--- title: "Embracing Full Potential" episode: 138 date: 2024-12-12 guest: "Claire Payne" canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/138-embracing-full-potential audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-138/audio.mp3 --- # Embracing Full Potential Joanne Lockwood is joined by Clare Payne, a law firm partner, tribunal judge and mediator, to explore what it really means to embrace your full potential—personally and in the workplace. Clare reflects on her fast rise in the corporate legal world, the frustration of repetitive leadership conversations, and what she learned by comparing organisations that had similar diversity “numbers” but very different outcomes. The difference, she argues, is culture: whether people are genuinely able to bring themselves to work and contribute their perspectives. Using wolves as an unexpected but vivid metaphor, Clare describes how healthy packs rely on varied roles and perspectives rather than rigid “alpha” hierarchy—and what that can teach leaders about collaboration, innovation and belonging. The conversation also touches on nervous system regulation, how modern stress keeps people stuck in fight/flight/freeze, and why that state makes difference feel threatening rather than valuable. Together they explore practical shifts leaders can make: creating environments where people can ask questions, reflect after trying things, and learn from mistakes without fear. Clare shares experiential approaches she uses with leaders—designed to stretch comfort zones without overwhelming people—and explains the difference between pushing through stress and expanding capability through supported growth. The episode closes on themes of intrinsic self-worth, the tension between fitting in and belonging, and how mediation, emotional processing and restorative approaches can reduce conflict and help people move forward with more connection and clarity. ## Chapters - 00:00 — Introduction and Welcome - 02:00 — Career frustration led to diversity and culture exploration. - 05:59 — Group collaboration surpasses individual capability. - 07:22 — Indigenous wisdom contrasts Western views on wolves. - 12:23 — Litigators face conflict, mediation fosters resolution. - 13:48 — Increasing mediation promotes collaboration over litigation costs. - 17:00 — Challenger firms prioritise long-term solutions, not billables. - 21:25 — News focuses on threat, ignoring positive stories. - 25:16 — Empowering all staff fosters organisational innovation. - 27:29 — Experience leads to empowerment and authentic leadership. - 30:38 — Reflect, learn, innovate: Embrace failure as opportunity. - 33:49 — Embrace shared humanity, individuality over categorisation. - 38:10 — Recognising assumptions leads to finding common ground. - 42:25 — Holding in emotion is exhausting and consuming. - 44:16 — Victim of hate crime, offender mentally unwell. - 47:09 — Forgiveness removes other's power, ensuring personal freedom. - 52:55 — Empowerment involves stretching comfort zones without stress. - 54:32 — Slowing down transforms difficult tasks into empowerment. - 57:58 — See you next time for more food for thought. ## Key takeaways - The necessity of self-assessment, considering one's energy levels, emotions, and potential limiting beliefs. - A gradual approach to expanding comfort zones to foster growth without undue stress. - Empowerment exercises, such as walking on glass or breaking arrows, that blend fun with personal development. - Embracing forgiveness and emotional release as part of the healing and growth process. - The significance of maintaining intrinsic self-worth irrespective of societal judgments. - Strategies for conflict resolution, highlighting the role of emotions and the identification of common ground. - The evolving landscape of legal and corporate cultures, shifting from adversarial to collaborative approaches. ## FAQs ### What is the main focus of Claire Payne's discussion in this episode? Claire Payne discusses the importance of stepping beyond comfort zones to achieve empowerment, rather than merely surviving. She emphasises self-assessment of one's current state, including energy levels, emotions, and potential limiting beliefs, as a route to personal growth. ### How does Claire Payne suggest expanding one's comfort zones? Claire advocates for a gradual approach to expanding comfort zones. This method facilitates growth without causing stress, using both metaphorical and literal exercises, such as walking on glass or breaking arrows, to demonstrate empowerment. ### What role does fun play in personal empowerment, according to Claire Payne? Claire stresses the significance of incorporating fun into life and making the most of one's experiences. She believes that fun is an essential element of empowerment and overall well-being. ### How does the episode address the concept of restorative justice? Joanne Lockwood recounts experiencing a hate crime and her desire for the perpetrator to acknowledge their wrongdoing through restorative justice. The dialogue explores the limitations of the judicial system in achieving apologies and introduces the concept of forgiveness from Hawaiian culture, aimed at releasing the power of the offense rather than seeking an apology. ### How do Joanne Lockwood and Claire Payne view the importance of self-regulation? They discuss the importance of self-regulation and maintaining intrinsic self-worth regardless of others' judgements. Claire draws a comparison to wolves, which interact non-judgmentally within their packs, suggesting humans could benefit from similar behaviours. ### What are Claire Payne's insights on the role of emotions in conflict resolution? Claire Payne argues for recognising and processing emotions rather than suppressing them, as emotions can be indicators that facilitate problem-solving. She highlights the mediator's role in identifying common ground by understanding the conflicting parties' emotions. ## Transcript Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood, your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of inclusion, belonging and societal transformation. Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a world where everyone not only belongs, but thrives? You're not alone. Join me as we uncover the unseen, challenge the status quo and share stories that resonate deep within. Ready to dive in? Whether you're sipping your morning coffee or winding down after a long day, let's connect, reflect and inspire action together. Don't forget, you can be part of the conversation too. Reach out to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk to share your insights or to join me on the show. So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bytes. And today is episode 138 with the title Embracing Full Potential. And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Clare Payne. Claire is a partner in an international law firm, a tribunal judge, a non exec director and an academic. And when I asked Claire to describe her superpower, she said that she is fascinated by people, their stories and potential, and that she holds space to allow people to explore who they are and step into their own power. Hello, Claire, welcome to the show. Hello, nice to be here. Absolute pleasure. We chatted a couple of weeks back, I think, and I've twisted your arm to come and come on the show, so I'm looking forward to this. So, Claire, tell me a bit more about embracing your full potential and your passion. So I think for me Claire Payne: this probably goes back if I can take you back to 2016. With myself, I'd gone up quite a fast career path in the corporate world, made it up to partner in the legal capacity very, very quickly and I'd