Pippa O'Brien: Foreign.
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? Remember, everyone
Joanne Lockwood: not only belongs, but thrives. You're not alone.
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Joanne Lockwood: the status quo and share stories that resonate
Joanne Lockwood: deep within. Ready to dive in? Whether you're
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Joanne Lockwood: connect, reflect and inspire action together.
Joanne Lockwood: Don't forget, you can be part of the conversation too. Reach out
Joanne Lockwood: to 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 Bites.
Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 175
Joanne Lockwood: with the title Brave Learning, Bold Leadership.
Joanne Lockwood: And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Pippa O'Brien.
Joanne Lockwood: Pippa is a learning innovator and founder of Proda,
Joanne Lockwood: transforming how frontline teams experience inclusion through immersive
Joanne Lockwood: drama and authentic conversations. And when I asked Pippa
Joanne Lockwood: to describe her superpower, she said, it is turning everyday people
Joanne Lockwood: into empowered learners to through real world storytelling.
Joanne Lockwood: Hello, Pippa. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for
Pippa O'Brien: inviting me. I feel really privileged and honoured to be the
Pippa O'Brien: guest on episode 175. I'm in very safe
Pippa O'Brien: hands, clearly. And looking at your nails, I think
Pippa O'Brien: beautifully manicured. Safe hands as well. Mine are under the table
Pippa O'Brien: for a reason. Not so manicured. Right? Beautiful.
Joanne Lockwood: Oh, thank you. We met probably 18 months
Joanne Lockwood: ago. Must be to work with Tallis, wasn't it? We did a
Joanne Lockwood: storytelling. I was one of your protagonists in a
Joanne Lockwood: story, wasn't I? Yes, definitely. And then we took that input
Pippa O'Brien: and we used it for some drama where we
Pippa O'Brien: showcased what allyship should and could look like and
Pippa O'Brien: involved the learners in feeding lines to the
Pippa O'Brien: actors so they could be really fully immersed and involved in
Pippa O'Brien: the story as well. Well, yeah, and it was all around transgender
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion, if I remember rightly, with. And my wife Marie was involved and we. We
Joanne Lockwood: did a kind of a dual perspective on workplace and how she
Joanne Lockwood: felt and how I felt, which is quite powerful, wasn't it? It was really powerful.
Pippa O'Brien: And I think one of the lessons that that organisation took from that
Pippa O'Brien: session was, yes, it could be transgender, it could be
Pippa O'Brien: any other situation that somebody is facing in their life
Pippa O'Brien: and that there's no playbook out there that covers every possible
Pippa O'Brien: scenario that could be going on. In somebody's life. And actually the
Pippa O'Brien: using your and Marie's story, if you like, to set the
Pippa O'Brien: scene was so powerful and really thought provoking.
Pippa O'Brien: And then in the drama we flipped it and we had
Pippa O'Brien: the actor from memory. The scenario that I'd written was a
Pippa O'Brien: gay couple where one of the members of
Pippa O'Brien: the one partner in that partnership was wanted to transition.
Pippa O'Brien: That was the way that we flipped it. And actually
Pippa O'Brien: you never know what's going on for people. People show up for work,
Pippa O'Brien: they do the best that they can in the moment and what's under
Pippa O'Brien: the surface is like this massive iceberg that you just don't see. But it
Pippa O'Brien: comes out through people's behaviour. It's what they say and what they do that
Pippa O'Brien: gives clues to what's going on to the surface. And quite often that's the
Pippa O'Brien: time when somebody needs to reach out and say, when what's happening? Tell me.
Pippa O'Brien: And doing so from a position of
Pippa O'Brien: where there's trust between the two people and the leadership
Pippa O'Brien: behaviour then is really around not just trust, but the
Pippa O'Brien: integrity piece as well. Like, I need you to
Pippa O'Brien: trust me and I'm going to trust you, but actually I need
Pippa O'Brien: you to treat that information with integrity and
Pippa O'Brien: be there to support me as a person. Really, that's. That's kind of the
Pippa O'Brien: message that I wanted to come out from that session. Because we hear
Joanne Lockwood: that lived experience talking and stories are
Joanne Lockwood: really, really powerful. And they are, yeah. But in my experience,
Joanne Lockwood: the learning doesn't always occur. I. I don't go
Joanne Lockwood: and watch a Netflix or go to the cinema and hear these powerful
Joanne Lockwood: stories, whether they're real drama or
Joanne Lockwood: interpreted, and always take learning away from them. So
Joanne Lockwood: what we're going to try and do is take a two dimensional story
Joanne Lockwood: and create rumination, creating
Joanne Lockwood: firing points in our brains. And that's where the experiential,
Joanne Lockwood: the storytelling with interaction kicks in, isn't it? Totally.
Pippa O'Brien: And that's really what we've done with a programme that we've been running
Pippa O'Brien: quite recently. And this is, this is
Pippa O'Brien: something that was really a little bit of a. Well, I'm going to
Pippa O'Brien: suggest this, this is a bit out there, if you know what I mean. And
Pippa O'Brien: I was really expecting the client to come back and go, oh, no, that's. Well,
Pippa O'Brien: we couldn't do that. And actually they didn't. They went, okay, let's do it. And
Pippa O'Brien: I was okay. So a bit surprised, but also really honoured
Pippa O'Brien: that they had trusted me to do a great job for them. And
Pippa O'Brien: not just me, but my whole team, the whole team here at Poda and
Pippa O'Brien: though their population and workforce,
Pippa O'Brien: although there's a number of them who are really highly
Pippa O'Brien: qualified professionals, the bulk of their workforce is
Pippa O'Brien: people who are really skilled but they're manual workers. So they do
Pippa O'Brien: manual work outside in all weathers. That's pretty
Pippa O'Brien: unpleasant at times. I'll be honest. The average reading age
Pippa O'Brien: for a lot of these operatives is 11.
Pippa O'Brien: Age 11. So when I was designing something
Pippa O'Brien: I had to be really mindful that
Pippa O'Brien: for whatever reason they had this lower literacy
Pippa O'Brien: level but that could be caused by a number of different reasons. But
Pippa O'Brien: whatever for, but for whatever reason school had failed them
Pippa O'Brien: in some way or another or education had failed them. So
Pippa O'Brien: putting them in a classroom environment with. And here's slide
Pippa O'Brien: 199 which just describes the
Pippa O'Brien: Equality act of 2010 probably wasn't going to be
Pippa O'Brien: the real way forward for this audience. So what we
Pippa O'Brien: designed was a programme where from the
Pippa O'Brien: moment they arrived they were immersed into a real life
Pippa O'Brien: drama, if you want to call it that. We had the characters in the drama
Pippa O'Brien: welcoming them. Oh dear, my words got a little bit mumbled up there,
Pippa O'Brien: mumbled up, inviting them and welcoming them
Pippa O'Brien: and I still can't say it, welcoming them to the session and
Pippa O'Brien: then allowing them to observe a meeting where
Pippa O'Brien: there was some extremes of opinion being expressed.
Pippa O'Brien: Okay. And what we asked them to do was just listen and then talk about
Pippa O'Brien: it afterwards. Okay, so what did they notice? What behaviours
Pippa O'Brien: did they notice, what words did they hear and what did that mean for them?
Pippa O'Brien: So how did that resonate with them and their own personal experiences.
Pippa O'Brien: So the lived experiences then came from within the room
Pippa O'Brien: as much as anything. And we, we really wanted people
Pippa O'Brien: who were maybe of a generation,
Pippa O'Brien: I think Gen Z, I think is a, is a, is one way to describe
Pippa O'Brien: them, to talk about how people have made assumptions about them and what they were
Pippa O'Brien: capable of based on their age. We wanted people to talk about gender. We
Pippa O'Brien: wanted to talk about people who had and really explore a
Pippa O'Brien: whole range of labels really which that people give other
Pippa O'Brien: people that are really, that are really about bias, aren't they? You know,
Pippa O'Brien: there's, there's nothing else to describe it. Oh, there are this, there are that, that's
Pippa O'Brien: a label and actually the label is the bias and it can be positive or
Pippa O'Brien: not so positive. But equally there's something here around
Pippa O'Brien: challenging those biases and really reminding people that
Pippa O'Brien: actually as individuals and as human beings we're always looking
Pippa O'Brien: to confirm biases unless we actively are challenged on them.
