--- title: "Inclusion Through Play" episode: 207 date: 2026-05-01 guest: "Nikie Forster" canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/207-inclusion-through-play audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-207/audio.mp3 --- # Inclusion Through Play In this episode, Joanne Lockwood speaks with learning and development specialist Nikie Forster about how playful methods can make training more inclusive and effective. The conversation centres on LEGO Serious Play, custom activities, and other hands-on techniques that help participants feel comfortable, contribute in their own way, and engage more deeply with learning. Joanne and Nikie explore the limits of traditional one-size-fits-all training and discuss the importance of designing for different learning styles, pacing, and levels of confidence. They talk about setting adult expectations in the room, creating psychological safety, using pre-workshop preparation to understand participants’ needs, and adapting facilitation in the moment based on what the room needs. The episode also reflects on Nikie’s career journey into learning and development, her experience of using creative tools to encourage discussion, and her belief that inclusion is not just about content but about how people are treated in the learning experience. The overall message is that inclusive facilitation can help people feel valued, connected, and able to learn more effectively. ## Chapters - 00:00 — Introduction and Welcome - 01:49 — Inclusion Bites: Spark Bold Change - 06:17 — LEGO's Adaptive Strategy Evolution - 06:53 — LEGO Serious Play Origins - 10:05 — Engaging Workshops Through Preparation - 14:24 — Journey of Growth Through Coaching - 19:20 — Dealing with Interruptions Assertively - 23:01 — Deeper Listening Through Lego Play - 26:00 — Facilitating Comfortable Group Interaction - 27:45 — Easing Group Discussion Anxiety - 33:06 — From Creativity to Training Leadership - 35:41 — Engaging, Interactive Leadership Strategies - 38:45 — Interactive Audience Engagement Strategies - 43:16 — Distracted Reflection After Workshops - 46:06 — Workshop Insights with ChatGPT - 48:34 — Leadership Lessons Through LEGO - 50:39 — Prefer Face-to-Face Workshops - 55:06 — Reimagining Inclusive Buffet Options - 57:54 — Join the Inclusion Journey ## Key takeaways - The impact of playful methodologies on opening up learning environments and boosting individual participation. - Distinctions between using LEGO bricks for discussion purposes and the structured LEGO® Serious Play methodology. - Why workshops tailored for every individual’s learning preference—rather than a one-size-fits-all model—drive deeper engagement. - The power of establishing expectation ‘contracts’ with groups to promote respectful, adult-to-adult interaction. - Techniques to create psychologically safe spaces where even quiet or reluctant contributors can participate meaningfully. - How pre-workshop engagement, thoughtful props, and even snacks foster inclusion and a sense of “this space is for me.” - The importance of post-session reflection and providing tangible reminders (like custom minifigures) to reinforce learning and belonging beyond the training room. ## FAQs ### What is the central theme of "Inclusion Through Play" on the Inclusion Bites Podcast? The episode explores how playful, creative approaches—particularly through tools such as LEGO and bespoke experiential activities—can foster genuine inclusion, engagement, and belonging in training and development environments. The discussion centres around designing experiences where every participant feels seen, heard, and valued. --- ### Who were the speakers in this episode? The episode features Joanne Lockwood as the host and Nikie Forster as the guest. Nikie Forster is a learning and development specialist passionate about playful, inclusive experiences. --- ### What is LEGO Serious Play, and how is it different from just playing with LEGO? LEGO Serious Play (LSP) is a trademarked facilitation methodology originally devised by LEGO and two professors in the 1990s. In LSP, every participant constructs a model in response to a question and shares its meaning with the group. The method ensures that all voices are heard and enables deeper group understanding. In contrast, generic LEGO use in training might involve building for creativity or ice-breaking, without the formal LSP structure (Nikie Forster). --- ### Do you need formal certification to facilitate LEGO Serious Play? No, certification is not mandatory. While LEGO originally provided official certification, the company made the LSP methodology open source in 2010. Anyone with facilitation skills can use the approach, though training is recommended for those new to facilitation (Nikie Forster). --- ### How does play contribute to inclusion in training? Playful activities, such as building with LEGO or sharing a deck of custom-designed cards, create spaces where individuals of all dispositions (introverts, extroverts, and everyone in between) feel able to engage. Play meets people where they are, lowers barriers, and enables more equitable participation. It also produces dopamine-driven experiences, increasing openness to learning and retention (Joanne Lockwood, Nikie Forster). --- ### How do the speakers tailor experiential learning to individual needs? Both Joanne Lockwood and Nikie Forster stress designing multimodal experiences. They focus on understanding learners before the session—using pre-workshop forms, videos, or informal approaches—and adapting content live, emphasising self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and respect for adult autonomy. --- ## Transcript Joanne Lockwood: Foreign. 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 without? Remember, everyone not only belongs, but thrives. You're not alone. Join me as we uncover the unseen, challenge the status quo and share storeys 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 207 with the title Inclusion Through Play. And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Nikie Forster. Nikie is a learning and development specialist who challenges traditional training by designing playful, inclusive experiences that help everyone feel they truly belong. When I asked Nikki to describe her superpower, she said it is her ability to turn almost anything into an engaging, inclusive learning experience that meets people exactly where they are. Hello, Nikie, welcome to the show. Nikie Forster: Hi, Jo, thank you so much for having me along today. Pleasure. We met Joanne Lockwood: probably back in October, September, at a local business coaching workshop series that was being run in the local council offices. Right, something like that. We did, Nikie Forster: we did, yes. I think you were part of Cohort 2. I came along as part of Cohort 1 and the lady who was running asked me to come back and do a specific piece around managing people. And I racked my brains as to how to do that, where it wasn't just, you know, words on a PowerPoint slide. And I think we engaged over that little session. Yeah, we did. And my wife Marie was with us as well and Joanne Lockwood: she's not normally one to participate in these kind of stand up activity games. She's always one of the back. She's the introvert. Don't make me stand up, don't make me clap. Don't make me put a hand in the room. And even she engaged and I was really impressed. We built little Lego models, didn't we? And you gave us a box of LEGO each. We played with it, little cards to look at and design our cars. I think it was, and I think the way you did it was you built it up really, really slowly that we bought into the concept. So we had, we were invested in the vehicle. And then you said, right now, I want you to stand up and put the vehicle on the mat, where it represents where you're at right now. And of course, you've already got the investment in. It's a very small gap to go from vehicle to in front of you to vehicle, the mat, isn't it? Watching people, Nikie Forster: you know, kind of also different in what people made and what people's ideas are. And I think that that's. That's part of what draws me to that style of facilitation is allowing people very much to be themselves and not just be the loudest person