done all the things that you were supposed to do to be successful. And I think at or around that time I sort of got to the stage where I was getting increasingly frustrated at a management level with going around in circles with the same conversations and meetings. And I'd also got this feeling of, you know, having got to where you're supposed to get to, was that it. And everything felt very much constricted. And I think for me, I sort of looked around myself and I'm always somebody who looks around and thinks, well, surely there's a way we can do this better, what's missing? And around about that time I became very heavily involved with the Chartered Management Institute and in particular looking at diversity. And one of the things I went out and started having conversations with other organisations about was what does diversity mean to you and what impact does it have in your organisation? And now statistically at some of them, I was finding on paper they had the same credentials, they had the same numbers of people from different backgrounds, but some of them were seeing huge benefits from this and others, absolutely not. And that was sort of stepping off on this journey of realising, what's the difference here? And it actually all came down to the culture, it came down to how much they allowed people to be themselves and bring themselves to work. And so that set me off on what's been a whirlwind of a journey which after many years of doing lots of work with lots of different people, landed me sort of a couple of years after that in a field surrounded by wolves, looking at. So where exactly did humans learn to collaborate and where did this idea that we needed some diversity in our groups in order to be able to innovate and reach our full potential come from? And the answer actually comes from about 100,000 years ago, when we first started interacting with wolves. Joanne Lockwood: Because when we think about wolves, we think about a very hierarchical society. But that's not what you found, is it? Claire Payne: No, it's an absolute myth. There is no such thing as an alpha wolf. The way that the wolves family groups work is very much that they have specifically bred different personalities and different perspectives into the group. So each animal that is born into the group has specifically set rules. And they're very, very different in their vision of the world and how they view things and how they deal with the world. They're good at some things, they're worse at other. But collectively, when you slot the whole together, they're stronger for the fact that they've got such a variation in different perspectives and that capability to innovate and to gather that much information for making decisions. And that really is where the heart of their success comes from. I read somewhere that Joanne Lockwood: when you go back to our prehistory, that the Neanderthal species, because we're Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, different species, the Neanderthal was bigger, stronger, faster, more intelligent than Homo sapiens. But the Neanderthals died out because they weren't collaborators, whereas the Homo sapiens, what we are today, we were more community tribal based. So again, the strength in numbers, the strength in the diversity of the skill set was Neanderthals very much individualistic. It's exactly Claire Payne: that. Back looking at the Neanderthals, when this change, this split first started happening, they were very much like Primates, which is all about dominance, which is all about me as an individual. And the problem with an individual is you're then restricted by your own view of the world and your own capability. And the sum of one is one. Whereas what we discovered, obviously, as Homo sapiens, is that. And what we evolved into is a group that looked at diversity and went, you know what? The sum of the group is bigger than the sum of the individuals involved in it. And what we can achieve as a group is far superior to anything anybody's ever going to achieve on their own. So we actively started looking to work with the strengths of the different individuals and started looking at how we can collaborate together in order to achieve something bigger. And that's what ultimately allowed us to progress. So where did we as humans go wrong then? Joanne Lockwood: Because if that's how we evolved, what we are seem to be now as a species is based on alphas. We talk about this bell curve of normality where we have to sort of gravitate towards the centre of that bell curve. And if you're an outlier, you're seen as less valuable. It is interesting how we've ended up here. I mean, Claire Payne: the best explanation that I've had actually comes from a lot of stories that you see in the indigenous people around the world. For them, you see, there's a big difference between how we in the west, few wolves, we've got our stories of, you know, the Three Little Pigs, the Big Bad Wolf, the Little Red Riding Hood, we've got, you know, the wolves and the horror stories that chase people through the woods and. And we've got a very negative view of them. Whereas if you go back to the indigenous people, they see them very much still with this view that they are teachers, that they are guides, that they are to be looked to as a source of wisdom. And across the world, there are variations within indigenous people of the same story, which is about humans breaking with wolves and this hope that one day that we will rejoin with them. And the point at which we broke with them was around about the time that we started agriculture, because prior to that, we were very much in tune with our environment. So we were in tune with each other, and we were also in tune with the environment that we were living in. We worked with the seasons, we worked with what was available to us. We foraged, we hunted, and that's very much how we survived. The change came when we started agriculture, when we started manipulating our environment, when we started saying, actually, we're not going to do with what's Actually there naturally occurring, we're going to start cultivating things to serve us. And at that point the wolves also split. And that's how we ended up the domesticated dogs, which are the ones that stuck with us as we almost domesticated ourselves and the wolves who carried on being the wolves. And the more we've domesticated ourselves, I mean, we've had huge leaps forward in terms of what we've achieved as a species, huge leaps forward in what we are capable of. But unfortunately, somewhere along the line we also lost some bits of the operating manual. So I think we forgot about the benefit of having that diversity and of having those outliers and realising that quite often that's where the innovation comes from. That's where the interesting challenge or the different way of seeing a problem or seeing a solution comes from. That lets us leap forward. But we also lost a number of other things that help us reach our potential. So for example, now we are, we are particularly poor at regulating our own neurological systems. I mean, wolves are an absolute master of ensuring that they keep in regulation. So what, what's happened with us is we've, we've got this system and you probably hear people talk about polyvagal system, but essentially in a nutshell, if we are in a regulated state, we are in the ventral vagal system, which means we're open and we can connect to lots of people. It means we're in connection, we can see opportunities, we're ready to take in board information, we can take in lots, lots of different ideas and we can make decisions much quicker. The difficulty about modern life is it keeps us in the parts of that system that