Pippa O'Brien: So the data that sticks is the data that confirms the
Pippa O'Brien: biases that we already hold and the opinions that we already hold. So. And
Pippa O'Brien: that's kind of linked to also. And then with these people we were talking about,
Pippa O'Brien: well why is that then? And they were talking about, well, it's social media in
Pippa O'Brien: it. You know, we had some great discussions around social media,
Pippa O'Brien: the role of the press and then moving into allyship and how
Pippa O'Brien: to challenge and how to challenge up. And we used our drama team
Pippa O'Brien: to role play like a more senior member of staff and then how they could
Pippa O'Brien: challenge that in a way that was going to be non threatening for
Pippa O'Brien: them individually. And we had some great outcomes from that. Really great,
Pippa O'Brien: some really great conversations. You've got some people that go, no, he's right,
Pippa O'Brien: he's wrong and that was it. But everybody else in the room was saying, you
Pippa O'Brien: don't think that, do you? Well, yes, I do. And that's great because you're bringing
Pippa O'Brien: it all out into the open in one go. The only way we could do
Pippa O'Brien: that was to create a really safe environment where people felt they could
Pippa O'Brien: genuinely say what they believe
Pippa O'Brien: and to be prepared to be challenged by other people in a way that was
Pippa O'Brien: appropriate. Okay, yeah, we're really pleased with that one. It
Pippa O'Brien: landed well. And you can see from my face that we actually really
Pippa O'Brien: enjoy doing it as well. And I'm doing it this week for a company down
Pippa O'Brien: in Winchester. So I'm quite excited about that. It's one that I love doing.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I found, you know, I've run a lot of training sessions on inclusive recruitment.
Joanne Lockwood: Inclusive best practise, whatever it may be. And sometimes you walk into the room and
Joanne Lockwood: you can see people with their arms folded. You know, I don't want to be
Joanne Lockwood: here. This is all a bunch of woke nonsense. And they have
Joanne Lockwood: that face on, don't they? And then you do the introductions in a room. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: And I said, what are you hoping to get out today? And this person's always
Joanne Lockwood: kind of making some sort of remark about whatever because I have to be
Joanne Lockwood: whatever and. But I find that those people do two
Joanne Lockwood: things. One is they enlighten the rest of the room as to the importance
Joanne Lockwood: of why we're here today. Because they're doing my job there. They're saying, well, I
Joanne Lockwood: haven't got to say the anti pushback on this. There's already that person's in the
Joanne Lockwood: room. But the second thing that happens is this person becomes
Joanne Lockwood: enlightened. Their change in them is far
Joanne Lockwood: greater than the change in people who actually get it. So I always
Joanne Lockwood: come at the end of it. I've had these people come out to me or
Joanne Lockwood: at the end of the day, so what have we got out of it? Oh,
Joanne Lockwood: I've seen a new perspective and I never really thought about this. And it's like,
Joanne Lockwood: you think, wow, I've made a
Joanne Lockwood: immeasurable difference in this one person. My job is done.
Joanne Lockwood: Everybody else got it already. All I've done is nudge them a bit. This person
Joanne Lockwood: here went from being uninformed to being embracing it. You think,
Joanne Lockwood: wow, how powerful is that? And I think that's what frustrates me.
Joanne Lockwood: Sometimes when we have these conversations, we always end up with the echo
Joanne Lockwood: chamber in the room, not the people who should be in the room, but who
Joanne Lockwood: aren't. Do you find it's easier to get people in the room
Joanne Lockwood: when you're doing the storytelling and this is role playing, than it would be through
Joanne Lockwood: traditional training? 100%. And that's regardless
Pippa O'Brien: of the organisational level, if you
Pippa O'Brien: like, it's just as powerful at exec level.
Pippa O'Brien: For example, if we were looking at a DEI programme,
Pippa O'Brien: then we would start at the top, obviously, and really explore,
Pippa O'Brien: well, why is this so important?
Pippa O'Brien: But with that team, and then obviously bring in
Pippa O'Brien: some data at that point. But also, more importantly, do something around
Pippa O'Brien: allyship, because that's their role, that's what they should be doing every single day,
Pippa O'Brien: is being the ally for people in their organisation
Pippa O'Brien: and making sure that their organisations reflect the communities
Pippa O'Brien: and the organisations that they serve as well. And when I see so
Pippa O'Brien: many people who. I'm going to use example here of back to the
Pippa O'Brien: office, you know, going back to the office and you hear so many people
Pippa O'Brien: at exec level that are saying, everybody should work from the office. This
Pippa O'Brien: is, you know, the people. And actually, when you look at them, there's a certain
Pippa O'Brien: demographic that says that, and typically they would be
Pippa O'Brien: male, white, probably over 50
Pippa O'Brien: now. Yes. For them, I'm sure that going to the office is
Pippa O'Brien: structure, it's routine. And then when they get home, there's
Pippa O'Brien: somebody who's made sure that their shirts are ready for the next day, that they've
Pippa O'Brien: got everything that they need to be for them to be successful, if
Pippa O'Brien: you see what I mean, on the. Table, the kids are looked after. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: The cat has been fed everything else. Yeah, yeah, you're right. And
Pippa O'Brien: when you. When you look at people who, during
Pippa O'Brien: lockdown, who were loving it, were the people who had that flexibility
Pippa O'Brien: of being able to. To do a bit of work, look after
Pippa O'Brien: their children, be the best person that they could be for their families, do things
Pippa O'Brien: like the school pickup and the things that they just didn't have a chance to
Pippa O'Brien: do. And I did a bit of research for a company at the back end
Pippa O'Brien: of lockdown around whether going back to work was,
Pippa O'Brien: was really the way to go, or whether they could actually consider
Pippa O'Brien: closing down some of their sites and going to a fully remote model, but
Pippa O'Brien: with some hubs where go for meetings, you know, face to face meetings
Pippa O'Brien: if needed. I ran some focus groups for them and
Pippa O'Brien: universally there was a demographic that was like,
Pippa O'Brien: this is brilliant, I love this. I can get up, I can do two hours
Pippa O'Brien: work, I get the kids packed, lunches in the bags, I get them to school,
Pippa O'Brien: I come back, I do more. And it's. For them, it was just what they've
Pippa O'Brien: always needed and just what they've always needed to be able
Pippa O'Brien: to be the best person that they can be at work and also
Pippa O'Brien: the best person that they can be for their family as well.
Pippa O'Brien: Surely that's what organisations need to
Pippa O'Brien: ensure is available, is people to have
Pippa O'Brien: the flexibility of what works for them, but also make sure that
Pippa O'Brien: they are. They know how to manage people in
Pippa O'Brien: a completely different environment. Because I think a lot of people tried to manage people
Pippa O'Brien: as they always had done from home and it didn't
Pippa O'Brien: work. So they've all got to come back to the office. Not what we do
Pippa O'Brien: needs to change, but. Or the way that we do this needs to change, but
Pippa O'Brien: let's just take away all the bits that work for a good
Pippa O'Brien: percentage of the workforce and impose bits that don't work, you know,
Pippa O'Brien: so it's like, for me, it's a real fundamental of
Pippa O'Brien: flexibility, is that you trust people to do a great job, you
Pippa O'Brien: explain the why and you're the leader that
Pippa O'Brien: they need in order to be the best that they can be. It's quite
Pippa O'Brien: simple in my opinion. Yeah. When
Joanne Lockwood: I was doing some events, some roundtable type discussions around
Joanne Lockwood: the time where we were just about to take our face masks off on
Joanne Lockwood: trains, you know, sort of that early stage, remember back in that time, back in
Joanne Lockwood: that history, and I remember that lots of big companies were trying to
Joanne Lockwood: sell their culture. We need to get you back in the office because we've got
Joanne Lockwood: our culture, we've got our way of talking, we've got our way of being,
Joanne Lockwood: we've got a fantastic culture, we want to. I
Joanne Lockwood: took a step back and said, well, hang on a minute, what you're trying to
Joanne Lockwood: do me is exchange culture for commute is what you're saying.
Joanne Lockwood: You give me, I commute for you and then you give me a culture. And
Joanne Lockwood: I said, now, hang on a minute. I want my culture, like my pension.
