--- title: "Brave Learning, Bold Leadership" episode: 175 date: 2025-09-11 guest: "Pippa O'Brien" canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/175-brave-learning-bold-leadership audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-175/audio.mp3 --- # Brave Learning, Bold Leadership Joanne Lockwood is joined by learning innovator Pippa O’Brien, founder of Poda, to explore what “brave learning” looks like in practice and how it enables bolder, more inclusive leadership. Together they unpack why traditional, slide-led training often fails to land, and how immersive drama and facilitated conversation can create the conditions for deeper reflection, behaviour change, and practical allyship. Pippa shares how she designs learning for frontline and manual-worker audiences, including teams with lower literacy levels, by meeting people where they are and building sessions around observation, discussion, and participation. They discuss how psychologically safe environments allow people to voice honest opinions, be challenged appropriately, and learn without fear of humiliation. The conversation also looks at “banter” in workplace culture, including practical approaches like agreed safe words to stop conversations that have crossed a line. Alongside the learning design, the episode widens into leadership and culture: trust, integrity, and values being lived rather than stated; the impact of dismissing ideas on innovation; and what flexible work requires from managers. Pippa also shares her own career journey from a male-dominated kitchen into learning and development, how imposter feelings shaped her confidence, and the pivotal role of a leader who coached and backed her potential. The episode leaves listeners with a clear message: inclusive innovation depends on leaders and teams creating safe spaces for honest dialogue, listening for what’s under the surface, and turning good intentions into everyday behaviours. ## Chapters - 00:00 — Introduction and Welcome - 01:20 — Exploring Complex Life Scenarios - 06:21 — Innovative Learning through Immersive Drama - 07:34 — Challenging Biases Through Lived Experiences - 13:13 — Embracing Remote Work Flexibility - 14:07 — Embracing Workplace Flexibility - 17:46 — Stifling Innovation: Whack-a-Mole Culture - 21:06 — Mysteries of Political Transparency - 25:36 — Trans Visibility vs. Unchecked Bias - 29:26 — Challenging Stereotypes Through Gentle Confrontation - 30:41 — Challenging Casual Racism Tactfully - 36:10 — Overcoming Doubt: A Chef's Journey - 37:43 — From Hard Youth Work to Facilities Manager - 43:24 — Adapting Business in Uncertain Times - 45:36 — Lockdown Learning: Innovation and VR AI - 49:20 — Reflective vs. Activist Workstyles - 53:34 — Adapting Workforce for Ageing Population - 55:37 — Staying in Unfulfilling Jobs - 58:37 — Join the Inclusion Conversation ## Key takeaways - The importance of using real-life storytelling and immersive drama to shift inclusion from theory to lived experience in the workplace. - Why trust and integrity are foundational to effective leadership and creating psychological safety for authentic conversations. - The impact of moving away from classroom-based, literacy-heavy training approaches towards experiential learning, especially for employees with diverse backgrounds and educational needs. - How interactive scenarios and lived experiences can challenge entrenched biases and foster reflection, debate, and meaningful behaviour change. - Strategies for addressing resistance and echo chambers, ensuring inclusion initiatives engage sceptics as well as allies. - The evolving role of organisational culture, values, and the need for flexibility in work arrangements to respect individual and community needs post-pandemic. - Techniques for calling in inappropriate behaviour and managing workplace banter in ways that build collective accountability, not fear or division. ## FAQs ### What is experiential learning and why is it effective for inclusion training? Experiential learning immerses participants in live scenarios or interactive dramas rather than relying solely on lectures or slide presentations. In the episode, Pippa O’Brien highlights how this approach enables frontline teams—especially those with varying literacy levels—to engage authentically. When people participate in realistic situations, they’re more likely to reflect deeply, connect the experience with their lives, and internalise inclusive behaviours. ### How does storytelling enhance inclusion and learning in the workplace? Storytelling transforms abstract diversity concepts into personal and relatable experiences. As discussed by Joanne Lockwood and Pippa O’Brien, lived experiences, when shared openly, foster empathy and challenge ingrained biases. Stories provide the emotional engagement needed to provoke meaningful self-reflection and cultural change. ### Why is there an emphasis on creating safe learning environments? A psychologically safe environment encourages honesty and vulnerability. The episode stresses that people must feel safe to voice opinions—even contentious ones—without fear of reprisal. In such settings, biases and assumptions can be surfaced and sensitively challenged, unlocking powerful dialogue and growth. ### What challenges do trainers face with participants resistant to inclusion topics? Some individuals might initially resist sessions perceived as “woke” or unnecessary. However, the podcast notes that these participants often experience the most transformation when they are respectfully engaged. Their objections can spark vital discussions and, more often than not, such individuals leave with broadened perspectives. ### How does roleplay or drama facilitate learning about allyship and challenging inappropriate behaviour? Roleplay, as described by Pippa, allows participants to practise challenging discriminatory statements safely, especially when dealing upwards with authority figures. This rehearsal of real-life scenarios provides scripts, techniques, and confidence for speaking up, promoting practical allyship in everyday settings. ### What is the role of leadership in fostering inclusion? Leaders set the tone, model key behaviours, and are pivotal in building trust and integrity within teams. Authentic leadership means more than espousing values; it involves transparent communication, genuinely trusting teams to do their best, and living the inclusion agenda actively. ## Transcript Pippa O'Brien: Foreign. 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? Remember, 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 Bites. And today is episode 175 with the title Brave Learning, Bold Leadership. And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Pippa O'Brien. Pippa is a learning innovator and founder of Proda, transforming how frontline teams experience inclusion through immersive drama and authentic conversations. And when I asked Pippa to describe her superpower, she said, it is turning everyday people into empowered learners to through real world storytelling. Hello, Pippa. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for Pippa O'Brien: inviting me. I feel really privileged and honoured to be the guest on episode 175. I'm in very safe hands, clearly. And looking at your nails, I think beautifully manicured. Safe hands as well. Mine are under the table for a reason. Not so manicured. Right? Beautiful. Joanne Lockwood: Oh, thank you. We met probably 18 months ago. Must be to work with Tallis, wasn't it? We did a storytelling. I was one of your protagonists in a story, wasn't I? Yes, definitely. And then we took that input Pippa O'Brien: and we used it for some drama where we showcased what allyship should and could look like and involved the learners in feeding lines to the actors so they could be really fully immersed and involved in the story as well. Well, yeah, and it was all around transgender Joanne Lockwood: inclusion, if I remember rightly, with. And my wife Marie was involved and we. We did a kind of a dual perspective on workplace and how she felt and how I felt, which is quite powerful, wasn't it? It was really powerful. Pippa O'Brien: And I think one of the lessons that that organisation took from that session was, yes, it could be transgender, it could be any other situation that somebody is facing in their life and that there's no playbook out there that covers every possible scenario that could be going on. In somebody's life. And actually the using your and Marie's story, if you like, to set the scene was so powerful and really thought provoking. And then in the drama we flipped it and we had the actor from memory. The scenario that I'd written was a gay couple where one of the members of the one partner in that partnership was wanted to transition. That was the way that we flipped it. And actually you never know what's going on for people. People show up for work, they do the best that they can in the moment and what's under the surface is like this massive iceberg that you just don't see. But it comes out through people's behaviour. It's what they say and what they do that gives clues to what's going on to the surface. And quite often that's the time when somebody needs to reach out and say, when what's happening? Tell me. And doing so from a position of where there's trust between the two people and the leadership behaviour then is really around not just trust, but the integrity piece as well. Like, I need you to trust me and I'm going to trust you, but actually I need you to treat that information with integrity and be there to support me as a person. Really, that's. That's kind of the message that I wanted to come out from that session. Because we hear Joanne Lockwood: that lived experience talking and stories are really, really powerful. And they are, yeah. But in my experience, the learning doesn't always occur. I. I don't go and watch a Netflix or go to the cinema and hear these powerful stories, whether they're real drama or interpreted, and always take learning away from them. So what we're going to try and do is take a two dimensional story and create rumination, creating firing points in our brains. And that's where the experiential, the storytelling with interaction kicks in, isn't it? Totally. Pippa O'Brien: And that's really what we've done with a programme that we've been running quite recently. And this is, this is something that was really a little bit of a. Well, I'm going to suggest this, this is a bit out there, if you know what I mean. And I was really expecting the client to come back and go, oh, no, that's. Well, we couldn't do that. And actually they didn't. They went, okay, let's do it. And I was okay. So a bit surprised, but also really honoured that they had trusted me to do a great job for them. And not just me, but my whole team, the whole team here at Poda and though their population and workforce, although there's a number of them who are really highly qualified professionals, the bulk of their workforce is people who are really skilled but they're manual workers. So they do manual work outside in all weathers. That's pretty unpleasant at times. I'll be honest. The average reading age for a lot of these operatives is 11. Age 11. So when I was designing something I had to be really mindful that for whatever reason they had this lower literacy level but that could be caused by a number of different reasons. But whatever for, but for whatever reason school had failed them in some way or another or education had failed them. So putting them in a classroom environment with. And here's slide 199 which just describes the Equality act of 2010 probably wasn't going to be the real way forward for this audience. So what we designed was a programme where from the moment they arrived they were immersed into a real life drama, if you want to call it that. We had the characters in the drama welcoming them. Oh dear, my words got a little bit mumbled up there, mumbled up, inviting them and welcoming them and I still can't say it, welcoming them to the session and then allowing them to observe a meeting where there was some extremes of opinion being expressed. Okay. And what we asked them to do was just listen and then talk about it afterwards. Okay, so what did they notice? What behaviours did they notice, what words did they hear and what did that mean for them? So how did that resonate with them and their own personal experiences. So the lived experiences then came from within the room as much as anything. And we, we really wanted people who were maybe of a generation, I think Gen Z, I think is a, is a, is one way to describe them, to talk about how people have made assumptions about them and what they were capable of based on their age. We wanted people to talk about gender. We wanted to talk about people who had and really explore a whole range of labels really which that people give other people that are really, that are really about bias, aren't they? You know, there's, there's nothing else to describe it. Oh, there are this, there are that, that's a label and actually the label is the bias and it can be positive or not so positive. But equally there's something here around challenging those biases and really reminding people that actually as individuals and as human beings we're always looking to confirm biases unless we actively are challenged on them. So the data that sticks is the data that confirms the biases that we already hold and the opinions that we already hold. So. And that's kind of linked to also. And then with these people we were talking about, well why is that then? And they were talking about, well, it's social media in it. You know, we had some great discussions around social media, the role of the press and then moving into allyship and how to challenge and how to challenge up. And we used our drama team to role play like a more senior member of staff and then how they could challenge that in a way that was going to be non threatening for them individually. And we had some great outcomes from that. Really great, some really great conversations. You've got some people that go, no, he's right, he's wrong and that was it. But everybody else in the room was saying, you don't think that, do you? Well, yes, I do. And that's great because you're bringing it all out into the open in one go. The only way we could do that was to create a really safe environment where people felt they could genuinely say what they believe and to be prepared to be challenged by other people in a way that was appropriate. Okay, yeah, we're really pleased with that one. It landed well. And you can see from my face that we actually really enjoy doing it as well. And I'm doing it this week for a company down in Winchester. So I'm quite excited about that. It's one that I love doing. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I found, you know, I've run a lot of training sessions on inclusive recruitment. Inclusive best practise, whatever it may be. And sometimes you walk into the room and you can see people with their arms folded. You know, I don't want to be here. This is all a bunch of woke nonsense. And they have that face on, don't they? And then you do the introductions in a room. Yeah. And I said, what are you hoping to get out today? And this person's always kind of making some sort of remark about whatever because I have to be whatever and. But I find that those people do two things. One is they enlighten the rest of the room as to the importance of why we're here today. Because they're doing my job there. They're saying, well, I haven't got to say the anti pushback on this. There's already that person's in the room. But the second thing that happens is this person becomes enlightened. Their change in them is far greater than the change in people who actually get it. So I always come at the end of it. I've had these people come out to me or at the end of the day, so what have we got out of it? Oh, I've seen a new perspective and I never really thought about this. And it's like, you think, wow, I've made a immeasurable difference in this one person. My job is done. Everybody else got it already. All I've done is nudge them a bit. This person here went from being uninformed to being embracing it. You think, wow, how powerful is that? And I think that's what frustrates me. Sometimes when we have these conversations, we always end up with the echo chamber in the room, not the people who should be in the room, but who aren't. Do you find it's easier to get people in the room when you're doing the storytelling and this is role playing, than it would be through traditional training? 