are our fight, flight or freeze. Because a lot of us are overstimulated and we're not regulating ourselves. And what that does is when you pull yourself down into that stressed part of your neurological system and you start permanently living there, you start finding it more difficult to connect with people. You start wanting to focus on where's the threat coming from as opposed to where's the opportunity. And at that point, things that are different from us or ideas that are coming in are at best seen as a bit overwhelming or at worst seen as being something of a threat. And at that point we actually actively stop collaborating with each other. So it's not just been about as wanting to control, it's also been about this gradual disconnect. We've almost started programming into our neurological system. But the really good thing about it is all the hard wiring is still there and we are perfectly capable of reversing that if we just bring some consciousness around how we're managing ourselves and how we're interacting with each other, particularly in the workplace. I think it's fascinating. Joanne Lockwood: I agree with completely. And our vagus nerve, which is, I guess what you're talking about here is when you're referring to it, it's connected directly to our adrenaline glands, our digestive system and that fight flight freeze mechanism. And we are often in a state of heightened alert. And it's very difficult to live in modern society without being on that lookout. I guess you've got to go cheque out of, of the modern world, live in a commune, go back to nature in order to step out those stresses which we're all facing. I mean, you work in the legal profession, that's a very, well, traditionally male dominated alpha type environment, especially if you're in the city. It is, absolutely. And I think this is Claire Payne: why I became so acutely aware of this as well. Because very much in the legal environment you don't show weakness. And I think particularly as a litigator, when I'm working in conflicts, there is this idea that you are out there on your own and that you are fighting the good fight and that quite often there is, there is no room for compromise. And this is how parties end up at loggerheads. Of course, a more modern way that we're, that a lot of people are coming around to in terms of conflict resolution is thankfully these days we're seeing a lot more things like mediation and like people having conversations and bringing each, you know, bringing parties to the table to actually see how they can collaborate and finding a solution rather than just digging themselves into a trench and hurling things at each other from either side until one of them gives in. Yes, I think that's something I'm a lot more sensitive to being in the legal profession, particularly being a litigator where I'm dealing with contentious environments because people become very entrenched and they don't want to talk to each other, they don't want to communicate, they don't want to collaborate. And they become very stuck in this, in this world where they've closed down and everything is a threat and everything is taken in a negative way. And actually one of the joys of the direction in which modern legal sort of litigation work is going is that we're seeing a lot more mediation now, a lot more people willing to get into a meeting and lawyers willing to get their clients to the table to have a discussion where they can start collaborating about how they can Find a solution and find a way forward. That's not to say people's viewpoints aren't entirely valid, that's not to say their emotions aren't entirely valid, but finding a way in which they can release those in a positive fashion, gain some understanding between each other, and actually get to the point where they've got a solution which would be far better than anything a court could ever order is really, really helpful. So I think there is definitely a recognition now, certainly within legal, the legal industry, of moving away from this being it's all about me on my own. And I can't show any weakness to being able to say, well, hang on, maybe it's a case of just having a bit of understanding, of perspective. I'm not sure I would say it's gone as far as having some empathy yet, but it's certainly starting to take steps in the right direction. And I think the solutions that people are seeing in terms of being able to craft answers to problems and being able to find ways forward that don't end up costing a fortune and years of litigation in court are making a significant difference to the business world. That must be a change in strategy from Joanne Lockwood: within the judicial system, I guess, because the judicial system effectively breeds its clients. And if you're engaging with an advisor, a solicitor, a lawyer, and they want you to litigate, they want to earn their fee, then they're going to push you in that route because it's that feudalistic conflict that the legal system seems to thrive on. And you look at divorce, you look at tribunals, you look at companies and individuals, the first stop hasn't always been talk first, has it? It's always been build your army and get support. It has. And I think, I think certainly in the legal world it's Claire Payne: changing for a number of reasons. One of them is that the courts are now very much looking at promoting mediation first with parties. There is an expectation there that parties should have had those conversations. So we saw back in the 1990s the introduction of pre action protocols, which required parties to set out their cases to try and get some level of understanding and encourage them to start talking. That's now progressing to the point where we've got ordered mediation in certain cases and we've also got judicial mediation. So, for example, in my tribunal, there's a number of us that are trained mediators and if we say, see a case where we think, actually, do you know what would be really helpful is actually these parties just need to get in a room and talk to each other. We can order that and facilitate that before we send it to anybody to start making orders for them to do disclosure and make judicial decisions on what's presented to us. Because actually quite often that means that there is a much better long term solution for those parties. Particularly because I work in the area of property where people have to carry on living with each other or working with each other afterwards. That's increasingly important. I think from the other side, the day of the traditional law firm where everything is on billable hours is numbered. There are still some firms out there where the solicitors working for them or basically all of their targets are based on how many hours have you stuck on the clock and how many hours have you billed the client. And for them, that does drive very much a culture where they will get each individual case to last as long as it possibly can and they want it to go to court because they're going to make more money out of it bluntly, and they're going to get more hours on the system. The difference that you have when you start pushing back at that model, and it's certainly something that Gunnar Cook, which is the firm that I'm part of, has done. The reason we're called a challenger firm is because we don't run on hourly. We don't have targets of hours on the clock or hourly rates that we've billed or anything. What we judge ourselves on is the net promoter score, which is at the end of a case, we ask a client, on a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend us to someone else? I have, we done a good job. And as long as they've said we've done a good job, we're happy with the outcome and