced me
Emma Parnell: to examine
Emma Parnell: my, my working life. I think my whole working
Emma Parnell: life, certainly the last 20 years of my life.
Emma Parnell: How had it come to this? How had this happened? Because I'm an L and
Emma Parnell: D professional and I know about burnout. I've written courses on
Emma Parnell: burnout. I've even done a podcast on it with a psychologist.
Emma Parnell: So how is this? How, how have I let this happen? And it
Emma Parnell: took a lot of searching through how I
Emma Parnell: live my life to figure out that I had caused
Emma Parnell: burnout. Because initially I was like, it was, you know,
Emma Parnell: various other things that happened and they were certainly contributing factors.
Emma Parnell: But actually, I had caused burnout. And that was
Emma Parnell: a really big realization for me, and it forced me
Emma Parnell: to rethink everything from, you know, nutrition,
Emma Parnell: exercise, boundaries, all sorts of things
Emma Parnell: just has kinda came to the surface, and I had to address each one of
Emma Parnell: them in turn and figure out how I was gonna do things differently so
Emma Parnell: that I didn't end up burnt out again. And
Emma Parnell: self care was the biggest problem, really. And
Emma Parnell: I thought self care was the selfish thing.
Emma Parnell: So I always put me to the back of the queue, and then
Emma Parnell: I discovered actually that self care is not selfish at
Emma Parnell: all. In fact, it's massively important. Did you
Joanne Lockwood: find yourself just grabbing more and more
Joanne Lockwood: things and piling responsibilities and
Joanne Lockwood: and stuff on top of yourself? And with this feeling that if I don't do
Joanne Lockwood: it, nobody will. I've gotta be seen as competent. I've gotta be seen as
Joanne Lockwood: okay. But all these things, if I do if I if I if I don't
Joanne Lockwood: do everything, I I feel kind of incapable
Joanne Lockwood: myself. You know, it's imposter syndrome, the covering up, and those is that what you
Joanne Lockwood: become sort of this time on things? Absolutely.
Emma Parnell: All of those things and more. And that's
Emma Parnell: that's been a real discover voyage of discovery for me,
Emma Parnell: actually, because I had to figure out why I
Emma Parnell: believed that I had to be brilliant at everything,
Emma Parnell: perfect to everything, or else I was going to be letting people
Emma Parnell: down or I would be seen as a failure.
Emma Parnell: And what I discovered, is that
Emma Parnell: I had set those perceptions. I believe
Emma Parnell: that's what people thought of me when in actual fact, they had never said that
Emma Parnell: to me. Nobody's ever sat me down and said, well, you better be perfect
Emma Parnell: or else. But you set, you impose those things
Emma Parnell: on yourself. And that's why
Emma Parnell: I, you know, burnout is self inflicted in
Emma Parnell: my case. I don't know if in everybody's case, but in my case, it
Emma Parnell: was because I had, yeah, not set
Emma Parnell: boundaries and had this perception that I had to be perfect
Emma Parnell: at everything or somebody was going to find me out and think I was a
Emma Parnell: fraud or, you know, which is ridiculous because I was none of
Emma Parnell: those things. But I worried about that
Emma Parnell: and worried about it too much. And yeah, believed
Emma Parnell: that other people needed me to be sir a certain way or be a certain
Emma Parnell: thing when they'd never said that to me. It was just
Emma Parnell: me that was doing that. Yeah. I I've had an
Joanne Lockwood: example recently where I was leading a team,
Joanne Lockwood: and I was a bit concerned that one of the team members were becoming
Joanne Lockwood: very agitated, very kind of angsty, and sort of
Joanne Lockwood: sparky, and it was difficult to get hold of them. And and then when you're
Joanne Lockwood: talking to them, I haven't got time for that. I can't do this. And you
Joanne Lockwood: you criticize well, criticize the wrong word. Give feedback
Joanne Lockwood: or offer a different way of perspectives that I haven't got time to do this.
Joanne Lockwood: I haven't got time. They said, well, hang on a minute. What are you doing
Joanne Lockwood: then? And they started to talk about what they were doing. I said, okay.