100%. And that's regardless Pippa O'Brien: of the organisational level, if you like, it's just as powerful at exec level. For example, if we were looking at a DEI programme, then we would start at the top, obviously, and really explore, well, why is this so important? But with that team, and then obviously bring in some data at that point. But also, more importantly, do something around allyship, because that's their role, that's what they should be doing every single day, is being the ally for people in their organisation and making sure that their organisations reflect the communities and the organisations that they serve as well. And when I see so many people who. I'm going to use example here of back to the office, you know, going back to the office and you hear so many people at exec level that are saying, everybody should work from the office. This is, you know, the people. And actually, when you look at them, there's a certain demographic that says that, and typically they would be male, white, probably over 50 now. Yes. For them, I'm sure that going to the office is structure, it's routine. And then when they get home, there's somebody who's made sure that their shirts are ready for the next day, that they've got everything that they need to be for them to be successful, if you see what I mean, on the. Table, the kids are looked after. Yeah. Joanne Lockwood: The cat has been fed everything else. Yeah, yeah, you're right. And Pippa O'Brien: when you. When you look at people who, during lockdown, who were loving it, were the people who had that flexibility of being able to. To do a bit of work, look after their children, be the best person that they could be for their families, do things like the school pickup and the things that they just didn't have a chance to do. And I did a bit of research for a company at the back end of lockdown around whether going back to work was, was really the way to go, or whether they could actually consider closing down some of their sites and going to a fully remote model, but with some hubs where go for meetings, you know, face to face meetings if needed. I ran some focus groups for them and universally there was a demographic that was like, this is brilliant, I love this. I can get up, I can do two hours work, I get the kids packed, lunches in the bags, I get them to school, I come back, I do more. And it's. For them, it was just what they've always needed and just what they've always needed to be able to be the best person that they can be at work and also the best person that they can be for their family as well. Surely that's what organisations need to ensure is available, is people to have the flexibility of what works for them, but also make sure that they are. They know how to manage people in a completely different environment. Because I think a lot of people tried to manage people as they always had done from home and it didn't work. So they've all got to come back to the office. Not what we do needs to change, but. Or the way that we do this needs to change, but let's just take away all the bits that work for a good percentage of the workforce and impose bits that don't work, you know, so it's like, for me, it's a real fundamental of flexibility, is that you trust people to do a great job, you explain the why and you're the leader that they need in order to be the best that they can be. It's quite simple in my opinion. Yeah. When Joanne Lockwood: I was doing some events, some roundtable type discussions around the time where we were just about to take our face masks off on trains, you know, sort of that early stage, remember back in that time, back in that history, and I remember that lots of big companies were trying to sell their culture. We need to get you back in the office because we've got our culture, we've got our way of talking, we've got our way of being, we've got a fantastic culture, we want to. I took a step back and said, well, hang on a minute, what you're trying to do me is exchange culture for commute is what you're saying. You give me, I commute for you and then you give me a culture. And I said, now, hang on a minute. I want my culture, like my pension. It's a personal pension, I could take it anywhere. So when I leave you, I take it with me and go somewhere else. So my personal culture, my family culture, my community culture should be first. And your culture is this something I borrow while I'm here. I have to like it, I have to fit in with it. But I would rather you encourage me to build community links, to co work in my local community to have more family time so that my culture is now my own. And we meet because your culture and my culture meet. But don't tell me that I have to have your culture because, yeah, you may have this belief that your culture is amazing, but actually my family is amazing, my friends are amazing, my hobbies and I want that time back. I don't want to give you two and a half hours of commute each direction because that's my time that I'm giving you for free. 100%. I completely agree with that. And I Pippa O'Brien: think that's where having values and actually within an organisation can bridge that gap. Because if you make values meaningful in people's daily behaviour in an organisation, that's one way of bridging the gap between the culture and like personal culture and organisational culture, if you want to call it that, because it's making sure that, for example, if you've got a innovation as a value, which a lot of organisations do, then if somebody asks a great idea, oh, I've got an idea, the hand goes out and then you get, no, that's not going to work. Or really. Or no, then it's. I would liken that to that whack a mole game. You know, that you get in the fun fair with the hammer and you get the little mole and you stick your chin up like that, that's my mole impression for the morning. And then the manager's there with a hammer, whacking it down. After a while, that mole's going to go, I'm nice and warm and cosy in my hole. I'm not going to get up because if I stick my head up, I'm going to get whacked on the head with a hammer. So that whack a mole culture, where people say, oh, we believe in innovation. No, they don't. You've got. If somebody comes up with an idea, then you need to give it the airtime, explore it. It might not work in that circumstance, but you've got to be really clear with the person, why not? Rather than just that dismissal piece because the one idea that that little mole may have in the future, that could be the salvation of whatever, that you're never going to hear it because they're never going to tell you. And that's what I mean about living values and bringing values to life. Yeah, it's not always a bad idea. Because Joanne Lockwood: if you were to enlighten the person who came up with that thought that didn't work for whatever reason as to the reasons why right now it doesn't work, then they go, I get that now let me have small thinking. Correct. Because one person's thought isn't always one person's thought. A lot of people are often thinking the same thing. I mean, I look at what the government do and think that's crazy. Why are they doing that? I look at what's going on across the water in the States, I think that's crazy why they're doing that. Maybe there's information, I don't know, the media, the military, there's data, there's awareness, there's