we do fixed fees as much as we can. And when you're doing fixed fees and when you're looking to get the best outcome for a client, it changes very much how you come at managing that dispute. Because what you're looking for is an early solution. And you know, it might sound counterintuitive, but actually that's when you see clients where you build a real long term trust relationship with them. That's when they come back to you time and again because you solve the problem. So they come back to you with the problem after that and the problem after that, and the problem after that. The other thing is you do an awful lot less marketing because they're delighted with the work that you've done and they tell everybody that they know that they should instruct you. So actually it's not curtailed the amount of profit the law firm can make. If anything, it makes the profits higher and it makes it more sustainable. But it is counter to how law firms have worked for a long time. So there's a push from both sides to recognise that. And I think there is also a big push from clients who are waking up to see that actually they don't want their businesses stalled whilst we have arguments with each other. So I think in the legal industry things are starting to change. I think what I see from my, with my non exec director hat on is in the boardroom things are starting to change as well because I have noticed that there is less box ticking going on with a lot of the organisations that I work with. So they're not just looking for somebody who ticks a box for diversity, they're also looking for somebody who brings a very different perspective to the table. They want someone who's had different life experiences, they want someone who's got a different background, they want something who's got a different skill set and they want all of that to be at the table in the boardroom so that when they're having discussions about solving problems, again, it's not just groupthink with one viewpoint going around in circles, they're actually genuinely getting a number of different solutions on the table and they're genuinely getting the right questions asked to explore things from different perspectives. So I think we are, we are in a very exciting time where, you know, as I said, the indigenous people have got this story about this time when we almost come back round to the way that the wolves think. And for me, I think I'm starting to see that curve naturally starting to happen in the way that we are driving ourselves now. But the world at large seems to be getting worse. I Joanne Lockwood: mean, we've just, we're recording this mid November, in fact, Armistice day on the 11th, the 11th. And we've just come off the back of a US presidential election where it's very much driven by divisive politics. And our own two party system in the UK is also a divisive in government and opposition. The opposition have to oppose everything the government do. We're not a collaborative government in the uk, are we? No, I agree, I agree. And it's Claire Payne: very divisive and I think politics, modern politics, does breed that in some ways. But I think it is interesting in the way in which we consume our news, because we consume our news focused on the negative. What we don't consume our news on is focused on how many people perhaps voted for something that was a bit more liberal and a bit more collaborative. And I think, you know, because of the way we are wired to look for threat, people who are selling newspapers, who are selling, you know, social media stories and everything else will promote the thing that is a threat. What they won't do is tell you the hundred good news stories, the hundred little moves here, there and everywhere else, the things that have happened day to day in the lives of real people and the shifts that are happening and the thinking and the way in which people interact with each other on a personal basis in favour of looking at these big. These bigger stories. Now, I'm not belittling at all or suggesting you ignore the seismic shifts that are happening, but I think it's a case of getting some perspective on it. And I think you get a choice of how you get to view the world and you get a choice of how you want to interact with the world. And you can choose to view it as doom and gloom and there's no hope, or you can choose to look for the hope and to continue making the change in your own sphere of influence. And if we all keep doing that, imagine what we could achieve between us. Yeah, you're preaching to the choir here. Joanne Lockwood: I completely converted. I'm seeing a lot of pushback on edi, dei, whatever acronym you want to use. And what you're saying is you're seeing a shift in the legal profession towards mediation in the EDI space. People are kind of dismissing it. It's become too entrenched in identity politics, become too entrenched in this, that the other. It's not delivering any benefits anymore. We need to cancel all the EDI budgets, fire all the EDI teams. Was EDI ever doing anything worthwhile in business? I think. And I think Claire Payne: this comes back to what I was saying about the box ticking. And, you know, there are organisations, and there are a lot of organisations out there that are dealing with so much regulation now that actually EDI has just been put on the regulation pilots. Another hoop that they need to jump through. So they need to collect data, they need to tick boxes, they need to make sure things are worded in a certain way. And what they're doing is they're jumping through hoops without really looking at why this would be of benefit to them as an organisation. And I think at that point it does become a chore, it becomes something that actually loses the meaning behind it. Whereas I think those organisations that are smart, those organisations that are reporting that huge seismic shift in the. In the bottom line. Those huge impacts on workplace culture are the ones that have actually understood the underlying driving principle of our own, why having equality, diversity and inclusion is so important. And it is about having all of those points all together. One of them doesn't work. You know this. Having equality doesn't work if you haven't got inclusion and you haven't got diversity in there. You've got to have all three of them as part of this mixture. And what it's about is, it's about creating that diverse group of people where everybody is empowered to bring themselves to the table and included in the discussion so that you can get the absolute best from them. And it's not just, you know, we're not just talking about in the boardroom, we're talking about everybody from, you know, your cleaners, your reception staff, right up to your senior managers, because they will all have input, ideas, things that they notice, things they realise. And if they've gotten a voice, a voice and that empowerment to be able to contribute, that you are then harnessing the potential of your people, which is your greatest asset in the business. And I think if people started treating EDI like that consistently across the board, then this idea that it's this sort of tired piece of regulation book ticksing work would change. And I think that, I think that is where organisations are going wrong. It's not about the red tape, this is about how do you get your organisation into a situation where, you know, where can innovate. This is one of the biggest things that people complain about. There's no innovation in our organisation. Nobody is looking at better ways of doing things. Well, they won't be if you haven't got that inclusive culture. It's all about the culture. The other thing that they complain about is, you know, how do we