Joanne Lockwood: It's a personal pension, I could take it anywhere. So when I leave you, I
Joanne Lockwood: take it with me and go somewhere else. So my personal culture, my family
Joanne Lockwood: culture, my community culture should be first. And
Joanne Lockwood: your culture is this something I borrow while I'm here. I have
Joanne Lockwood: to like it, I have to fit in with it. But I would rather you
Joanne Lockwood: encourage me to build community links, to co work in my local
Joanne Lockwood: community to have more family time so that my
Joanne Lockwood: culture is now my own. And we
Joanne Lockwood: meet because your culture and my culture meet. But don't tell
Joanne Lockwood: me that I have to have your culture because, yeah, you may
Joanne Lockwood: have this belief that your culture is amazing, but actually my family is
Joanne Lockwood: amazing, my friends are amazing, my hobbies
Joanne Lockwood: and I want that time back. I don't want to give you two and a
Joanne Lockwood: half hours of commute each direction because that's my time that
Joanne Lockwood: I'm giving you for free. 100%. I completely agree with that. And I
Pippa O'Brien: think that's where having values and actually within an
Pippa O'Brien: organisation can bridge that gap. Because if you
Pippa O'Brien: make values meaningful in people's daily behaviour
Pippa O'Brien: in an organisation, that's one way of bridging the gap between
Pippa O'Brien: the culture and like personal culture
Pippa O'Brien: and organisational culture, if you want to call it that, because it's making
Pippa O'Brien: sure that, for example, if you've got a
Pippa O'Brien: innovation as a value, which a lot of organisations
Pippa O'Brien: do, then if somebody asks a great idea, oh, I've got an idea, the
Pippa O'Brien: hand goes out and then you get, no, that's not going to work. Or really.
Pippa O'Brien: Or no, then it's. I would
Pippa O'Brien: liken that to that whack a mole game. You know, that you get in the
Pippa O'Brien: fun fair with the hammer and you get the little mole and you stick your
Pippa O'Brien: chin up like that, that's my mole impression for the morning. And then the
Pippa O'Brien: manager's there with a hammer, whacking it down. After a while, that mole's going to
Pippa O'Brien: go, I'm nice and warm and cosy in my hole. I'm not going to get
Pippa O'Brien: up because if I stick my head up, I'm going to get whacked on the
Pippa O'Brien: head with a hammer. So that whack a mole culture,
Pippa O'Brien: where people say, oh, we believe in innovation. No,
Pippa O'Brien: they don't. You've got. If somebody comes up with an idea, then you need to
Pippa O'Brien: give it the airtime, explore it. It might not work in that
Pippa O'Brien: circumstance, but you've got to be really clear with the person, why not? Rather
Pippa O'Brien: than just that dismissal piece because the one
Pippa O'Brien: idea that that little mole may have in the future, that could be the
Pippa O'Brien: salvation of whatever, that you're never going to hear it because they're never going to
Pippa O'Brien: tell you. And that's what I mean about living values and
Pippa O'Brien: bringing values to life. Yeah, it's not always a bad idea. Because
Joanne Lockwood: if you were to enlighten the person who came up with that thought that
Joanne Lockwood: didn't work for whatever reason as to the reasons why right
Joanne Lockwood: now it doesn't work, then they go, I get that now let me have
Joanne Lockwood: small thinking. Correct. Because one person's thought isn't always one
Joanne Lockwood: person's thought. A lot of people are often thinking the same thing. I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: I look at what the government do and think that's crazy. Why are they doing
Joanne Lockwood: that? I look at what's going on across the water in the States, I think
Joanne Lockwood: that's crazy why they're doing that. Maybe there's information, I don't
Joanne Lockwood: know, the media, the military,
Joanne Lockwood: there's data, there's awareness, there's briefings that politicians
Joanne Lockwood: have, there's big think tanks going on. And my
Joanne Lockwood: bias says I know better because I'm more intelligent, I'm cleverer. That's
Joanne Lockwood: not a bias I have. We all have that. So we're almost saying, well, that
Joanne Lockwood: they don't know what they're doing. They must be less intelligent than me.
Joanne Lockwood: But we've got to accept that they have some good ideas as well. That I
Joanne Lockwood: don't know is why they think that. And that's what I need to know if
Joanne Lockwood: they tell me. Actually, Joe, the reason we're doing this, the reason we're
Joanne Lockwood: invading that country and it looks to be a little bit one sided here, is
Joanne Lockwood: because there's some threat intelligence that we see that you
Joanne Lockwood: don't. Okay, now I get it. So
Joanne Lockwood: if we listen to people's ideas and dismissing them, we need to give them the
Joanne Lockwood: why. Because if you tell me the why, I can challenge your why with,
Joanne Lockwood: huh, how about this? And maybe that's what people don't want. They don't want the
Joanne Lockwood: debate, do they? They don't want the debate. And I think also there's this
Pippa O'Brien: I know better than you syndrome as well, which goes back to trust.
Pippa O'Brien: And I think, I think I know nothing about government, please,
Pippa O'Brien: but accept what I see and hear and read like everybody else.
Pippa O'Brien: But equally what I do know is I struggle to trust
Pippa O'Brien: people that don't do what they say they're going to do. And if,
Pippa O'Brien: if you want people to, to accept what you
Pippa O'Brien: say because you know facts and information that can't be revealed, whether
Pippa O'Brien: that's within an organisation or. Or nationally or
Pippa O'Brien: internationally. Globally. You have to prove that you are trustworthy
Pippa O'Brien: because why would you trust somebody that says one thing and then does something else?
Pippa O'Brien: Okay, so it's around building a culture that's based
Pippa O'Brien: on trust. And then people might not
Pippa O'Brien: like what you do. They may not fully understand the reasons,
Pippa O'Brien: but if they trust that you are a leader with integrity,
Pippa O'Brien: then they will go with it and they'll buy into it.
Joanne Lockwood: Because I think worse than being told there's a reason, I can't tell you.
Joanne Lockwood: It's like, oh, so I'm not worthy of
Joanne Lockwood: that. I'm aloof here. I've got stuff you don't
Joanne Lockwood: know. So I guess sometimes you can't be told that you don't know something
Joanne Lockwood: you don't know. It's trying to sell that, as you say in a trust.
Joanne Lockwood: I look at the government in opposition or the
Joanne Lockwood: potential government, all the politicians sit there going, making these
Joanne Lockwood: really wacky statements about, oh, yeah, we cut this, we do this and we do
Joanne Lockwood: that. When they get into power, they go, actually, now, now we've got the books
Joanne Lockwood: open, we see the data. Actually, we know we can't now, but we can't say
Joanne Lockwood: we didn't. Yeah, yeah, we can't tell. That's really difficult as well. And I
Pippa O'Brien: think often when you look at. When you observe, think,
Pippa O'Brien: particularly the UK Parliament, I
Pippa O'Brien: find it's not about debate, it's just about mudslinging
Pippa O'Brien: and almost playground behaviours as well, which I think devalues
Pippa O'Brien: the whole process. There's no. There's no structured debate. It's
Pippa O'Brien: just who can slag the other party off with the greatest
Pippa O'Brien: panache in the moment. You know, it's like, it's point scoring but
Pippa O'Brien: not real points, if. If you see what I mean, it's not about the topic,
Pippa O'Brien: it's about. It's about visibility.
Pippa O'Brien: That's my perception. Public school debate society of the past, isn't it?
Pippa O'Brien: Yeah, yeah, it is. And it's. And
Joanne Lockwood: I think our media don't help either. The media, the mainstream media, social
Joanne Lockwood: media, they like this polarisation because polarisation creates tribes.
Joanne Lockwood: Tribes create revenue and advertising and clicks and
Joanne Lockwood: discussions and people get fired up because unless we have emotion
Joanne Lockwood: attached to a thought, it doesn't happen, does it? You know, we have to.
Joanne Lockwood: Negative or positive emotions, they mean. He knows that negative emotions
Joanne Lockwood: are stronger than positive emotions. So it drives. It drives
Joanne Lockwood: engagement. This is it. And if you look at a technique, say, like transactional
Pippa O'Brien: analysis where you've got, you know, people that are behaving adult to adult, which is
Pippa O'Brien: rational, listening, giving and giving. It doesn't make for
Pippa O'Brien: great tv. Let's be fair. It's when you've got people who are acting
Pippa O'Brien: as like the critical parent with the finger out or where you've got
Pippa O'Brien: people who have been in child. I don't like this. That under foot stamping
Pippa O'Brien: that's what makes for good watching. Anything in the middle ground is just.