Joanne Lockwood: Everything you're doing is absolutely fantastic and really, really wonderful,
Joanne Lockwood: but not that important in the scale of things. Really, you should be doing
Joanne Lockwood: a bit more a, b, and c, not d, e, and f. And and they're
Joanne Lockwood: putting all their energy into d, e, and f. And a, b, and c, which
Joanne Lockwood: is the core metrics of what they're being reevaluated on, is what's
Joanne Lockwood: failing. And it's really hard to navigate that conversation because
Joanne Lockwood: what you don't wanna do is demotivate somebody from this high pedestal of
Joanne Lockwood: I'm covering everybody here. If it wasn't for me, we'd all fall apart.
Joanne Lockwood: I've got everything here. There's this other lady I was I was mentoring,
Joanne Lockwood: and she had this similar role where she felt like the business the business don't
Joanne Lockwood: see me. They're not they're not valuing my position. If I'm not here, then who's
Joanne Lockwood: still gonna do that? And then they were made redundant. And they said,
Joanne Lockwood: the hell can they possibly they just don't understand what I do. And
Joanne Lockwood: without saying so, I I thought I thought, well, actually, you don't understand what
Joanne Lockwood: they want you to do. And maybe that's why you've been very redundant because you're
Joanne Lockwood: actually delivering on what matters to the business. Regardless of
Joanne Lockwood: whether you think it's right or not, the business doesn't value you because you're not
Joanne Lockwood: delivering what they need. So and that's what happens in burnout. You get so
Joanne Lockwood: transfixed on your belief of good and not everybody else's.
Emma Parnell: Absolutely right. That's so that's scarily
Emma Parnell: correct. And it's, yeah, you, you just, you lose
Emma Parnell: yourself. When you go through burnout, you completely
Emma Parnell: lose yourself and you don't recognize your behaviors.
Emma Parnell: And it's, it's really scary actually
Emma Parnell: burnout because you become really different to the person
Emma Parnell: you're used to being and the capable person you're used to being and
Emma Parnell: the problem solver that you're used to being. And all of those things that
Emma Parnell: people see you being, I almost said expect you to be, but
Emma Parnell: again, they don't expect you to be that you've set that expectation, not
Emma Parnell: them. But, you know, I was a carer for, a wonderful friend of
Emma Parnell: mine for 7 years, and she passed away shortly before I started
Emma Parnell: this new job. And I thought,
Emma Parnell: okay, I'm gonna have more time on my hands to do this job because it
Emma Parnell: was a big role that I'd taken on. But actually, I hadn't
Emma Parnell: even thought about grieving or how to deal with that. I
Emma Parnell: organized a funeral, you know, I've looked after her estate
Emma Parnell: and, you know, paid bills and contacted people and done all those
Emma Parnell: things that people have to do. But I was just drowning in it, and I
Emma Parnell: wasn't prepared to accept initially what
Emma Parnell: was going on until I had to resign.
Emma Parnell: And then I had no choice but to accept
Emma Parnell: and dive into it and go, right. How has this happened? How
Emma Parnell: do I make sure it doesn't happen to me again? And, you know,
Emma Parnell: I went to my GP because it's important to get help when you're
Emma Parnell: going through this. And it turns out that I'm severely anemic, which
Emma Parnell: had probably caused 3 quarters of what was actually going on.
Emma Parnell: Because, you know, I wasn't well, essentially. You know, my body
Emma Parnell: wasn't fit enough. My mind wasn't fit enough to be able
Emma Parnell: to function anymore. And it just forces you to reevaluate and
Emma Parnell: reset. But for me, you know, maybe maybe it's a bit of a gift actually
Emma Parnell: when that happens, because it is your body's way of forcing
Emma Parnell: you to stop. Because there are other ways your body could force you
Emma Parnell: to stop, and you don't want those things to happen. So
Emma Parnell: listen to your body and listen before
Emma Parnell: burnout gets to you. You know, if something's different about
Emma Parnell: you, you're feeling different, just explore that because,
Emma Parnell: yeah, you don't wanna, you don't mind that road.
Joanne Lockwood: And without sounding morbid or or or disrespectful, if you drop
Joanne Lockwood: down dead or you you throw your toys at the pram or walk off and
Joanne Lockwood: not come back, we carry on without you. We figure it out.