in the room that wants, you know, is able to express themselves there. And then it's about everybody being able to think first and then participate. I'm guessing that you Joanne Lockwood: bespoked the whole. The game, if you like the game. The cards. You had a deck of cards which we handed out. You had a mat, which I'm presuming you've designed or at least assembled from some templates and things. But yeah. Nikie Forster: It'S kind of a bit of a mishmash of things. So very much. Some of the tools that I were using were ones that I've made specifically to use in a training arena. But some of the other elements, like using the Lego part of that is just learning and development, but it also comes from something called LEGO Serious Play, which I do a lot of as well, uses LEGO in a slightly different way to how we were using it, but ultimately is about that interaction and getting people to create things for themselves. Over Covid, I did a few Joanne Lockwood: Minecraft events. So again, I guess digging and building in Minecraft and having a little project team and a project leader to decide how you're going to excavate or build or construct. Yeah. And achieve goals. I guess in Minecraft it's just a digital version of LEGO Play. Is it Nikie Forster: kind of using LEGO in. So I. I think I probably just need to distinguish because if you've got anybody in your audience who knows about LEGO Serious Play and I start talking about LEGO, as in we're just building stuff that. That you'll probably get some emails. So because they. They're quite distinct. So I use it in two different ways. In the way that you're talking about and the way in which we used it, it was very much using LEGO as a tool to a discussion. And so that. That's how we used it. LEGO Serious Play is an actual methodology created by the LEGO group back in the 90s, along with two professors and they created something that has a specific methodology where everybody builds their answer, shares their answer, so everybody in the room gets to hear it. And then you can bring all those models together to create a much bigger narrative, a much bigger model. And so it has very many different layers to. So depending on what I'm doing will depend on which of those is the best option to use. Joanne Lockwood: So I'm assuming that LEGO Serious Play then, is a trademarked programme and you have to be a certified or part of the LEGO clan to be able to use it, Is that right? Oh, okay, so Nikie Forster: this is where it gets interesting. So the first part of your question. Yes, it is trademarked. You have to have your little R's in circles. Are they. What are they called? Registered trademark. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you're writing LEGO Series Play down, it has to be down that. And. And it is associated with lego. However, they did a really interesting thing. So they started off with training people to use it and running certification courses. So because they. It was originally designed for in house, because if you think in the mid-90s, you're just talking about mine, Minecraft there in the mid-90s, that's a lot of. When the kind of electrical games came out, a lot of gaming and stuff was becoming big and LEGO was at that stage where they're going, oh, okay, how do we keep up with this? You, we're just little traditional blocks and things. What do we do? So that's when they collaborated with these two professors to go, surely there's something that we can use in house, that we can spark ideas and conversations with our teams in order to work out how, what our future is, the strategy. So that's where LEGO Serious Play started. Then they realised actually other businesses could benefit from this, so they started training people. But in 2010, they made the decision to make it what's called open source, which was basically, here's all the details, here's how you run it. As long as you know how to facilitate, go ahead and do it. And so you don't have to be certified. And it's one of my big bugbears, I can, I can rant about this for quite a while, but I won't. But when I see people offering LEGO Serious Play certification courses, that's fine. If you're not in learning development, you're not a trainer, you're not a facilitator and you're learning from scratch, I think it's a good route to go down. But you. What they're really teaching you is how to facilitate and using Lego Serious Play as the underlying method for it. So I run courses for experienced trainers, facilitators, coaches and educators about how to use Lego Serious Play. And it's a one day event, you don't have to be certified to do it. So I did go off on a rant there. Sorry. Joanne Lockwood: No, that's fine. It's education. I've learned something that's good. Nikie Forster: But I think ultimately it should always be about the learner and not about the, you know, whose model it's attributed to or the theory. Unless you are using that throughout an entire programme, it should always be about, well, what's useful for the learner. How am I going to get the learners to feel comfortable in the space and open up and engage? And if that means using Lego, then fantastic, let's do that. And Joanne Lockwood: drilling down into that. It's about each individual learner, not the cohort of learners. Because we've got to be multimodal, we've got to think about each learning style, each attention style, each reward. Nikie Forster: Yes. Pathway, all these kind of things. And too often Joanne Lockwood: it's a one size fits all. Yeah, I remember Nikie Forster: a little while ago, but I do remember it quite vividly. I went along to a training event and I was writing my notes. I'm not a copious note taker, but I do like making just notes or scribbling down things or doodling or something like that. And I was actually told by the trainer to stop writing. Yeah. And it took me a moment to kind of. To kind of what? No, stop writing. You have to listen. That's how you're going to learn. You have to listen. Well, you're not much of a trainer if that's what you think. And I didn't say that out loud, that was in my head, but it took me a while and I'm not normally a person that's lost words. But the idea that everybody has to learn in the same way. I think anybody who's worth their salt as a, you know, in learning and development understands that. However, not everybody does. Some people are very focused on, well, this is how I learn, so that's how I'm going to train or teach. So, yes, I think it's really important to understand and not just to design in that way. So have a workshop where all of that is incorporated. But to actually be very much in the moment of this isn't landing, what do I do differently? Or this is going great, let's do it a bit more. But that person over there isn't Quite engaging. So, you know, it's very much around that for me it's being in the moment and making sure that everybody's getting what they need or want. I do quite a lot of stuff pre workshop, actually, when I'm running a programme or working with clients in order to understand who's turning up and what their needs are. And I think that's really helpful, not just from my perspective of understanding who's coming into the room, but I tend to send a form with a video attached to it. So they get to see me before they turn up, they get to understand a little bit about how the programme's gonna run. Cause I'm quite informal in the way that I do things. But everything has a purpose. So I think if people understand all of that upfront, they can make better judgments when they turn up about how they might want to interact. I remember seeing in the old Joanne Lockwood: days, yes, Steve Jobs at Apple and he was very famous for his launch and the way he stagecraft everything. I'm not sure the exact point I'm trying to make here, but I think what he did was he used to do his presentations inside 8 minute or 10 minute segments. So we would talk for a while, then he flipped to a video and the video would flip to a live demonstration and then that would flip to involving somebody else come in and they talk about it and have a discussion and then he'd move on to the next thing. So I've always taken that when I'm delivering training, delivering anything, I want to go through this cycle where I