---
title: "Empowering everyone to be able to share their gifts with the world"
episode: 35
date: 2021-07-08
guest: "Penny Pullen"
canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/35-empowering-everyone-to-be-able-to-share-their-gifts-with-the
audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-035/audio.mp3
---

# Empowering everyone to be able to share their gifts with the world

Penny Pullan joins Joanne Lockwood to explore what it takes to design and lead workshops and meetings where everyone can contribute their best work. Drawing on her early shift to virtual working after 9/11, Penny explains why effective virtual collaboration is more than simply stacking video calls, and how asynchronous working and better meeting design can be both more productive and more inclusive. They discuss practical techniques for reducing the drain of back-to-back meetings, creating the right conditions for participation, and avoiding assumptions about what people need. Penny shares a simple planning approach that starts with purpose, then people, and only then process, plus a “magic six” set of meeting start-up questions to clarify aims, roles, ways of working, breaks, and what happens next. The conversation also highlights inclusive communication and accessibility considerations, from avoiding culturally specific metaphors to checking for participants’ needs such as subtitles for deaf attendees or adaptations for blind participants. Throughout, the focus stays on making workshops work in person, virtually, or in hybrid formats, so teams can turn discussion into action.

## Chapters

- 00:00 — Making workshops work, programme management for years.
- 05:58 — Adapting with early remote tech during change.
- 09:40 — Flexible work schedules increase efficiency and inclusivity.
- 12:34 — Struggles with time management and self-care.
- 13:57 — Create optimal conditions for collaborative group success.
- 18:09 — Consider inclusivity by avoiding potentially triggering topics.
- 21:51 — Mine for conflict to engage in meetings.
- 24:33 — Facilitation changes control to collaborative problem-solving.
- 28:21 — Whiteboard fell, hitting head, causing chaos.
- 32:08 — Purpose, people, process: workshop design essentials.
- 34:15 — Miscommunication occurred with non-native English speakers.
- 37:46 — Left-handed struggle with right-handed scissors activity.
- 41:28 — Book's useful magic 6 for workshops, meetings.
- 44:40 — Create a clear narrative for effective workshops.
- 47:36 — Sharing horror, success stories; facilitating workshops effectively.
- 52:34 — Stories are memorable and make facts relatable.
- 55:00 — Connect with Penny Pullan via LinkedIn/website.
- 58:27 — Subscribe to Inclusion Bites podcast for updates.

## Key takeaways

- Techniques for structuring effective meetings and workshops, including a detailed six-step plan.
- Strategies for enhancing virtual and in-person collaboration by understanding individual preferences.
- The importance of taking breaks during meetings to improve productivity and avoid exhaustion.
- Insights on designing inclusive work environments and the impact of accommodating different needs.
- Practical advice on handling mishaps during presentations with a humorous approach to defuse tension.
- The need for inclusive language and thoughtful communication to ensure all participants feel valued.
- Tips on using music and atmosphere to create a welcoming and engaging workshop environment.

## FAQs

### What is the main focus of the "Inclusion Bites" podcast?

"Inclusion Bites," hosted by Joanne Lockwood, delves into the realms of inclusive cultures and nurturing belonging. The podcast engages with changemakers to explore profound topics in inclusion, diversity, and personal growth.

### Who was the guest on episode 35, and what are her credentials?

Episode 35 features Penny Pollan, a distinguished speaker, author, facilitator, and mentor. She is known for her expertise in running effective workshops and pioneering virtual programming since 2001.

### How did Penny Pollan's experience with virtual programming begin?

Penny's journey into virtual programming started in 2001 when she had to adapt a programme following the 9/11 events, making her a forerunner in remote and virtual meetings well before they became ubiquitous during the 2020 pandemic lockdowns.

### What book has Penny Pollan written that became particularly relevant during the pandemic?

Penny authored the book "Virtual Leadership," which provides comprehensive guidance on leading virtual meetings and workshops, drawn from her extensive early experiences in the field.