briefings that politicians have, there's big think tanks going on. And my bias says I know better because I'm more intelligent, I'm cleverer. That's not a bias I have. We all have that. So we're almost saying, well, that they don't know what they're doing. They must be less intelligent than me. But we've got to accept that they have some good ideas as well. That I don't know is why they think that. And that's what I need to know if they tell me. Actually, Joe, the reason we're doing this, the reason we're invading that country and it looks to be a little bit one sided here, is because there's some threat intelligence that we see that you don't. Okay, now I get it. So if we listen to people's ideas and dismissing them, we need to give them the why. Because if you tell me the why, I can challenge your why with, huh, how about this? And maybe that's what people don't want. They don't want the debate, do they? They don't want the debate. And I think also there's this Pippa O'Brien: I know better than you syndrome as well, which goes back to trust. And I think, I think I know nothing about government, please, but accept what I see and hear and read like everybody else. But equally what I do know is I struggle to trust people that don't do what they say they're going to do. And if, if you want people to, to accept what you say because you know facts and information that can't be revealed, whether that's within an organisation or. Or nationally or internationally. Globally. You have to prove that you are trustworthy because why would you trust somebody that says one thing and then does something else? Okay, so it's around building a culture that's based on trust. And then people might not like what you do. They may not fully understand the reasons, but if they trust that you are a leader with integrity, then they will go with it and they'll buy into it. Joanne Lockwood: Because I think worse than being told there's a reason, I can't tell you. It's like, oh, so I'm not worthy of that. I'm aloof here. I've got stuff you don't know. So I guess sometimes you can't be told that you don't know something you don't know. It's trying to sell that, as you say in a trust. I look at the government in opposition or the potential government, all the politicians sit there going, making these really wacky statements about, oh, yeah, we cut this, we do this and we do that. When they get into power, they go, actually, now, now we've got the books open, we see the data. Actually, we know we can't now, but we can't say we didn't. Yeah, yeah, we can't tell. That's really difficult as well. And I Pippa O'Brien: think often when you look at. When you observe, think, particularly the UK Parliament, I find it's not about debate, it's just about mudslinging and almost playground behaviours as well, which I think devalues the whole process. There's no. There's no structured debate. It's just who can slag the other party off with the greatest panache in the moment. You know, it's like, it's point scoring but not real points, if. If you see what I mean, it's not about the topic, it's about. It's about visibility. That's my perception. Public school debate society of the past, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, it is. And it's. And Joanne Lockwood: I think our media don't help either. The media, the mainstream media, social media, they like this polarisation because polarisation creates tribes. Tribes create revenue and advertising and clicks and discussions and people get fired up because unless we have emotion attached to a thought, it doesn't happen, does it? You know, we have to. Negative or positive emotions, they mean. He knows that negative emotions are stronger than positive emotions. So it drives. It drives engagement. This is it. And if you look at a technique, say, like transactional Pippa O'Brien: analysis where you've got, you know, people that are behaving adult to adult, which is rational, listening, giving and giving. It doesn't make for great tv. Let's be fair. It's when you've got people who are acting as like the critical parent with the finger out or where you've got people who have been in child. I don't like this. That under foot stamping that's what makes for good watching. Anything in the middle ground is just. Is sensible, rational and maybe not so appealing. Yeah, there's a couple of. An Joanne Lockwood: author I quite enjoy reading is Ricker Bregman. He's done two books that I really found inspiring. One is Utopia for Realists which is a great read if you've not read it. Humankind. Humankind is. It's about analysing the human being and the human psyche. It really summed up the whole idea of reality TV and what happens is in these scenarios, you know, who wants to be. I'm sorry to get me out of here. Big Brother or Love Island. What they found was these would be very benign, very controlled. If you just put a group of people in the room, they'll get on largely they'll get on, they'll have a good time. They'll start forming little communes and Kumbaya and sitting around the campfire. You say not great telly. So what they have to do is they have to starve them. They have to put a. A grenade in there like a. A. A rogue personality who's going to disrupt. They're gonna have to create a love interest, a power base, create a. Create a leader who has power that others don't like. Suddenly you've got. You've got this disrupted human environment that creates great telly and then so they have to prod the bear and the beast to make it. To make it interesting. Otherwise people will just go so what we assume that people are antagonistic and aggressive towards each other, but that's manufactured by the media. Pippa O'Brien: Agree. And I think in most cases I think yes and I think I would say that manufactured by the media. But I think in face to face, 100% I agree. I think the challenge comes now with social media where people say. Feel that they can say all sorts of chisel, which is a technical term, all sorts of chisel with. Under the COVID of. Of. Of being a keyboard warrior and they don't have to actually sit in front of somebody and say well I think this, that and the other because in the real life they wouldn't actually Risk that antagonistic behaviour because it could be risky for them. It's the old who's the bigger dog in the pack type scenario. You know, they might get bitten back, but on a keyboard they can be as unpleasant as they wish. Yeah, I mean, we're recording this on 31 March 2025, which Joanne Lockwood: is trans day of visibility. And as a, As a trans woman myself, I'm well aware that people have opinions against trans people in the whole. Not necessarily against me specifically, but against people like me. But there's no accountability to those views and often it's born out of tropes around, oh, we're protecting women and girls, or it's just unnatural. It's like there's only two sexes. It says so in my biology book or the Bible or something. And people can go unrestrained, as you say, keyboard warriors, because there's no human at the end of their keyboard, it's electrons. And when people meet you face to face, they hear your story, they listen to you, it becomes powerful. But again, as I said earlier, hearing a two dimensional story doesn't necessarily create change. You've actually got to have that engagement, the why? Fill my soul, fill my heart, feel my pain, feel my family for my wife's pain. And that's where what you're doing with stories and acting brings it out, doesn't it? Pippa O'Brien: Sometimes I'm really humbled by little old me, and I mean that sincerely. Little. Well, not that little, but older me. It's people that can. I've written that and I've thought, oh, it might work, who knows? And then when we've done it, it's had such a powerful reaction and response and how people have. Teams have gone on to come up with safe words that they can use around the banter. I think when I'm working with some teams, they're terrified that they won't be able to, to, to have