say, here's my 20 minute segment, I'm going to talk, I'm going to video, we're going to discuss, we're going to write something down and then we're going to do some Q and A and then we're going to rinse and repeat, do the next topic. Yeah, Nikie Forster: it is keeping fluid, isn't it? Yeah. And now I've got Joanne Lockwood: a puppy. I've learned even more about those kind of techniques where you're constantly trying to feed the brain and move from one state to another state before the person shows the teeth and goes out of grounding it. Yes. Nikie Forster: Yeah, it is, it's about. I think the kind of. The real depth of it is psychology rather than anything else. It's about understanding people. And I think a lot of what I do, regardless of the topic that I'm training, it nearly always, always comes comes back to understanding yourself and understanding others. Everything else on top of that is just extra information that you can sprinkle over and go. And I'm going to use that in order to do this. But I think self awareness, whether that's innate or whether you have to learn it is the first step and then understanding others and how you react to them is the bit that will then get you those, that kind of better interaction. Those are what you just said. There are the key Joanne Lockwood: tenets of emotional intelligence, aren't they? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think, I think you can learn it. I would say myself that I have learned self awareness, self management, building relationships, all the attendance of those emotional intelligence there over, over the last 10, 15 years. Before that I was, I was unaware of who I was, how I showed up and I was unaware what if that mattered or not. So I think yes you can, I think you put people in a space where they go, the light bulb comes on and go, ah, okay. The world is much simpler if I understand who I am. Yes. Nikie Forster: Yeah. And I think it's really interesting to think about how we get to that point of self awareness and I do think some people have more insight than others naturally. But like we just said, I think it can also be learned and I think there are aspects that you can do yourself in order to learn that, but there are aspects that other people can help you with as well. So yeah, simple things. Like years and years ago I did my first personality profiling. Yeah. You know, thing where you find out what your colours are and the stuff and then what that means and then whether you like the results of that or not. So that I think was probably my first journey into it being. But I had some very good managers when I was younger, particularly starting out in my training career, who were more coaching managers which, which worked well for me to a certain level. Although I'm quite a pragmatist at heart. So I like to be involved and I like, like for me to have an opinion. But ultimately I need to know why. Why are you asking me that? Why, why am I doing it this way? And so the managers that I had at the time understood that about me and was able to help me find my own way, encourage me to be the me that I am now. In terms of. Yes, I do turn up with suitcases full of props in my training sessions and I always have to a certain extent. But I think in those early years when I was, my world of training experience was more about sitting in a room and seeing people talk at, you know, it was more of a presentation or a lecture. And so that was my experience of being content. And you're going to have it. Yes, exactly. And I'm the expert on it and you know, you have to ask me the questions. So when, when you have an experience that you then think, well, I don't want to do it that way. And is that okay? You need that encouragement. You need people to go, yes, it's all right to do things differently. And I was very lucky that I had that. Yeah. Joanne Lockwood: I tend to always assume that somebody in the room probably knows more than I do about the topic. So I never want to consider myself the expert. I'm just there. I often say when I start talking is that I'm not here to tell you what to say, think or do. I'm just asking you to think about what you want to say, think or do. And I obviously, I always have this, the acronym WIFM W I, I F.M. you know, what's in it for me? So I'm always thinking about why the person's in the room, what they're hoping to get out of it. I really want to hear why they're here, why they're there and what they're expecting. Because I. Yes, if I'm talking about this and everybody else and everyone wants to talk about that, then I need to adjust. I can't force them to my side of the fence. I need to meet them. Meet them where they are. Absolutely, Nikie Forster: absolutely. And I think it's very much when you treat people like adults, but you're telling them that you're treating them like adults, I think you get a much better response. Again, kind of having, I'm not a great delegate in workshops because I sit there and I go, why are you doing that? I just want to redesign everything. But one of the things that I really struggle with is when people open up a workshop and they say things like, right, everybody has to switch their phone off. Or even worse, here's a bowl in the middle of the table. Everybody put your phones in there because I don't want you to be distracted or that's just treating them like a 5 year old. Not that 5 year olds have phones. Well, they might do, but you know, it's like everybody's busy. If you need to use your phone, you use your phone. But just be considerate. I don't even mention phones. I have to be honest because I think setting the expectation for people about we're all adults in the room. Nobody is, you know, saying you have to be here. Nobody is saying they have to participate. But when you do, you do it with consideration for others. And we do it with respect and things like that. Yeah. So I think setting expectations is important, but doing it as an adult is even more. Yeah, I tend to try and start with an expectations Joanne Lockwood: contract, if you like, where we are part of whiteboard. So what do we expect of each other today? Being present? Be attentive. Nikie Forster: Yeah. Create space for learning, don't jump to conclusions, Joanne Lockwood: allow people to have their opinions or those sort of things. So I would try and do it that way. And that's why I say be present is kind of my way of saying, if you could turn your notifications off, silence the thing. But I also, look, if you need to make a phone call, you're busy, you want to make a phone call, please step out, go and go to the toilet when you want, use the phone when you want, but do it outside the room. I ran a workshop a little while ago, probably a year ago, and I think it was the chief people officer was in the room and they constantly were sat there on the laptop going. And then their phone was beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. All the other delegates were going, this person's supposed to be setting an example here. And I felt really, really uncomfortable because I could feel everybody else was uncomfortable and I didn't want to sort of say, or you stop it. But I was. And they were looking to me as a kind of, you know, because you're one of your training, you're the leader, aren't you, to take responsibility and do something. And I, I wasn't sure how to do it without being kind of authoritarian. I didn't want to be authoritarian. I, what I, I think what I let happen was I let the room decide it was unacceptable. Yes. Without me saying it. And I, and this person, they were just oblivious. Oblivious to the impact they were having on everybody else. And I just. It's coming back to that self Nikie Forster: awareness bit again, isn't it? I think in the past when I've had that, not with laptops and stuff, but when somebody's been like on the phone and stuff, depending on the room, sometimes I have just said, would you like us to wait until you finished? You know, if it's been going on a while and they go, oh, no, I'm really sorry, or actually, yeah, no, this is really important. Okay, do you want to take it outside then so that we can focus on what we're doing rather than on what you're doing? Or sometimes if they're repeat offenders, then I will