--- title: "Cut Through Communication" episode: 218 date: 2026-08-13 guest: "Dominic Colenso" canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/218-cut-through-communication audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-218/audio.mp3 --- # Cut Through Communication In this energising episode of The Inclusion Bites Podcast, Joanne Lockwood is joined by Dominic Colenso for a profound exploration into “Cut Through Communication.” Together, they unravel the subtleties of how to communicate with clarity, adapting to different styles and personalities, and ensuring every voice is heard. Joanne shares the value of strong storytelling and directness, while Dominic draws on his unique journey from professional actor to communication coach, demonstrating how presence and vulnerability are essential in carving out authentic, inclusive conversation spaces that inspire genuine engagement and change. Dominic began his career as a professional actor, famously landing the role of Virgil Tracy in the Hollywood remake of Thunderbirds, before moving into directing and later coaching. Having trained at a leading UK drama school alongside renowned performers, Dominic combines a fascination for storytelling with deep insight into human behaviour and group dynamics. Now a sought-after author, keynote presenter, and communication coach, he dedicates his expertise to helping leaders, teams, and organisations cultivate clear, impactful communication—grounded in empathy, adaptability, and a real understanding of audience needs. His practical wisdom bridges the world of creativity and corporate life, enabling others to find their authentic voice and build meaningful connections. Joanne and Dominic discuss the vital balance between simplicity, energy, and emotional resonance in communication, offering examples from boardrooms to YouTube, and highlighting the importance of knowing your audience—whether logical, heartfelt, or outcome-focused. They reflect on adapting styles in mixed groups, handling dissent, and the role of emotional intelligence behind effective dialogue. For Dominic, true communication is as much about listening and noticing as it is about speaking, and cutting through the noise to be consistently and courageously oneself. ## Chapters - 00:00 — Introduction to Inclusion Bites Podcast - 04:17 — US box office struggles - 08:30 — Filming Thunderbirds action scenes - 12:16 — Exploring directing and teaching roles - 13:55 — Collaborative directing and storytelling - 16:44 — Yat Malgram's movement psychology - 21:03 — Understanding communication preferences - 23:09 — Building rapport for collaboration - 26:12 — Planning a school trip debate - 31:31 — Crafting an engaging video intro - 35:48 — Locking in the design spec - 39:06 — Emotional intelligence and acting training - 43:20 — Finding support at work - 46:43 — AI context limits and human memory - 47:45 — Unexpected power cut and adapting - 52:32 — Mastering the story arc technique ## Key takeaways - The critical role of storytelling structure and presence in achieving communication that truly lands with diverse audiences. - How to identify and adapt to varying communication styles, using practical frameworks to improve clarity and understanding. - The value of personal authenticity and vulnerability in building trust and psychological safety within organisations. - Emotional intelligence as a trainable, essential skill for creating inclusive and effective teams. - How to navigate conflicts, misunderstandings, and different perspectives by “walking over” to others’ viewpoints without sacrificing one's own goals. - Techniques for cutting through noise—whether in presentation, email, or video—to engage people’s attention in the moments that matter. - The necessity of finding space for creative thinking and reflection in a world driven by distraction and information overload. ## FAQs ### What does "Cut Through Communication" mean? "Cut Through Communication" refers to the ability to convey messages with clarity, impact, and resonance, ensuring that your voice is genuinely heard above the noise and distractions of modern life. ### How can understanding movement psychology improve workplace communication? Movement psychology, as discussed by Dominic Colenso , involves recognising individual behavioural preferences—such as head (logic), heart (consensus), gut (intuition), or energy (action)—and adapting your communication style to better connect with diverse colleagues 16:44. ### Why is presence important in effective communication? Presence enables genuine connection by allowing you to listen actively and respond to real needs, rather than operating from assumptions or pushing personal agendas 20:05. ### How can you influence colleagues with different communication styles? By identifying your own instinctive style and making conscious efforts to meet others where they are—rather than forcing them to adapt to you—you foster trust and improve the likelihood of achieving shared outcomes 22:34. ### What role does vulnerability play in building influence? Openness and vulnerability, as modelled through theatre training and discussed by Dominic Colenso , strip away barriers, creating space for authentic connection and deeper influence in both personal and professional contexts 41:30. ## Transcript Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood, your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of inclusion, belonging and societal transformation. Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a world? 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 218 with the title Cut Through Communication. And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Dominic Colenso. Dominic is a speaker, author and coach, formerly a professional actor who now helps leaders and sales teams communicate with clarity and impact so that more people have a voice and a voice that is truly heard. When I asked Dominic to describe his superpower, he said that it is storytelling and his fascination with the world and the power to change it. Hello, Dominic, welcome to the show. Dominic Colenso: Hey, Jo, lovely to be here. Thanks so much for having me. Joanne Lockwood: Absolute pleasure. We met all probably six, seven years ago, didn't we, at a Professional Speaking association conference? And I think I was sat next to you at dinner or something and Dominic Colenso: yeah, I think we met in the bar and then we ended up having dinner together and. Yeah, it was great. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, it was a fascinating evening. And then I. You told me the story about, you know, I mentioned in the bio just then about being a professional actor and that was like a big bomb penny drop, wasn't it? It was like. I guess you get a lot of people when you first tell them that story, which I hope you're going to tell now. Dominic Colenso: I think it's always kind of a great curiosity inducer. I think there's something about acting and the kind of world of showbiz that always makes people curious. I don't want to disappoint your leaders, but I do also think it's just a job and we can kind of discuss that a little bit later on. But you're absolutely right. I started my career as a professional actor. I went to one of the kind of big method drama schools in the uk. Tom Hardy was in the year above me. It was all very kind of intense. The nickname of the place was Trauma Centre. Should have been a clue. But I then was really blessed to get out of drama school and straight into professional acting work. I did BBC period drama while I was still in my third year and then within six to nine months of leaving drama school I landed the role of Virgil Tracy in the Hollywood remake of Thunderbird. And that was, if you forgive the pun, the kind of takeoff for my career. Joanne Lockwood: And maybe telling the story that they originally draft commissioned you for three. For a series of three. Dominic Colenso: Yeah, absolutely. It was a big deal. We, we were genuinely kind of slated to be the next big things. So we had a three movie deal. Everyone was sort of hyping this thing up with the, the merchandise, the, the kind of advertising and everything was huge. We had busted doing the theme tune which at the time they were probably one of the biggest kind of boy bands in, in the UK and it was all exciting. So we as a, as a cast genuinely believed that we were going to be in each other's pockets probably for the next 15 years. Because these things have a kind of life of their own normally. Unfortunately, when, when we released the first film, the box office in the UK was great. The box office in Japan and in Europe was good but it just didn't make its money in the us. The, the Americans were a little bit kind of confused about it. It was a British puppet series so I don't think it had translated ne necessarily over there. And the timing of the release was really bad. We were released in the US against Spider Man 2 and Shrek 2 and they bought the release forward rather than an Easter release, it was a summer release and that just meant that unfortunately it kind of sank a little bit without a trace. And about three or four weeks after the US launch got a slightly sheepish call from my agent to say yeah, unfortunately we're not going ahead back to Joanne Lockwood: the drawing board because you. It was also the time when that whole Marvel DC franchise, it was all those remakes, that was the thing, wasn't it? Everybody wanted those sort of movies. Dominic Colenso: And I mean what I love about the film is that it has actually really stood the test of time. So I now have a 12 year old daughter and when she was sort of 56 she was absolutely obsessed by it. And it wasn't. This sounds really egotistical. I didn't say, right darling, sit down and watch daddy in a movie. She was actually at my mother in law's house and it came on the TV and she saw dad as A. As a superhero. And it was really interesting because she was really confused at that age as to whether I had had a former life, you know, putting out fires on oil rigs. And so we kind of kept that going for. For a little bit. But her and her friends and all of their kind of peer group just really loved the film because it is a great feel good. Joanne Lockwood: It's a great. I remember seeing it at the cinema. I remember enjoying it immensely. Dominic Colenso: Yeah, yeah. I had a conversation with Jonathan Frakes, who was the director. He played Riker in Star Trek, but he's also directed a lot of films. And I had a conversation with him a couple of years ago and he said something that really kind of hit me. He said we were meant to grow old together. And from his perspective, he was signed up for the whole franchise and he really believed that we were going to be making these movies for years and years and years. Joanne Lockwood: And the press tours and the. And all the. Dominic Colenso: Yeah, exactly. All of that craziness. Joanne Lockwood: Franchise. You'd be having sort of spin offs. Dominic Colenso: Exactly. And there'd be loads of, you know, dolls behind me with my face on it and different hairstyles and all of that sort of stuff. Yeah. Joanne Lockwood: I remember you saying something like there was a moment when you realised you talked about all these little toys and stuff. Was it you Weren't in the McDonald's Happy Meal, that was Spider man and you were in the Wendy's. Or was it something like that? Dominic Colenso: Yeah, that was. That was a kind early warning sign as I look back on it was that when they came to. To do all of the merchandising, I think it was Shrek was Burger King, Spider-Man was McDonald's and we had ended up in. It wasn't Wendy's. What was it? It was Wimpy. That was it. It was Wimpy. Joanne Lockwood: Wimpy. Dominic Colenso: There you go. Right. This is. This is probably. We don't quite have the position third division that we need right now. Yeah. Joanne Lockwood: But you. You've name dropped in the past. You know, you've done work with some very well known leading thespians, you know, of the stage and yeah, you've mixed in that circle and it. I think you're right. From an outsider's perspective it all seems quite magical and. And sort of inspiring. But to you it was just a job. You just do what you do. Dominic Colenso: I mean, it's still really exciting. I mean I'd be ludicrous to. To downplay the kind of fantasy and the make believe. I remember like turning up at Pinewood Studios, which is where Thunderbirds was filmed. And a. Someone comes and picks you up in a massive Mercedes to take you there. And then they drop, drop you off and you kind of pull up outside the studio and there's a runner waiting to escort you in. And you're walking down the corridor with all of these photos of famous people, you know, different Bond villains and amazing actors who have worked there. And then you walk out onto the Soundstage and there's these sets that are just absolutely mind blowing. I mean, Tracy island had a swimming pool, so we were. We were in a big warehouse hangar, but we were swimming in the. We were swimming in pool when we were on Thunderbird 5 and it was getting blown up. You know, the gimbals moving, the whole thing's, you know, explosions, smoke, sparks. So it's kind of like being in a theme park. When we shot the oil rig rescue scenes, we were. We were in the backlot in a big, big water tank. I had like 30 stuntmen throwing themselves into the water. Explosions, wind machines. It's absolutely nuts. So it's not like any other job, but ultimately it's show business and there is a real business element to it. And what happened with the Thunderbirds franchise is a real kind of testament to that fact that if things don't do the numbers, then they don't get recommissioned. It doesn't matter how kind of feel good and excited everyone was about the show. It actually had to be commercially viable as well. Joanne Lockwood: I mean, today a lot of it is heavily CGI and animated. When you did the movie, it was probably still on that cusp. Some cgi, some augmentation, but a lot of it, as you're saying, there was quite real. Dominic Colenso: Yeah, I mean, we, we did a lot of the kind of stunt stuff that in that nowadays. Absolutely would. Would be just graphics. That oil rig rescue that I described, I mean, there were flamethrowers and all sorts of stuff going. I just don't think