Ep.33 Joanne Lockwood | The Human Side of Inclusion

Sarah Ashley Neal: Foreign. You're listening to the Be youe Start now podcast with San Artina. This is your host, Sarah Ashley Neal. Our guest today is an inclusive culture expert, international keynote speaker and champion for diversity and inclusion. She works with clients across hr, talent acquisition and learning and development. And her authentic approach to addressing exclusion and bias transcends traditional equity, diversity and inclusion. Her programs breathe life into conscious inclusion, weaving it into the fabric of the organizations she works with. She is passionate about accountability, intent and um, impact why creating positive people experiences truly matter. Known for her fearless kind and down to earth approach to inclusion. And let me introduce you to Joanne Lockwood. So welcome to the Be youe Start now podcast. Welcome aboard. Joanne Lockwood. You're here on board. Yeah. Making sure I'm talking to the right person today.

Joanne Lockwood: I'm. No, definitely Joanne Lockwood. And uh, I can definitely be me.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Brilliant.

Joanne Lockwood: So be you. Be me? Yeah, be me. Excellent.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Then we'll start now. Why not? Let's go for it. Today we're talking about leadership and culture and really we are going to be covering a few different topics, but it's also, for me, I hear a lot of conversations about, well, I don't know what to say, um, when it comes to diversity and inclusion overall. And so I'd be really interested in how we go through this conversation, making it as natural as possible and comfortable for our listeners as well. Um, and I know we've briefly talked before about, you know, you can't really say anything wrong, but there are also right ways of saying things. So I'm going to confuse everyone if I don't introduce you properly. So would you tell us a little bit about your background and, and start where you'd like to start and we'll go, go from there.

Joanne Lockwood: Oh, where do I want to start? It's one of those things everyone does that sort of movie back in time, sort of. So I suppose, um, where's I start? Yeah, I, I left school at the age of 16. I didn't know what I was going to do really, but I, I know I wanted to leave home, um, various reasons. Joined the Royal Air Force, gave that a go for a few years, decided it wasn't for me, got into Civie street. And uh, in the mid-80s I was kind of 20 years old, keen, young, a mind that was insatiable. Got into it and I became quite good at it. I, uh, worked at a few organizations, ended up at Coutts bank, ended up, um, right there. System delivery. I think I have 40 staff working for me. Global footprint Looking after systems all over the world. And then I decided to give that up in 1998, a well paid banker's salary and uh, start my own business in it. So I ran that for best part of 20 years and sold uh, that those shares to my business partners in uh, 2017. And at the same time gender transitioned and at that point there I traded in my bits and bytes of my binary computer world for that of people, humans, inclusion, belonging and uh, set this business up. So that was uh, coming up for eight, eight and a half years ago. So yeah, it's been a, been a journey. So yeah. So I'm Joanne Locker, my prenatal she her. I've got a deep voice because I've got a transgender background. I've got a wife and we've been married 38 years this year. 38 years.

Sarah Ashley Neal: 38 years. Goodness me.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I know. Together we're 40. So we, we got together in uh, 1985 and we have two fantastic children. And recently the latest addition to our family is a Cavapoo puppy called Amber. So Amber, oh wow. Came to us two months ago and she's a little bundle of fluff and she sat right behind me being very peaceful. So. Yeah.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Well I'm going to give you Marie and Amber. What's the name of that dog again? That dog, it's a Cavapoo.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. She is a cross between a cavalier King Charles spaniel. Nice uh, big floppy ears and a miniature poodle. So she's got the poodly kind of coat and the King Charles spaniel kind of nice. She has puppy dog eyes but I can see where the term puppy dog eyes.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Well so if you're directly now you have as well no relation of course

Joanne Lockwood: at all, but we're talking about leadership and um, it's interesting that I thought I knew a lot about a lot and you get a, you get a puppy. This is the first time I've ever owned or do we actually own puppies now. I'd like to think we're adopted her as part of the family. I don't think I don't want to own her but she's taught me a lot about my own leadership style and the fact, and her style as a uh, sentient being that doesn't understand English, will never understand English and you have to persuade it, persuade, persuade her and put systems in place to help us succeed. And yeah, so I've learned a lot just in these last two months about uh, yeah, leading, leading and, and setting expectations and also taking personal responsibility. You Know, it's. We talk about accountability, we talk about leadership, being accountable for the outcomes. Uh, the golden rule with a puppy is it's never the puppy's fault. Never the puppy's fault the pup is. Never malicious, never vindictive, never spiteful, never, never poos in that place just to get you back.

Sarah Ashley Neal: True. Yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: It's not doing what you ask or what you want. It's because you haven't explained it or you haven't created the conditions and, um, telling the puppy off. It's about providing distraction or alternate direction and taking more responsibility. So if. If Amber, bless her, wees on the mat or poos in the corner, my first reaction is, it's my fault. It's my fault. I'm accountable.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Right. And is that because you see yourself as a leader or you are a leader? How do you describe yourself? Because I was talking to someone the other day about managers and leadership, but obviously different direction.

Joanne Lockwood: My distinction, obviously, I think, is manage. Managers manage things. Leaders lead people, if you like. And I think managers are more focusing on, have I got enough of this? If I got too many of those, what's the time scales? When do I have to do that Resource managing? Because I think leaders. I don't think of a leader. And depending on your own terminology, as being more strategic. You're trying to set vision, set goals, um, remove barriers from people so they can succeed, m. Motivate, reassure. Um, I think so. That's the difference. Whereas managers tend to be more, I'd say navel gazing and toe gazing. And I like to think a, uh, leader is looking at the horizon. I'd like to see myself as a. I would call it a transformational leader. I like to paint big pictures and get people to imagine this. This vision of a fantastic on the wall. You know, not good, not all right, but fantastic. And then we can all get behind that and then plot a direction on how we can achieve that. We start by looking at the priorities, the barriers, and what do we need to do to stop that. And because I'm a great believer in that with. If something is achievable, we can achieve it. We just got to find the right team, the right resources, the right. Whatever it may be. Develop a marketing plan. Okay? We need to get the right people to develop that plan. So businesses, I think, fail or teams fail because they don't have enough of the right resource or enough for the right focus or enough the right direction. So a leader really is there to enable the people to do a fantastic job. An old ADAGE I came across years ago is that the leaders should always be the, shouldn't be the smartest person in the room.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Yeah, good one.