walk around the room and just stand at the back of them while I'm still talking. So everybody eyes is on me. But ultimately that person realises that that's a good technique and they realise then. But I'm quite happy to. I'm pausing here because I was gonna say I'm quite happy to call people out on it, but this is something that you taught me in one of your posts quite a while ago. Now. I remember seeing this and it's always stuck with me. You did a post about not people out, but calling people in. And that's always stuck with me. And I really like that. And so I, I try and do that more and more. So I don't try and embarrass people and I don't try and make them feel as though they should know that what they're doing is either wrong or unacceptable because they might not know, they might not be self aware, there might be other things going on for them. So I try and do it in a way that, you know, allows them to feel as though they're not being told off and just making them feel more self aware that actually what you're doing is distracting or what you've said isn't appropriate or, you know. But allowing them to learn from it rather than feel defensive. Yeah, that's why I try and Joanne Lockwood: do the contract at the beginning. It's. We all agree that we need to be present, we all agree that it's a good idea not to be distracted with other things. And we all agree that if you want to use the phone, you want to go to the toilet, you want to do anything else, you feel free. This is not primary school where you have to put your hand up and ask for permission. You just stand up and walk out and it's absolutely fine. Yeah, but the words that you use there to Nikie Forster: describe that is the words that I use as well. It's about expectations. So what expectations do you have of what we're doing? Of me? Of your peers, rather than using the term ground rules. Because again, as soon as you start using that rules, we're limiting people. Yeah, again. But the group should decide. It shouldn't be me Joanne Lockwood: dictating, it should be the group. I mean, if the group said, look, actually we're all trying to close a deal at the moment and we're all on standby and if the deal happens, we've all got to jump up and go and do something. I go, okay, it's going to be a rough ride, but I'll factor that into my meeting plan or my lesson plan and I'll meet You where you're at and you're paying me to be here, you want me to do a great job. As long as you take away those key things, I may skip half the content because you're not listening and go straight to some action stuff where you have to be engaged because you're doing things. Yeah, Nikie Forster: yeah. But again, you have expectations, setting. Yeah. I've chaired so many Joanne Lockwood: board meetings where board members sat around the table with their phones and their laptop and someone's giving a report and everyone's doing this on their own laptop, their eyes are down and then. And then when it's their turn for report, they give their report and everybody else's eye down. Do you think half of you haven't paid attention to anything that's going on? And you look at questions at the end or people disagreeing with the minutes, you think, were you not there at the time? No, you weren't actually. I remember you were sitting there writing your own personal emails while you were, while you were around the table. And it is frustrating, that respect thing. If you want people to listen to you, you need to give people their space. And that's that self regulation, that emotional intelligence of understand the room, isn't it? Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think that's. That's one of Nikie Forster: the reasons why I gravitated towards the Lego series play that we spoke about earlier, was because as well as everybody having to build their own models in a proper structured session, I would then go around every single person and ask them to explain their model, how they see it, so there's no wrong answers. But also, then I get the rest of the group to ask questions of the model, not, not the whys, you know, why have you done that? But I see you've got a pink flower on the edge of your model there. What does that represent? So in order to ask those questions, you have to have listened to what the person says. Otherwise you've asking a question about something that's already been said and it does. And it drives deeper listening, but it also drives a deeper discussion. Because some people, even when they've built something, will go, well, I built this and it represents how I'm motivated on, you know, do my work. And that's all they'll say. Some people will go into it very elaborately, but when you start asking questions about, well, what. Tell me about that pink flower on the edge of the model. What does that represent? And even if they say, oh, I don't know, I just like the flower, you then follow it up with well, now that I've pointed out, what might it represent? And they can give you an answer, and they always do. They'll say something like, well, actually, that's probably what I'm hoping it be like. But it's right on the edge. It feels as though it's slightly out of reach. And you get these real deep insights into things. And the level of listening and contribution really shifts when you do something like that, rather than the standard, has anybody got any questions? And everybody goes, okay, how close to lunchtime is it? I might not answer because it means you're going to be here for another five minutes and I'd rather go now. So, yeah, it's interesting how you can shift the conversations along. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. One of the things I liked about the exercise I did with you, with my wife and others was that initial phase where you're building and you're sharing a pile of Lego with somebody else. You're interacting with the person next to you who you may not know is also a very good bonding opportunity. And you're discussing and you've broken that ice in your one to your left, one to your right, and you, your three. And if there's another three, you overlap and it almost like infects around the table. You start to have conversations. You're standing there queuing up to put your model on the map, on the mat. And again you're, oh, what's yours? And what's yours? Where are you putting your one? And it again creates that. I'm going to use a puppy thing here. So when puppies meet, all they want to do is sniff each other's bums and run around, around circles for five minutes. That's that they want to bond and get to know each other. And I think sometimes when we're. When we're engaging in workshops and learning and development, we're not allowing people to do the puff stiff. We're not allowing people to get to know each other and to. And get that human value. It's all me to you, not us. And we. Absolutely. Nikie Forster: But I think also there's an element of. So as a trainer or facilitator, allowing people, you know, giving somebody an activity that allows them to do that allows then people to go, okay, right. It's. I'm allowed to talk, I'm allowed to interact. I think sometimes when you go into a room, particularly if you don't know anybody else there and you're not quite sure of the situation, then that can be hard, just to strike up a conversation and go into small Talk and try and engage and work out well who's who. And you know, it can be very intimidating even in an in house workshop where you know that there are gonna be people in the room that you've worked with but you don't really know them and how's it gonna work? And you know, you need something at the beginning that just allows people to feel comfortable in just starting to talk. I think as a very young trainer I expected that to happen just naturally. All these people would show up and nobody would talk and I would almost be like, have you all lost your voices? And I look back at that now and think, how horrendous must that have been to be that person turning up who was probably a bit anxious and a bit worried about how it was going to work. Just, you know, to sit there and well, no, I haven't lost my voice, but I'm really, you know, I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to interact with these