Pippa O'Brien: Is sensible, rational and maybe not so
Pippa O'Brien: appealing. Yeah, there's a couple of. An
Joanne Lockwood: author I quite enjoy reading is Ricker Bregman. He's
Joanne Lockwood: done two books that I really found inspiring. One is Utopia for Realists which is
Joanne Lockwood: a great read if you've not read it. Humankind.
Joanne Lockwood: Humankind is. It's about analysing the human being
Joanne Lockwood: and the human psyche. It really summed up the whole idea
Joanne Lockwood: of reality TV and what happens is in these scenarios, you know, who
Joanne Lockwood: wants to be. I'm sorry to get me out of here. Big Brother or Love
Joanne Lockwood: Island. What they found was these would be very
Joanne Lockwood: benign, very controlled. If you just put a
Joanne Lockwood: group of people in the room, they'll get on largely they'll get on, they'll have
Joanne Lockwood: a good time. They'll start forming little communes and Kumbaya and sitting around the
Joanne Lockwood: campfire. You say not great telly. So what they have to do is they have
Joanne Lockwood: to starve them. They have to put a. A grenade in there like a. A.
Joanne Lockwood: A rogue personality who's going to disrupt. They're gonna have to create a love interest,
Joanne Lockwood: a power base, create a. Create a leader who has power that
Joanne Lockwood: others don't like. Suddenly you've got. You've got this disrupted human
Joanne Lockwood: environment that creates great telly and then so they have to prod the bear
Joanne Lockwood: and the beast to make it. To make it interesting. Otherwise
Joanne Lockwood: people will just go so what we assume that people are
Joanne Lockwood: antagonistic and aggressive towards each other, but that's manufactured by the media.
Pippa O'Brien: Agree. And I think in most cases I think yes and
Pippa O'Brien: I think I would say that manufactured by the media. But I think
Pippa O'Brien: in face to face, 100% I agree. I think the challenge
Pippa O'Brien: comes now with social media where people say. Feel that they can
Pippa O'Brien: say all sorts of chisel, which is a technical term,
Pippa O'Brien: all sorts of chisel with. Under the COVID of. Of. Of being a
Pippa O'Brien: keyboard warrior and they don't have to actually sit in front of somebody
Pippa O'Brien: and say well I think this, that and the other because in the real life
Pippa O'Brien: they wouldn't actually Risk that
Pippa O'Brien: antagonistic behaviour because it could be risky for them.
Pippa O'Brien: It's the old who's the bigger dog in the pack type scenario. You know,
Pippa O'Brien: they might get bitten back, but on a keyboard they can be as unpleasant as
Pippa O'Brien: they wish. Yeah, I mean, we're recording this on 31 March 2025, which
Joanne Lockwood: is trans day of visibility. And as a,
Joanne Lockwood: As a trans woman myself, I'm well aware that people have
Joanne Lockwood: opinions against trans people in the whole. Not
Joanne Lockwood: necessarily against me specifically, but against people like me.
Joanne Lockwood: But there's no accountability to those views and often it's born out
Joanne Lockwood: of tropes around, oh, we're protecting women and girls, or it's just
Joanne Lockwood: unnatural. It's like there's only two sexes. It says so in
Joanne Lockwood: my biology book or the Bible or something. And
Joanne Lockwood: people can go unrestrained, as you say,
Joanne Lockwood: keyboard warriors, because there's no human at the end of their
Joanne Lockwood: keyboard, it's electrons. And when
Joanne Lockwood: people meet you face to face, they hear your story, they listen to you, it
Joanne Lockwood: becomes powerful. But again, as I said earlier, hearing a two dimensional
Joanne Lockwood: story doesn't necessarily create change. You've actually got to have that engagement, the
Joanne Lockwood: why? Fill my soul, fill my heart, feel my
Joanne Lockwood: pain, feel my family for my wife's pain. And that's where what
Joanne Lockwood: you're doing with stories and acting brings it out, doesn't it?
Pippa O'Brien: Sometimes I'm really humbled by little old me, and I
Pippa O'Brien: mean that sincerely. Little. Well, not that little, but older me. It's
Pippa O'Brien: people that can. I've written that and I've thought, oh, it might work, who knows?
Pippa O'Brien: And then when we've done it, it's had such a powerful reaction
Pippa O'Brien: and response and how people have. Teams have gone on to
Pippa O'Brien: come up with safe words that they can use around the banter. I think when
Pippa O'Brien: I'm working with some teams, they're terrified that they won't be able to,
Pippa O'Brien: to, to have any banter at all. You know, that it's all got to be
Pippa O'Brien: terribly polite from now on. And of course, who doesn't like a bit
Pippa O'Brien: of banter? We all like a bit of bance. And the line is flexible,
Pippa O'Brien: the line's fluid. It depends who's there. It depends on how
Pippa O'Brien: people are feeling that day. That's the big thing as well. And what else they've
Pippa O'Brien: got going on in the background and how well you know each other, what you
Pippa O'Brien: know about what's inside that iceberg for that person as well.
Pippa O'Brien: And all of those factors influence people's
Pippa O'Brien: banter tolerance, shall we say. I think that one of some of the
Pippa O'Brien: work that we've done with those teams is around encouraging them to come up with
Pippa O'Brien: a safe word that they can. Anybody can use where on that day.
Pippa O'Brien: I'm not feeling it. And it stops. Please. Okay. And that's
Pippa O'Brien: it. That's full. Stop the band. That's. No. No explanation
Pippa O'Brien: needed. Not having a bad day, are we? Or anything like that.
Pippa O'Brien: Okay. Oh, somebody's grumpy. None of that. It's just. It
Pippa O'Brien: just stops. And that's. That's it. Which
Pippa O'Brien: is quite a healthy way to manage it, I think. It's where teams manage their
Pippa O'Brien: own. Their own behaviour, if you like. They're accountable for their own behaviour in that
Pippa O'Brien: way. Wasn't it Roma S Ranganathan, the
Joanne Lockwood: British comedian that tried to come up with the safe word of mate?
Joanne Lockwood: You know, mate with a elongated 8 in the middle? Yeah. So when you
Joanne Lockwood: hear your. Your mate say something inappropriate, you just go, mate.
Joanne Lockwood: And that's a code word for, yeah, it's too far. Yeah, you've gone too far.
Pippa O'Brien: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this. This one particular organisation
Pippa O'Brien: I've been working with, they've gone with not cool. Oh, mate, that's not cool. And
Pippa O'Brien: then it just stops. Okay, so you could have. Mate, that's not cool. But
Pippa O'Brien: you could even just say, not cool. And then that's it. Stop, stop, stops.
Pippa O'Brien: So that's worked for them. Yeah. Because none of us want to be the
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion police. None of us. People have stopped talking. I'm 60 years old. I've.
Joanne Lockwood: I've lived a pretty colourful life, both genders. And I'm not trying to
Joanne Lockwood: say I'm perfect. I've got some high ground here of righteousness. I'm a human.
Joanne Lockwood: I. I laugh. I laugh at comedy. I call myself out sometimes,
Joanne Lockwood: thinking, actually, no, that's not right. No, stop.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, still funny. But no, it's not really funny.
Pippa O'Brien: And I think it's just there's so. I think the more we call
Pippa O'Brien: ourselves out, and also I'm going to say
Pippa O'Brien: appropriate or gently challenge other people
Pippa O'Brien: as well, the more. The more human we can be about
Pippa O'Brien: not being the police in this way. You know, the banter police or
Pippa O'Brien: the inappropriateness. Please. And my husband Joey, who have been
Pippa O'Brien: married to Jerry for six years now, I know he.
Pippa O'Brien: I know he's Scottish and when he first came to London, he would often have
Pippa O'Brien: people say, come on, Scotsman, get your hand in your pocket and buy us a
Pippa O'Brien: drink. And that he found that really annoying because he's probably the most generous person
Pippa O'Brien: you'd ever Meet. Except when I think when you met him, Joanne, he came to
Pippa O'Brien: your house and he ate all of your biscuits. So he does owe you at
Pippa O'Brien: least a couple of the last biscuits. He had the last biscuit on the plate.
Pippa O'Brien: I know. Which I couldn't believe. I was like, if I could have said, mate,
Pippa O'Brien: I would have done then, right. But this happened Even recently,
Pippa O'Brien: in 2024, probably just before Christmas.