get to the point where we're getting potential out of everybody? How do we get to the point where we've not got people disengaging and doing the bare minimum Again, that at the heart of it has got to be in a culture that empowers people to feel included, to feel they've got a voice, to feel that they are part of the vision, that they are part of this community that is driving forwards towards a common goal. And so the heart of it is really going to come in cultural change. And the organisations that are nailing that are going to get the benefit of edi, the organisations that aren't are going to be there scratching their head, going, I don't understand why we have to keep going through this. Joanne Lockwood: So how do we get our leaders to wake up to this prehistoric wolf, ancient human modality, where we're. We're focusing on the right side of our vagus nerve, rather the wrong side of our vagus nerve. How do we get leaders to shift their perspectives on that? Claire Payne: I think one of the things that I have found is, sadly, you can talk to people about this until you blew in the face, but the best way they can pick it up is to actually feel it, is to actually experience what it's like. And that's either by going into an organisation, which is nailing this and which is getting it right and seeing how that culture works and looking at best practise, or in my case, what I found is actually I take groups of leaders out and I teach them what that regulated state feels like. I take them in to meet the wolves, to feel what it feels like to be part of that pack, part of that community. And you feel it at such a visceral level. And people are so surprised at how calm it makes them feel, how controlled they feel, how empowered they feel to be able to then bring their own strengths to the fore. And I think it's one of those things that empowerment very much starts with the individual leader. If they are putting on a mask to try to fit a mould that somebody has told them, you've got to be this way in order to be an executive, in order to be a director, a CEO, a manager, whatever position they're in, if they're masking in order to try and do it and not bringing their whole self to the table, they're going to struggle to do that with the rest of their team. So it is one of those things where it does come back to that personal development, that reconnection with themselves and that ability to empower themselves to bring everything to the table. And then what they will naturally find is they will see the benefits for them and they will naturally start bringing that to their team and the culture will start changing around them. It's. It's like ripples in a pool. You start one and it does start going out. Because one of the other things that we've got, which is a phenomenal capability for humans, is we can regulate ourselves. But because we have this neurological system throughout our entire body, with mirror neurons, we can also influence and co regulate other people around us. So that feeling of regulation, that connection, that empowerment, you can, when you're really tuned into it, actually push that out into a group when you're working with them as well. Joanne Lockwood: You work leaders and Teams and I also work with many leaders. One of the biggest barriers is this fear of getting it wrong. Because edis team is such a minefield. So many different identities, so many politics gets involved, conflict, us versus them, me versus you, all this kind of stuff. How does the leader overcome that fear of getting it wrong? And it is. That fear of failure is Claire Payne: absolutely huge. And it does come back to this idea of, you know, I've got to be out there on my own, I can't show any weakness. I think, I think there are huge benefits to failing, huge, huge benefits to failing, because if you never fail, you never progress, you never learn, there's a cycle to progressing. And what we get stuck in is we get stuck in the first two steps of it. We plan and we do. We plan and we do. We plan and we do. What we very rarely do in the modern world is reflect. And actually, if you want to up your game, you plan it, you do it and then you reflect on it. And even things where things, everything's felt like it's gone really well, there will be certain bits that you could have done better and there's never anything, there's never a situation which is a complete failure. And the reason for that is because even when it's gone wrong, there will be absolute nuggets of gold to be gathered there that tell you how to get it right next time, what can we do better next time? What can we do to make sure that the next time we give this a go, it's a bigger success? And I think if you come at that idea of failure as being a learning opportunity, you open yourself up to the opportunity to innovate and to progress. And I think in the EDI space as well, I think it's giving each other permission to get it wrong. And I think, you know, with political correctness, a lot of people are very worried to actually ask the questions, to actually put themselves in a position of saying, you've got a perspective and an experience. I don't understand. I would like to know more because they're so worried about offending somebody if they do that. Whereas I think, you know, the key to a lot of, a lot of inclusion is understanding. And so I think, you know, there is, there is something there to having an organ, to having an organisational culture where you can say to people, I I'm not sure I understood where you were coming from. I'm interested, please, could you explain that? Or if somebody does get it wrong and says something that perhaps is offensive, is to have that unconditional positive regard for people, that was very clear that that was their intention. It's a question of a lack of knowledge, not a question of them intentionally trying to be offensive. And actually a quiet conversation that says, you know, taking them off to one side and saying, I don't know if you realise, but actually when you mentioned that, that was quite upsetting for me. And this is why, because if you do it in that way with people, most people will say, oh, my goodness, I didn't realise, I didn't know. But now that I do, I'm aware of that. And that's how they learn, that's how they develop, that's how the understanding grows. And I think we've got to not be scared of talking to each and realise that for the most part, everybody is doing the best they can with what they've got. And everybody does have a different background and a different knowledge. And most people are willing to learn and are willing to try, but you've just got to give each other a bit of a chance sometimes. Yeah, I think Joanne Lockwood: we set ourselves up in this. Men versus women, white versus black, straight versus gay, trans versus not trans, neurodiverse versus neurotypical. All this kind of. You've either got it or you haven't got it. If you haven't got it, you don't understand what it's like to have it and vice versa. And then the poor person who's in the middle of the bell curve of normality is going, what about me? I feel left out here. There's nothing for me to be normal. Everybody else gets all the benefits by being something and I don't. And I think we need to take Claire Payne: it back to our shared humanity in a lot of ways, because, I mean, there's two things we're always going to have far more in common than we have different. And there's some lovely exercises you can do when you stick a bunch of people in a room who think they've got nothing in common and start talking to them and you realise they've got loads in common, apart from maybe one or two things that they disagree on. So I think we've got more in