they would bother with that now. And we were. Our dad in the film was Bill Paxton and he'd been in Apollo 13. Joanne Lockwood: Wow. Dominic Colenso: So when we were doing. There's a scene in it where we're kind of doing. We're weightless and the kind of gravity device in the space station is broken and we're kind of all floating around and they had to make us full body casks. So we went into. We went in props department and we're all wrapped in plaster so that they could make an exact kind of replica for our bodies. Then for the actual scene, we got into these casks. They had different connection points and there were strategic holes in our costumes. And then we were put onto a pole and kind of floated around. I don't think that would happen anymore. But interestingly, when you look, when you watch it back, it looks really good and it looks slightly more believable than some of the CGI that we're seeing. So it's an interesting dichotomy. Joanne Lockwood: I've got a friend who works, he's got a stage automation company. He actually designed the Michael McIntyre spin the wheel. So his stage automation spins the wheel and he's got all this. And it's called. He was an RAF friend of mine, we were both doing electronics in the RAF together 30 years ago, 40 years ago. And he's done some movies as well where you need to get a person from the bottom of a tower to the top of a tower and he will do that stage automation that fires them up. Fires them up or whatever. So, yeah, he's got an OBE for it. So he's a leading authority in stage automation. So, yeah, so I get to hear some of his stuff. He does a lot of stage shows in the West End. He's a good source of getting cheap tickets for West End productions. Dominic Colenso: Brilliant. Joanne Lockwood: So you finished your acting or acting finished with you? Did it fizzle or did you kind of get to the end of it and think, actually, I need to wear a proper living now. I've got to be an adult. Dominic Colenso: There were a couple of things that were going on. It was never that clean cut. So I was also, throughout my time at drama school and, you know, that early part of my career as an actor, very interested in directing. And so some opportunities came along to work on shows as assistant directors and then start kind of directing my own stuff as well. And in parallel to that, I then started to get asked to go back and teach at some of the big drama schools. So I went back to Drama Centre, did some classes for RADA and a couple of the other big drama schools in London. And what I started to discover that was that I had got more pleasure and I felt I was making more impact from that kind of behind the scenes thing rather than being the actor. And I'd had a few really lovely jobs, really big breaks, lovely acting stuff on stage. But you always felt a little bit like a cog in a wheel, rather than having any sort of sense of autonomy. Really kind of stupid example just springs to mind. But I remember being on set for Thunderbirds and Really wanting a cup of tea. And as the actor, you weren't even allowed to leave your dressing room to go and do that. You had a runner who was there to help you with those sorts of things. So I asked my runner if I could have a cup of tea. And like, 25, 30 minutes later, still no cup of tea. And I'm kind of feeling the diva rising in me going, this is absolutely ridiculous. Like, I could have walked to the bloody wagon and picked the cup out of the pile and made my own cup of tea in three minutes, not in 33 minutes. So you lose some of that autonomy for some of those really simple decisions. Whereas when I was working as an actor, as a director, I was able to really collaborate and unlock other people's creativity. And so for me, I was never a concepts director. I didn't come in and say, this is how we're doing things. I would sit down with my creative team, with my lighting designers, with my costume designers, set designers, with the actors and say, what are we gonna together? And I found that incredibly exciting, empowering, and at kind of odds to my experience as an actor. So that became a much bigger part of what I was doing. And then someone came along and said, you're into this storytelling stuff. Can you help our team? They're not very good at it. And I'm the sort of person that says yes to anything once I said, let's give it a go. And I was just really fascinated by how quickly that skill set that I developed and trained as an actor, as a director, just translated into what I then thought of as the kind of real world again, that ability to help in a way that I didn't have that agency as an actor was really exciting. And so that set me off on a whole new trajectory. Doing coaching courses and understanding how do I better translate these things that I kind of instinctively know or have been taught, but how do I teach them to others in a way that is accessible, is relevant and gets people the results that they want? Joanne Lockwood: That's very interesting. You say that because you can tell the difference between someone who is a good storyteller and someone who isn't in so much as the trajectory or the arc of that conversation is such that, you know, if someone's got a story plan with a punchline and stuff off points and somebody who's just waffling and you get to the end of it and go, well, what was I supposed to take out of this? Yeah, I often joke with people that someone told me this. Some people need a Skip intro button on their forehead. So you know, they start talking. I want these people says tell me the answer and then tell. Read the story. Some people want to tell you the story before you know where you're going with it. And it's, it's also appreciating different people's communication styles and listening styles as well, isn't it? Dominic Colenso: Absolutely, yeah. It was fascinating at drama school because we, we did a lot of work on what was known at our school as movement psychology. And the founder of the school was a guy called or co founder of the school was a guy called Yat Malgram. And Yat had been a soloist dancer, he was Swedish. In the 40s and 50s he'd been a virtuoso, toured the world and when he retired as a dancer he started working with actors. You know, has worked with the Anthony Hopkins and you know, Sean Connerys of the world, but then founded, co founded Drama Centre. He had this methodology that helped actors translate characters into movement. But what I started to notice was that you could also kind of reverse engineer that and you could start to understand people and their preferences and their behaviours from what they were doing. And I found that really fascinating to bring that back into my work with businesses again, especially on a podcast like this. It's not about putting people in boxes, right? We're a combination of all of these things, but having some sort of shortcut or having some signals to listen out for and then test and re engineer or adapt if you need to. But that process is really useful. So I talk about head energy, people that are very much kind of logic based. One plus one is two need to have the kind of full working out heart energy. People who are about consensus