Pippa O'Brien: He was in our local pub and somebody who we'd never met before,
Pippa O'Brien: who came in as a guest, you know, with somebody else that he did know,
Pippa O'Brien: said, oh, let the Scotsman get the drink, get his hand in his pocket. And
Pippa O'Brien: it's like Jerry came home and he went. I said, well, what did you say
Pippa O'Brien: to him? And he said, well, I didn't say anything. I said, you. If you
Pippa O'Brien: don't challenge that, people will continue to do it. So it's around how you challenge
Pippa O'Brien: and it's kind of like, oh, that's a bit of a, you know, casual racism
Pippa O'Brien: going on there, isn't it, or something like that. Or, oh, I can hear a
Pippa O'Brien: stereotype, can't I? So how you do it is the thing. And not getting on
Pippa O'Brien: your. I think. Not getting on your high horse. I think in the moment,
Pippa O'Brien: people may not go, oh, you're so right, I'm so
Pippa O'Brien: sorry, you know, or, oh, my bad. But they
Pippa O'Brien: might think about it afterwards. That's. And it goes. They may. May
Pippa O'Brien: reflect on it afterwards and go, yeah, maybe. Maybe that's not
Pippa O'Brien: appropriate, really. But if we don't say anything, then nothing's going to change.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And I think also, as someone on the receiving end, I have to
Joanne Lockwood: put a little bit of a buffer between my
Joanne Lockwood: hearing and reaction, because I was. Happened to me
Joanne Lockwood: yesterday, I think. Well, no, I was in Asda's. Asda's shopping. There are other
Joanne Lockwood: supermarkets available, obviously. And a man came around the corner
Joanne Lockwood: and he kind of bumped into me a little bit and said, sorry, mate.
Joanne Lockwood: And I just thought. I was about to react because I really detest the word
Joanne Lockwood: mate being used to me. Yeah. You wouldn't call
Joanne Lockwood: my wife mate if you do with me. I thought. I didn't say anything because
Joanne Lockwood: I thought, hang on a minute. There are some people who call everybody mate. It's
Joanne Lockwood: just their default. My husband does, I'm afraid. Yeah. And so I just
Joanne Lockwood: thought, whatever. I'm not going to take it as some personal offence. And some people
Joanne Lockwood: do it. You could tell. Some people do it deliberately. Yeah. But I've had ice
Joanne Lockwood: cream salesman give me an ice cream. I said, there you go, mate. Really?
Joanne Lockwood: Will, you said that to my. I sent my wife to the ice cream once,
Joanne Lockwood: Marie, who you've met, and he called her love. And I said, yeah, that's
Joanne Lockwood: right, yeah, he calls you love, he calls me mate. So next time I said,
Joanne Lockwood: I prefer you called me love next time, if that's okay. And he went, oh,
Joanne Lockwood: sorry, love. And I go back and, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, we have a good chat and a good bit of banter. So sometimes that
Joanne Lockwood: friendly calling it in rather than aggressively
Joanne Lockwood: calling it out, you win hearts and minds over, don't you? Because nobody wants to
Joanne Lockwood: be told they're a bad person or imply they're a bad person because they're
Joanne Lockwood: not. They're just misguided, misunderstood, not
Joanne Lockwood: reacting. Their bias has kicked in and suddenly they say something and I think
Joanne Lockwood: nobody wants to be shot down in flames for. Yeah, obviously, if they're
Joanne Lockwood: repeatedly in the context or they're malicious
Joanne Lockwood: weaponizing it. Yeah, I think, I think most
Pippa O'Brien: people, if they understand
Pippa O'Brien: it's accepting and they are accepting, I think being,
Pippa O'Brien: having empathy for them in that moment that they. You don't want them to feel
Pippa O'Brien: really bad, but equally you don't want them to carry on with that
Pippa O'Brien: behaviour is the way to go. So it's around as you, as you sort of
Pippa O'Brien: beautifully described it, it's being quite gentle about it as well, like
Pippa O'Brien: now. Yeah, but I will remember the negatives, you know, we talked about negatives,
Joanne Lockwood: emotions being stronger. But the number of times I get people bump into me, I'll
Joanne Lockwood: say, oh, sorry, love, are you okay? And. Or love, can I help you
Joanne Lockwood: with your case? Up those stairs I go, yeah, sure, please go. Go for it.
Joanne Lockwood: Go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No one does that for me, Joe, or telling you. So
Pippa O'Brien: you've obviously got something going on then. Yeah, well, I look
Joanne Lockwood: quite helpless sometimes on the underground with laptop bags and
Joanne Lockwood: cases and things. And sometimes people go, they take pity on me. I go, come
Joanne Lockwood: on, then. And there are good people around
Pippa O'Brien: still. You know, I think, I think you're right about.
Pippa O'Brien: It's that confirmation bias place piece. You know what I was. I always use the
Pippa O'Brien: analogy of the labels when we're talking
Pippa O'Brien: about how we have bias about
Pippa O'Brien: others. And one of the examples that I use quite often is about
Pippa O'Brien: drivers and cars and it was always, it's the car, not
Pippa O'Brien: the driver. It's interesting when you talk about it because it's, oh, it's Audis that,
Pippa O'Brien: that cut me up. It's not the person driving the Audi
Pippa O'Brien: or it's up flipping BMWs. Right. And then of course, now it's
Pippa O'Brien: Tesla's, but there's all sorts of reasons for that as well. But there you are.
Pippa O'Brien: But it's got nothing. But I completely miss all the times when an Audi might
Pippa O'Brien: flash me out a junction or an Audi driver might flash me out at a
Pippa O'Brien: junction that goes. Because it doesn't fit the buys that I already
Pippa O'Brien: hold about that particular group of people. So it doesn't
Pippa O'Brien: fit. But sometimes you play
Joanne Lockwood: to the stereotype. I mean, I've. I've got Mercedes at the moment. I've had BMWs
Joanne Lockwood: in the past and Audis in the past. I remember, I think that's when I
Joanne Lockwood: had my 4 Series BMW. I parked it and I wasn't quite in the space.
Joanne Lockwood: Marie said to me, don't you. Yeah, you're not quite in the middle space. I
Joanne Lockwood: said, that's why it's a BMW. People don't expect me to park correctly anyway. So
Joanne Lockwood: I left it there. It's like. So I played that stereotype
Joanne Lockwood: and maybe other BMW drivers cut people up and go, it's all right,
Joanne Lockwood: it's a BMW. The indicators don't work. They don't have indicators on a
Pippa O'Brien: BMW. Yeah, I've just. Yeah, just found that out. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: So you started life as a chef? I did. So. So
Joanne Lockwood: what was the ambition to be a chef? Was it a. Okay. I think
Joanne Lockwood: that. Well, in those. Let's rewind a little bit because actually I
Pippa O'Brien: had. I was. As a young person, I
Pippa O'Brien: didn't have the best start. I'm going to say that I think one of my
Pippa O'Brien: real challenges today even is a massive
Pippa O'Brien: imposter syndrome that sits around me because as a youngster
Pippa O'Brien: I was repeatedly told, you're rubbish, you're useless,
Pippa O'Brien: you'll never be any good at that. So that was kind of the bad side.
Pippa O'Brien: On a good day, nothing was said. Okay. So there was no positive
Pippa O'Brien: affirmation. I didn't really feel comfortable at
Pippa O'Brien: school at all. And that resulted in me not really
Pippa O'Brien: applying myself and having been told that you're useless then if you don't do well,
Pippa O'Brien: it kind of reaffirms the belief system that you have. Well,
Pippa O'Brien: what do I expect? You know, of course I'm going to leave with a handful
Pippa O'Brien: of nothing because everybody told me that I wasn't going to amount to anything.
Pippa O'Brien: So, you know, that's kind of what I expected. I loved
Pippa O'Brien: cooking, I still love cooking. So I started as a chef and in
Pippa O'Brien: those days it was really rare for women to be in the kitchen. It was
Pippa O'Brien: very male dominated and I do Remember once we had a new head
Pippa O'Brien: chef come into the kitchen and I was standing facing the stove to have
Pippa O'Brien: my back to the pass and he came in, he went, you
Pippa O'Brien: get your flipping haircut. All right, lad, get. You know, and it's.