common than we have, that's different, but also converse to that we're also all individuals and there is no way that I would ever fully understand the perspective of another individual, whether they are in one of those boxes that have been ticked or not. And I think in a way we've got to stop putting people in boxes and start recognising people as individuals rather than trying so desperately to categorise everybody, because somebody is not their, you know, neurodiverse tag or their sexuality tag or their gender tag. That is one aspect of a hugely complex individual who will have so many other different things about them. That's just one thing. It happens to be about them. And I think, you know, if we start viewing each other like that, about these complex, fascinating individuals and knowing that there are going to be things we have in common and other things that are different, and my goodness, doesn't that make life exciting? Because if we were all the same, it would be blooming boring then. I think that, you know, that is the key to us starting to be able to have a better understanding and to be able to work with each other more. That's kind of the Joanne Lockwood: fundamental route of mediation, isn't it? It's trying to work out what our core common objective is, what we have in common. In fact, we both want to resolve this in some way and we don't want to keep fighting the battle forever. We want to move on. We want to be able to get on with our lives, our businesses, and I always call it things like destination planning, where we're trying to work out, where we're trying to get to. And whilst we have to acknowledge the past, we don't need to keep bringing the past up, putting it back on the table all the time. You just have to say, in order to move on, we have to accept the past has happened and now we need to work on the steps to get to where we're trying to get to. Whilst acknowledging the past doesn't go away. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, as a mediator, Claire Payne: when I'm sitting as a mediator, it's a hugely privileged position because you get to see right inside both sides, or sometimes three, four sides of the argument, which the other people don't have the privilege of having that perspective. And I think there's a couple of things that we do need to recognise. One of them is emotions. We all have emotions. Particularly in the uk, we are very much trained from an early age to ignore our emotions. We push them down, we don't process them. Whereas actually, emotions need to be processed through. They're there, they're indicators. You know, you get angry because a boundary has been challenged, you get fearful because you're out of your comfort zone. You know that these. These are natural emotions that are there in our body, they're there for a reason, for us to then trigger thinking, to trigger being able to then manage the situation. I'm scared of this. Am I out of my comfort zone? Am I actually in danger? No, I'm not. But you've got to be able to process it in order to have that conversation with yourself. And I think part of the problem that you get to is, you know, if you just get to the point where you say, well, let's just forget the past without letting people voice the emotion that was attached to it and get it through their system, all they're doing is pushing it down below the surface, and it's still there trying to erupt. So it does just keep coming back up and it's. And. And so one of the things that, you know, in mediation, there is a certain benefit there at the. At the beginning to letting people just get it all out there on the table. I mean, you know, it's just, you know, and whether that's, I need to have a rant where the other party can hear it, or I just need to have a rant at someone and be heard, get it out of there. And then you draw the line and say, yeah, exactly what you just said. Okay, what do we both want? And the joy of being the mediator is be able to sit there and go, I've heard from both of you, and actually there is common ground. There's this playing field in the middle here where both of you are actually willing to step onto it, and there's this. This almost golden space where there is a solution here. And, you know, it's seeing how far each party where they're willing to come to and what that space looks like. And it's very interesting because part we also make huge amounts of assumptions about other people, huge amounts of assumptions. And of course, we need to be able to do that in order to navigate the world. But quite often our assumptions about what the other person wants, what their agenda is, what they're trying to get to, you know, what's in it for them is quite different to their perspective. And actually, when you come down to it, it's this idea that people are doing the best they can with what they've got. And they have emotions too, and they have drivers behind them, and they have reasons as to why they've responded that way or why they're looking at things that way, whether it's intrinsically part of their personality or it's part of their background, their experience of the world and so on, but recognising that they're doing the best they can with what they got and having that unconditional positive regard as A starting point means that you get to that common ground so much faster. But sometimes it just takes someone standing in the middle to see it, to step back as a neutral observer and go, do you actually realise that there is a common ground here? You know, if we can just share this information and understand the perspective, you're already there. I spent a good chunk of my life Joanne Lockwood: providing IT support to customers. Most of the customers were in a position where there was something wrong and they wanted it right. Whether it was their backups weren't working, their server had died, they lost all their data, whatever it may be, machines broken. And I learned quite quickly that you almost might start the conversation, what are you looking for out of this situation? And most people don't actually know what they want. They know, they know they want a resolution, they know they want to be right, they know they want the other person to be wrong and they want some sort of compensation or something. But when you say, okay, what would a satisfactory resolution look like to you? I don't know. I'm so caught up in my emotion here, I don't actually know what I want. So it's a very good way of disarming people to say, pour the emotion out, let me hear your vent and rant, and then say, okay, what does good look like for you from here on in? What can I do to resolve this for you? Claire Payne: Absolutely. I mean, I've, I. And in my work as a. As a lawyer, mediator, judge, business consultant, it's always the same. It is always the same. People are. They can see all the problems, they can see all the issues, they can see how unfair the world is, they can see how unreasonable someone is. And when you get through all of that and say, yes, but, you know, we are where we are, what. What do you want to wake up to tomorrow? And you do get that pause and you go, and I think again, if people were able to put that pause in for themselves when they hear something from someone else or feel uncomfortable or feel unsure and just go, what outcome do I actually want from this interaction? What. What do I actually want to get out of the end of this project? What is the, you know, when I'm looking at the culture of how we deal with things in this workplace or in this team, what is it? I'm actually trying to get out of this? And if you went from that end goal backwards, then how you react to things and how you decide to deal with things would