### Can you outline Penny Pollan's six-step plan for effective meetings and workshops?

Certainly! Penny Pollan's six-step plan comprises:

### What is Penny Pollan's forthcoming book, and when will it be released?

Penny Pollan's upcoming book, "Making Workshops Work," focuses on creative collaboration across in-person, hybrid, and virtual settings. It will be released as a print book on 13th July, with a Kindle version available for 99p on 12th July.

## Transcript

Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood, and I'll be your host for the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I've interviewed a number of amazing people and simply had conversations around the subject of inclusion, belonging, and generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive. If you'd like to join me in the future, then please do drop me a line to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. That'S-E-E change Happen dot co dot uk. You can catch up with all of the previous shows on Itunes, Spotify and the usual places. So plug in the headphones, grab a decaf, and let's get going. Today is episode 35 with the title, empowering everybody to better share their gifts with the world. And I have the absolute honor and privilege to be joined by Penny Pullan. Penny describes herself as a speaker, author, facilitator, and mentor. And when I asked Penny to describe her superpower, she said, she makes workshops work, and that's a tongue twister. Hello, Penny. Welcome to the show.

Penny Pollan: Hello, Joanne, and thank you so much for your introduction. It's really fun to be here and to be chatting away with you. Yeah. You asked me, you say that I make workshops work and yeah, I suppose I do that. And I've been doing that for about 20 years. I started off as a, project manager and program manager and was very interested in, you know, how do I really make these projects and programs as good as they possibly can be? And realized that actually it was all about people. I was just about getting that sorted and working out how to work with groups in person when something happened that shifted my whole world into virtual. About 19 years before everybody else, I was meant to be hosting a kickoff meeting for a big program. This is the first time I'd ever run a whole program, just me. And there are all these people coming from all over the world. We're going to spend 2 weeks in New York. What fun. Except the date on my ticket when I was flying out from Heathrow to Newark was 13th September 2,001. Now, yes, the listeners can't see, but you've just pulled a face and gone, Oh, because that's 2 days after 9:11. And oh boy, we weren't going anywhere. We were grounded for 3 months. So that program had to happen virtually a little bit like everything had to suddenly go virtual at the beginning of the lockdowns of 2020. So, yes, so that added in virtual to the mix because I still had to get this program done with quite ancient technology. It's much easier in a way now because we can see each other on a desktop. Brilliant. But, then we just, nobody really knew about this virtual thing. And I spent ages working on it and ended up being asked to help other people and write books on it. But I've probably carried on long enough. So back to you, John. Yeah. When you've when you're talking about that,

Joanne Lockwood: those days weeks months after 9/11, I look back. Yeah. Most people kind of remember where they were. It's one of those, you know where you were type type moments. I remember I was working on a project for a cable TV startup in Irvine in Scotland. And I remember we we just got the the head end, the the technology center up and running that, you know, the the massive big dish in in the in the in the back, and they've plumbed it all in. And those were the first pictures we got live in in the in the computer room in the head end, in the in the knock. There's the picture we had up, and we all gather around this small screen looking at the I think it was well, it's obviously the second plane hitting the the tab because nobody saw the first plane hit. And we were just stunned silent, and I was texting friends that I'd been in New York with, the year before, months before, just reminiscing and just stunned silence. So that was, yeah, a world changing day and time, wasn't it? It was. And I had a friend, though. Yeah. It was in the air at that time, flying to the US, and they had no idea what's going on. They just know that they suddenly entered a holding path and go around the circles. I think they ended up landing in Gander. And if you've ever landed in Gander at Newfoundland, it's quite an adventure. I mean, I've I've been there once on the way to Miami and sat on the tarmac in Gander for 5 hours, because somebody had a suspect heart attack. But she was in the air. And, of course, she knew nothing about what's going on at the time, and her husband obviously did. Obviously, knew that she was in the air. Her arrival time wasn't too dissimilar. So, of course, he knew that it wasn't her on those planes because he knew that wasn't her her flight. But he he was worried. You know? He didn't know what's gonna happen. Jo, yeah, when she landed, all these panicked phone calls and messages, she still had no idea until suddenly everyone became aware of what had happened. And, yeah. So she tells that story from a different perspective, being up in here at the time. So, yeah, it's it's a, yeah, one of those moments, but I and as she was saying that, you're right. It's it's one of those pivotal moments in history where we suddenly have to adapt, change, learn about ourselves. So the need for you to develop the virtual training, the virtual way of interacting with people. And and as you say, at a time where Zoom didn't exist, Teams didn't exist, Maybe there's a bit of Webex and then I used to remote IT support. So we're using things like, what's it called? TeamViewer, things like this. So a kind of IT tools, weren't they, for a remote dot. Yeah. The only way we saw each other face to face