any banter at all. You know, that it's all got to be terribly polite from now on. And of course, who doesn't like a bit of banter? We all like a bit of bance. And the line is flexible, the line's fluid. It depends who's there. It depends on how people are feeling that day. That's the big thing as well. And what else they've got going on in the background and how well you know each other, what you know about what's inside that iceberg for that person as well. And all of those factors influence people's banter tolerance, shall we say. I think that one of some of the work that we've done with those teams is around encouraging them to come up with a safe word that they can. Anybody can use where on that day. I'm not feeling it. And it stops. Please. Okay. And that's it. That's full. Stop the band. That's. No. No explanation needed. Not having a bad day, are we? Or anything like that. Okay. Oh, somebody's grumpy. None of that. It's just. It just stops. And that's. That's it. Which is quite a healthy way to manage it, I think. It's where teams manage their own. Their own behaviour, if you like. They're accountable for their own behaviour in that way. Wasn't it Roma S Ranganathan, the Joanne Lockwood: British comedian that tried to come up with the safe word of mate? You know, mate with a elongated 8 in the middle? Yeah. So when you hear your. Your mate say something inappropriate, you just go, mate. And that's a code word for, yeah, it's too far. Yeah, you've gone too far. Pippa O'Brien: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this. This one particular organisation I've been working with, they've gone with not cool. Oh, mate, that's not cool. And then it just stops. Okay, so you could have. Mate, that's not cool. But you could even just say, not cool. And then that's it. Stop, stop, stops. So that's worked for them. Yeah. Because none of us want to be the Joanne Lockwood: inclusion police. None of us. People have stopped talking. I'm 60 years old. I've. I've lived a pretty colourful life, both genders. And I'm not trying to say I'm perfect. I've got some high ground here of righteousness. I'm a human. I. I laugh. I laugh at comedy. I call myself out sometimes, thinking, actually, no, that's not right. No, stop. Yeah, still funny. But no, it's not really funny. Pippa O'Brien: And I think it's just there's so. I think the more we call ourselves out, and also I'm going to say appropriate or gently challenge other people as well, the more. The more human we can be about not being the police in this way. You know, the banter police or the inappropriateness. Please. And my husband Joey, who have been married to Jerry for six years now, I know he. I know he's Scottish and when he first came to London, he would often have people say, come on, Scotsman, get your hand in your pocket and buy us a drink. And that he found that really annoying because he's probably the most generous person you'd ever Meet. Except when I think when you met him, Joanne, he came to your house and he ate all of your biscuits. So he does owe you at least a couple of the last biscuits. He had the last biscuit on the plate. I know. Which I couldn't believe. I was like, if I could have said, mate, I would have done then, right. But this happened Even recently, in 2024, probably just before Christmas. He was in our local pub and somebody who we'd never met before, who came in as a guest, you know, with somebody else that he did know, said, oh, let the Scotsman get the drink, get his hand in his pocket. And it's like Jerry came home and he went. I said, well, what did you say to him? And he said, well, I didn't say anything. I said, you. If you don't challenge that, people will continue to do it. So it's around how you challenge and it's kind of like, oh, that's a bit of a, you know, casual racism going on there, isn't it, or something like that. Or, oh, I can hear a stereotype, can't I? So how you do it is the thing. And not getting on your. I think. Not getting on your high horse. I think in the moment, people may not go, oh, you're so right, I'm so sorry, you know, or, oh, my bad. But they might think about it afterwards. That's. And it goes. They may. May reflect on it afterwards and go, yeah, maybe. Maybe that's not appropriate, really. But if we don't say anything, then nothing's going to change. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And I think also, as someone on the receiving end, I have to put a little bit of a buffer between my hearing and reaction, because I was. Happened to me yesterday, I think. Well, no, I was in Asda's. Asda's shopping. There are other supermarkets available, obviously. And a man came around the corner and he kind of bumped into me a little bit and said, sorry, mate. And I just thought. I was about to react because I really detest the word mate being used to me. Yeah. You wouldn't call my wife mate if you do with me. I thought. I didn't say anything because I thought, hang on a minute. There are some people who call everybody mate. It's just their default. My husband does, I'm afraid. Yeah. And so I just thought, whatever. I'm not going to take it as some personal offence. And some people do it. You could tell. Some people do it deliberately. Yeah. But I've had ice cream salesman give me an ice cream. I said, there you go, mate. Really? Will, you said that to my. I sent my wife to the ice cream once, Marie, who you've met, and he called her love. And I said, yeah, that's right, yeah, he calls you love, he calls me mate. So next time I said, I prefer you called me love next time, if that's okay. And he went, oh, sorry, love. And I go back and, you know, we have a good chat and a good bit of banter. So sometimes that friendly calling it in rather than aggressively calling it out, you win hearts and minds over, don't you? Because nobody wants to be told they're a bad person or imply they're a bad person because they're not. They're just misguided, misunderstood, not reacting. Their bias has kicked in and suddenly they say something and I think nobody wants to be shot down in flames for. Yeah, obviously, if they're repeatedly in the context or they're malicious weaponizing it. Yeah, I think, I think most Pippa O'Brien: people, if they understand it's accepting and they are accepting, I think being, having empathy for them in that moment that they. You don't want them to feel really bad, but equally you don't want them to carry on with that behaviour is the way to go. So it's around as you, as you sort of beautifully described it, it's being quite gentle about it as well, like now. Yeah, but I will remember the negatives, you know, we talked about negatives, Joanne Lockwood: emotions being stronger. But the number of times I get people bump into me, I'll say, oh, sorry, love, are you okay? And. Or love, can I help you with your case? Up those stairs I go, yeah, sure, please go. Go for it. Go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No one does that for me, Joe, or telling you. So Pippa O'Brien: you've obviously got something going on then. Yeah, well, I look Joanne Lockwood: quite helpless sometimes on the underground with laptop bags and cases and things. And sometimes people go, they take pity on me. I go, come on, then. And there are good people around Pippa O'Brien: still. You know, I think, I think you're right about. It's that confirmation bias place piece. You know what I was. I always use the analogy of the labels when we're talking about how we have bias about others. And one of the examples that I use quite often is about drivers and cars and it was always, it's the car, not the driver. It's interesting when you talk about it because it's, oh, it's Audis that, that cut me up. It's not the person driving the Audi or it's up flipping BMWs. Right. And then of course, now it's Tesla's, but there's all sorts of reasons for that as well. But there you are. But it's got nothing. But I completely miss all the times when an Audi might flash me out a junction or an Audi driver