and compassion and bringing people on the journey together. Gut energy, which is all about, oh, this is new, this is shiny, let's, let's go this way. And energy who are outcome, focus, direct, let's get things done. And that very much came from the work that we did as actors in terms of creating characters almost from the outside in. And it now allows me to have conversations with people and navigate those conversations much more elegant. Especially if I'm listening. Well, only if I'm listening to allow me to speak other people's language rather than just get stuck in my own way of doing things. Joanne Lockwood: So you're evaluating the, if you like the reception style, say ah, you're a foot person, you're a head person, you're a heart person, you're a gut person, you're a. Yeah, yeah. And then you're you're, you're modifying your interaction to them in a way that they want to. And sometimes when you're in a mixed group, you have to, you have to blend all of them, don't you? Dominic Colenso: All of it? Absolutely. Joanne Lockwood: In all those little plates and then come back and that's it. Dominic Colenso: You know, when you're, when I'm giving a keynote, it's about recognising, okay, well I might be speaking to a group of accountants. So they, there might be more kind of head and logic people in the room, but that doesn't negate the fact that some of them will be real kind of people. People and will want that heart energy as well. And so it's about being flexible, it's about being open and it's about trying to be present in that moment so that you don't just go, right, this is the plan, this is where I'm going. But actually you do spot the signal and you are able to change. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. When does it go wrong? You can sometimes misinterpret, I guess. Can you? Dominic Colenso: I think it goes wrong when you're not in that place of presence, actually. I think if you are genuinely present with someone, you know, human beings are hardwired for connection. That's my belief anyway, that we are, you know, tribal animals that want to come together and help each other. And so if we sit in that space and we really listen and we're not there to dominate and assert, we can still have an opinion, we can still have an outcome in mind. But if we're really open to what's right in front of us, then it's actually quite difficult to get it wrong. But most of us aren't. Most of us go in with a preconceived idea of how this is going to work and what needs to be said and then the whole thing blows up. Joanne Lockwood: So how do, how do you persuade people that that's a good idea? Because it's quite often people don't want to be told that it's. How do you coach that into people? What would be your first step? Dominic Colenso: So what I normally try and help people identify is what their kind of go to is. Again, this is not a psychometric test. But on instincts, when you're under pressure, where, where would you tend to go? And then what normally is the big aha moment is we then say, so who, who do you find it really difficult to communicate with? And what, what you'll tend to find is that those people. This is a kind of four box model. The people that you find have most challenge with are on the diagonals from you because they're, they're, you know, they're, they're the most different to, to where you are. And as soon as you notice that, then you go, oh, right, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That's why I find Susan really challenging to, to have a conversation. I remember a few ago a lady joining our team and we always share this model and concepts with people because we always ask people, how do you like to be communicated with? Do you, do you prefer to have text messages or voice notes? Would you rather have an email? Just so that we're kind of, you know, giving people what they want and what they need. But we explained this to this employee and she turned around to me and she said, oh my God. She said, I wish I had been told this 30 years ago. She said, I had a boss for 15 years who I just was always at odds with. And it's now just abundantly clear to me that we wanted the same thing. We were just communicating from a completely different perspective. Joanne Lockwood: That's a really insightful way of putting it. We do all want the same thing. We all want positive outcomes. We all want happy life. Nobody wakes up in the morning, wants to be a dick. It just something, something happens, you know, and one person's dick is another person's friend. You know, it's just, it's your perception of that person and whether, as you say, we're doing those polar opposites and how we find a way of meeting in the middle. Yeah, it does imply or require the other person to be also receptive to try and lean into you as well as you having to lean into them. Because it could be quite exhausting if you're always. Dominic Colenso: I think so. I mean, my kind of advice to people is that it, I think always easier to walk over to where someone else is, put your arm around them and try and bring them over to where you are together than it is to drag them kicking and screaming to where you are. And if you want to influence, then unfortunately the onus is on you to put in that effort. Now, long term, in a relationship, if you're working with a colleague closely and there's a. This continual conflict and misalignment, then we need to have a candid conversation about why that's happening. But in the moment, if I am trying to get sign off on a project from a leadership team that I don't interact with very often, or if I'm trying to close a sales deal with a prospect that I haven't had very much interaction with, then it's going to be to my advantage to be more flexible and to not insist that they flex, but actually to. To stack into those shoes. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, it's who's got the high ground, isn't it? It's who. If you're in a leadership position, you have the responsibility to do the walking. Also, as an employee or as a subordinate, you also have the responsibility to lean in. But the onus is really on the person who is controlling the conversation, as you're saying there, to walk over to Dominic Colenso: them or, you know, or the person who wants the outcome most. There's a kind of classic example of this from, from my life. I live up in Yorkshire now, but when I used to live in London, I was on the board of a children's charity in Westminster called Westminster Boating Base. It was a charity that put kids on the 10 sailing and kayak. And it was a really small organisation, a couple of permanent members of staff and then this, this board of advisors. And each year the onus basically fell on one of the board members to roll up their sleeves and help the organisation run their big summer project. And so this particular year I was in the hot seat and I had found a whitewater kayaking centre in the south of France. And that was my kind of thing back then. So I was really excited. The facilities looked fantastic. It was beautiful, you know, sunshine, croissant, like, what more do you want? And we would genuinely do, but always dealing