people or I don't want to, I don't actually want to be here, maybe, you know, all those things. So I think over my 30 odd years of being a trainer, I've learned an awful lot. And I do look back at those early years and think, oh, if only somebody had kind of steered me in a better direction in how to open up a workshop and make people feel more comfortable in that space. Joanne Lockwood: I found that if you, if you pounce on people cold, that makes people very nervous and very worried because everyone's sitting around the table going, oh, gonna bounce on me and avoid eye contact. Or sometimes I still do it and I know I shouldn't. Maybe you start and go around the table. So everyone sort of think, oh, I've got time to think, time to think what I'm saying. What am I gonna say? Yeah, and you've got to try and figure out who you start with because you're thinking, okay, I've got to find the person who I think is going to be gung ho for this. I find the extrovert, start with you and work around. But I've also found that if you ask people to introduce themselves to the person next door first. Yeah. So they're used to speaking out loud to somebody and then once they've broken their dark, they've broken the ice on that, then they're happy to talk to the group because they've already shift their voice has already been heard once. Yeah, Nikie Forster: One of the activities that I use quite a lot because it works quite well. And again it does link to Lego. I keep going back to Lego a lot. I have a whole tub of deconstructed minifigures. Right. Okay. Lots of accessories. And I basically get people to build their own minifigure that represents themselves as and whatever the topic is. So it's usually a leader or a manager, because that's mainly what I deal with. Fade of the lightsaber or something. Well, actually, some people do, you know, but again, it's asking them, how does that represent you? And then depending on the size of the group, everybody introduces themselves to everybody or they get into small groups and they introduce themselves. But it's about the representation. So you know that they might well have chosen something that looks like Darth Vader with a lightsaber. When you say to them, because how does that represent you as a leader? Then they have to think a little bit more. Cheque people. Yeah, I have a very commanding style of leadership. Okay, let's see how that plays out. When we talk about leadership styles and stuff. Again, it gives something for somebody to do before they then start to talk and they've got a prop there to be able to talk about, so it feels a bit safer rather than just to say, hi, my name's Nikki. I think my leadership style is a bit like Darth Vader. I don't think anybody would actually say that if they didn't have a minifigure, you know, that they could construct into something with a lightsaber and stuff. But, yeah, I think it's really interesting, those allowing people to feel comfortable in that opening part. Joanne Lockwood: So how did you start your career then? You weren't always this superstar LEGO deep learning specialist. What was your ambition when you left school, then? My ambition when I left school Nikie Forster: was to be a Radio 1 disc jockey. I wanted to be on the radio. And I did actually do a bit of time at hospital radio, which I loved. And I also did a bit of time at local radio. Radio Victory was the local radio station. Yes. Yeah. Trout Road. Yeah. Off to the St. Joanne Lockwood: Marie's Church. Yeah, it was. So I Nikie Forster: did. I did several stints with what was called Victory fm. It came back as yes, and again, I loved it. It was a great experience and I did a lot of presenting and producing and thought that could be a way forward. It was a real. Really helped me learn how to talk to people in terms of interviewing and questioning. So I did something called Coffee on Victory fm. It was a morning stint where I used to get people in and interview them. So that was a big Learning curve for me. But I soon realised if I wanted to do it professionally there's way more rules and regulations and the certain things you're allowed to say and not allowed to say. And I kind of went off the ball a bit because I don't do rules very well. I. So I kind of deviated a bit. I didn't know what I wanted to do after that. So I started working at B and Q. Very different from wanting to be on the radio, but it was just a part time job. But actually it was B and Q that allowed me to become a trainer in a very weird and wonderful way because it was the, it was the knees I was working on the decorative section and everybody was rag rolling their walls and crackle glazing anything that wasn't nailed down. And we had all these paint effects that came into the store and nobody knew how to use them. And my manager, yeah, yeah, my manager at the time knowing that I used to do the radio stuff, basically said, Nick, you know how to talk. Go and demonstrate this stuff and get it sold. Okay. So I took myself off into a corner of the store and I was, you know, kind of trying to work out how to use it and then people would turn up randomly and ask me what I was doing. And then that kind of evolved into me putting out some tannoy announcements that I was going to do a demonstration. And then that escalated into me doing way more demonstrations on things. And I also became their interior designer for a while quite randomly. But in true Nikki style, I didn't just want to be on the shop floor doing interior design. I decided that I was going to put on some evening classes for the customers to come in and do like a six week course on all this interior design stuff. I didn't even know I was training at that point. All I was doing was I didn't want to be on the shop floor, I wanted to do something else. And so the cafe, I was at Hedge End at the time when it just opened, the B and Q there and they had a mezzanine floor with a cafe on it which closed at 6. So from 6 till 8 every Thursday for about six weeks. I basically commandeered that and set up wallpaper, trestle tables and had all this, all this stuff going on. I had loads of people turn up little certificates at the end of it. And it was through that that somebody saw me and say actually you'd probably be quite good at doing induction workshops for us. So that's when I really got involved in doing what I'd call official training. I did induction workshops and became part of the the team at BQ and then became a management development person and then eventually became the regional training manager for the south, the little region that I was in. So I learned most of my formal training with BNQ in. It's what I'd call its heyday of learning and development and then everything else since then is different companies and different ways of doing things and just learning. Every time you have different culture in the business or different people that want training to be a slightly different way, but all the time the creative element has always followed me just doing stuff that engages people to do things rather than me just study in front of the room telling people stuff. So, yeah, so that's how I got into it. Wow. So Joanne Lockwood: BNQ head office was. It used to be at Eastleigh, didn't it? At one time Nikie Forster: it did, yes. Yeah. I didn't go there very often, but yeah, it was just up the road. But I know from hearing other Joanne Lockwood: storeys that BNQ are an excellent inclusive employer, that they employ more people over the age of 60 than most. They're really focused on developing people who are retire but useful. Nikie Forster: Well, absolutely. Have a disability, employ lots of people with downs. Joanne Lockwood: Lots of people with learning disabilities that they are a really inclusive employer. Nikie Forster: Yeah. Certainly in the time that I was with them for 13 years and certainly in the time that I was with them, I raved about bnq. I really enjoyed their approach to employment and allowing people to do to better themselves, but also in a way that worked for them. It wasn't, you know, a hard line of this is how it's done. Have Joanne Lockwood: you noticed a generational shift in how people want to engage in training? I mean, we hear that Gen Z, Gen Alpha, even younger millennials