might flash me out at a junction that goes. Because it doesn't fit the buys that I already hold about that particular group of people. So it doesn't fit. But sometimes you play Joanne Lockwood: to the stereotype. I mean, I've. I've got Mercedes at the moment. I've had BMWs in the past and Audis in the past. I remember, I think that's when I had my 4 Series BMW. I parked it and I wasn't quite in the space. Marie said to me, don't you. Yeah, you're not quite in the middle space. I said, that's why it's a BMW. People don't expect me to park correctly anyway. So I left it there. It's like. So I played that stereotype and maybe other BMW drivers cut people up and go, it's all right, it's a BMW. The indicators don't work. They don't have indicators on a Pippa O'Brien: BMW. Yeah, I've just. Yeah, just found that out. Yeah. Joanne Lockwood: So you started life as a chef? I did. So. So what was the ambition to be a chef? Was it a. Okay. I think that. Well, in those. Let's rewind a little bit because actually I Pippa O'Brien: had. I was. As a young person, I didn't have the best start. I'm going to say that I think one of my real challenges today even is a massive imposter syndrome that sits around me because as a youngster I was repeatedly told, you're rubbish, you're useless, you'll never be any good at that. So that was kind of the bad side. On a good day, nothing was said. Okay. So there was no positive affirmation. I didn't really feel comfortable at school at all. And that resulted in me not really applying myself and having been told that you're useless then if you don't do well, it kind of reaffirms the belief system that you have. Well, what do I expect? You know, of course I'm going to leave with a handful of nothing because everybody told me that I wasn't going to amount to anything. So, you know, that's kind of what I expected. I loved cooking, I still love cooking. So I started as a chef and in those days it was really rare for women to be in the kitchen. It was very male dominated and I do Remember once we had a new head chef come into the kitchen and I was standing facing the stove to have my back to the pass and he came in, he went, you get your flipping haircut. All right, lad, get. You know, and it's. So there was an assumption that everyone in the. Oi, you lad, get your flipping haircut. And that was it. So there was an assumption that everyone in there was male. I had to be tougher, harder, stronger, work longer hours, be generally deal with a lot of really difficult banter as well in that environment. I think I loved it. I love the challenge of it. I love the Friton that you get from. You've got so many. You've got to get this out, you've got to get that done. And you're juggling a lot of things at the same time in a hugely pressurised environment. And it's got to be really well done. And I don't mean that steak had to be really well done. I mean, you know, it's gotta be professionally produced. It's incredibly. It takes an incredible toll on your social life. And I think as a youngster I was then working five and a half day week and then I had Sunday afternoons and Mondays off and Monday was my college day. So that meant that actually you don't have any time off at all, which is quite hard work, quite hard for a youngster. I made a sort of transition into working more in hotel management, but I couldn't really get that far because I didn't really have great qualifications. I then worked for when after I met Geri, who became my husband, working shifts wasn't really working for me. And so I had the opportunity to work for quite a big, well known company in the UK as a facilities manager. If you can run a hotel, you can run a couple of buildings with one hand tied behind your back because it's not a 24 hour operation. Catering is much simpler and although you've got still got to deliver a high level of customer service and facilities, it's way easier. And all the mechanical engineering stuff and all of that, it's way easier than actually running a hotel. Much, much easier. A you know how many people you're going to have through the door every day, you know how to staff yourself. For example, that organisation then moved to a centralised site and I was going to be made redundant and they said, well, how about a role in our training team, learning and development. And I was like, yeah, okay. Then off I go. And that's when everything happened for me. It Was like, I had the best ever leader and he was somebody who. I find it quite hard to talk about him because I get emotional in a really positive way because for the first time, he was somebody who really trusted me. He recognised that I had something a bit more than just get the coffees in, Pippa, or do this or do that. He recognised that I had potential and he so challenged me every single time that he gave me insight. We'd go right here, you are going to drop the bomb on you here. Fine. How do you think you're going to start this one, Pip? And he'd start by. What I didn't realise was he was coaching me. And what that coaching did was it totally unlocked my potential. It got me critically thinking for myself and it enabled me to actually realise that I could actually be successful. There was a bit of a blip. I can tell this story now because it's a lot of years down the line, there was a bit of a blip because he. On my application for that organisation, I slightly exaggerated some of my school qualifications, shall we say, my leaving qualifications. And that year, that particular year, the company that I was working for, this person, my manager, recommended me to do a degree, fully sponsored degree course, which for me was terrifying because having always been a failure and you won't amount to anything, all of a sudden I've got to do this. But more urgently for me was this. I haven't actually got the A levels that I said that I had at the time. So a bit of blagging had gone on, may I say, and I had to talk my way into a course which actually was not as hard as you think as a. As a mature student, you can, you can get in on an interview if you. If you can prove that you're, you know, lived experience. Yeah. Yes. And I actually did really well. I blew myself out of the water, literally, because I applied all the skills that I'd learned on the job to how to manage the project, which is actually delivering your coursework and getting all that done. And I was quite surprised at myself. That was probably a massive stepping stone in my confidence and becoming me. That would never have happened if it hadn't been for that one leader who saw something in me, trusted me, gave me massive exposure, but was there as a safety net and questioned me, got me to critically question how I was going to do everything. He was somebody that I would. I really wanted to be like. And that's really why I ended up. I ended up in, I think it was 1999. 