Pippa O'Brien: So there was an assumption that everyone in the. Oi, you lad, get your
Pippa O'Brien: flipping haircut. And that was it. So there was an assumption that everyone in there
Pippa O'Brien: was male. I had to be tougher, harder, stronger, work
Pippa O'Brien: longer hours, be generally deal with a lot of
Pippa O'Brien: really difficult banter as well in that environment. I
Pippa O'Brien: think I loved it. I love the challenge of it. I love the
Pippa O'Brien: Friton that you get from. You've got so many. You've got to get this out,
Pippa O'Brien: you've got to get that done. And you're juggling a lot of things
Pippa O'Brien: at the same time in a hugely pressurised environment. And it's got
Pippa O'Brien: to be really well done. And I don't mean that steak had to be really
Pippa O'Brien: well done. I mean, you know, it's gotta be professionally produced.
Pippa O'Brien: It's incredibly. It takes an incredible toll on your social
Pippa O'Brien: life. And I think as a youngster I was then working
Pippa O'Brien: five and a half day week and then I had Sunday afternoons and Mondays off
Pippa O'Brien: and Monday was my college day. So that meant that
Pippa O'Brien: actually you don't have any time off at all, which is quite hard work,
Pippa O'Brien: quite hard for a youngster. I made a sort of transition into
Pippa O'Brien: working more in hotel management, but I couldn't really get that far
Pippa O'Brien: because I didn't really have great qualifications.
Pippa O'Brien: I then worked for when after I met Geri, who
Pippa O'Brien: became my husband, working shifts wasn't really working
Pippa O'Brien: for me. And so I had the opportunity to
Pippa O'Brien: work for quite a big, well known company in the UK as a
Pippa O'Brien: facilities manager. If you can run a hotel, you can run a
Pippa O'Brien: couple of buildings with one hand tied behind your back because it's not a 24
Pippa O'Brien: hour operation. Catering is much simpler and
Pippa O'Brien: although you've got still got to deliver a high level of customer service and facilities,
Pippa O'Brien: it's way easier. And all the mechanical engineering stuff and all
Pippa O'Brien: of that, it's way easier than actually
Pippa O'Brien: running a hotel. Much, much easier. A you know how many people you're going to
Pippa O'Brien: have through the door every day, you know how to staff yourself. For example,
Pippa O'Brien: that organisation then moved to a centralised
Pippa O'Brien: site and I was going to be made redundant and they said, well, how about
Pippa O'Brien: a role in our training team, learning and development. And I was like, yeah,
Pippa O'Brien: okay. Then off I go. And that's when everything
Pippa O'Brien: happened for me. It Was like, I had
Pippa O'Brien: the best ever leader and he was somebody
Pippa O'Brien: who. I find it quite hard to talk about him because I get emotional in
Pippa O'Brien: a really positive way because for the first time, he was
Pippa O'Brien: somebody who really trusted me. He
Pippa O'Brien: recognised that I had something a bit more than just get the coffees in, Pippa,
Pippa O'Brien: or do this or do that. He recognised that I had potential and he so
Pippa O'Brien: challenged me every single time that he gave me insight. We'd go right here,
Pippa O'Brien: you are going to drop the bomb on you here. Fine. How do you think
Pippa O'Brien: you're going to start this one, Pip? And he'd start by. What I didn't realise
Pippa O'Brien: was he was coaching me. And what that coaching did was it
Pippa O'Brien: totally unlocked my potential. It got me critically thinking for
Pippa O'Brien: myself and it enabled me to actually
Pippa O'Brien: realise that I could actually be successful. There was a bit of a blip. I
Pippa O'Brien: can tell this story now because it's a lot of years down the line, there
Pippa O'Brien: was a bit of a blip because he. On my application for that
Pippa O'Brien: organisation, I slightly exaggerated some of my school
Pippa O'Brien: qualifications, shall we say, my leaving qualifications. And
Pippa O'Brien: that year, that particular year, the company that I was working for,
Pippa O'Brien: this person, my manager, recommended me
Pippa O'Brien: to do a degree, fully sponsored degree course,
Pippa O'Brien: which for me was terrifying because having always been a failure and you
Pippa O'Brien: won't amount to anything, all of a sudden I've got to do this. But more
Pippa O'Brien: urgently for me was this. I haven't actually got the A
Pippa O'Brien: levels that I said that I had at the time. So a bit of blagging
Pippa O'Brien: had gone on, may I say, and I had to talk my
Pippa O'Brien: way into a course which actually was not as hard as you think as a.
Pippa O'Brien: As a mature student, you can, you can get in on an interview if you.
Pippa O'Brien: If you can prove that you're, you know, lived
Pippa O'Brien: experience. Yeah. Yes. And I actually did really well. I blew myself
Pippa O'Brien: out of the water, literally, because I applied all the skills that I'd learned
Pippa O'Brien: on the job to how to manage the project, which is
Pippa O'Brien: actually delivering your coursework and getting all that done. And I
Pippa O'Brien: was quite surprised at myself. That was probably
Pippa O'Brien: a massive stepping stone in my confidence and
Pippa O'Brien: becoming me. That would never have happened if it hadn't been for that one leader
Pippa O'Brien: who saw something in me, trusted me, gave me
Pippa O'Brien: massive exposure, but was there as a safety net and
Pippa O'Brien: questioned me, got me to critically question how I was going to do everything.
Pippa O'Brien: He was somebody that I would. I really wanted to be like. And
Pippa O'Brien: that's really why I ended up. I ended up
Pippa O'Brien: in, I think it was 1999. 2000,
Pippa O'Brien: 2000, being head of L and D
Pippa O'Brien: for another big household name company in the uk. And then I thought, you know
Pippa O'Brien: what, I'm just a desk jockey now and I'm, I'm budgeting,
Pippa O'Brien: I'm trying to work out how I can create efficiencies. And that's not
Pippa O'Brien: about supporting people to learn and be the best that they can be.
Pippa O'Brien: So I jacked it, walked away, started PODA in
Pippa O'Brien: December 2000, which is a bit scary, but
Pippa O'Brien: huge. At that point I had some huge belief that it would work out. And
Pippa O'Brien: here we are 25 years later. Not global domination,
Pippa O'Brien: but I'm really happy with where we are. 2000. I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: the world was significantly different. You know, Tony Blair was
Joanne Lockwood: Prime Minister doing Auld Lang Syne at the Millennium Dome. Things will only get better
Pippa O'Brien: and all of that. Yeah, yeah. But computing,
Joanne Lockwood: you just think about the world, the way we're connected. I mean, I was running
Joanne Lockwood: my IT business back in 2001. It was pre 9 11,
Joanne Lockwood: it was pre iPhone, pre social media.
Joanne Lockwood: Most people had dial up Internet still. There was no, just the
Joanne Lockwood: whole computing revolution. There was no phone in your pocket, Google, the
Joanne Lockwood: things we see is couldn't get Deliveroo or an Uber in those days. So
Joanne Lockwood: the world was different. It was very much more hands on
Joanne Lockwood: in people's offices, wasn't it? So how have you
Joanne Lockwood: adapted what you do, I guess to technology and expectations?
Pippa O'Brien: Yes, I think, I think expectations
Pippa O'Brien: are a movable feast because if
Pippa O'Brien: people trust you, and I've used the
Pippa O'Brien: word trust a lot in this, I know, but that's because it's super important to
Pippa O'Brien: me, then you can manage those expectations
Pippa O'Brien: jointly so that everybody is comfortable with what's happening. I think in terms
Pippa O'Brien: of how we changed, lockdown
Pippa O'Brien: was an enormous catalyst
Pippa O'Brien: for change for us. And at the beginning, I think on
Pippa O'Brien: the day one when it all kicked off and it, right, everything's shut down,
Pippa O'Brien: we're only a small company and on that one day we had
Pippa O'Brien: cancellations and most people took the trouble to phone us to say we're going to
Pippa O'Brien: have to cancel everything. We had £250,000 worth of
Pippa O'Brien: cancellations in a day and we were, we were just like,
Pippa O'Brien: okay, no, we understand, thanks very much and blah, blah, blah, looking forward
Pippa O'Brien: to working with you when we can and all that good stuff. And I think
Pippa O'Brien: we had to learn on a vertical learning curve.
Pippa O'Brien: So what I started to do is reach out to all of our existing clients
Pippa O'Brien: and say, right, how can we support you to manage people
Pippa O'Brien: remotely? Because this is the new normal for the, for the foreseeable.