Emma Parnell: Precisely. Yeah. Yeah. You're fact that you you may believe you're the essential
Joanne Lockwood: cog in the entire machine holding the waste of the world up. Right. Actually,
Joanne Lockwood: if people don't perceive you in that way, they'll just adapt around you when you're
Joanne Lockwood: not there. Yeah. It's very true. And at the end of the day,
Emma Parnell: you owe it to yourself to care for yourself. And that's
Emma Parnell: where my recovery started, is caring for myself
Emma Parnell: and remind reminding myself that it's not selfish. It's
Emma Parnell: essential. And so I live differently now. You know,
Emma Parnell: I practice gratitude and just spend a little bit of time
Emma Parnell: every day going, you know, thanks for today. And it
Emma Parnell: might not have been the best day of the week, but still
Emma Parnell: breathing. And, you know, still got people around me who love me
Emma Parnell: and care for me. So, you know, there's there's always
Emma Parnell: there's always a little something somewhere to be grateful for. So I
Emma Parnell: spend a bit of time doing things like that and just, you know, reminding
Emma Parnell: myself that, you know, work is not the be all and end
Emma Parnell: all. Yeah. But it's so we forget, isn't it?
Joanne Lockwood: So we forget. And also the, yeah, the the other side of that is
Joanne Lockwood: is is being a partner, wife, mother, father,
Joanne Lockwood: or whatever your home role is. You can also take on the weight of the
Joanne Lockwood: world in your social situations. You know, you're in a
Joanne Lockwood: club, you're in society, you're in a friend's group. You're the one that always organizes
Joanne Lockwood: it. You're the one that books the tape. You're the one that sorts out the
Joanne Lockwood: taxis. And suddenly, you're the one that's not actually enjoying everything. You're
Joanne Lockwood: just becoming the the mother hen, fucking and making sure everybody else is
Joanne Lockwood: okay. Yeah. So we gotta be careful. We're not we're not swapping work burnout,
Joanne Lockwood: social burnout, and family burnout. They all mess together,
Joanne Lockwood: don't they? Yeah. And this and this, for me, I think, comes back to setting
Emma Parnell: boundaries. You know, it's great to support people and be the
Emma Parnell: mother hen sometimes, but you don't have to be it all the time. And if
Emma Parnell: you don't want to be it, then tell people, tell your friends, actually, do you
Emma Parnell: know what? Can you reorganize the taxi this time? You know,
Emma Parnell: just just set boundaries and just, and just tell people how you
Emma Parnell: feel. Because once people realize most people,
Emma Parnell: kind people are gonna go, oh god. Okay. Sorry about that. Yeah. That's, you know,
Emma Parnell: that's fine. No problem. Of course. Yeah. You know? But you
Emma Parnell: but you don't. A lot of the time, you just keep it in. And that's,
Emma Parnell: you know, that's where it can go a little bit wrong, I think. It's for
Emma Parnell: me. Yeah. Certain person I mean, it sounds like you've got a similar personality to
Joanne Lockwood: the one we might think about here is, you become you feel like you've got
Joanne Lockwood: this weight of expectation. People put you in a box. This is how
Joanne Lockwood: I have to behave. I have to be here, there. And sometimes
Joanne Lockwood: I I realized when I put into those sort of modes where you end up
Joanne Lockwood: doing everything, you can actually walk away very slowly. Just
Joanne Lockwood: step back occasionally, not step forward
Joanne Lockwood: first, lean away, and and see who else would pick it up.
Joanne Lockwood: And then, actually, you can you can sort of sometimes hate yourself. I
Joanne Lockwood: don't wanna do that. I don't wanna do that. Honestly, I I could say no.
Joanne Lockwood: Wow. Because I said, no, it didn't matter. It's liberating when you do.