2000, 2000, being head of L and D for another big household name company in the uk. And then I thought, you know what, I'm just a desk jockey now and I'm, I'm budgeting, I'm trying to work out how I can create efficiencies. And that's not about supporting people to learn and be the best that they can be. So I jacked it, walked away, started PODA in December 2000, which is a bit scary, but huge. At that point I had some huge belief that it would work out. And here we are 25 years later. Not global domination, but I'm really happy with where we are. 2000. I mean, Joanne Lockwood: the world was significantly different. You know, Tony Blair was Prime Minister doing Auld Lang Syne at the Millennium Dome. Things will only get better Pippa O'Brien: and all of that. Yeah, yeah. But computing, Joanne Lockwood: you just think about the world, the way we're connected. I mean, I was running my IT business back in 2001. It was pre 9 11, it was pre iPhone, pre social media. Most people had dial up Internet still. There was no, just the whole computing revolution. There was no phone in your pocket, Google, the things we see is couldn't get Deliveroo or an Uber in those days. So the world was different. It was very much more hands on in people's offices, wasn't it? So how have you adapted what you do, I guess to technology and expectations? Pippa O'Brien: Yes, I think, I think expectations are a movable feast because if people trust you, and I've used the word trust a lot in this, I know, but that's because it's super important to me, then you can manage those expectations jointly so that everybody is comfortable with what's happening. I think in terms of how we changed, lockdown was an enormous catalyst for change for us. And at the beginning, I think on the day one when it all kicked off and it, right, everything's shut down, we're only a small company and on that one day we had cancellations and most people took the trouble to phone us to say we're going to have to cancel everything. We had £250,000 worth of cancellations in a day and we were, we were just like, okay, no, we understand, thanks very much and blah, blah, blah, looking forward to working with you when we can and all that good stuff. And I think we had to learn on a vertical learning curve. So what I started to do is reach out to all of our existing clients and say, right, how can we support you to manage people remotely? Because this is the new normal for the, for the foreseeable. And I used that to run loads of free sessions and using that as an opportunity to get my head around using some of the technology that was available. And it was, some of it was pretty sketchy right back then. You know, there was. And then there was almost like the VHS Beta max was for anybody that's old enough to remember that around which platforms were going to be the ones that were adopted. And I think that was, that was one element of change. I think people went from big multi day programmes, if you like, to wanting to see greater embedded results in the organisation. So what we started to do was really more around takeaways, if you like. So people do a little learning module, they go away and apply it and then they come back and chat about the results. And that actually has the impact of really being motivational for the rest of the cohort as well. Somebody thinks, oh well, they've done it so I could do it, you know, so it's really powerful stuff. I think the other thing that I did during lockdown was to support my own learning was I did a course within sead, the Global Business School, on innovation, managing innovation during disruption. So I mean, how much more disruption were we going through at the time? It couldn't have been a better example. And off the back of that we came up with some virtual reality AI modules that we partnered with another organisation to develop and then market, which it's interesting because I thought they would go really crazy and really take off and people have gone. We prefer the actors actually. So it's interesting where you offer people this great solution where they can access any time and it was ideal for shift workers or people who have got downtime in their day job and then they can just do a little. I'll just do that module. So they want real people, whether that's real people through a screen or real people face to face in the room. So that was a really interesting piece of learning as well. But yes, so keeping it current, seeing what other people are doing is important. The key thing I think is listening and listening to what our clients need, what their aspirations are, what they want to achieve. And then it goes in, it goes in here and then I go away and mulch it down. It sort of composts away in here for a bit and then I then think about a solution. It does take a while to think about, well, how can I take this and make it into something that's. That's really going to get people's attention and it might be attention to Challenge. It might be attention to go, aha, but how can I do that? And that does take a little bit of pain. I think, oh God, how am I going to do that? And then it always comes. I have to trust the process, the composting process. So when I'm too busy, I find I don't get composting time. So that's a little bit frustrating. Yeah, Joanne Lockwood: I think you're right. I'm not sure I call it compost and time, but I find that I need to have those stare in space moments to sit on the sofa. Maria will come up to me and said, what are you thinking about? I said nothing really because I'm not really thinking about anything. I know that somewhere in my head my neurons are firing off, reprocessing everything, re indexing my brain. And then things become clear. And you're right, I can go on a car journey, drive for three hours. I get to the end of it, I think at all what happened. I come out and go, right, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping. All these ideas are firing off where my brain has sort of used that opportunity to do that. And you can't do that while you're interacting with people or you're stressed or you're busy or you're focusing on. No, you can't, you need that space. Jerry, Pippa O'Brien: who now, who's my husband, who now works with our business, he's really a great implementer, transactional person and he gets everything done. He finds it hard to understand that I need that time to just be a bit vague for a while. And that's an important part of the process as well. It's almost like in a, in a project based world world, he would want a time code for that, you know, want a thinking time code so that he can make sure that we're making the best use of everything that we've got available. Yeah, yeah, it's. I mean Joanne Lockwood: people sometimes will equate that to procrastination, I guess, where you want to just keep playing with it. And I, I don't know about you, but I find that if I've got a three week deadline, everything happens the day before because I'm thinking about things, I'm remodelling it and tweaking it in my mind and when I actually got to put it on paper, it comes straight out. I don't think as I write, I've kind of got the ideation down there and I need that, that evaluation time in my brain to get to that point where suddenly now I can do. It Pippa O'Brien: that's real, what we call reflective behaviour. And whereas I'm much more of a. Get something, think about it, get something down and then leave it and then come back and tinker with it. So I maybe do the tinkering in a different. You're doing the tinkering up here and I'm doing the tinkering in a different way. And sometimes in organisations there's challenges where if you've got a real activist leader and a reflector team member, Jo, that task to do 10 days ago and she hasn't even started it yet, you know, and actually have. It's all going on up here. It's all clicking away up here. So it can cause all sorts of conflicts as well. Yeah, I think it serves me well Joanne Lockwood: sometimes where I don't have to. I don't have to have the world mapped out. Some people need to have their together for want of a better expression. I'm quite happy to go into. I can exist in chaos because I trust my brain to be able to assemble what I need in a moment. The moment is now. Make it happen. I know I can trust my brain to do that. Where some people go, well, I can't start until I can start. I've got to have this. All my ducks in a row. I've got to have this planned out. And when I get there, I've got certainty. I can turn up at an event and the organiser can say, well, do you mind if we change everything? I go, okay, I'm not wedded to it. What are you thinking? I go, okay, I can do a bit of that and a bit of this and a bit of that. That's born from your confidence Pippa O'Brien: in yourself. Yeah, yeah, I guess Joanne Lockwood: that's. My brain works. But I've been through phases where I needed certainty, but I spread my IT background. You never knew the result or the answer because people say to me, why did it take you four days to fix that server? You go, well, because it was a problem. Well, I said, if it hadn't been a problem, I'd