Pippa O'Brien: And I used that to run loads of free sessions and using that
Pippa O'Brien: as an opportunity to get my head around using some of the
Pippa O'Brien: technology that was available. And it was, some of it was pretty sketchy right back
Pippa O'Brien: then. You know, there was. And then there was almost like the VHS
Pippa O'Brien: Beta max was for anybody that's old enough to remember that around which
Pippa O'Brien: platforms were going to be the ones that were adopted. And
Pippa O'Brien: I think that was, that was one element of change. I think people
Pippa O'Brien: went from big multi day programmes, if
Pippa O'Brien: you like, to wanting to see greater embedded results
Pippa O'Brien: in the organisation. So what we started to do was really more around
Pippa O'Brien: takeaways, if you like. So people do a little learning module, they go away
Pippa O'Brien: and apply it and then they come back and chat about the results. And that
Pippa O'Brien: actually has the impact of really being motivational for the rest of the
Pippa O'Brien: cohort as well. Somebody thinks, oh well, they've done it so I could do it,
Pippa O'Brien: you know, so it's really powerful stuff. I think the other thing that I did
Pippa O'Brien: during lockdown was to support my own learning was I did
Pippa O'Brien: a course within sead, the Global Business School, on
Pippa O'Brien: innovation, managing innovation during disruption. So I mean, how much
Pippa O'Brien: more disruption were we going through at the time? It couldn't have been a better
Pippa O'Brien: example. And off the back of that we came up with some virtual
Pippa O'Brien: reality AI modules that we partnered with another organisation
Pippa O'Brien: to develop and then market, which it's interesting because
Pippa O'Brien: I thought they would go really crazy and really take off and people have
Pippa O'Brien: gone. We prefer the actors actually. So it's
Pippa O'Brien: interesting where you offer people this great solution where they
Pippa O'Brien: can access any time and it was ideal for shift workers
Pippa O'Brien: or people who have got downtime in their day job and then
Pippa O'Brien: they can just do a little. I'll just do that module. So they want
Pippa O'Brien: real people, whether that's real people through a screen or real
Pippa O'Brien: people face to face in the room. So that was a
Pippa O'Brien: really interesting piece of learning as well. But yes, so
Pippa O'Brien: keeping it current, seeing what other people are doing is important. The
Pippa O'Brien: key thing I think is listening and listening to what
Pippa O'Brien: our clients need, what their aspirations are, what
Pippa O'Brien: they want to achieve. And then it goes in, it goes in here
Pippa O'Brien: and then I go away and mulch it down. It sort of
Pippa O'Brien: composts away in here for a bit and then I then think about a solution.
Pippa O'Brien: It does take a while to think about, well, how can I take this and
Pippa O'Brien: make it into something that's. That's really going to get
Pippa O'Brien: people's attention and it might be attention to
Pippa O'Brien: Challenge. It might be attention to go, aha, but how can I do that? And
Pippa O'Brien: that does take a little bit of pain. I think, oh God, how am I
Pippa O'Brien: going to do that? And then it always comes. I have to trust the process,
Pippa O'Brien: the composting process. So when I'm too busy, I find I don't
Pippa O'Brien: get composting time. So that's a little bit frustrating. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I think you're right. I'm not sure I call it compost and time, but
Joanne Lockwood: I find that I need to have those stare in space
Joanne Lockwood: moments to sit on the sofa. Maria will come up to me and said, what
Joanne Lockwood: are you thinking about? I said nothing really because I'm not really thinking about anything.
Joanne Lockwood: I know that somewhere in my head my
Joanne Lockwood: neurons are firing off, reprocessing everything, re
Joanne Lockwood: indexing my brain. And then things become clear. And you're right,
Joanne Lockwood: I can go on a car journey, drive for three hours. I get to the
Joanne Lockwood: end of it, I think at all what happened. I come out and
Joanne Lockwood: go, right, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping. All these ideas are firing off where my
Joanne Lockwood: brain has sort of used that opportunity to do that. And
Joanne Lockwood: you can't do that while you're interacting with people or you're stressed or you're busy
Joanne Lockwood: or you're focusing on. No, you can't, you need that space. Jerry,
Pippa O'Brien: who now, who's my husband, who now works with our business, he's really
Pippa O'Brien: a great implementer, transactional person and he
Pippa O'Brien: gets everything done. He finds it hard to understand that I need that time
Pippa O'Brien: to just be a bit vague for a while. And that's an important part of
Pippa O'Brien: the process as well. It's almost like in a, in a project based world world,
Pippa O'Brien: he would want a time code for that, you know, want a thinking time
Pippa O'Brien: code so that he can make sure that we're making the best use of everything
Pippa O'Brien: that we've got available. Yeah, yeah, it's. I mean
Joanne Lockwood: people sometimes will equate that to procrastination, I guess, where
Joanne Lockwood: you want to just keep playing with it. And I, I don't know about you,
Joanne Lockwood: but I find that if I've got a three week deadline, everything happens the day
Joanne Lockwood: before because I'm thinking about things, I'm remodelling it
Joanne Lockwood: and tweaking it in my mind and when I actually got to put it on
Joanne Lockwood: paper, it comes straight out. I don't think as I write, I've kind of
Joanne Lockwood: got the ideation down there and I need that, that evaluation time
Joanne Lockwood: in my brain to get to that point where suddenly now I can do. It
Pippa O'Brien: that's real, what we call reflective behaviour. And
Pippa O'Brien: whereas I'm much more of a. Get something, think about it, get something
Pippa O'Brien: down and then leave it and then come back and tinker with it.
Pippa O'Brien: So I maybe do the tinkering in a different. You're doing the tinkering
Pippa O'Brien: up here and I'm doing the tinkering in a different way.
Pippa O'Brien: And sometimes in organisations there's challenges where if you've
Pippa O'Brien: got a real activist leader and a reflector team member,
Pippa O'Brien: Jo, that task to do 10 days ago and she hasn't even started it yet,
Pippa O'Brien: you know, and actually have. It's all going on up here. It's all clicking
Pippa O'Brien: away up here. So it can cause all sorts of conflicts as
Pippa O'Brien: well. Yeah, I think it serves me well
Joanne Lockwood: sometimes where I don't have to. I don't have to have the world
Joanne Lockwood: mapped out. Some people need to have their together
Joanne Lockwood: for want of a better expression. I'm quite happy to go into.
Joanne Lockwood: I can exist in chaos because I trust my brain to be able to
Joanne Lockwood: assemble what I need in a moment. The
Joanne Lockwood: moment is now. Make it happen. I know I can trust my brain to do
Joanne Lockwood: that. Where some people go, well, I can't start until I can start. I've got
Joanne Lockwood: to have this. All my ducks in a row. I've got to have this planned
Joanne Lockwood: out. And when I get there, I've got certainty. I can turn
Joanne Lockwood: up at an event and the organiser can say, well, do you mind if we
Joanne Lockwood: change everything? I go, okay, I'm not wedded to
Joanne Lockwood: it. What are you thinking? I go, okay, I can do a bit of that
Joanne Lockwood: and a bit of this and a bit of that. That's born from your confidence
Pippa O'Brien: in yourself. Yeah, yeah, I guess
Joanne Lockwood: that's. My brain works. But I've been through
Joanne Lockwood: phases where I needed certainty, but I spread my IT background.
Joanne Lockwood: You never knew the result or the answer because people say to me,
Joanne Lockwood: why did it take you four days to fix that server? You go, well, because
Joanne Lockwood: it was a problem. Well, I said, if it hadn't been a problem, I'd have
Joanne Lockwood: fixed it immediately. But the problem needs investigating. You need to try different
Joanne Lockwood: scenarios, different thought processes in order to get to the point where I
Joanne Lockwood: said, well, I still don't understand. But, you know, a problem's a problem because it's
Joanne Lockwood: a problem. You know, it just is. How many things do we do every day
Joanne Lockwood: that aren't actually problems? They just solve first time.
Joanne Lockwood: And it's easy to say, well, if I'd done the last thing first, but then
Joanne Lockwood: there were Times I'd probably do the last thing first. You just don't realise it
Joanne Lockwood: or I don't realise it. And that's experience as well, going be on a cut
Joanne Lockwood: short circuit. And I guess I've been used to having that
Joanne Lockwood: analytical mind where you try different
Joanne Lockwood: scenarios and some of those are happening in your head and you go no,
Joanne Lockwood: have I tried that before? Yeah, I've done that. The probability of that. Yeah. Almost
Joanne Lockwood: like my own GPT in my head. If you like all these scenarios, kick out.