Joanne Lockwood: You want to make sure your team has all the skills, so you're looking to manage the resources you've got, but lead the people. And if you have the people, the right skills. I think I fell into the trap in my IT companies. Well, I was. The business was sold around me being the best person in the room and the people I hired, I had, I was, I was always selling me and that was the problem. Um, I needed to find a business that I could run, which I never did, where I was just the leader, not the doer. I think that's where I went wrong. Ah. And I see a lot of organizations doing this. A lot of people do this. They promote people who are very good at what they do into leadership roles without giving them the tools or the training to become good leaders or fantastic leaders. They become really good technicians and then they're still trying to be a tech or an admin or whatever their specialism is and lead and then they always do, they never do both well or they have to compromise. They're still trying to, they're still trying to do and uh, not spend all their time leading because how often do you hear people say, well, I haven't got time to do that part of my job, that leading part. People are just distracting for me. I was just, yeah. To be a great leader you have to put your people first. Yeah, your first primary brain has to be. Have I empowered my team? Does my team know what they're doing? Do I need to check in with them? Do I need to do this? Do I need that? Uh, if you're worried about how many widgets have I got to knock out today, you're not thinking about your team enough. So I think that's one of the mistakes we make is we promote people without allowing to disconnect from the doing we put in this halfway house and they never succeed.

Sarah Ashley Neal: And joke we talk about being practical or, um, call themselves academic and we will go on to labels and all talking about these things later on. But the thing these days is that there are so many roles in companies where people are asked to follow the whole end to end process. Um, there are not so many people who can do the admin, um, do some of the tasks that in the old days there were secretaries for. I mean there still are probably secretaries and PAs and in large organisations we think they still exist. But I've worked in some large Organizations where you literally have to know how to do everything from the it, the it to doing the job, um, to being a good stakeholder manager, to understand the language, to talk to internal and external colleagues and the list goes on and on. Even in our own businesses, we start off doing everything until we can maybe scale up or get someone to come in and help. But even then it's that delegation and then we sort of begin owning our roles.

Joanne Lockwood: What do you think for sure? For sure. And I think leadership starts with self leadership. You know, we have to lead ourselves. And I think if we're going to lead ourselves, we also have to have to be able to partition our own brains, our own priorities, our own day to day workload and we have to have our own vision. You know, we have to lead ourselves with our own vision. What are we trying to get out of this? Are we looking at a career? Are we looking at a short term objective? Are we looking to make money? Are we looking to sell our business? Whatever we're trying to do as a leader, lead ourselves, we have to have our own focus and priority and we have to be good to ourselves and kind to ourselves. We have to check in with ourselves. Am I okay right now? Am I not okay? We need to know when we need to step out and step into different roles. And yes, we can have this fractional element of our personality where we say, right, I need to give myself time to leave myself to think strategically, to work on my business and not work in my business. You know all these cliches we hear?

Sarah Ashley Neal: Absolutely. It's a lot of them.

Joanne Lockwood: Sometimes I'm going to need to sit here and eat the frog. Yeah, we need to eat the frog. I don't like doing my accounts. I've got my VAT return sat there. My accountant is emailing, uh, me every other day. So I need those figures by Friday. I go act. Absolutely. At some point I've got to take responsibility and accountability and say that is my job, my role, it's my business, our business and I've got to do this. So. But uh, that requires personal discipline, personal accountability. I'm working with clients. I've got to be a salesperson, I've got to be, I've got to be an invoice clerk. I've got to be customer service representative. I've got to be in charge of delivery because all these, all these various tasks. So yes, we can, if you're not careful, end up overloading. And I think that's where it comes down to again setting out how it's going to work. Even if we are a solopreneur, uh, we still have people who provide a service like our accountant, like um, even hmrc, I suppose our a supplier. And whatever we have, we have, we buy stuff from Amazon, we buy stuff from here, we sell stuff, we've got customers. So we, we all have those multifaceted human interactions and so we have to take responsibility for those to be successful. If you haven't, I think I may have told you this before, that I have this, this mantra which is positive people experiences.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Right?

Joanne Lockwood: And that's, that's the kind of, the aim and I think if we all had this as our mantra, it'd be a lot easier to get on with each other. Because I'm looking to try and create a positive experience, a positive interaction with everyone I come in contact with. And that's our kind of personal responsibility. I, I'm not saying I'm perfect. I mean it's a share the signal. I'm not perfect. I get it wrong. I mess up.

Sarah Ashley Neal: I was nervous, Joan. I thought you were. You thought, I'm, um, relaxed now.

Joanne Lockwood: I could, I could, I could be a bit of an ass. I can be disaster. My family, they'll tell me. But I like to think I self reflect after being an ass and someone says, you're not doing so. The positive people experience is if I'm dealing with a supplier who's let me down. You're trying to look at the problem, not the person you're trying to look at. This, this is what happened, this is how it impacted me. I'm not angry, I'm frustrated. I'm a bit disappointed. And I want us to get it right next time, don't I? So again, that's a leadership type style conversation because I'm looking for the outcome, that transformational agent. What do I want next time? I want fantastic service at the best price, reliable, honest, all these sort of things. So I have to take responsibility in that conversation to make that go positively. And uh, whether I'm hiring, whether I'm m firing, whether I'm doing whatever I'm doing, whether I'm working with my customers. The conversation we're having today, I want it to be really, really positive. And I'm thinking about our interaction, thinking about the listeners or viewers who are tuning in and what's in it for them because our time is valuable. If I just rant on about something that's irrelevant like I'm doing now, people are going to turn off.

Sarah Ashley Neal: I'll pull you in I'll pull you up.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, you'll pull me in. So we've got to be focusing on it. So. Which is why I don't talk about DEI and diversity, equity, inclusion, all these various buzz phrases, because those were, to me, are all inputs. Okay? The outcome we're trying to achieve is a positive experience for everyone who works for us, everyone who interacts with us, everyone we hire, everyone with fire, everyone. Yeah. Even a conversation I'm having when I'm walking my puppy in the mornings with the person I bump into, I want to smile, I want to engage, and I want to have a conversation. And I think if we all had that in mind. But what can happen is when we're in our, um, in our flow, in our concentration mode, our senses shut down, our brain closes into the task in mind, and we're less responsive to people around us. Our emotional intelligence, if you like. So it's about recognizing that when we, when we do wander into that grumpy, grumpy phase, or into that stress phase, or into the I'm so focused on what I'm doing phase, I can't give you any more time. We need to better recognize that a bit of pause or to say, give me five, I'll be back. I'll be back in a minute and I'll be ready. And you can calm down. Just let it flow, center yourself, breath, and go. Right. Okay. How can I help? What, what can I do for you? How can I help this? Because what we try and do sometimes is we sometimes context switch too quickly. Our team leaders do this. They go from being really focused on what they're trying to achieve. Someone needs some help and they go and grumpy. But I'll just sort it out for yourself.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Oh, come on. Yes, I've heard that.