Penny Pollan: is really when we were in the video conference suite, which tended to be a corner office, normally booked solid by senior very senior managers at the lovely time, you know, between 2 5 when the UK and the US overlapped. We could book those, but we couldn't do video on the on the desktop like we can now. I think we were able to see each other's screens, if we had IT tech support tools, but yes, all very, very different. And the funniest thing is that there are now people in the workplace who don't remember 911.

Joanne Lockwood: And the phone in the mobile phones, they were they were phones. And I seem to remember cameras were just coming in our phones. They they weren't defacto. They weren't the standard feature. No.

Penny Pollan: No. Not at all. Maybe some video messaging or you'd you

Joanne Lockwood: share video clips with each other or you maybe just perhaps send a picture. And it's very early days with that. And I remember you Jo into companies, everybody wants to you had to prove that your camera was disabled when you walked into the building, and everyone was scared about people stealing secrets.

Penny Pollan: Absolutely. Yeah. The world has changed so much, hasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I remember we did most of the work by conference calls, so we couldn't see each other at all, but we had to listen out very carefully. And we got a lot done that way, but we had to be structured. It forced us to do things well, And I think that's how I it forced yeah. It forced me to develop all the things that I then used and helped other people with and and ended up thinking through properly in the year that I wrote my book, Virtual Leadership. And I'm so glad I had a chance to think through that book and write it well before you know, a few years before the pandemic hit, because then it was there. It was ready. People could just grab it. And, yeah, it's been selling like hotcakes, that one.

Joanne Lockwood: So what was what's the cover of the big big nuggets of, of lessons you've learned at that time or or put in your book? What's the what's the kind of big nuggets from that? Yeah. There are a few things.

Penny Pollan: One thing is, that I think people are just about getting about now, is that virtual working is not just about being in virtual meetings. That actually you need to think, how do you as a team work effectively? And then work as much as you can asynchronously. You don't have to be together face to face like you and I are when we're recording this. You can do a lot of work in a much more flexible way. You can, you can do work. If you do work asynchronously, so that means people can do things at a time to suit them, then you can flex around people's needs. Perhaps people, for example, have kids they want to collect from school. Yeah, they can go off, collect the kids from school, come back, but then they can make up that time to produce the output that's needed at a different time. Perhaps they work far better first thing in the morning or last thing at night. And if people can do the work, the virtual work that they need to do at times when they can work best, as opposed to being expected to be sitting down in front of a computer on meetings, you know, for a back to back all day, which I saw so many people doing last year. That's just not a good use of people's time. Not very inclusive either. Mhmm. No. I completely agree. And I

Joanne Lockwood: think I was probably one of those people that got sucked into this back to back 15 minute gaps. And then you Joanne wake you get at the end of the day, you can't move. You are you are numb and drained because you've you've had no break at all, have you? It's just screen time. The thing that really helped the people who were in