have fixed it immediately. But the problem needs investigating. You need to try different scenarios, different thought processes in order to get to the point where I said, well, I still don't understand. But, you know, a problem's a problem because it's a problem. You know, it just is. How many things do we do every day that aren't actually problems? They just solve first time. And it's easy to say, well, if I'd done the last thing first, but then there were Times I'd probably do the last thing first. You just don't realise it or I don't realise it. And that's experience as well, going be on a cut short circuit. And I guess I've been used to having that analytical mind where you try different scenarios and some of those are happening in your head and you go no, have I tried that before? Yeah, I've done that. The probability of that. Yeah. Almost like my own GPT in my head. If you like all these scenarios, kick out. So yeah, I guess we all think differently but yeah, that works for me. Yeah, Pippa O'Brien: I think that's another piece around supporting people to understand that actually we all approach tasks in different way and that's equally valuable in teams that we all approach tasks in different way, we all think in different ways, our brains work in different ways and what collectively we bring is what makes the team successful. And I see and it goes back to a little bit about what I was saying earlier on about people who are, have got very fixed views about how people should work is quite often that they're a very fixed and defined group of people. So they're not looking for that richness of diversity within their teams. They want everybody to think like them, be like them, look like them, because that's the right way to be. Yeah. And also when we're Joanne Lockwood: delivering training we have to recognise that as well, don't we? We have to fire the neurons in different ways for different people. Yeah, totally. 100%. Pippa O'Brien: I love it. I'm still loving it now I'm 64 next month. Well in fact this coming month, very soon, 31st of March, April. I can't keep going forever obviously. But what I say is as long as I'm still relevant, I'll. I'll be continuing. I don't, I couldn't imagine retiring really. So it's. I saw a Joanne Lockwood: keynote From Lindsay at 55 redefined the other day and she's talking about the ageism is the next barrier. I've Pippa O'Brien: read that as well. Yeah. And when we look at the Joanne Lockwood: workforce, millennials will turn 50 in six years time, I think. Yeah. So the bulk of our workforce will suddenly become over 50 because our population is shrinking now we may have to have two point something children to create a sustainable population and women are giving birth at a rate of 1.2 or something. I can't remember the exact figure she said. So basically our population and the global population is now shrinking. So Gen Alphas and Gen Zs will be the smallest cohort in for many, many Many generations. So we have to start Investing in our 50s, our Gen X's, even our boomers still, and our millennials. So we have to find a career that lasts us into our 80s because we can't afford to retire. Retirement was meant to be five years and then you die. It's now seen as a 40 year birthright. You know, you retire in your 60s, live to your hundred and unless we got a mega pension, which my generation just don't have mega pensions anymore, I. Think that's Pippa O'Brien: another reason for keeping going is the financial one. But equally, I don't feel, I don't feel ready, I don't feel ready to stop yet. I still reading things and get excited about things and as long as I'm still getting excited, then it's got to happen, hasn't it? Yeah, I'm excited too. I think I see Joanne Lockwood: innovation every day. I mean, see AI coming on board, we see Internet and technology and computing getting faster and phones and the attitudes of people. You think, well, there's so much more to do. I think going back to what we talked about earlier, about working from home, working from the office, I don't feel that I have to exhaust myself commuting, travelling, being a slave to someone else's culture and environment. I create my own culture. I feel very empowered to have this gig economy, this multi career, multi idea, entrepreneurial, make money in different directions so I can keep my brain firing on different things and not feel I'm in this trudge. When people say, oh, I'm looking forward to retiring next year, I think, to do what? I Pippa O'Brien: completely agree with you and you know what? Nothing, nothing disappoints me more is when I meet people and they are moaning about their job, the organisations that they work in and everything about it, any change that's going on, colleagues, how they're being managed, I said, well, why don't you do something else? Why don't you leave? Oh no, I can't do that. Well, why not? Pension in seven years. It's like, so you're going to completely burn the next seven years of your finite resources of life doing something that for a third of your week you clearly hate and if you clearly hate it, you're not going to be doing the best job. May I say that as well? Because you might be doing an adequate job or they might be doing an adequate job, but they're not gonna be doing the best work. So how can people waste their life? That's what I don't understand. It's like it's like the old adage, you know, if someone says Joanne Lockwood: they're too busy, it means it's not a priority. Pippa O'Brien: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. You've always got time to do something you Joanne Lockwood: want and you enjoy and you're interested in. Yeah. So maybe if you're thinking I need to retire. Retire from what? Which part of what you're doing do you want to retire from? Do you want to retire from being engaged and passionate and creative? No, you don't. You want to be retired from being told what to do, to commuting, to being a slave, to getting up at five in the morning to jump on it. Yeah, great, we'll retire from that bit. But find yourself a passion and purpose, otherwise you'll just be floating around, having arguments at home, kicking the cat, getting bored. I've got time to go on holiday. I've got time to wake up at 8 o' clock in the morning, have a lay in, do what I want to do, work with clients, not work on Friday afternoons. I've got time to do what I need to do. Yeah. I've also got time to really be passionate about what I do as well. So, yeah, you can reprioritize. Pippa O'Brien: That's exactly what I believe as well. There we are. Full alignment. Love it. And that's the future. Future of work is that. That's the Joanne Lockwood: future of work. Agree. Pippa, We've been yakking on now. We have. Thank you for. And thank you to you who are listening to this. We've been yakking on there for nearly an hour and a half because we had a good old chat and catch up before we went. Press the record button, as I always do. So how can people get hold of you? Well, poda.co.uk is a good Pippa O'Brien: start. Is our website or pippa@poda.co.uk. you can look me up on LinkedIn. Pippa O' Brien and. Or just kind of shout, I'll. I'll hear you somewhere. Right. Don't worry at all. If you are listening and you think we could help you in any way, do get in touch. But more importantly, Jo, thank you for listening, really, and thanks to everybody else for listening. It's been a really interesting experience. Joanne Lockwood: Thank you. Thank you. Take care. That was great. Thank you. Pippa O'Brien: That was interesting. Refresh the page. As the problem persists, Joanne Lockwood: as we bring. This conversation to a close, I want to express my deep, deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lending your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion. Today's discussion struck a chord. Consider subscribing to inclusion bites 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 Pippa O'Brien: 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.