Emma Parnell: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Maybe some
Joanne Lockwood: of that comes with age. You know, I'm I've just turned 60. I I keep
Joanne Lockwood: saying I don't know how that happened. You know, I was 2021 a minute, and
Joanne Lockwood: then something else, 60. I think maybe maybe maturity and age, you
Joanne Lockwood: you you start to realize that there are different things that are important in
Joanne Lockwood: life. And I've I've I've moved from a a
Joanne Lockwood: environment where I was always thinking about gluttony, wanting more, bigger, faster,
Joanne Lockwood: stronger, the best, this, that, and the other. Not to becoming lazy,
Joanne Lockwood: but but focusing on sufficiency. What do I need to survive? What's
Joanne Lockwood: my contribution to keep this alive, to keep this moving? And
Joanne Lockwood: not worrying about burning the midnight or candle at
Joanne Lockwood: both ends, all those metaphors and analogies. I'm actually thinking, what makes
Joanne Lockwood: me happier? And, yeah, it it's liberating, I
Joanne Lockwood: think. Yeah. You're very right. And that's that's why I say
Emma Parnell: burnout for me. It's actually been a gift, a weird gift, but a
Emma Parnell: gift nonetheless. And it has made me rethink all of those things, all of
Emma Parnell: the priorities. And I'm and I'm doing really well now, and I'm
Emma Parnell: excited, you know, for my next venture. And,
Emma Parnell: I think I think one thing I can take or several things I
Emma Parnell: can take back to a learning and development role as well is that I
Emma Parnell: can share my experience now. So I can deliver
Emma Parnell: training about how to avoid burnout or
Emma Parnell: how to get through it and recover from it because I've lived
Emma Parnell: it and I'm living it. And that's, you know,
Emma Parnell: there's a silver lining. Right? So, you know, if I can teach
Emma Parnell: or help one other person understand how to avoid burnout
Emma Parnell: or how to get through it, then that for me is great. And
Joanne Lockwood: isn't that a great mantra to to change the life or
Joanne Lockwood: influence the life of one other person? And we because, again,
Joanne Lockwood: this burnout challenge is you wanna change the world. You wanna fix everything.
Joanne Lockwood: But, actually, if I can if I can fix me, I can make me a
Joanne Lockwood: better person and help influence other people around me to be better people.
Joanne Lockwood: That's my mission, Billy. Can't change everybody, but I can change me.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Yeah. That's so important. So I we were
Joanne Lockwood: talking earlier about victims of crime and how
Joanne Lockwood: people who are are are sometimes coerced
Joanne Lockwood: into committing crimes. And it may not be there's more than one dynamic
Joanne Lockwood: going on there, not just the criminal intent, but also the the victim intent as
Joanne Lockwood: well. Well, I I do I do a lot of work with a
Joanne Lockwood: recruitment firm who focus on getting people who they would call radicals
Joanne Lockwood: back into the workplace. Because there's still a lot of stigma
Joanne Lockwood: around people who are previously incarcerated, previously
Joanne Lockwood: committed crimes in the employment process. Have people
Joanne Lockwood: there's a people are risk adverse about or if I take
Joanne Lockwood: on you, maybe you'll embezzlement, you'll defraud me or whatever
Joanne Lockwood: or violence, whatever it may be. How can we
Joanne Lockwood: help people who have been through that process of the criminal
Joanne Lockwood: justice system, if you like, find better chance of employment?
Emma Parnell: I've never really thought about it like that before, but I think that one of
Emma Parnell: the things that's important is that even people who've been incarcerated
Emma Parnell: can have and do have skills. And if
Emma Parnell: somebody is remorseful, then the justice system know that
Emma Parnell: and will allow them to leave prison. And therefore, as a
Emma Parnell: society, however hard this might be, we have to
Emma Parnell: accept that they have served their time and that we want to focus
Emma Parnell: on what they've got to offer, and
Emma Parnell: understand that people want to move forward, and they need to be given the chance
Emma Parnell: to do so. Yeah. I I I would reflect on
Joanne Lockwood: the fact that most people
Joanne Lockwood: make a left turn instead of a right turn. There's there's a pivotal moment in
Joanne Lockwood: their life, and that is often, as you as you said
Joanne Lockwood: earlier, about being coerced, being at a toxic environment,
Joanne Lockwood: being just with the wrong people. And
Joanne Lockwood: it just you you have a personality type that says yes instead of no.
Joanne Lockwood: You've all as I say, you turn left and turn right. And a lot lot
Joanne Lockwood: of people end up in this pivotal situation where if you wind the clock right
Joanne Lockwood: back, and they had to make that decision again, they wouldn't make that same
Joanne Lockwood: decision. So it's recognizing how we can almost regress
Joanne Lockwood: people back to that point where they were hadn't committed to crime and then saying,
Joanne Lockwood: okay, how can we help you? At that point there, isn't it? Yeah. What would
Emma Parnell: you have done differently if you if you go back now? What would you do
Emma Parnell: differently? Yeah. And I think that if people can articulate that and
Emma Parnell: understand their actions and the consequences of their
Emma Parnell: actions, then that's rehabilitation. Right? That's getting
Emma Parnell: people back into a a state of mind where they're able to
Emma Parnell: to not commit crime and to make better decisions.