Penny Pollan: those back to back meetings and didn't feel they could change the culture of their organization quickly was, if they were in control of any meetings, Jo start them at 5 past the hour and finish them at 5 2 rather than just I mean, there's so many people doing 9 to 10, 10 to 11, 11 to 12, you know, maybe grab 5 minutes to grab a sandwich and then, you know, on 3 to 1. It was just crazy. Yeah. That's certainly a lesson I've learned is to

Joanne Lockwood: make sure I've got that time between the between the calls. And because inevitably, the calls was end up overrunning a bit, don't they? If you're not careful, every call overruns into the next. By the end of the day, you've just literally overrun or your contingency is your lunch break or a coffee break. Yeah. And I've seen people when I'm running training, they arrive dead on time or 30 seconds late because they've just come for a meeting. And at the end of the training session, they're saying, well, I've gotta go. I'm into another meeting now. It's like, so you haven't really been present because you've this this training is squashed between 2 other activities. And I do question sometimes whether people need that half an hour to decompress before and half an hour to absorb at the end before doing something else. Otherwise, it's it's such a transient activity that that there's no memory of it.

Penny Pollan: Yeah. And, actually, we need time to get actions done. There's a whole chapter in my new book coming up all about how do we make sure workshops get actions done? Because so often, I mean, I don't know if you are like this, Joanne, but you find that, there are meetings, particularly in big organizations, there are meetings and then a couple of weeks later, they have a meeting and none of the actions have been done, and they essentially agree all the same actions to carry forward. It's crazy. I mean, I'm guilty of myself.

Joanne Lockwood: I'm so busy scheduling new business or or delivery. I very rarely have time to focus on the admin or getting back to people with information I said I would. And I end up squashing that in between 2 other meetings. I don't have an I don't say to myself, this afternoon is is catch up time or or downtime. And, I said trying to keep keep on delivering is, yeah, quite a struggle to to think about that. Being good to yourself, isn't it? That's what you're trying to do, try and be good to yourself and be fair to yourself. Mhmm. And actually do the best

Penny Pollan: work you can. So I'm sure if you're trying to squash the actual core, really important bits of work, knowledge work now, we need time to think. And if you try and squash it into the odd snatch minute here and there, we're not going to be doing our best work, are we? No. For sure.

Joanne Lockwood: We're not. No. It's and that also I mean, one of the purposes, yeah, the mattress of this podcast around inclusion, of course, different people think, experience, interact differently. And often we design these constructs of meetings around the privileged or the leaders or or the way we've always done it. And I think we start to learn that that that doesn't work for everybody, does it? No. Absolutely not. So, I mean,

Penny Pollan: my thing is to get the best if you want to get the best out of everybody, and surely, if you're bringing people together to work together, you want each person to do their best and to be at their best. So, create the conditions where each person can contribute their best to that group. And so the group as a whole can do their best possible work together and change the world, hopefully, just a little bit. Mhmm. So that means when you're designing a work shop or a meeting or something, think about each person. What's going to be the environment of that meeting or workshop that will help them to do their best work? You probably can't imagine this in, the the answers to these. You probably have to have discussions with them unless you know them very well. But what's gonna suit different people?

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Well, ask them upfront. Absolutely.

Penny Pollan: And say, you know, what's going to be best for you? And and if they look blank, because nobody's ever asked them anything like that and has just expected them to fit in, they might well look blank. But you can say, you know, we've got a whole range already. You know, somebody wants this, somebody suggested this, somebody else wanted, I don't know, to have to have fruit available in the room or whatever it might be. Sort of let let them know how how you really do genuinely want to make it possible for them to do their best possible work. Give them some examples of some of the things that suit other people. It's amazing. People's eyes light up and go, what? Really? Yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: You've asked me. You care about me. You thought about me. Yeah. It's you say, I've I've been some on some some great local courses, and you walk in. As you say, there's fruit on the table, there's chocolate, there's coffee, there's cold water, And and immediately, you just feel, oh, you feel happy, you're conversational, everyone's talking about, oh, isn't this lovely? And you start off with positive frame of mind, don't you? So the room is all laid out. Despite working for Mars for 10 years,

Penny Pollan: I wouldn't have chocolate in a meeting or workshop. Because what you do is you get this sort of sugar high. The rush. And then what happens next is the crash, and everybody's, you know. So even when I was working for Mars, I actually banned chocolates from the meeting rooms, I would say, because of that. Just those little

Joanne Lockwood: foxes boxes glass of mints that people put out Oh, no. No. No. Still sugar.