are. They want reward based. When we were talking about puppies earlier, you need to keep feeding them traits. You know, people talk about gamifying and stimulating the brain chemicals to get people to be hyper and pumped up or is do traditional training methods still work for the younger generation? Nikie Forster: It's an interesting one and I think I might struggle to answer that because I think what I've always done is hits the dopamine because I've always had activities that get people to do the thing and get people to explore it and design it in a way that is quite short sections before we move on. But I do think I've got a son who's 14 and I do recognise with him that the shorter, more interactive stuff will definitely sit better than you know any long form of learning. He talks about his teachers and the ones that he likes the best are the ones that will engage in conversation, will set activities for them to do, rather than the kind of the drawn out side of things. So I noticed my speech has slowed down a bit because I'm trying to think and I see a lot of different generations in the work that I do. I mean, a lot of the stuff I do is around management and leadership, so it tends to be probably mid-30s, upwards for most companies when I get involved in that. But I do a lot of stepping into leadership as well. And you tend to get younger generations in that. I do a lot of work with the NHS around leadership as mindset rather than leadership as a title. And I think that sometimes I see them turn up almost like I've got a full day of doing this, because they just used to being on their feet and doing stuff and things, but usually by the end of it, I've got a good thumbs up. And I think it's about engagement. I think it's always just been about treating people as they want to be treated regardless of age. The Platinum Rule people often. Well, exactly. People forget that they always go for the Golden Rule. Treat people as you Joanne Lockwood: want to be treated, but. But you've got to step into them. You got to be person centric. Yeah, yeah. So if you've got a, you know, a Nikie Forster: group of people who are more quieter, you know, more reflective, then you need to give them more time to reflect. If you've got a group of people that are all in very loud and boisterous and wanting to, you know, kind of do everything at 100 miles an hour, then you might need to speed things up. But it's also looking for the outliers as well. You know, just because 90% of the room is that you still need to make sure the 10 is allowed to, you know, get what they want from it as well. And Joanne Lockwood: I suppose I actually want to have fun myself, you know, facilitating a group. I want to come out at the end of the day going, high five. I've enjoyed that. Yeah, we've all bonded. I want you to think I've done a good job. So it's. You're trying to keep it active for yourself because, you know, I don't know about you, but I've run the same course for an organisation I think I ran. I think I deliver something like 40 versions of this session to different cohorts over the course of six months. And by the end of it, you think Have I told that gag before? Have I said that? Did I tell you that or did I tell the last group that? And it's like by the end of it, your brain is like mush. So you want to. You want to enjoy it yourself, don't you? And I think the more you enjoy it, the more your audience are going to enjoy it as well. Absolutely. And I think Nikie Forster: the way that I kind of get over that is by allowing more of the audience participation to come through, because then every session is different, you know, I think that there's always a structure to what you do, of course, and there's always key points that you want to dig at home. But when the audience is coming up with their answers and what happens next, and you know, if we go off on a tangent, then fantastic, because that's what's needed in the moment. But you're right at the end of it, you can usually, usually tell if it's landed or not. I do. I think for those people who are slightly more extrovert and vocal in how they're getting that they're learning, it's very easy to read those. I think it's harder to read those that are slightly more reflective or internally thinking. And sometimes I do have to just verbally cheque how, you know, how we're doing. Are we on the right level? Because I do find those sometimes slightly harder to read. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, it always surprised me because I tend to finish my sessions with a tell me the one thing that is going to stick with you out of today's session or the one thing you're going to implement right now and go around the room and ask people to just verbalise that. And I think, wow, you picked up on that. Wow, you picked up on that. And the diversity of things that resonated with people. And it wasn't all the point I thought, thought they were going to go for. They picked up something really random. I thought, wow, that was a throwaway remark I made an hour ago. And that really stuck with you. I thought, okay, that's brilliant. And so again, it's recognising that everyone's going to take away something different and everyone hears something different and everyone's situation is different, aren't they? So it's always surprising me. And I think it's really good because by sharing to the room what you're taking away, it gives other people those nuggets as well. So they're always their self appear to be learning again, aren't they? Oh, I'm taking this away because I'M taking that way. So it reinforces that without me having to do a summary at the end. Yeah, yeah, no, Nikie Forster: absolutely. And yet absolutely spot on with that. The throwaway comment that wasn't in your design notes. You had no intention of saying it when you turned up in the morning. And that's the thing that they're taking away. It always makes me smile at that. But that's the beauty of listening to the room and picking up on what other people are saying and having the freedom as a trainer or facilitator to interject, you know, and add storeys that. That make sense for that moment, I think. You know, just sticking to your script. Well, no, that. That's what we've got, so that's what we'll do. That, you know, it doesn't help. So I think it's great. I mean, Joanne Lockwood: there's a technique. I don't know if you heard this. It's called newsjacking. So what you're doing is you're taking current affairs or something of the moment. Yeah. And bringing that into the session as an anecdote or an example. Everyone's. Everyone's heard the news today or everyone's aware of what's going on in the world. So if you. If you ignore the Middle east, you ignore Russia, you ignore Iran, what's going on there at the moment, then you're ignoring the world. If you can bring some of those examples in. Nikie Forster: Yeah. Whatever that may be. And then it makes it completely off the moment. Joanne Lockwood: Relevant. Yes. Yeah, no, absolutely. Nikie Forster: I think making it relevant is really important, I think, also allowing people to work out for them in. In that moment what's going on for them right now. Because quite often I get people turn up to management or leadership programmes that aren't really managers or leaders, that they're perspective managers and leaders, you know, and it's kind of allowing people to say, okay, this is what we're talking about now. Might not be something that you do for six months down the line, but actually, everything that. Generally speaking, everything that I talk about is just people skills. So it can translate into talking with your peers, talking with suppliers, talking with stakeholders. I can't remember why I'm going off on this tangent now, but. Joanne Lockwood: I'm with you. I'm hanging in. I mean, I think what you're trying to say there is. What you're trying to do is help people build a kit bag or a toolkit. Yeah. Of various things. You know, if you're. And you're young, your toolkit's quite Empty. But you get a couple of screwdrivers, you get a couple of spanners and they think, oh, I need to, I need to do this. I haven't got the right tool. I'll go and buy one of those from B and Q. And then you put it in your bag. And then later, a