change dramatically. Sometimes actually, what people want Joanne Lockwood: without realising it is just de escalation to Better lay down their arms to better lay down the argument and walk away with faith without feeling they've lost. But they settle their disagreement by being heard. I think is probably restorative justice, as I would call it, rather than actually wanting to punish somebody any further. Just acknowledgement of your perspective, maybe. I mean, that's absolutely true because Claire Payne: that, that whole holding all that emotion in and staying angry and fighting is so exhausting. It is absolutely exhausting. And you know, particularly, I mean particularly in conflict situations or, you know, in, in high pressure situations in business where you're trying to get projects across the line and so on. It's, it can, it can take over your entire life if you get yourself into that loop. And this is when, you know, people find themselves waking up at three in the morning with their head racing. And, and actually when it comes down to it, you say to people, what do you really want? I would really like a good night's sleep and to not have to be thinking about this every time. Every time I pause, every time I have a cup of tea, every time I sit down, this comes back into my head again and I'm thinking, how am I going to solve this? It's hanging over me. I just don't want it there anymore. I want a solution. I want it moving forward. I want to feel like we're making some progress towards something. And that's what most people do want. Absolutely. But again, I think a lot of people feel very vulnerable to admit that because we've still got this hangover of this idea of you need to be out there on your own, you need to be fighting. And I think, you know, it, particularly if you are talking about, you know, a very, a very sort of masculine corporate world where, you know, the testosterone is there and it's all about pushing through. You can't back down. It's not, you know, and, and actually it's not about backing down, it's about getting to where you want to get to. And, and I think that that is a, is a, is a shift that is still, is still not quite there. It's still not quite there in a lot of corporate environments. I, I was Joanne Lockwood: unfortunately the recipient of a bit of a hate crime. I don't know if this is Shades of Grey. Can you have a bit of a hate crime? It's either it's probably quite binary. It either is a hate crime or it's not. And the police told me it was a hate crime. So I guess it is a hate crime that someone has sent me some quite Quite nasty emails, unsolicited emails, quite personal, quite attacking. So I reported the police online like you do, and the police officer came around, we had a good chat, took all the evidence away and a few weeks later he came back and said, look, we're pretty sure we tracked down this person, but we're reluctant to take it any further because this person has a history of mental health, poor mental health, and we don't think that anything's going to be served by progressing it with them, other than potentially them reacting badly and having more goes at me or whatever else. And they said, what do you want to do? And I said, look, all I was ever after in this process was for the person involved to be made aware of the fact that what they've done is wrong, it is a hate crime. And I was just after restorative justice, an apology, and then the officer at the time explained to me that they did. The court system didn't work on restorative justice anymore, they had to punish hate crimes. So I thought, well, actually, all I really want is a. Just, you know and I know and you know and I know that this is wrong and I'm happy to drop it, but the system, the judiciary system at that point was pushing me down to an argument. And when they said this person, it's not worth pursuing because of all these mental health scenarios, do you really want to pursue it? Because if you do, we will. Although I've never, after being vindictive or punishing anybody, I just wanted that person to wake up and know what they did wasn't acceptable. And you're saying that this, anything I do now isn't going to result in anything productive, then I'm happy to move, I'm happy to step out of this. She does it again, fine. But if nothing ever happens again, I'm happy to drop it and. But the system is set up for me to push that button for more bigger argument. Claire Payne: It is, absolutely. And it is, it is very sad because one of the things that can, can never be really ordered in the court is an apology. There is an order for someone to do something or to pay something, but there will not be an order to apologise because, wish as you might, you can't make someone else feel something, so you can't make someone else feel sorry. And I think you know that it's a very natural feeling when somebody has deeply hurt you. You want them to understand how you're feeling and to empathise with it. And you can't, but you can't make that happen. And that is, and that is quite difficult. And I think, I think one of the best conversations I've ever had around this was with a lady called Dr. Jane Lewis, who, she is an academic and an expert in Hawaiian culture. And of course in Hawaiian culture, they have a big culture of forgiveness. And forgiveness for them is not about the other person. It's not about turning the other cheek, it's not about making the other person feeling better. It's about saying, what you've done no longer has any power over me. So I am going to let it go. I'm forgiving you because I don't want what you've done, said act, how you've acted, to have any power over me whatsoever going forwards. And I think that's where the distinction has had to land for me in that, in terms of justice, if this person was persisting or they were likely to do it again, then in that case the court system can very much put a stop to it. If it was, it's happened and it's not likely to happen again. You're never going to be able to get that person because they could. Even if they were told they had to write a letter of apology, whether they meant it or not, you're never going to be able to make them feel something that you want them to. So unfortunately, the best thing to do though, is to, is to put it down and say, I'm going to let go of the power that you've got over me with this. I am going to several times to this and I'm going to forgive you in that way. And it is, it is, it is a hard thing to do because you want, you don't feel like your emotions have been validated and that's difficult. It is very difficult. It is. Joanne Lockwood: But I think you're right. I think that's the key. It's. It's taking that emotion, the screwed up bit of paper, popping it in a bin and saying, you no longer have power over me. Whatever you say from here on in doesn't matter to me anymore. Your opinion is your opinion, not mine. Yeah, it takes the strength of character to get to that point, doesn't it? And it's, it does. Especially if you've got some PTSD or, you know, trauma as a result of it. Yeah, and it does. And again, it Claire Payne: comes back around in circle to two things that the wolves are exceptionally good at. One is the regulation. Because if you can regulate yourself, you can put that pause in to go before I react to this. What Do I want. What do I want the outcome to be here? What am I going to achieve by doing this? The other thing is having that absolutely unconditional positive regard for yourself and being so secure in your own personality. The wolves don't have any judgement of each other. Their response to everything is, that's interesting. You know, they've got somebody in the group that's really good at