Penny Pollan: Still sugar. So apart from the jelly beans. Yeah. Absolutely. So fruit is good, but actually what's really helpful, unless you have someone with a nut allergy, so this is important, nuts are actually really good because they give you enough energy to stop being hungry. Yeah. They're high in protein, aren't

Joanne Lockwood: they? Low in fat, generally. Well, they have quite a lot of fat from nuts. Almonds are the best, aren't they? So, yeah, nut

Penny Pollan: nuts are great as well, and and some fruit, and and that'll keep people going. The other thing I do is in in a in person workshop, I like to use music. So something that really gets people feeling, hang on, this is a little bit different from your box standard boring meeting, is to play some steel drum music just in the background as people coming in. Because that's the sort of classic we're on holiday music, perhaps. Jo just so it's just so different from the standard work vibe. So I find that quite fun. I like the idea.

Joanne Lockwood: So maybe just have it Yeah. As part of the warm up or the it we're able to get their seat just a bit of a bit of a jump in the background. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. I like that idea.

Penny Pollan: My accent arms people. Yeah. But don't do anything that is still drum music of standard tunes, especially ones that have words, because it's very easy with music to switch people back into a state from the past. And the last thing you want is to be playing a music that was, you know, our song when somebody's just gone through a dramatic and unhappy divorce, for example. So

Joanne Lockwood: nothing that invokes a memory. Yeah. And that and that's part of the when I talk about inclusion, is thinking about all these permutations about not using your own lens all the time, thinking about the impact or how that would resonate with somebody else. And as simple as that, yeah, as you say, triggering a memory, triggering an upset, overemphasis on family, overemphasis on children in discussions, that may well lead someone to feel sad or upset if they've lost someone recently. So it's yeah. It's so difficult, though, because we we love these human interactions and almost have to pause and take a break and step back and go, is this gonna work? Is this a good conversation?

Penny Pollan: And think about what are the assumptions that I'm making about people? So it's so easy to assume that people fit into the stereotypes of that age of the age that they are, or of the gender or of, well, all sorts of things. I remember, obviously, the group of

Joanne Lockwood: friends is several years ago, and we were talking about television and soaps or films or whatever's been going on. And one person doesn't didn't have a television. And, of course, we were all fascinated about how this person was able to survive in their life without a television. Apparently, they didn't go to movies or the cinema, so they had no visual media bias in their life. They had no visual entertainment. And we all find it really incredible, but then as the day and the time with them progressed, we found it really difficult to have conversations because we realized that so much of the context, the conversations, and discussed we had had a kind of culture based on film and TV. Mhmm. Even just that expressions of humor or or scenarios or quoting a line, and we've had it really strange. Joanne, that made me realize that people experience the world differently. They have different paradigms, different metaphors to the ones I use. And what I thought were really good really good examples, suddenly it didn't work. And it it was really testing. So, yeah, we we can't make those assumptions that people think and perceive the world as we do.

Penny Pollan: Absolutely. So that's why it's really, really important. If you want to get the best work out of people, which is if you're bringing people together for a workshop, or a meeting of any sort, you're doing that to get some work done together. Then actually know who the people are and design the process of your session to so that each person can do their best work. And, overall, you can do fantastic work, and you can have lots of fun doing it.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I I I think a fun element has to be enjoyable, doesn't it? Work work shouldn't be tedious. Work with an element of satisfaction and enjoyment doesn't become mundane, in which case you're more like to be diligent, engaged, productive. Absolutely.