Joanne Lockwood: Why can't you do that?

Sarah Ashley Neal: And touching on what you've just said, because this is a lovely, A lovely point here. We talk a lot about being present, don't we, these days? You know, you want to, you know, focus on the task in hand, um, be present in the moment, like you said. That doesn't mean that we lose sight of all our senses. I mean, you know, when you're driving, you're driving on that road, but you've got a peripheral vision and you can see. Hopefully you shouldn't be driving otherwise, but hopefully you can see who's, uh, who's walking across the road at the time or what car's too close. So. So you can react and respond. Um, we talk about reacting. Don't we, and responding, but it's appropriately. We're not trying to be, um, trying a loaded word. But we don't necessarily want to seek perfection, but we do aspire to do the best we can and be the best that we can out there. So even as a manager, a leader, you know that, yes, they're working on a task in hand. They've taken on um, that role to manage people. They know that people are going to be coming in and out of the conversation or their, their daily, you know, diary, as it were, unless they've said, don't call me the whole day, I'm, um, working on something that might well be different. What's your thoughts on being present, present at uh, the exclusion of everything else or what does that mean for you?

Joanne Lockwood: No, I think you need to have your kind of your radar deployed, looking for little blips, what's going to go on, you know, whether that's um, an email coming in, a text message, a phone call, whether that's an interaction or having whatever it may be, you need to be aware that things will happen at various points that you can't predict and you need to decide whether that blip, that incoming alert is more important than what you're doing. And that can be quite frustrating. As we know, if the phone rings, it doesn't mean to say it's more urgent than what you're doing right now. So if what you're doing right now is important and it has, is time bound and you have to have it cheap by sometime, turn off distractions, put the phone on mute, send it to voicemail, disable it. I mean my phone, I don't know if your phone can do it. So you can turn off the, all the little red dots and little red numbers. You just put it into doing disturb mode and it switches all of those distractions off so you don't.

Sarah Ashley Neal: I need to do more of that.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I've got, I've got a red dot. I need to answer. I need to look at what's going on. LinkedIn, what's going with it? I think we need to be really honest and create our uh. I think in the old days, in the leadership training I did, we called it, was it red flag and blue flag or something? So we put a flag by the side of our desk saying I'm in deep thought, leave me alone. There's nothing wrong with doing that, but as long as there's a protocol for urgent and important that can break through and people understand that what I'm doing is urgent, and important. But what they may have is critical and time bound. In which case they need to know that they can say, joe, I'm raising my hand. This is definitely one of those moments where I'm not wasting your time. I've got to have his answer. You go, okay, you've given me the code word. I trust you. Stop now. What can I do? Uh, yeah, I think leaders need to be approachable because we don't want to be as an aloof leader with our door closed and blinkers.

Sarah Ashley Neal: It's about the barriers, isn't it? As well. We can sometimes, obviously, you know, desk is a desk and someone's the other side and you're talking to them. Of course the desk can be a barrier. But um, as an example, off the cuff, wherever it came from. But there are times to actually get from away from behind that desk and um, be able to talk to someone without having, you know, because we do create barriers, don't we? We don't even realize that even with our wording and terminology.

Joanne Lockwood: I go back to my IT days.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Yes.

Joanne Lockwood: Uh, when I learned about how operating systems work, all these things. And I learned that the highest priority task on a computer is the user input. So as a computer user, when the mouse moves.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Mhm.

Joanne Lockwood: You know, the computer's responding if you want to be able to type on the keyboard. So it needs to be able to receive instructions and the mouse needs to be able to move and the keyboard needs to be able to type a letter.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: Do you notice sometimes that if your computer really, really, really, really, really busy that the mouse can sometimes judder and it will freeze and stop moving or the keyboard doesn't work and suddenly it catches up. That's because the computer was really, really overloaded. And uh, even though there's high priority tasks to move the mouse and take the keys with the highest priority, there was still too much going on. So again, as a leader you need to be able to take those high priority inputs, decide whether that click is important enough to react to or not. So you have to be able to evaluate that. So you have to be able to create the time to do that. If you can't, you need to switch those inputs off. So if you're driving, if you're doing, if you're um, with a loved one that needs all your attention. It's just daughter's school play, whatever it may be, that's the time to do that. You clear the decks, shut everything else off and you have your out of office. You tell people that I'm not available to an A and B. If you need me, please, uh, leave a message. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. So, giving your focus again. If you're a leader and you're working with one of your team, that person needs to know you've given them time. Time is your most valuable asset. You need to be able to give them time and listen. If you can't give time and listening, why are you a leader? Why are you a leader if you can't give someone your time? Because that person will only succeed if you give them your time, your advocacy. You remove the barriers, you give them direction, you listen to what's going on. If you're not focused, that person is going to see you as someone who is not helping them in their career, not helping them in their task. They'll just see you as another leader who doesn't care and that. And are they going to be motivated? They're not.

Sarah Ashley Neal: No. And also knowing how to, how to say no. You're setting an example as a leader, aren't you? I mean, we're all setting examples. And m. We hope you know that our behavior, um, we're models for other people. But you are allowed to say no. So coming back to what you said about obviously giving people time, if it's not appropriate, then it's making sure the other person leaves comfortably, isn't it? Not just sort of saying, close the door behind you.

Joanne Lockwood: One of the core characteristics of a good leader is honesty.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Yes, that's a good word.

Joanne Lockwood: So you have to be able to. If you, if you're going to be honest, sometimes you have to say no. I don't know about you, but I get lots of LinkedIn messages. People obviously sending me automation or spam or whatever it is. And I tend to always reply when I can. I've got a keyboard shortcut to do this for me. On my phone. I always say, no, thank you. It's not for me, but thank you for asking.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Okay.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, so very clear that, uh, hopefully that doesn't invite a conversation. It's quite succinct. It shows I've read it and not just gone boom, um, ignore. And if they send me another message trying to squeeze in again, I say, as I said just now, no, thank you, not for me. I wish you success in your, in your venture, full stop. And hopefully that one is enough of a goodbye. And you always get a thank you for responding anyway. Really appreciate you responding and, um, good luck or some sort of positive message back. So I've told them no, I've reinforced my no and they thanked me anyway for being a. Giving them a positive feedback on at least they know received. Because if we keep saying yes and we don't mean it, we're not being honest with ourselves, with other people.