with inner city kids who very rarely left London, let alone left the uk. So I made a big pitch in a board meeting to have this place as the location for the next big trip. And I showed some photos of shiny, happy people having fun and I was really enthusiastic and told some great stories. And I'm thinking this absolutely nailed this. And so I finished my presentation and I said, any questions? And there was a guy on the board called Nigel, and Nigel was a former accountant. And Nigel put his hand up immediately and went, yeah, how much is it going to cost? And I went, well, I mean, I don't know because I haven't, you know, we don't know how many kids are going to come. It's, you know, just an idea at this stage. Well, how many instructor hours will we need? And again, Nigel, I couldn't possibly tell you because I don't know how many kids are going and I don't know how long we're going. How many miles will the minibus drive? And I'm like, are you kidding? Me, I have no idea how many miles the minibus would drive. And we basically got into a sort of stand up argument in this particular board meeting because I just couldn't believe why he hated children so much. Like, why are you going to be on this board if you're going to block all of this? And of course, the moment I walked out, I went, oh. I completely failed to speak Nigel's language, to anticipate any of Nigel's needs to think about the project in the way that he would think about it. So over the intervening weeks I wrote, I got a spreadsheet. I'm terrible at spreadsheets for, like, if it's this number of kids, it's this number of hours. If it's this number of kids, it costs this much. This went on Google Maps. How far is the minibus going to go? And I sent all of this stuff to the board in advance. At the next board meeting, the chair said, has everyone had a chance to read Dominic's report? Everyone said, yes. Any questions? Nigel put his hands up. I think you'll find that there's a mistake in column C. Yeah, okay, Nigel, there's a mistake in column C. And then the chair said, so who's in favour of this going ahead? Nigel was the first person to put his hand up. Nigel actually drove the minibus to the south of France. Right. So it wasn't that Nigel didn't like the project or didn't have the vision for it or hated kids. He just didn't understand it in the way that he needed to understand it. Joanne Lockwood: Brilliant. Love it. I don't know. Do you watch the Apprentice? Do you watch Dragon's Den? It always surprises me. Dominic Colenso: I have not, not recently, but, yeah, Joanne Lockwood: I don't watch that often, but it always surprises me that the contestants or the people turning up for their pitch, it's like they've never watched the series before in their life, isn't it? It's like, you know exactly the exercises in the Apprentice. You know, this is a, a low cost, high profit, turnover type thing. This is potentially a high investment, low return type scenario. This is about marketing design. You think, if you've never watched this programme, why are you on it? They're making the same rookie errors you type in Dragons Den. You know they're going to ask the numbers, you know, they want to know what you've done last year. They can smell if you start waffling and they buy from people in Dragons Den, they invest in the person. So you need the bubbly stuff. But you need to have your business partner has to be the numbers person or whatever it may be. And it's exactly what you're saying there. You have. You have to recognise the personalities in the room and the information they need. And a lot of people. I bet. I bet if you actually did a poll with people in that board meeting who actually read the report, everyone went, well, I just. I just. Dominic Colenso: But Nigel did. I guarantee. Joanne Lockwood: Exactly. And I've chaired boards, I've sat on things. And you know full well that 90% of people in the room haven't read 90% of the stuff. People just turn up and they're flicking through it on the desk in front of them as we go through the reports. And you know that people are like that, but you know that you've got the data there, you've got the information there. So if someone does challenge, if someone does say, you go, actually, that's all covered. We've got that here. Brilliant. Thank you. And there's that governance chain, isn't it, you need. Dominic Colenso: Absolutely, yeah. Joanne Lockwood: So have you ever thought about going on Dragon's Den? Dominic Colenso: I'm a great believer in doing the things that you. You say you'll do. So I have entered pitch competitions in the past. I haven't entered Dragon's Den and don't particularly have an idea for Dragon's Den, but I do think it's important commercially, if you're going to say to someone, I'm going to show you how to develop and deliver a persuasive narrative, that you've got to have evidence that you can do that yourself too. Joanne Lockwood: I've recently conducted a survey out into the market to corporate organisations and I was determined that I was right. I was gonna do it my way and do this. And I put it out for peer review before I launched the survey. And a few people said some things to me that, because I could tell their brain worked completely differently and they said, well, there's too much waffle up front. I need to get into the data, into the questions quicker or the questions are structured in certain way. And I thought, and I thought about it for a while and I thought, actually, you're right. Now I think about it, I've gone into, let's explain too much up front rather than get people invested and start to move forward. So that really helped. And when I produced the report, people said, well, what's the point? What am I taking away from this? Where am I into? And I realised I needed a. A good, strong executive TL;DR at the top. And then if you, if you want this, go to page 10. If you want this, go to page 5. If you want this, go to page 15. If you just want to read the whole report, start now sort of thing. So what you can do is you can you signpost exactly where people need to be and that's really, really sort of focused my mind in think about these. You know, you talked about all your different personality types or listening or thinking types, making sure you are ticking these boxes in whatever you're producing. Not even, not just verbally, but also written and website navigation. Dominic Colenso: I think it's absolutely vital In Cut Through I talk about the intersection of simplicity, emotion and energy. And that's the bumper sticker moment. You know that that's how you get your big message down into something that really makes people lean in. And I find it on my own YouTube videos as well. Spent a lot of time thinking about how do I, how do I craft that opening pitch? Because you've got five seconds to capture someone's attention before they swipe onto the next thing and, and then you've got to, then you've got to tell them what the problem is that you're going to solve for them and then you've got to get some credibility in so that they believe that you're the right person that is to answer that problem or question for them. And then you've got to kind of give them a roadmap of what you're going to cover and you've got to do that all in the first 20 to 30 seconds. And I was, I was looking at my stats and I was working with a coach at the time, a YouTube coach, and I kind of messaged him and I said, look, this, this is terrible. I'm losing. I've just looked at the retention stats from my latest video and I'm, I'm got 70% of viewers are staying with the video at the 30 second mark. So that means that I'm losing 30% of people in the first 30 seconds. Like this is absolute disaster. And he went, no, Dominic, that's world class. We're so distracted as, as human beings that we won't give stuff 30 seconds. It's like test it out. If you're list to this podcast, you know, think of your social media behaviour this afternoon or this morning or whatever time it is for you. How long did you spend with the things that you saw? It will be milliseconds on some of it. So if we want to cut through, if we want our audience to really pay attention We've got to be much more mindful about that first sort of hook. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I spend a lot of time on Sunday mornings on YouTube, on my telly. So when I'm eating with cornflakes on the sofa on Sunday mornings, I flick through something, I'm losing myself down AI rabbit holes. I look at YouTube, you know, going viral, how to do this, how to automate stuff. And I've got a few people that I follow quite regularly when their content comes on, I want to watch it because I know that they speak to me, but there's other people. I go, well, you're off going, yeah, yeah, I'm never gonna stick with you. So. But in a way. But that person who I've just swiped off of may resonate really, really well with a different type of person, someone else. So you can't be everything to everybody, can you? No. Dominic Colenso: And I don't think you should try. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Dominic Colenso: And the more consistent you are. Authentic is a really kind of overused word, I think. But, but essentially if you can be more you consistently and there's a range, you can turn some things up and turn some things down. But people need to know that when they're having a conversation with you, when they're reading an email from you, when they're watching a video that you've created, they need to know what they're going to get and then if they like that, fantastic, they'll stick with you. And if they don't, there are hundreds of other people that they can go and have a conversation with. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I did a producer video learning series for a large car manufacturer and I'd never developed a whole load of e-content or e-learning before. And they had some specific guidelines on their LMS about. They didn't want lots of little modules, they wanted big blocks. Because my original plan was to do it in 10 minute chunks and then have a quiz between them. Take that. I got always the end of the project and you project manager took over and said, well, it's too much, we don't want that much. We want it this, you've given us it in half hour blocks and we actually want it in smaller chunks. That's what I said in the first place. And then they sent me their L&D design guide for video content. I went, if you'd have sent me this at the beginning, it'd be so much easier. Dominic Colenso: Yeah. Joanne Lockwood: And I just felt like I was, I kept saying to them, you know, almost like rewind saying, look, this is what you said to me a year ago. And this is what you said to me. Now, can we, can we get the design spec locked in, please? Can we, can we? Yeah, yeah, we agree on this. And I think that that highlighted that different people have different perspectives. And I knew that if I deliver a training course, if I deliver a workshop, if I deliver a, a keynote, people just remember how you made them feel in that moment or the information that partake. But when you committed to, to video or commit it to audio, it's an evergreen product, suddenly people, different people would, will feed back different things about it. Oh, it was to this, it was too, that it wasn't enough of this. And could you do it differently? And people feel they've got more commentary on it, whereas if you just do it live, it's gone, it's done. Dominic Colenso: Oh, well, next time, I mean, I get some horrific comments on some of my YouTube stuff, stuff that I put out 10 years ago, and you just think, wow, like, I'm so sorry that you're having such a bad day that you felt the need to reach out across the world and give me three sentences of vitriol. There's plenty of other content for you to watch. You don't have to watch my stuff. Joanne Lockwood: No, I remember, I think it was a Brene Brown interview when she, she used to take it to heart when people were giving her the thumbs down or negative comments and she said, well, it shows that people are listening and engaging. If you're not getting 30% dissent, you're not making an impact. You need to have that dissent in the room to show that you've challenged people's thinking. Dominic Colenso: I love what she says about that as well, that she, she basically, I think it's. I don't want to paraphrase it badly, but she talks about being in the arena and that if you're not in the, in the arena, it doesn't matter. You don't need to listen to people that aren't in the arena. I think that's really powerful. Joanne Lockwood: I remember Chris Evans, the broadcaster, he always said that, you know, you have to be like Marmite. Half the world has to love you and half the world has to hate you in order to know that you're making a difference. And being in the arena, there's no room for people who are just bland and spam. In my view, you've got to be something. Dominic Colenso: Yeah. Joanne Lockwood: And people don't pay for me too. They're paying for thought leaders, they're paying for people who have opinions and influencing an original thought, aren't they? That's where it comes out. Dominic Colenso: But I think even in the workplace this doesn't just apply to people that are creating content, this applies to everyone who's having a conversation. The more you can get your voice out into the world, the more you can let people know what it is that you, you stand for, the change that you want to create or the ideas that you have, the more influential you're going to be. And yeah, your boss isn't going to say yes to everything, but he's going to say yes to nothing if you don't actually put those words out into the room. Joanne Lockwood: A lot of what we've talked about for the last 20 minutes is effectively the grounding of emotional intelligence, isn't it? It's that self awareness, self reflection, modifying and then trying to build longer term relationships. That's what we'll talk about here. And it is learned behaviour. It's not something that you're born with. Okay, some people are maybe more innate through their lived experience, but you can develop these skills if you care enough. Dominic Colenso: It's interesting. I wonder whether it is something that we're born with and it's something that we put up barriers to because children are incredibly