Penny Pollan: Now, it's interesting, you see. I don't know if you know the book Death by Meeting by Patrick Lenconi.

Joanne Lockwood: I've not read the book, but I've been in the meeting. Yes,

Penny Pollan: absolutely. Now you see his answer to boring meetings, I'm not quite this this, yeah, I wouldn't go quite as far, but he says the best thing to do if you're in a boring meeting is to mine for conflict. Because if you dive deeper and find things that people care about enough to, for there to be conflict and a little bit of tension, then you've got to something that people care about and not just, can't can't be bothered. Okay. Which I think is interesting, but but I suppose the core of what he's saying is that actually people do care about things. And if you're working just and you're sort of glossing over everything and it's just tedious and boring. You're not actually engaging with things that people care about. So maybe mining for conflict is one of the ways to to do that. But I'd probably say mine for things people care about as opposed to try and find conflict. Yeah. Also, maybe as a as a

Joanne Lockwood: when you're thinking as an inclusive leader or as an inclusive facilitator, as you're you're the host of that session, you have to be aware and emotionally intelligent enough to understand you're losing the audience. Because how often do we see people running for the finish line, I'm gonna give you this. I'm gonna go I'm gonna finish. No matter what happens, I'm gonna you're gonna get this without stopping or reflecting. Oh, actually, the right thing to do here is to pause, change, and adapt. Because I I've sat in meetings where where we've ended up getting our hankies out of our bags and waving the white flag. So it's like, we give up. We surrender. It's interesting because I

Penny Pollan: talk about this a little bit in the, in the book that's coming out in July, And I talk about, how people tend to go into, I've got to be in control mode. So I've got to finish this, whatever. You know, that I need to, I have the, I'm the authority, the spotlight is on me. I I'm you know, something's going on. I'm the one who has to know what's going on, and I need to make the decisions as to what happens next. And it's a complete disaster, you know, like you and your friends with your white handkeys. That's what it feels like. Whereas, if I've learned now after many years of doing this, that if I'm in a workshop and it feels like that, and I'm the workshop leader, I will say something like, to me, it feels like we are elephants when we're wading through this gloopy field full of treacle. Doesn't it feel a bit like that to you? And then everybody will smile and go, yeah. And then I say, well, what Joanne we do? What what are your suggestions for making it a little bit less like elephants through a field of treacle? And there'll be all sorts of ideas popping up, and then people will feel that they've, you know, we're all in it together, and that's a mode to switch away from. Switch away from, I've got to be in control of everything to, We're in it together. But actually as a facilitator, that takes all the weight off your shoulders and actually lets you be much better. And you're much less likely to head off into the fight, flight, freeze response that you tend to get when you're really stressed. That comes very quickly when you're in this, I've got to be in control mode. Whereas if you're sort of, you know, we're in this together, you've got ideas, I've got ideas, you've got different perspectives to me. You may see things that I can't. All those sort of things can all work together really, really helpfully, really effectively. So try and get people, or when you're running workshops, try and stop yourself heading off in that, I've got a control, I've got a control, I've got a control over and over again, going around your head and just think, well, if something goes wrong

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Well, there's all of us who together can sort

Penny Pollan: it. But sometimes that takes a a

Joanne Lockwood: person with the right experience, character, confidence as a as a sort of, if you like, a group leader, as a session leader to be rather than reach content, which often people reach content, is to have conversations with the audience. So you're not telling, you're showing an example and letting people bring build their own pictures. And then in that conversation, you could say, so how are we feeling about that? Anyone anyone got any thoughts? How how does that feel to you? And are we okay? Do we need a break or would we be okay to carry on a bit more? Almost like involving them in the decision of what what happens next. Yeah. Because it's their meeting generally,

Penny Pollan: especially as an external facilitator, you know, it's their meeting. It's not my meeting. I'm just there to be the catalyst to make it all happen and work smoothly. I was very of what I'm delivering.