Sarah Ashley Neal: No. And yeah, there's only so many, many, many times, but there is a lot of. I mean, again, another subject altogether. Automation isn't there. Um, and even I think I did an email, uh, sorry, I answered something on LinkedIn. So it was AI and it was reading my message, but it didn't quite pick up on everything correctly. And I don't have an issue personally with AI. You know, it can be useful, can't it? I, I'm still of that middle ground of what we automate when we are communicating and building relationships up and sometimes a, you know, beginning stage can be fine, but you can lose clients, you can lose respect, you can lose. And people who don't know you. I do sometimes say, by the way, this isn't, isn't automated. I don't know if that's going to get me very far. And I'm live m. I'm practicing and doing different things. But I do love having the natural built, um, rapport on, on LinkedIn and whatever other social platform you're on. But it's a, it's a difficult one. That is it.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I think there's a. As a new expression. I don't know how new this expression is, but I heard it about 18 months ago. It's called human in the loop. So I need to be assured when I'm interacting with you, there's a human in the loop. So, you know, you go to a chat bot with my pharmacy, with Amazon, whatever it may be, and I'm fairly certain that the first contact you're going to have these days with most chatbots is an AI response. They're trying to. They're going to respond by saying, did you mean this? Did you mean that? Did you mean the other? I tend to, if I tend to humor it for the first couple of interactions and often I'll just say speak to somebody, whatever they say. I say speak to somebody, speak to somebody, speak to somebody. And eventually they said, okay, we'll pass you through to an agent and I'll just type in thank you. Um, I think the key thing with AI, with automation, with anything like this, is you are accountable. It's a bit like my puppy. If it poos on the rug, it's my fault. If your AI messes up and Poos on somebody else's rug, it's your fault because you didn't put enough guardrails. It has to be. You can't blame anybody else. So you need to be conscious around ah, those times when the poo is going to come on the rug. Sorry we picked up a bad analogy there. But anyway, you get what I'm saying, be ready for it and say okay, I messed up. So accountability. I messed up, you're right. Um, I've got your name wrong, I've got your pronouns wrong. I've just scraped you off of LinkedIn and given you something really irrelevant and I'll always reply back. So I often reply back and say I think you're right, I think your automation's gone a bit off here. This is. Yeah, I suggest you reread your messages before you send them out next time. And people often say oh thank you, I've uh, I'm just trying this out. And yeah, you're right, it has got a bit pear shaped. And I said look, don't worry, we all do it. So that accountability element. But yeah, the human in the loop and I heard someone talking about this but last year and that was saying is you have to be there with, with the kid gloves ready at the point where someone says I need a human.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Yes.

Joanne Lockwood: So that email reply as being with a question, you know your AI isn't going to handle or something's going to go wrong, you need to be there at that second so that that person believed you were always there for them. It wasn't sort of escalated later. So that's your decision in your automation is when do you, the human seamlessly transition into that conversation and take over and keep that balloon in the air. That's what we're trying to do here, keep the balloon in the air for customer service of interaction. And I was dealing with, I was actually dealing with chat GPT and I'm trying to get my, in order to get a feature enabled I have to have my organization verify for whatever reason and my verification failed. So I emailed chatgpt or the support OpenAI knowing full well that you're going to get a automation to start with. I'll be very fair. It was really good, it was really good. So the first couple of messages it said check this, check that, uh, check. I did, I did, I did, I did. And uh, I got to the point where it then, it basically then gave up and said look, for whatever reason your validations failed, there's nothing you can do about it. You have to wait until it unlocks in an unspecified period of time. So I got a bit grumpy at that point, hoping it was going to push me through to a human. And it said, well, it is what it is. I can't take you any further. You just have to, you have to wait. And there is no, there is no other, other answer I can give you. And you think, well, there's no point in arguing with OpenAI. They're not going to suddenly change their mind. There's millions of people out there doing this. But their, their process was really good. And I, the quality of the emails, the quality of responses was, was. I knew it was AI, but it was, it was good AI, as you'd hope.

Sarah Ashley Neal: I was going to say. I hope, yes.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, as you'd hope they're doing. So I think you have to, if you've got a really good AI system that, that, that can take the weight off your customer services reps, your first interactions. And you trust it, and you trust it, and you trust it and you trust it. You trust it with your reputation.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Trust is a big word. Yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: Then, then it's okay. And it lives up to it, but you've got that human ready to catch for when it messes up. Uh, so I think you can automate, you can do stuff because if it allows you to do better quality customer service later, we're both old enough and ugly enough to have spent those, those times where, where push, uh, button call centers, you know, one for this, two for that, three for the other. End up bearing yourself down 10 different layers. It's one of. I just used to press hash or star at the beginning because that generally got you straight through to an operator. Or you'd pick the other one you always used to pick was, um, invoice queries or I want to pay you, I want to pay the bill. If you press pay the bill, you knew someone was going to answer the phone. So if you, if you press I want to pay the invoice, you answer the phone and go, I had this problem with the technical issues. Oh, no, you've come through to accounts. I went, oh, did I? Oh, can you transfer me one moment? They transfer you straight to tech. Or sometimes they'll go, oh, we can't do that, we have to phone back. Oh, really?

Sarah Ashley Neal: Sometimes you really. I mean, we talk about humor in the loop, but we really mean there's AI in the loop. We really want to sometimes get out of that loop. And the amount of times you get back to, you get back to the first one, uh, just press start to start again and hear these.

Joanne Lockwood: Oh, I know it's frustrating and you end up in the same dead end tunnel. Oh, I've just spent an hour in this tunnel. I don't want to. And then. But then that's where your customer service starts failing, isn't it? That's when you start getting customer frustration. It's like, oh, is it worth dealing with you? Because every time I have a problem, I'm going to get stuck in this dead end tunnel and I'm going to get really angry, really frustrated. I'm going to waste all this time. That's what I'll try and stop, isn't it?