Joanne Lockwood: So yeah, I guess we all think differently but yeah, that works for me. Yeah,
Pippa O'Brien: I think that's another piece around supporting people to
Pippa O'Brien: understand that actually we all approach tasks in different way and that's
Pippa O'Brien: equally valuable in teams that we all approach tasks in different way, we
Pippa O'Brien: all think in different ways, our brains work in different ways and what
Pippa O'Brien: collectively we bring is what makes the team successful. And I
Pippa O'Brien: see and it goes back to a little bit about what I was saying earlier
Pippa O'Brien: on about people who are, have got very fixed views about
Pippa O'Brien: how people should work is quite often that they're a very fixed and
Pippa O'Brien: defined group of people. So they're not looking for that richness of diversity
Pippa O'Brien: within their teams. They want everybody to think like them, be like them, look like
Pippa O'Brien: them, because that's the right way to be. Yeah. And also when we're
Joanne Lockwood: delivering training we have to recognise that as well, don't we? We have to fire
Joanne Lockwood: the neurons in different ways for different people. Yeah, totally. 100%.
Pippa O'Brien: I love it. I'm still loving it now I'm 64 next month.
Pippa O'Brien: Well in fact this coming month, very soon, 31st of March,
Pippa O'Brien: April. I can't keep going forever obviously. But what I say is as
Pippa O'Brien: long as I'm still relevant, I'll. I'll be continuing. I don't, I couldn't
Pippa O'Brien: imagine retiring really. So it's. I saw a
Joanne Lockwood: keynote From Lindsay at 55 redefined the other day and she's talking
Joanne Lockwood: about the ageism is the next barrier. I've
Pippa O'Brien: read that as well. Yeah. And when we look at the
Joanne Lockwood: workforce, millennials will turn 50
Joanne Lockwood: in six years time, I think. Yeah. So the bulk of our
Joanne Lockwood: workforce will suddenly become over 50 because our
Joanne Lockwood: population is shrinking now we may have to have two point something
Joanne Lockwood: children to create a sustainable population and women are
Joanne Lockwood: giving birth at a rate of 1.2 or something. I can't remember the exact figure
Joanne Lockwood: she said. So basically our population and the
Joanne Lockwood: global population is now shrinking. So Gen Alphas and Gen Zs will be the
Joanne Lockwood: smallest cohort in for
Joanne Lockwood: many, many Many generations. So we have to start Investing in our
Joanne Lockwood: 50s, our Gen X's, even our boomers still,
Joanne Lockwood: and our millennials. So we have to find a career
Joanne Lockwood: that lasts us into our 80s because we can't afford to retire. Retirement was meant
Joanne Lockwood: to be five years and then you die. It's now seen
Joanne Lockwood: as a 40 year birthright. You know, you retire in your 60s, live
Joanne Lockwood: to your hundred and unless we got a mega pension, which my
Joanne Lockwood: generation just don't have mega pensions anymore, I. Think that's
Pippa O'Brien: another reason for keeping going is the financial one. But equally,
Pippa O'Brien: I don't feel, I don't feel ready, I don't feel
Pippa O'Brien: ready to stop yet. I still reading things and get excited about things
Pippa O'Brien: and as long as I'm still getting excited, then it's got to happen, hasn't
Pippa O'Brien: it? Yeah, I'm excited too. I think I see
Joanne Lockwood: innovation every day. I mean, see AI coming on board, we see Internet
Joanne Lockwood: and technology and computing getting faster and phones and the
Joanne Lockwood: attitudes of people. You think, well, there's so much more to do. I think
Joanne Lockwood: going back to what we talked about earlier, about working from home, working from the
Joanne Lockwood: office, I don't feel that I have to exhaust myself
Joanne Lockwood: commuting, travelling, being a slave to someone else's
Joanne Lockwood: culture and environment. I create my own culture. I feel very empowered
Joanne Lockwood: to have this gig economy, this
Joanne Lockwood: multi career, multi idea, entrepreneurial, make money in
Joanne Lockwood: different directions so I can keep my brain firing on different
Joanne Lockwood: things and not feel I'm in this trudge. When people say, oh, I'm looking forward
Joanne Lockwood: to retiring next year, I think, to do what? I
Pippa O'Brien: completely agree with you and you know what? Nothing, nothing disappoints
Pippa O'Brien: me more is when I meet people and they
Pippa O'Brien: are moaning about their job, the organisations that
Pippa O'Brien: they work in and everything about it, any change that's
Pippa O'Brien: going on, colleagues, how they're being managed, I said, well, why
Pippa O'Brien: don't you do something else? Why don't you leave? Oh no, I can't do that.
Pippa O'Brien: Well, why not? Pension in seven years. It's like, so
Pippa O'Brien: you're going to completely burn the next seven years of
Pippa O'Brien: your finite resources of life doing something
Pippa O'Brien: that for a third of your week you clearly hate
Pippa O'Brien: and if you clearly hate it, you're not going to be doing the best job.
Pippa O'Brien: May I say that as well? Because you might be doing an adequate job
Pippa O'Brien: or they might be doing an adequate job, but they're not gonna be doing the
Pippa O'Brien: best work. So how can people waste their life? That's what I
Pippa O'Brien: don't understand. It's like it's like the old adage, you know, if someone says
Joanne Lockwood: they're too busy, it means it's not a priority.
Pippa O'Brien: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. You've always got time to do something you
Joanne Lockwood: want and you enjoy and you're interested in. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: So maybe if you're thinking I need to retire. Retire from what?
Joanne Lockwood: Which part of what you're doing do you want to retire from? Do you want
Joanne Lockwood: to retire from being engaged and passionate and creative? No, you
Joanne Lockwood: don't. You want to be retired from being told what to do, to commuting, to
Joanne Lockwood: being a slave, to getting up at five in the morning to jump on it.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, great, we'll retire from that bit. But find yourself a passion and
Joanne Lockwood: purpose, otherwise you'll just be floating around, having
Joanne Lockwood: arguments at home, kicking the cat, getting bored. I've got
Joanne Lockwood: time to go on holiday. I've got time to wake up at 8
Joanne Lockwood: o' clock in the morning, have a lay in, do what I want to do,
Joanne Lockwood: work with clients, not work on Friday afternoons. I've got time to do what I
Joanne Lockwood: need to do. Yeah. I've also got time to really be
Joanne Lockwood: passionate about what I do as well. So, yeah, you can reprioritize.
Pippa O'Brien: That's exactly what I believe as well. There we are. Full
Pippa O'Brien: alignment. Love it. And that's the future. Future of work is that. That's the
Joanne Lockwood: future of work. Agree. Pippa, We've been
Joanne Lockwood: yakking on now. We have. Thank you for. And thank you to you who are
Joanne Lockwood: listening to this. We've been yakking on there for nearly an hour and a half
Joanne Lockwood: because we had a good old chat and catch up before we went. Press the
Joanne Lockwood: record button, as I always do. So how can people
Joanne Lockwood: get hold of you? Well, poda.co.uk is a good
Pippa O'Brien: start. Is our website or
Pippa O'Brien: pippa@poda.co.uk. you can look me up on
Pippa O'Brien: LinkedIn. Pippa O' Brien and. Or just kind of
Pippa O'Brien: shout, I'll. I'll hear you somewhere. Right. Don't worry at all.
Pippa O'Brien: If you are listening and you think we could help you in any way, do
Pippa O'Brien: get in touch. But more importantly, Jo, thank you for listening, really,
Pippa O'Brien: and thanks to everybody else for listening. It's been a really interesting experience.
Joanne Lockwood: Thank you. Thank you. Take care. That was great. Thank you.
Pippa O'Brien: That was interesting. Refresh the page. As the problem persists,
Joanne Lockwood: as we bring. This conversation to a close, I want to express
Joanne Lockwood: my deep, deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for
Joanne Lockwood: lending your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion.
Joanne Lockwood: Today's discussion struck a chord. Consider subscribing to
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion bites and become part of our ever growing community
Joanne Lockwood: driving real change. Share this journey with friends, family and
Joanne Lockwood: colleagues. Let's amplify the voices that matter.
Joanne Lockwood: Got thoughts, stories or a vision to share? I'm all
Pippa O'Brien: ears. Reach out to
Pippa O'Brien: jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk
Pippa O'Brien: and let's make your voice heard. Until next time, this is
Pippa O'Brien: Joanne Lockwood signing off with a promise to return with
Pippa O'Brien: more enriching narratives that challenge, inspire and
Pippa O'Brien: unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world one
Pippa O'Brien: episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.