this, but they're not very good at that. They've got somebody in the group that messes something up. They're shown what they've done wrong. That's interesting. It won't happen again. They just have this view of themselves, of regardless of what happens, it doesn't take away from their own intrinsic value. It doesn't take away from who they are, what they are, what anybody else says, thinks, looks at them funny. They. They're just not bothered about it. They're just like, oh, that's interesting. It's interesting that you think that. It's interesting that you do that a different way. It's just information. It's not, it's. It's not a personal reflection on who I actually am or whether I've got any value or not. And I think, you know, in a world where we're reduced to likes on social media and needing to people please and needing to be liked and accepted and feel like we fit in all the time, we're pushed to do that. It's very, very hard to do that as a human being in this modern world. I mean, it was very interesting some of conversation with somebody else the other day about this. This idea that the difference between the opposite of fitting in is belonging and actually truly belonging is being so comfortable in your. In your own skin that no matter whatever anybody else thinks, wants, does, judges you, anything else, you still know that you've got your intrinsic value. And it's very hard to find your intrinsic value when you are trying to fit, you know, a mask over yourself every day to fit a certain mould that someone's told you, this is what a successful person looks like, or this is how you are supposed to be, or this is the line you've got to tool. And not letting you be yourself, it does make you doubt your own intrinsic value. And that starts right from when we're in school. So it's a challenge. It really is a challenge. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Fitting in is changing yourself. Belonging is being accepted for who you are. Yeah. It's a fundamental difference. You put in the show notes about fire walking, glass walking and breaking arrows, and the difference between breaking through and pushing through. Do you want to expand on that a little bit? Yeah, Claire Payne: there is a huge, huge difference. There's this idea, again, it's come from, particularly in corporate culture, of this idea of when the going gets tough, the tough get going. So, you know, when things get difficult, man up or chin up, however you want to put it, and you're just going to push through, you're just going to put yourself through that stress. You're just going to be exhausted. You're just going to, you know, get on with it, because you need to get on with it. And actually, in a crisis, yes, that might be the appropriate thing to do. In a life or death situation, that is something we've got the capability to do because in that split second that would save our lives. But we're not meant to live in a crisis. We're not meant to spend, you know, 99% of our lives in a burning house trying to escape that. That's not what our system was built for. So the difference between breaking through and empowering through is that breaking through is going, where is the edge of my comfort zone here? Where is the edge of my capability now? What do I need to support myself to get through that? And it can be. Whereas, you know, sometimes it's a sense of inner strength, sometimes it's a what limiting belief have I got here that is holding me back? Where is my energy at right now? How am I feeling right now? Is there emotion around this that I need to have a think about and address before I can move forward? Am I just plain flipping exhausted? And what I actually need is a good night's sleep and then to look at this in the morning and it is, it is slower, but actually, if you start getting into the habit of having that neuroplasticity where you stretch your comfort zone in a way that allows room for growth without putting you under stress, you find that you're able to continue stressing it. And so one of the things that I do with clients is we play with that. And it is very much playing with that elasticity and it's doing things that can be quite scary. I mean, it is quite. There is something in your, you know, your, your, your really primal brain that says putting my foot on a pile of broken glass and deciding to walk across it might not be the best idea I've ever had. But actually, when you slow yourself down and you take stock of the situation and give yourself that pause to think, what do I want to get out of this? Where am I going with this, how am I going to approach this? What do I need? Do I need a shoulder to lean on whilst I walk across this? Do I need some support? Do I need someone to talk me through? Do I need to express how I'm feeling? You suddenly find that actually something you thought was incredibly difficult becomes very easy. And the sense of empowerment you get from that, because you feel it in your system, you feel it in your body is huge. And then the next time you get that feeling of, oh, I don't know if I can do this, instead of pushing through, you gather your resources and look at where you are and you, you expand and have that expansive feeling rather than having that pushing through and putting my body under stress feeling. And as I say, yeah, so I have lots of fun with walking across glass, getting arrows and breaking them, where you put the point in your throat and the other end on a wall and you walk towards it and it snaps, which, yeah, people cringe when they hear me say that. But if you have a look on social media, there's some videos of me doing it. These are all things that are possible and they're in a very contained, specific way of doing it, which is very, very empowering and a lot of fun, actually. And that's. And that's the thing, you know, if life isn't fun, then what's the point, really? You know, we put ourselves under so much stress. You only get one, you know, we get one life here to enjoy it. We should be making the best out of it and seeing what we can experience along the way. I agree completely, Claire. What a fascinating Joanne Lockwood: conversation. How do people get hold of you? So the best Claire Payne: ways of getting hold of me is you can have a look at our website, which is orthelion.com or have a look for me on Facebook under Clare Payne. It's P A Y N E or I'm on LinkedIn as well. And I put out lots of things on a near daily basis with hints and tips and little things that people can try. Play around with it, see what works for you, Take the bits that do and leave the bits that don't. And that's very much our philosophy of how we work at Orthelion. Fantastic, Claire. That's absolutely superb. Joanne Lockwood: And I love talking about the wolves. I've loved talking about your mediation and your view of the world. And I'm sure our listeners will be in touch. Thank you so much. Thank Claire Payne: you. As we bring this conversation to Joanne Lockwood: a close, I want to express my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lending your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion. If today's discussion struck a chord, consider subscribing to Inclusion Bytes and become part of our ever growing community driving real change. Share this journey with friends, family and colleagues. Let's amplify the voices that matter. Got thoughts, stories or a vision to share? I'm all ears. Reach out to jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk and let's make your voice heard. Until next time, this is Joanne Lockwood signing off with a promise to return with more enriching narratives that challenge, inspire and unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.