Sarah Ashley Neal: Sorry, Joanne, interrupting that. But yeah, going with the flow there. Getting so excited. It's my passion. That's absolutely it. Um, I'm going to move on to another, another area and I'm just going to segue really unnaturally here. Normally it's a natural segment only because I went blank on you do, you know, begin to laugh. Begin to laugh so much I'm getting a watery eye. Um, now we will come on to this and definitely talk about. Because I know you have a business called, um, Sea Change Happen. But just to sort of come back a little bit. You call yourself an inclusive culture expert. I normally know off the top of my head. I thought I'd write a couple of things down. It's worse actually, this. Worse when you do. Right. But you know, inclusive culture expert. Now I'm, um, now where I'm going with this is that you also mentioned that you don't always want to talk about diversity and equity inclusion and there's a lot of buzzwords out there and I know we touched on a few things when we, we had a little, little chat the other day. Would you, would you be happy just to put the record straight for a few things, Although you may not have all the answers. You certainly are. You came on the show because you, you are, you are an expert in these areas inside.

Joanne Lockwood: Uh, that's why I put my title. Yeah, I've, I've set myself up to be an expert, so I've got to live up to that mantra, I suppose.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Yeah, yeah. So that's that perfectionism we were talking about earlier. But no, little. Slightly different. Um, slightly different. Now I'm going to. On a personal level. Right. On a personal level, I would love to understand a little bit more. Now I know we can't cover it all today how in the workplace, because I've just been to a company who's got like 40 or thousand staff. And it was. We were doing an awareness stand, etc. And you can. There's quite a few people coming through. But I've noticed there was so much corporate jargon for. Even from six months ago and 12 months ago. And, um, serves that company. Maybe they have their own corporate jargon or maybe it's. Is it language that is within different sizable companies? Because as someone on the street. I'll rephrase that quickly as somebody who, um, um, I'm not working in, in a big company, but I would like to learn more about gender quality and, and acronyms and wording, because I've even noticed there's another letter on the lgbtq and I noticed that's an extra. Is that an extra one on, um, this shoe. Is it always. So talk to me before I embarrass myself, because even my. What I'm saying now has come from my heart. There are people out there going, oh, I'm not sure, you know, what, what, what the right. An acronyms, what I'm supposed to say. So if this opens up a little bit of a conversation with the rest of our podcast, that'd be beautiful. Go for it.

Joanne Lockwood: And this, this, this is part of the challenge that the in group have. Trying to communicate with the out group. You know, the people who are in the echo chamber versus people who are outside of the echo chamber. Language becomes kind of complicated, unnatural. Uh, people get worried about getting it wrong. They're not sure what the letters are. Uh, am I saying the right thing? Am I doing the right thing? Am I going to upset somebody? Of course, what that ends up doing is it ends up creating this barrier of communication between two people or between a group. You tend to lean away or go, oh, this is so difficult. I can't cope with this anymore. And the people in the in group get, get upset because. Hang on a minute. Why am I so difficult? You know, there's always all these languages that we don't understand. And, uh, whether it's LGBTQIA plus or whether it's this letter, that letter. Uh, it's. It's the real, real struggle here with, with. We have the difference between a label and an identity. You know, I is. I am M. And you are. You are. I'm giving you a label. I am. It's an identity of who I am.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Okay.

Joanne Lockwood: I think what, what we often get confused is we, we get confused between these identities and labels. We want to label somebody, but using the label could be a slur. But using as an identity it becomes. It becomes part of who we are. And of course, if you're not within the group, you don't necessarily understand these little. These little nuances. You know, everybody. Everybody who's kind of LGBTQIA plus. Yeah. Acronym. Knows what the acronym means, knows what the intricacies are. Ah. If you're not, you go, is it LGTQ plus something? And you're floundering. I think what we need, what we've done, is we've over complicated what it is. We've overcomplicated things. Uh, is it people of color? Is it a black person? Can I say a person? Person of color? Is it a person with a disability? Is it disabled person? Is it a wheelchair user? Is it a person with a wheelchair? Is it autistic person? A person with autism? All these kind of things. And then some identity groups use this language, and then other ones use that type of language. Uh, so it's very much an autistic person, not a person with autism, but it's very much a person who's a wheelchair user, not a bound to a wheelchair or something like that. So you have to be in those different echo chambers or be talking about this all the time to know about those layers of complexity. And it's like, no wonder everyone's going, hang on a minute. This DEI stuff is a nightmare. It's too complicated. People just go, I can't deal with this. And then you're shunned for being woke or not woke enough. And which is. But which is why I want to try and get back to the outcome we're looking for is positive people experiences. So, Covid, we were all very focused on, well, being mental health. We're all in the same storm with different boats. All these, uh, things we were using. We understand that people were having a tough time with their mental health. Tough time in isolation, tough time with money, tough time in their family, tough time and their children. All these sort of things. We understood what we were going for. We didn't need DEI to understand that. So what we've done here is we've. We've demonized DEI and we said, oh, it's about amplifying people of color. It's about amplifying queer people. What about white people? White men? And we've seen a lot of pushback. Now, people who are. Who want to identify with the Union jack, with the St. George cross, with people who are feeling, uh, disenfranchised with the world for whatever reason, because they didn't have a flag, they didn't Have a day, have a hashtag. It's always been if you're a woman, if you're gay, or this, that, the other, you're sort of kind of celebrating. Everyone wants to cheer you on, but men are kind of going, what about me? What about me? White women are going, hang on a minute, um, I'm, uh, I've got issues as well. And people shut them down, say, well, yeah, we all have issues, but our issues, because of our color of our skin, Irish is because of this. And white birds going, well, hang on a minute, I've got issues and no one's listening to me. I've got no forum. Mhm. Which is why we see the, you know, the rise of the manosphere, the incel movement, the, all this, uh, nationalistic, um, St. George crosses on roundabouts because people were feeling disenfranchised and no one was listening.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Mhm.

Joanne Lockwood: So he broke the golden rule. We were excluding in our inclusion efforts. How can you be inclusive if you're excluding certain groups? We're not involving people in conversations. We're not listening. Our, uh, leaders. Why aren't we listening? Why aren't we understanding? Why aren't we giving time to people who are feeling disenfranchised, who are going to be voting in a way that we go, hang on, why are you voting for this party here? Can't you see how destructive that's going to be for our country, our global economy? Yes, but they're listening to me, they're speaking my language. And that's what we've done. We've created this in group and out group where if you have a hashtag, you're kind of looked after. If you don't have a hashtag, then there's no one celebrating you. And that's what we've got to go back to. Back to the groups, positive people experiences, well being. If you look at most DEI initiatives, uh, everyone will kind of go, yeah, we need to do that. Yeah, of course we need to do that. Yes. We need to make sure there are mummy and baby slots or parent baby slots, accessible parking. We need to make sure the lifts work. We need to make sure there's accessible toilets there. We need to make sure that people who have neurodiversity or dyslexia are able to apply for jobs and they can gain from employment. Yeah, of course that's right, of course that's right. Of course that's right. That's not, that's not dei, uh, all DEI does. But that's the outcome we're trying to achieve.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Yes.