Joanne Lockwood: I I look at the the con or listen to conversations going on. I think, well, actually, I don't wanna stop this. The next couple of slides and stuff I wanna talk about, I wanna I wanna cover. But what I try and do is drip them into the conversation rather than stop the conversation to hear the slides. I actually present into the conversation and allow people to carry on. And, once people are in flow, you wanna keep them in flow, don't you? Absolutely.

Penny Pollan: I used to trip up over flip chart Joanne. Obviously, you haven't been anywhere near a flip chart for a while, when we record this. I used to get really worried about it, and it would go round around my head. I mustn't trip over the flip chart stand. I mustn't trip over the flip chart. It would go run around my head all day. And, you know, I mean, you know, Joanne, by the end of this, I probably or that day, I probably would have tripped over the flip chart. It's just something I always did. And then I

Joanne Lockwood: thought, why don't I consider me tripping over the flip chart?

Penny Pollan: Sort of reframe it as, well, it's entertaining for everybody. So if I do end up tripping over, I'll do it in a flamboyant and entertaining way. And, and, you know, so there you are. There's something for you to laugh at. And, it's sort of quite enjoyed it once or twice when it happened, but it's hardly happened ever since because I'm not been thinking about it all the time. Yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: I I just I was I was delivering a training session at a hotel on a Saturday morning once. And as I as I was just about to get into my role, I just sort of said, hi. Welcome, everybody. There's such a massive crack on the back of my head, and I went flat into the table in front of me. And the whiteboard has come detached from the wall and and pivoted and smacked me on the back of the head. Of course, I was now seeing stars and days. Everybody in the room would rush into my assistance. So we agreed that I was gonna go off. The next customer would come on, and I come back later. So while I was off, I redesigned the first couple of slides. It had a little emoji avatar of me with a big bandage around my head. So I came back. Well, hopefully, we're okay in the future. But, yeah, you have to sort of fall with it, make a laugh, and and and Yeah.

Penny Pollan: Yeah. Reassure the audience I'm okay and and seeing the funny side. But, yeah, it

Joanne Lockwood: was a trip over the flip shop, mind out for the whiteboard on the back of the head. Yeah. I wonder if you were sort

Penny Pollan: of expecting the next few whiteboards to land on you or a little bit wary. I'm now I'm now more cautious. I'm definitely

Joanne Lockwood: more cautious about what's behind me and what's above me. But yeah.

Penny Pollan: Interestingly, a little while ago, you said that you needed oodles of experience to be able to switch into that we're in it together state. I think it's not just it can come from years of experience, but also you can learn about it and know about it and practice it and actually get there without having to do the 20 years of actual high stress, and then working out for yourself that it's it's a better way to do things. Jo, you I agree. I've I've

Joanne Lockwood: kinda learned it by experience over the last couple of years. So I have got I haven't got 20 years experience in doing that. It's it's just it became a style that evolved, and I detected it works. Therefore, I will be rewarded by good behavior by doing more of it, and it became a self fulfilling, action. It's just become part of your style, doesn't it? You just adapt and evolve to it. Yeah. But if somebody said to you upfront, you know, when you begin to

Penny Pollan: get really stressed and you're feeling like you have to be in control, just notice that and deflect away from it to actually know the whole room, we're all in it together.

Joanne Lockwood: Mhmm. We can do it together. It's not about

Penny Pollan: I. If people in that sort of controlling stage go, it's all me, me, me, me, me, I, I, I, but actually it's not me, it's we. And if you think, actually, that's all of us. And I often think, and there's a picture in my book as well, of a metaphorical spotlight. Imagine it on the ceiling above you, if you're in person in a room. And the people who are in that sort of, you know, I've gotta be in control state often seem to have this metaphorical spotlight. I mean, it's metaphorical, but it seems very real to them indeed. They've got this massive spotlight shining onto them. And Jo metaphorically, if you can just switch that spotlight Jo that it focuses on the group that you're serving, again, it takes pressure off and it helps you to go from that, actually, it's all about I, it's all about me controlling, to actually we're all in it together. We can do this together. I'm just here as a catalyst and as a supporter.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. But that that could be a challenge where you've got people with different learning abilities, different physical capabilities in a mixed group, isn't it? Trying to really make everybody feel included. That can be a struggle when not everybody can participate in the same way. You need to design.