year later, you think, oh, I need that one again. And then you've got that repertoire, those anecdotes, those sayings, those thought processes. Yeah. Nikie Forster: And then being able to reflect back on, you know, oh, I went to that workshop when we talked about that. Right, where's my notes about that? Or go and speak to somebody that was at the workshop before. I think that was another thing that I was going to bring up actually, as you were talking about at the end of the day where you said about what's the one thing you're taking away from today? So I'm a big fan of what I call distracted reflection. Not making full on action plans at the end of a workshop because I don't believe that people have everything they need at the end of a workshop in order to say, this is definitely what we're doing going forwards. I think it's about giving people everything they need in a workshop to start the brain and allow the brain to digest it later down the line. Because when you say to people, right, come up with a really good idea, idea, right now you are five minutes off you go. You might get one or two, but it's very unlikely. You're more likely to get that idea when you're walking the dog or, you know, when you're sat reading something. Oh no, that. Oh yeah, I remember that. Well, that could work. It's always kind of in the moment. And so I'm really keen when I do my workshops to explain that to people that at the end of this you're not going to have a set of three action points that you have to take away and do by three months time and then reflect back on them. Because the brain doesn't work in that way. The brain works in a way that it needs time to mull it over and digest it and then work out, well, what am I doing with it? And it also takes the pressure off people as well, I think, to think that they have to do those things, particularly if somebody's, you know, quite anxious about, well, I've said I was going to do this and I really should be doing it, but I'm not gonna have time to do it. Or actually the plan's all changed. Yeah. And people have to oscillate between Joanne Lockwood: operational and strategic thinking, don't they? It's like, what affects me today, what's my burning bridge, what's biting me on the backside right now, versus if I invested the time to change the process or to enhance or to do things differently, I would do it this way in future, but I can't because that's stopping me. Which is why I always tend to ask, what's stopping you? What prevents you from doing these things and what's the most important thing you want to do? And hopefully in the room is generally a manager or a lead or a supervisor. They're hearing people say, well, this is what's stopping me. And I go, of course, time, money, all these kind of things are going to be stopping you. But what you should be saying is nothing is the answer. What's stopping you? Nothing should be the answer. So what do you need your manager to do to allow it to be nothing? What are the blockers, is what I'm saying. And then let's get those out on the table. Yeah, yeah. Because Nikie Forster: again, as soon as one person says something, they go, oh, yeah, no. And it'll spark a conversation for, for something else. And it allows them to really delve down into what the challenge is rather than just the I don't have time. Here's a tip for anyone listening. I Joanne Lockwood: found that Chat GPT is really good at reading handwriting. So what I do is in my workshops, I get people to write on Post it notes. The four questions I ask is, what will I do? Will rather than should will I do? What will we do? What's the priority and what's stopping me? I get to write on the individual Post it notes and go around the room and at the end of it, I take a photograph of all the Post IT notes on my phone in ChatGPT and say, right, create a spreadsheet with all the we's, I's, priorities and stoppings in a spreadsheet. I then feed that again back into ChatGPT and say, I want you to write me a delegate synthesis pack now with the 30, 60, 90 day products with all the key actions and all the key points and all the things that people were saying. Summarise back, which I then send to the leader or the booker and say, this is what your cohort said, this is what their actions are, this is what they want to do about it and this is what's stopping them. I like that. Yeah. Do you want to have a follow up in 30 days? No one ever says, yeah, let's have a chat about this. They always take it. I've no idea if they read it, but it's a very easy way. Now, I say just take photographs and chatgpt will do a good enough job on the handwriting. Yeah. It doesn't have to be a perfect. It's better than typing it in because I used to sit on the train, train typing it in all the post it notes. Type it in. Two hour train journey. I'll have them all done. But yeah, now, now photograph I take. I put them all on a whiteboard. Take a photograph of the page, put one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I could, I could turn this around in 20 minutes. Now acts as Nikie Forster: a really good reminder of the day as well, because any, even if they don't do those things in 30, 60, 90 days, it will be a reflection of what their intentions were. And I think that's really important to look back on. And if someone does something with it, Joanne Lockwood: I don't need any gratitude. It was their work. If the person that booked me as a trainer or facilitate for the day, they take that away and go, oh, that was useful. If they take one thing out of it, that's fine. And they may never thank me, they may never come back to me, that's fine. At least they got the document. I know I've done a good job. You never know, they may refer you saying, oh, yeah, when Joe came in, she goes, this is fantastic, that's what you want. And it's part of the sales pitch as well. So you can sort of offer it as your value add, isn't it? Your bonus content, if you like. Right. So I liked about your session, we got to keep the Lego. I was sort of thinking, oh, I built my little model here and I was thinking, oh, this is really. He said, you can take your model away with you. Oh, what, really? Oh, oh, I've got my model and it's that value. Nikie Forster: Yeah, yeah. I do tend to do that with the smaller bits of Lego. As I said, when people build their minifigures at the beginning of a workshop, I always allow them to take it away because, again, it acts as another little element in their brain to reflect back on what the day was, what it represented for them. Sometimes I bookend, so I get them to build their minifigure in the morning, they see themselves as a leader and then at the end of the session get them to add one accessory. Having been through the workshop, that they now recognise about themselves as a leader or what they want to be in the future or whatever it is that we're doing. So they rummage around for another accessory and again they go around and talk about it. So then they take it away and they end up putting it on their monitor or on the desk, or even if they take it home and talk to the partner about it, take a. Photograph, stick it on LinkedIn, tag you in, all that kind of stuff. Absolutely, all that stuff. But it's just an extra reminder. It's an extra little neuron in the brain that's connected somewhere that said, this is what we did on this workshop and this is what it meant for me, and that'll stick with them. It'll make it sticky for a lot longer. We Joanne Lockwood: talked about inclusion and in the narrative we also use the word belong. And all of these little techniques draw you in. This place is for me, I belong here. Nikki's for me. Yeah, this, this training's for me. It's. I've got something, I'm taking it away and I, I feel that, as you say, the dopamine hits the brain, chemicals are firing off and you come away going, oh, that was really good. So you have a positive experience of the whole thing. That's what, that's what you're after, isn't it? Nikie Forster: Yeah, yeah. Because if somebody's had a positive experience, they're much more open to learning. That's ultimately what, What I'm gearing it for is if they feel comfortable in the space and they feel comfortable with how to express themselves, they are much more likely