Joanne Lockwood: So we need. We need to think about what we're trying to achieve, why we want to achieve it, and not throw that baby out with the bathwater, but make it accessible for everybody so that everybody feels they're being listened to. And that's where we've gone wrong. We're not listening to people.

Sarah Ashley Neal: And this is very interesting. It's lovely listening to you talking. You're so eloquent. You really know your stuff. But. But. And there's me stuttering all of a sudden. Um, but do you know, I told you this was a big subject for me and may, um, lose my thread. Thread occasionally. Sorry, listeners. So, okay, so let's. Let's talk perhaps about, you know, so we're in the workplace, for example. Just talk about the workplace. Because obviously, um, you could be out of that as well, asking the right questions. Is there a right question or is it about how we ask a question? I want to learn whether. Whether I'm learning about a subject, whether I'm learning about a person, a culture, an individual. Uh, and now say gender. I don't have to pretend that I'm anything other than who I am. So I'm Sarah Chenille. I'm heterosexual. And, um. That's right. That's the right word. However, we live in a society where I've got friends, you know, who are gay. I've got. And I. I worked in camp America, what, 30 years ago, and it was an awful lot of lesbians on that. And I didn't see people as. I mean, I was interested, but I didn't look at someone and say, group of lesbians over in the corner. It's. I'd be like. I was thoroughly enjoying myself just talking. Because I think we get caught up with the. The fact that regardless of what gender you are, we don't go around displaying our sexual orientation all the time. So I don't say, oh, hi, my name's Sarah o', Neill, and, um, I'm not a lesbian, or I am heterosexual. I'm Sarah Neal and I do xyz and I'm who I am. I know we're exploring. We need you back on again to talk more about some of these subjects. But I just feel sometimes a little bit. Not so much now, but there are times I'm thinking, um, I've noticed something new coming on board. I'm thinking, how do I broach that? Or how do I talk to people about it? So is it okay? Really? Where we've got time to talk about is more the context about how we. How do we talk? How do we ask the questions? How do we. But do we need.

Joanne Lockwood: We don't go, how do you talk to a straight person? You just have a conversation.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Um, I wanted to hear your perspective.

Joanne Lockwood: It's sort of sexuality relevant to the conversation. I generally do. I fancy you and you fancy me. Then. Then your sexuality is relevant. If you're not looking to hop into bed with somebody, then largely does. Does their sexuality or your sexuality at that point matter? Probably not. Um, other than maybe it creates a bond. If you are both a minority group. If you both decide discover your lesbian, you might go, hey, secret handshake, hey. Or not. But I think we do. Maybe. Uh, people are typically living as a majority person in a majority world. You get used to being in that blinkered majority and not seeing things that are different. And then you get. Become curious about things that are maybe outside of your standard field of view about someone of color, their sexuality, their gender identity, whatever it may be. And that's where you may feel you haven't got the cultural competency to engage in the conversation. Or you're so curious you can't stop your curiosity getting the better of you. And wanted to find out more. Um, there's a great book and Rutger Bregman, he's written two books, I know of Utopia for a Realist. And the second one is called Humankind. And I love both of the books, but Humankind. He puts forward this argument that inherently, we as a species, we as human beings are inherently kind. M. And there's a belief sometimes that humans are angry. There's this, there's that, the other. But he puts forward a really good sort of proposition that humans are inherently kind. And if you look at reality TV shows, people, if you, if you just put people in a room like Big Brother, you put people in the jungle, whatever it be, people will just generally get on with each other. They generally get on with each other. And the only reason these programs work is they. Because they put antagonism in there. Like in the jungle. They restrict food, they bring in a poison chalice, someone who's going to disrupt. They create a leader. They make people guilty for not winning or having to strive. So they have to disrupt the human pattern by creating these things that, uh, distract people from their kindness. So if we go around into the world and believe that people are kind, nobody wakes up in the morning to be a dick. Nobody wakes up in the morning to be a complete ass, whatever it may be. You don't get in your car in the morning. I'm going to shout at somebody this morning because they carved me out. Um, things happen. So if we start off with the premise that people are basically kind. So if you have a curiosity about somebody, ask yourself the question, who does this curiosity benefit? Is it for my benefit, or is it going to help and benefit the person I'm curious about? Yeah, if it's all about you, you have to go, actually, this is just my curiosity here. Am I entitled to be curious? I want to learn. But is it fair for me to ask that question? So, again, just check in with yourself and go, who's this for? Because I remember this conversation, said, this person said to me, I really want to know if this person, I think it was, is a transgender male, a man. She said, I'm sure I've got this feeling he's transgender, but I can't tell. I don't know if I should ask him or not. Why do you want to know? And what benefit would it be if you find out and does he want to tell you? It's like. So they went, yeah, but I'm just. I just really want to know. And I thought, wait, that. That's, uh. It's for you. Yes, not for them. So if your conversation doesn't benefit both parties, there's not a shared agreement in here. What benefit are you getting from it? And I think. So if you start with that personal accountability. You know what. What's in it for me? What's in it for the person I'm talking to? So if you think about the. The three dynamics, intent, impact, and accountability. M. So my intent is good. My intent is positive. I want to be nice. I want. I, uh, believe what I'm asking is very lovely. The impact is how that is received.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: And your intent may actually translate into negative impact or problematic conversation where that person feels less comfortable or less than themselves because you've asked that question, you probed too deep, or you've asked that one question, and that's the point. You need to be accountable. Personal accountability. I'm sorry, I got that wrong. You're right. Go have a good intent, Be ready to pick up on the negative impact and then be accountable. Have your plan B in the back pocket. I'm sorry, I got that wrong. And I think if you start with those that. That thought, you know, that accountability in mind to beginning, the fact you are kind, the fact you're a reasonable person, you're curious, and that curiosity is for your benefit, not for their benefit, then you can Filter that and go. Actually, I'll just move on. I'll just say nothing. It's okay. I'll remain curious. That's on me.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Mhm.

Joanne Lockwood: Because if you get it wrong, then you're going to upset somebody, going to get into an argument, you're going to, you're going to. Oh, come on, I only asked a silly question. Yeah, come on. So, yeah, be accountable. Be accountable.