emotionally intelligent. A baby will cry to tell you that it needs its nappy changed 3 year old will try and push mum and dad's mobile phone out of their face to get attention without having the language to talk about it, addiction or anything like that. I do think that there's a kind of coming back to that's important as well. And sometimes we need to learn the skills to help us come back to that state. But again, it's just that ability to stop and connect on the human level, which I find fascinating. And that's essentially what my whole training as an actor was, was built on. It was about understanding who you are being comfortable with just being in front of an audience, being metaphorically naked, not necessarily physically naked, but could you stand there and allow people to see you and to not have a narrative created around that? One of the exercises that we did repeatedly in the first and second year of training was a song exercise. I don't know where this memory has come from, but going with me. And we used to have to stand in front of the group and you could sing anything. It could be baa, baa black sheep, but you would just sing a single vowel. So it'd be like ba all the way through full breath to the end and just make eye contact and connect with that one person and then move on to the next person and then move on to the next person. You weren't doing anything. You weren't being a character. You were just making sound and looking someone in the eye. And it was the most bizarre, powerful, weird, wonderful exercise. Some people you'd look at and you would burst out laughing, you'd move to the next person, you'd have tears streaming down your face. And it was an emotional connection experience, stripping away all of those layers. Now, that might sound very odd in a business context, and let's kind of roll back on what that actually means. But I think that level of vulnerability and openness is actually where magic really starts to happen from a communication perspective. That's where we say we see you and you see me. Joanne Lockwood: But I think going back to something you said, that you've got to be kind of really comfortable in your own skin to let it go in that way. You're holding a bit back, and that's where the inauthenticity comes in. If you're holding it back and you're hiding behind something, but it. Yeah, being truly naked and truly you, that's where vulnerability. Yeah, that's exactly it, isn't it? Dominic Colenso: That is the heart of vulnerability and I think the heart of awareness. And it's not going to be possible with everyone different. It can be much more open in my conversation with you because of our shared history and shared experience than I would be maybe if I'm on a podcast with someone that I've never met before, but having an awareness of that. Not to judge it and say that was wrong or that was right, but just to go, oh, interesting. I am able to be me in this context. I'm not as much me. I'm putting up some barriers in this context. And I think with that noticing, with that understanding, things start to drop away. And again, it's all about choice. It's not saying you have to be vulnerable and naked in front of everyone, but if you want to be, you should be able to be. Joanne Lockwood: It's less cognitive load being yourself, isn't it? That's the other thing. If you're. You're having to layer on all these Dominic Colenso: extra things, all of this stuff, who am I meant to be today? Like, wow, that's. That's, That's a lot of that. Joanne Lockwood: Can I say this? Can I say that I think that maybe we're both privileged, that we are. Are in a world where we, we can speak our mind. People pay us to speak our mind where we're. We're not. They're trying to reserve. But if you're working maybe in a layer in corporate world, then you have to sanitise your views and opinions to fit in with the corporate speaker. But then we've got things like psychological safety. Can you speak up? Can you have a. Have a say in these things? And does the environment let you do that? Do leaders welcome your contributions? Dominic Colenso: Yeah. And I think if you are in a situation where you're. You don't feel able to do that in one context, then I think it's really important for your own mental health and wellbeing that you find a context where you can have that conversation. So if you can't have that conversation with your boss, then can you have that conversation with. With a colleague or with HR or with whoever you need to have that interaction with to be able to bring yourself to work? Because we spend a lot of our time not at leisure, but at work. If we're going to be doing a job, then as much as we possibly can, we should be enjoying it. We should be getting, getting something back from it. Joanne Lockwood: Can spend more time with your work colleagues than you do with your home. Family. Dominic Colenso: Family, of course you do. Joanne Lockwood: You spend eight hours of sleep, eight hours at work, and three or four of those hours driving or commuting or watching telly. And then you're only actually spending three or four hours talking to the ones you love. Dominic Colenso: They love. Absolutely. Joanne Lockwood: You talked about children having that level of emotional intelligence and that they can they spot things like that. We got a new puppy back in October and she's what, eight months old now? And she instinctively knows that she hasn't had any attention. She'll come and she'll climb up on you and sit on your shoulder while you're on your phone going, and start licking your ear, going, come on, come on. You spent too much time on that phone. Give me some attention. Give me a cuddle or I need to go out for a walk right now. It's like, okay, okay. And it's. I found it really beautiful that she's now interacting with me in that way and distracting me to help my own mental health. And I think that's underrated that what children and animals can do. Dominic Colenso: Absolutely. We've got a golden retriever and I've got a bit of a bad back at the moment, so I was having a bit of a stretch this morning and he was literally trying to get underneath me because he wanted a walk. Don't do that. Do something with me. But what I love about watching animals and kids is their ability to drop thought, you know, the dog will be kind of sat down, mooching, and then you'll walk towards the back door and straight away be like, oh my God, excitement, let's go. You know, Nell's the same. She, she can be in one imaginative world at one moment and then in a completely different imaginative world in another. I don't know what happens. Be interested to understand the kind of neuroscience behind it but, but that we suppress somehow that ability to imaginatively move from one situation to another situation as adults. And we often try and keep ourselves in a thought that exists and stay with the stress or the anxiety of the moment rather than just going, okay, that's happened. But here I am right now having this conversation or drinking this glass of water or looking out of this window and we have much more agency, I think, to make those choices than we necessarily give ourselves credit. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I was just thinking about AI Chat GPT for if you like. And it's context window has this sort of kind of, you have, I don't know, 500,000 characters and then, and then it starts to forget stuff that went on before and you can find that the conversation drifts or the momentum drifts or it actually forgets tangibly whatever it's talked about. I think maybe as we get older we've got so much context when stuff in our head, paying this bill, paying that bill, worrying about this, worrying about that, worrying about that. We just keep picking and choosing the last 5,000 words something in our head and we forget that. Chilling. Having fun, finding space for ourselves, finding space for others gets buried in that lack of context. There's only when we maybe get this big nudge, I don't know, illness, something fundamental in life shifts us. We go, hang on a minute, I need to purge my context here and go back to the basics and find it again. Dominic Colenso: But I think there are opportunities to do that all the time. We had a power cut the day before yesterday and it was about 2:30 in the afternoon when the power went out and I was like, oh, it started really. We, we live in the countryside, there's no bloody mobile phone reception. So I had calls booked in for the afternoon and I needed to let clients know that I probably wasn't going to be able to have the conversations. And so I kind of tramp up the path with my mobile phone to send these messages and then I suddenly went, hang on, no one's died. Actually, it's a beautiful sunny afternoon, so if I'm not going to have those calls then I might as well walk the dog and So I managed to get some mobile phone reception, sent a couple of emails saying, really sorry, you're going to have to reschedule this for tomorrow, and took the dog for a walk and had a. Had a lovely time. But I could have easily. And I, and this is me, I know myself well enough to know that I could have easily spent two and a half hours, like, desperately standing on one leg trying to get some sort of mobile phone reception to do something, being pissed off at the world for sending me this power cut. And instead I went, I'll have a nice walk with the dog. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I bet you were thinking, power's come back now, shame. But in the old days, you just spent the next two hours resetting all the clocks on the microwave and the cooker and, and now they just rethink and you haven't got to worry about that. I don't even think our microwave has a clock on it anymore. It's just. Yeah, it is, isn't it? And I think we've got to. I think what you're saying there is we've just got to find more time for ourselves to be more, More aware of the drawers on our time and what the priority should be. Dominic Colenso: Yeah, well. And you don't get into that space of creativity if you're just constantly going from one thing to the next. And creativity isn't drawing a picture or writing a song, creativity is having that next great business idea or finding a new way to articulate the business case for the project that you're working on, or finding a different approach to have that challenging conversation with someone. But we have to give ourselves space to find that. And I'm saying that as much for myself as I am for anyone listening, Joanne Lockwood: I definitely do that to myself. If I've got something I'm working on, on or big or is it a challenging conversation. I always think of it as I put it in a sort of subroutine in the back of my head. Let the grey matter just process it, you know, give it a couple of CPU cycles occasionally bring it out, no, not quite baked yet. Put it back. Dominic Colenso: Yeah. Joanne Lockwood: And then when you're actually in a situation where you've got to deliver something, a keynote or a conversation or, or start developing something, you can bring it out and go, okay, that's pretty much there. Now I'm just going to put the icing on. That's done. Dominic Colenso: Fun. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And. But that requires the brain capacity to have that sort of close your eyes, blue sky thinking that chill out. Because if you're constantly high cortisol, really stressing and worrying about everything. All that creativity side, all that thinking side. Just get. Doesn't get any. Any time again switched off. Dominic Colenso: Yeah, absolutely. Joanne Lockwood: And I'll often be sat on the sofa and my wife Maria will look at me and go, what do you think about? I go, nothing. What do you mean you think about nothing? I'm not. I've just. This is. This is my. The front part of my brain going, I'm disconnected. The back part of the brain is doing all the work, but I have no idea what it's thinking about. I just know it is. Yeah. And I'll go, I've got this great idea. But the danger of me is that if I have too much thinking time, I just keep finding shiny objects and my brain will start going, oh, we can do this. And I'll. I'll give it enough time. But I never finish it. I never finish it. I never finish it. And I keep finding that. And that's my challenge is finishing and not starting. And, yeah, I need the stress hormone to kick in to allow me to finish stuff. And that's why I'm desperately doing stuff at the moment. Yeah, Dominic, it's been fascinating. I can't wait till next time we meet in person for a coffee somewhere. But how can people get hold of you and tell us about your book? Dominic Colenso: So my latest book is called Cut through the Pitch and Presentation Playbook, available in all good bookstores. First book was called Impact how to be more confident, Increase your influence and know what to say under pressure. If you want to get hold of me, connect with me on LinkedIn. Dominic Colenso. My website is dominiccolenso.com and if you like communication tips and tricks videos, then head over to YouTube and subscribe to my YouTube channel over there. Again, dominiccolenso.com I'm going to do that. Joanne Lockwood: I'm gonna go to YouTube because I want to see how engaging your first 30 seconds are. Dominic Colenso: Send me nasty comments. All right, Jay. Joanne Lockwood: I mean, you've put a lot of thought into the. The arc and developing the content. Actually, regardless of the content itself, I want to see your style and from a trained actor and see how that works. Because I lack confidence sometimes in that story arc in trying to get that. That hook and yeah, that first six seconds you say the swipe antidote and then the rehook at 15 seconds, at 30 seconds or whatever to keep people hooked to the end. It's a real technique, isn't it, Dominic? Thank you. It's been a blast. Dominic Colenso: Absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me on the as Joanne Lockwood: 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, stories or a vision to share there? I'm all ears. Reach out to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk and let's make your voice heard. Until next time, this is Joanne Lockwood signing off with a promise to return with more enriching narratives that challenge, inspire and unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.