to retain the learning that they've had and that then becomes much more worthwhile in terms of somebody having employed me to deliver. But them, in terms of having spent their time in term and turning up. Joanne Lockwood: Are you able to translate this into online or are you more a face to face person? I prefer face to face, Nikie Forster: definitely. I do do some programmes online and I usually send out a workshop pack if I'm. If I'm doing. If it's something like a. I don't tend to do days, I tend to do programmes, shorter sessions, over a period of week. And so in the past, what I've done is I've sent out a workshop pack where I've actually had some form of activity that I want them to do, but I've put it in almost like a party bag, like a little paper bag that I've sealed down with a snicker on it. This is Workshop one. So everybody, you know, we're all online, right? Everybody get your, your, your pack, your little parcel for Workshop one. And so Again, dopamine. We're all open. What is this? You know, opening it up and there's something in there, you know, that it may be a deck of cards. It may. And so, you know, they're going through those. Or it may be a bit of Lego that they have to build. It could be anything. But again, it allows it to be more than just. We're just on the camera and the microphone and talking and I want to go off and get a cup of tea or I'm just distracted by the dog or something. It's getting them physically involved, but also the excitement of, oh, I've got these little presents that I'm going to open up on each. Each session. So that's how I tend to play it if I'm doing online stuff. Joanne Lockwood: I think that's what impressed me about the session that you ran, that I was a part of, is the amount of forethought and prep and stuff. Stuff that was. It wasn't just you stood up with a side deck and talked. There was clearly so much depth there of the materials you produce. As I always said that these are custom stuff. You've designed these, pull these together. And that's not cheap to pull together either, is it? You must have invested quite reasonably in the. In the card, decks of card, the Lego. You give away, the mats and stuff. You must have. Yeah. I mean, you know, a lot of money. Some of this. Nikie Forster: So, sorry, talking over the top of you. Some of this stuff I've designed specifically for me to use, but some of it I design and then sell to other trainers as well. So it has like an ongoing effect. But the Lego, I think it's not that expensive at the end of the day. And for the value that it gives in terms of the experience, well, minifigures. Two pound fifty or thereabouts, isn't it? So one minifigure. Not if you buy Pre Loved minifigures. Pre loved. Okay. Off ebay. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Yeah, I'm all for recycling and upcycling and that kind of stuff. Nikie Forster: Good old ebay gets quite a lot of my business. Yeah. And I get all sorts and you can. You can get all sorts on there and just give them a little bit of a wash and stuff and they're. They're perfectly good for reusing. Stick them in the dishwasher in a bag or something. Yeah, well, yes. Yeah, that's a good one to do. But, yeah, I think it doesn't matter whether it's half an hour or, you know, as the six part programme. I think the same effort should be put into that experience for both of those. Joanne Lockwood: I do that. I produce lemonade cards, A6, A5A. Well, look, tiny ones. I have props, I have lots of videos which I've curated over the years and little games I do. So yeah, it's. I even turn up with a, a crate of, full of Fidget toys and baskets. I always provide pens and pen holders. I've got sweets, I've got gluten free, vegan compatible sweets which I give out this coffee biscuit. So I turn up and I spent 15 minutes to get the room ready and then when people walk in they go, wow. It's like, oh yeah, you can see the meat and the sweets in the biscuits. You think, yeah, this is kind of. People are eating, they're enjoying, they're settled down, they sit there with the Fidget toys. Yeah, help yourself with the Fidget toys. Nikie Forster: Absolutely. And it tells people, as soon as they walk into the room, it tells them that they've been thought about. You mentioned about the gluten free and the vegan aspect of things. The amount of time I've turned up to a hotel to run a workshop and they've got the biscuits out and you say, okay, where are the gluten free ones? Where are the dairy free ones? Oh no, we don't have any of those. Good job. I bought some then, you know, because it's. My husband is gluten free and dairy free so I know that every time he goes to it, there's never anything for him. And lunch is always just a salad. Yeah. And. And it is kind of like, well, that's not the same experience. So it's, it's the small things that I think really do make the biggest difference for people. A number of times I've turned up for Joanne Lockwood: lunchtime buffets and things. You see all of this stuff and then at the end there's this one plate with a bit of cling film over it that's got vegan or dairy free or anything really. We've got all this lovely colour and appetising food here and we've got this, this plate of mush at the end which is like. And I just think it's so sad. My reaction would be start that everyone has vegan or everyone has gluten free or whatever and then have your meat pile that you can add to it or something. So if you make it all special for everybody and then, then you can add the meat or you can add the gluten and people should Engineer it in reverse. Yes. Include something for this for everybody that you can then upgrade if you need to too. Absolutely. And have gluten free upgrades as well. Yeah, absolutely. Yummy and exciting. Yeah, yeah, it's. That's conscious inclusion for you though, isn't it? We know about that. Yeah. Nikie Forster: Is, is. I think that's when you find out whether whether a company is driven by profit or not. Because gluten free, dairy free quite often is more expensive but when you think about it, natural foods tend to be gluten free. You know, it's. Yeah, I think it's just about making the experience good for everybody. Yeah, it is. And Joanne Lockwood: that's where we started. We talk about person centric. You know, you can't have one size fits all because do you want to be the person that's not thought about? You're going to switch off, you're going to be disruptive, you're going to be unattentive, you're going to be fidgety and that vibe will spread around the room as well. Nikie Forster: Yeah, it will. It gets picked up very quickly. Nikki, it's been absolutely fascinating. Joanne Lockwood: I love talking to you and I can't wait to meet for a coffee sometime. I'm sure we'll get to each other some somewhere. Yes. How can people get hold of you? So the best way is via my website, Nikie Forster: which is curiouslighthouse.co.uk Everything is. Is on there from the management development stuff to the Lego series play workshops. But LinkedIn is also where I hang out as well and if they're looking for me, it's Nikie, which is spelled N I K I E just to be different. Forster, F O R S T E R. So yeah, LinkedIn or my website are the two best places to get hold of me. Fabulous. And Joanne Lockwood: you talked earlier about having aspirations to be on the radio and you probably weren't radio friendly enough. And I was thinking as I was talking just then that bum sniffing wasn't a phrase I was expecting to say today. It probably isn't a phrase you could broadcast on breakfast radio or something. So. Yeah, I'm with you. My brain slots things into my mouth that I don't necessarily filter sometimes. Nikie Forster: It's a good job that we've got this as a, as a way of being able to voice ourselves without those rules. And that's right. We can broadcast our Joanne Lockwood: own radio. Indeed. Thank you so much. It's been absolutely wonderful. Thank you. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you for having me on, Joe. As we bring this conversation to a close. I want to express my 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, storeys or a vision to share? I'm all ears. Reach out to joe.lockwood@seachangehappen.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.