Sarah Ashley Neal: No, I like that. Thank you for that. Joanne. This is all sounds silly in one way, but we're still not there yet in society. It's going to take, you know, years to come and it is about us all working together and kindness. I love the angle you went with that because words can be very cutting and it could come from a. What someone thinks is a natural place. But like, you've now identified that as curiosity, which is very true. I think having that curiosity is important, um, so that we can, we can learn about each other. But like you said, it's not necessarily about just bringing up in a conversation because you just want to know. Um, because whether it's ignorance, naivety, or, um, you're not thinking necessary of the other person, other people, we don't know what we're going through in life.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, but if you just, if you imagine the, the person you just met is a, a mirror image of yourself, they're, they're vanilla. They, there's no specific, um, standout point. Their haircut, their glasses, their clothing, whatever it may be. They just look, notice a bit to anybody, just ordinary, just every day. And you don't give them a second thought. You don't, you're not curious about them at all. And you, you bump into them and you say, hi, my name's Sarah. Oh, hi, I'm Joanne. How deep would you then go? What would you be? Your next question. Oh, hi, Joanne, lovely to meet you. Um, what do you do? You traveled far today. Um, what's going on in your life right now? What, what gets you up in the morning? You'd ask some very open questions. You wouldn't home in on their identity. No, I meet a lot of people dog walking now and we talk about dogs. We talk about how old your dog, what age your dog, what breed's your dog. Have a lovely day. And you park company. We just talk about dogs. We have a very superficial conversation. No one's asking me how queer I am. No one's asking me anything like this or my sexuality or whatever. I'm not even thinking about their sexuality. We're so busy talking about dogs. Sorry, off track. Go for it. So, uh, how long do you spend with a person before you feel you have the right to ask a second level question? So I would say, I don't know. Each situation is different. You know, we've hit it off quite quickly. We've had a lot, we've had a lot of laughs. This is our second call or third call together. We've had a bit of a laugh every time we've met. So we could probably go deeper, uh, on a question and an answer than we could within the first five minutes of us first chatting. We've laughed a bit, we test the boundaries, we prod a little bit. Is this humor going to work? Are we on the same wavelength? Does Joanne mind? Do I mind? And we, we kind of negotiated our communication depth, haven't we? And, and I don't doubt if we met again. We met in person for coffee. We'd be, we'd be really, would be laughing out loud and really going, I'm holding myself back.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Yeah, too many jokes.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, yeah. So, so we, we, we, we, we've definitely got a meeting in mind. So we could probably go quite deep and you could probably, uh, you may meet somebody else who's a little bit more reserved that you think, well, actually I can't go so deep. And you may do some probing questions to see. Is there a chink of humor in there? Oh, no, actually no. This person may do a, uh, probing question back to find out how serious you are, just to check you are serious. And then we negotiate our conversation styles and uh, go back to leadership. As a leader, I have to recognize that I have a different conversation style with each individual person. How I communicate with my daughter. I can have a different relaxed type conversation with my daughter than I could ever have with my son. But then I talk to my son about different things. I'd never talked about my daughter.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Right.

Joanne Lockwood: I have to recognize that I have to be adaptive and person centric and I can ask, you know, you can ask me stuff now that you could never ask. You couldn't ask my friend necessarily, but, but you could ask this friend or another friend. So I think what we have to do is recognize it from a self leadership and also a, uh, leadership perspective is we have to understand that emotional intelligence about the other person, their needs, our intent, impact accountability. The fact that we're going to have different perspectives on something, we don't have to be right, don't have to be wrong. You're going to. Just because you believe something else doesn't mean say you're unkind just means you have a different view in your circle. You're the normal, you're the. Okay, yeah, or people beg to differ. Yeah. If you're the only straight person in a room full of queer people, then suddenly you'll go, hang on a minute, I'm in the minority. But normally a straight person's in a room full of straight people and one person's the queer person. And then therefore they're the odd one out. So sometimes it's working out where, which, which in group, which out group you are. If you're a Brexiteer or a Mainer, there's very polarized opinions. And you know, I spent a long time wondering how on earth we could have voted the other way and not this way. And, but really people had different reasons for voting. Uh, how they do, uh, how did over half the population voted for the incumbent president in the United States? You may look from the outside and go, how could anyone vote that way? Because they did. Doesn't mean to say they're right or wrong. They just have a view on what it is. And most of these people aren't unkind. They're very kind people. They believe for very genuine reasons. And everyone has to have that respect. I don't have to agree with you, but I can respect the fact you are an intelligent human being and have an opinion. And um, I think that's the starting point for, as a leader, being able to talk to different people and knowing

Sarah Ashley Neal: that we can change our minds. And we change our minds usually because we've learned something and then we, we may have done some self reflection on that and thought actually had I not had that conversation about that, whatever it is now, um, I may not have come to that conclusion. So that's how we change our beliefs, isn't it? Shift our paradigms.

Joanne Lockwood: If we're open minded, yeah. We have to be open minded enough to let go of a prisoner, become prisoners of our own beliefs. We have to uh, strong opinions weakly held. We have to be able to let go of our views, challenge our perception of things, challenge our belief system and be willing to change. Not go down rabbit holes and conspiracy theories and waste our time entertaining every view but being open enough and adult and grown up enough to say, I don't have to be right all the time. I, uh, said at the beginning, I've been married for 38 years, together for 42 children. Our gender transitioned in the middle of that. You do not do that by being right all the time. Relationships don't Succeed. If one person always has to be right, one person's always made to feel wrong. That's where relationships break down. So it has to be a partnership here where you both have views, you both respect each other without necessarily having to agree. But you, you allow people to have those views without having to be right.

Sarah Ashley Neal: And that's what makes for a good conversation, doesn't it? So, Jo Ann, um, Joanne. Thank you very much, Joanne, both for the listeners, if they, when, when they do eventually contact you, um, they may call you Joe, but you'll build that relationship with them. But Joe's okay.

Joanne Lockwood: Never Joanna. Never Joanna. Always with Joanne.

Sarah Ashley Neal: I've made sure I don't say that now. Probably end on that. So don't. I'll have to cut that out. Okay, Tell us more about your business. Um, because see change happen. Because we've been talking about, you know, change in so many different ways. What, what's the context behind this?