Joanne Lockwood: We're all one bad decision away from being
Joanne Lockwood: destitute and homeless and relationshipless. Having a drink in a
Joanne Lockwood: pub and getting in your car, one bad decision. It's it's not even premeditated
Joanne Lockwood: and Nice. Your life changes. You know, we've got we see teenagers on the news
Joanne Lockwood: who crash their cars with their friends in the back, and everybody's
Joanne Lockwood: life changes. Yeah. Hundreds of people affected. Split second.
Emma Parnell: Yep. Absolutely. So it's it's not I I think I think
Joanne Lockwood: when we're when we're working with organizations, we go back to the inclusion and
Joanne Lockwood: the, the thinking about it is not prejudging someone as bad. We're
Joanne Lockwood: we're giving people opportunity and seeing into the heart of of people
Joanne Lockwood: and creating opportunities for them to thrive in in the way
Joanne Lockwood: they can. Yeah. Yeah. And everybody deserves
Emma Parnell: a chance. Yeah. They do. Yeah. Everyone deserves I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: I guess there's only so many chances before you have to give different
Joanne Lockwood: chances. Everyone needs opportunity and
Joanne Lockwood: coaching and mentoring, shown up shown different opportunities. Yeah. Ever.
Joanne Lockwood: It's been absolutely fascinating chatting to you. We've been probably, we've been nattering for a
Joanne Lockwood: while over an hour now and plus I know. Been an agreement before. How do
Joanne Lockwood: people get a hold of you? I mean, tell us about you got a podcast.
Joanne Lockwood: I mean, tell us about your podcast. Yeah. It's called Let's Talk About
Emma Parnell: Burnout. And I'm really just sharing my whole
Emma Parnell: experience, how I realized it had happened to me,
Emma Parnell: the things that have happened over the last 20 years that have led to that
Emma Parnell: point, and episodes on recovery. So,
Emma Parnell: you know, there's a lot of hope in it. There's a lot of joy in
Emma Parnell: it as we go through it. But, it's really important for people
Emma Parnell: to take a good, long, hard look inside yourself when you go through burnout
Emma Parnell: because you need to you need to examine yourself. So I'm
Emma Parnell: just, yeah, just really sharing what I've done, how I've done it,
Emma Parnell: in the hope that I can help people who are who are going through it
Emma Parnell: or help perhaps even prevent it. And it's fascinating. And,
Emma Parnell: if anybody wants to get in touch, then they can get a hold of me.
Emma Parnell: I'm on LinkedIn and, my email as well, emma.parnellone@virginmedia.com.
Emma Parnell: And I'm inviting people to come and talk and share their stories too because there's
Emma Parnell: nothing better than a two way conversation. And, yeah. And I'm
Emma Parnell: looking forward to, inviting some experts along as well to
Emma Parnell: give some really great advice on recovery. That
Joanne Lockwood: sounds fascinating. Maybe I'll, I'll drop you a line because, I've got
Joanne Lockwood: some some burnout stories and some pivotal moments in
Joanne Lockwood: my life that, have gone I've I've turned left instead of right or right instead
Joanne Lockwood: of left sometimes. I've been a a bad girl on a couple of occasions in
Joanne Lockwood: my life. But you you can't I don't think you get to the age 60
Joanne Lockwood: without, making a few wrong turns here or there. Indeed. And I would I
Emma Parnell: would love for us to talk again, Jo. I think we both got a lot
Emma Parnell: a lot to, to go through and and discuss. I'm, you know, I'm
Emma Parnell: 53 now, so I've I've lived some bits and pieces as well. But,
Emma Parnell: yeah, it'd be lovely to to talk again sometime. Excellent. Well, I've put
Joanne Lockwood: all the details of the podcast and your contact on LinkedIn stuff in the show
Joanne Lockwood: notes for people to check out. And, yeah, if you're
Joanne Lockwood: listening, please give Emma a shout and, say hi. Thank you.
Emma Parnell: Great. Thank you so much, John. It's been brilliant to talk to you today.
Joanne Lockwood: A pleasure. Bye. As we bring this
Joanne Lockwood: conversation to a close, I want to express my deepest
Joanne Lockwood: gratitude to you, our listener, for lending your
Joanne Lockwood: ear and heart to the cause of inclusion.
Joanne Lockwood: Today's discussion struck a chord. Consider subscribing to
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Joanne Lockwood: is Joanne Lockwood signing off for the promise to return
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Joanne Lockwood: one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.