Joanne Lockwood: And, um, so the business as three strand, you know, good marketers say everything needs three. You have to have three of everything. So I speak, I educate, and I consult. So it's on the broad topic of inclusion, belonging. Um, so I work with, uh, talent acquisition teams to create inclusive, uh, pipelines, uh, in talent acquisition, um, I work with leaders to try and create inclusive cultures. I work with teams, try and create allyship programs, um, and understanding around conscious inclusion, psychological safety, building trust. And as an also, I also educate and consult on transgender awareness, which for those of you living in the UK or even in the US you probably understand that's probably a big, big topic at the moment. Understatement, warning. Uh, so I'm doing a lot of work with business on that to try and help organizations, uh, foster cultures and environments where their trans and non binary colleagues feel loved, respected, and not feeling they're displacing people who have different views all the time. But yeah, they're embraced for who they are.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Excellent. So we're coming up to an hour. Goodness. May I? Told you we could talk loads. Uh, one word I wanted to touch on there before we just close, um, down. Um, allyship. You know, what does being a good ally look like to you then? Is that a loaded question or a big question? For now, we're not even just talking in a company, but leadership. And we're talking about leadership in general. It's about supporting people, isn't it? Regardless of what your own views are.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. A phrase I use at the moment is holding the rope. So an ally is someone who will come on the end of that rope with you and hold it. And it's not about winning, it's not about pulling anybody over, it's about holding that ground. Because at the moment people from certain marginalized communities, people who are, uh, voiceless, who uh, have lack of advocacy for whatever reason, feel the rope is slipping through their fingers and they've got blisters where they're trying to grip all of this. And things are, you know, it's just not getting traction. So that I really is taking that weight. As if it was your own, as if your life depended on it. And you can't, I appreciate you can't do that for everybody. Marginalized person or marginalized communities. And you may well have a focus on gender, you may well have a focus on lgbtq, you may well have a focus on disability, but it's being aware of societal issues that are impacting people from those marginalized groups and doing what you can to advocate either proactively. So, I. E. Being an active ally or being more passive and just stepping in when you can. And both. Yeah, uh, being active is obviously the gold star. Being passive is better than not being at all. So recognizing the difference between being not racist and being anti racist, being not, um, homophobic and being anti homophobic. So one is standing up and calling it out or calling it in when it happens. The other is just kind of, uh, nudging it when you see it or hear it. So being active is key. It's not a full time job. It's not about, you know, wearing a T shirt and waving a flag every day. It's just recognizing it that you reach out to your friends, your colleagues at uh, work or in society, spotting it, avoiding the bystander effect, avoid letting things pass and slide. If you say, hang on a minute, that's not good enough, that's not right, doing something about that feeling. Because if you, if you let it pass, if you don't do anything, you've effectively said, it's okay on my watch. If it's not okay on your watch, say something. So that's really the fundamentals of Alan Shop is being a good friend, engaging with the person or the groups or the communities that you want to be an ally to ask them how you can help, offer help, be proactive, do your own education, keep an eye on the news, seeing things that are going on and going, wow, that's a really bad thing. I know that Joe will see that news item and Joe's going to be kind of reeling from that news today. Quick WhatsApp Joe just saw that. How are you just checking in on it? It looks like a tough, tough day for you. So that kind of thing, just a little check ins, those micro check ins, things like that. It's not, it's not being your cat bringing a dead mouse in through the cat flap and say, oh, look what I found because I can find the m. Dead mouse on my own. I don't need your help being signposted to. Have you seen this horrible news article about you? Yes. It's all right. I know there's horrible news articles about me. I don't need you to signpost because my first reaction would be thank you. What do you think of that article? I don't. You asking me what I think of it? It's not relevant. I want to know what you think. If you're an ally, uh, I want you to say that's not right. I don't. You're. You and your people in your communities are struggling. I've now taken what I've read, what I've seen, what I've heard and this is what I'm going to do about that. And I'm really keen to tell you, Joanne, this is how I feel, this is how I want to help and I go, thank you.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Exactly. And that's a nice end to show on this because there is support is more about than just. It's not so much about sympathy, there's empathy and then there's a discussion around it how, how then you move on from that and come through and it's. And again it's based on the outcome so that it just helps build that resilience. So the next time both of you know, everyone becomes stronger.

Joanne Lockwood: I mean I use the acronym ACT Action changes things. Uh, if nothing changes, nothing changes. So if you have some knowledge and you do nothing with just nothing happens. So you have to do something with that knowledge and activate that into something else. So you have to move it from A to B.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Yes.

Joanne Lockwood: So if you want people to think, feel and act differently, how could you achieve that? Otherwise we all, we're all in the same place. The car never leaves the driveway, the train never leaves the station. We're sat there going, who's driving? Nobody.

Sarah Ashley Neal: I love. You're like me, got lots of analogies and I think often we can learn better that way. Anyway, how can people find you then, Joanne? Website LinkedIn.

Joanne Lockwood: Joanne Lockwood on LinkedIn. I, I'm not aware of many of me, uh, I'm the sexy looking brunette, um, the inclusive culture expert in My time. I know, I know, I know. I've got my hair up today. I don't know why I didn't go glam today. Um, you can Google my name, Joanne Lockwood. L O C K W O O D. I do figure quite heavily on the first 20 pages of Google. I've got lots of podcasts out there, so you can look up my Inclusion Bytes podcast. You can look at my website, which is Change happen swee changehappen.co.uk or my speaker site, which is Joann lockwood.co.uk.

Sarah Ashley Neal: we'll get all of those into the show. Notes.

Joanne Lockwood: Google me.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Uh, absolutely.

Joanne Lockwood: I'm on Instagram, TikTok, anywhere. Anywhere that I can get my face and my voice, I'm there.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Well, you are in the Professional Speakers association and you're a fellow member. Uh, so if anybody out there, um, would like Joanne to come on board, uh, as a speaker and obviously discuss that with Joanne and covers a lot of different topics and you do it extremely well. Like I said, we've only just met, so. But it's. I feel I've known you for ages just because we've got a lovely rapport and I think people who meet you will have that rapport as well as it, as it develops. So thank you so much for coming on board today and, um, always put people on the spot. I hope you come back and talk about some specifics and, uh, you're teaching me all the time, so thank you very much. Lovely.

Joanne Lockwood: Anytime. And if anyone is interested, I always say reach out. You know, I'm always open for conversation.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Wonderful. Okay, well, keep staying beautiful. Keep staying well. Take care of yourself. Lovely. Bye, Joanne.

Joanne Lockwood: Thank you.

Sarah Ashley Neal: Remember, our show is about helping you to create healthier habits in the life you live now. Until new lifestyle practices change how you live your life. Well, that's it for today's episode. Thank you so much for listening and taking time m out to join us. If you enjoyed the show, it would be really great if you could leave a review on whatever platform you've been listening to us on. And I look forward to, to welcoming you back to the show next week. This has been your host, Sarah Ashley Neal.