Penny Pollan: You see, so there are 3 things with a a meeting or workshop. There's a process that you're going to do, but you can't just design your process straight away. You need to know 2 things before, and they're all P's. So the first P you need to know is the purpose. What is the purpose for your meeting or workshop? When you've got that sorted, then you can think, given that purpose, who are the people we need? Identify the people and then learn about them and how are they unique? What are their preferences? What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? What do they bring? What do they need? All those things about the people. And then you design the process of your workshop, whether it's in person, whether it's virtual, whether it's hybrid, those three things apply. Know your purpose. From the purpose, work out the people, and then knowing deeply about the people and their perspectives and their preferences, all that stuff, then design the process to suit that particular group.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Definitely. The other thing I think people often forget is asking people if they have any needs or special special requirements, even down to do you need a regular break? Is there any anything going on? So I I I did a few sessions the last couple of weeks where one person was blind. I was having a conversation on Zoom this morning where the person was deaf and I had to turn subtitles on on Zoom and speak very clearly, articulately because they weren't also there were non native English speakers also with lip reading and subtitling when English wasn't their first language. And it was, I felt I was very conscious about making sure that I took responsibility for being understood. And sometimes when we when we don't take that leadership role in communication, we speak to be heard from our own lens, not the other person's lens.

Penny Pollan: It's interesting, Chris, of the virtual leadership work that I've done, I've had a lot of people who were not English mother tongue speakers, who I've interacted with virtually. And, I interviewed an expert in business English once for virtual, And it was really interesting because I completely put my foot in it. I made a complete hash. I introduced him as a leading light in the world of business English. And he said, Penny, thank you for giving me that marvelous example of how not to do it. Because I'd used the phrase leading light. So while my pronunciation was impeccable and my accent was understandable and even the words were quite simple, what I'd done was I'd used a metaphor of a leading light, which is something that when you're sailing and coming into a port, you might have 2 lights that line up and you can use them to work out where the channel is. Now, how somebody who might be from Central China would know anything about, you know, little lights on sticks in the sea off the coast of England, they just wouldn't. And so it was a way of excluding. And ever since then, I've been so careful thinking about not just clarity and speed and all of that, but also the words that I'm using to make them inclusive. I'm very conscious about

Joanne Lockwood: words that are associated with good, or words associated with bad, and often masculine words masculine words are more worthy, better. Sometimes feminine words are less worthy or seems worse. And when we think about racism, some words are associated with the light as being gray and the dark as not being gray. So you're sometimes really conscious and mindful about, as you say, there's analogies, metaphors, or seminars we're using. What do we mean by that? Are we effective using effectively a racist connotation to describe something as bad? Yeah. Really? Yeah. Sinister. Yeah. Yeah.

Penny Pollan: Yeah. Yeah. Sinister. You know, left handed people.

Joanne Lockwood: That's me. Not good. Handed. Yeah. Yeah. Half my family are left

Penny Pollan: handed. I'm right handed. But, yes, you know, are they sinister? Well, it wasn't so long ago

Joanne Lockwood: that we were excluded from certain job opportunities. You couldn't work in a bank because they were worried you might smudge statements. You're handwriting them. You couldn't write envelopes. So the I've actually seen a memo from Barclays saying that we're now allowing people who are left handed to to work as clerks. And that that was like in the fifties. It wasn't that long ago. So it's it's incredible. I mean, example I often give is that I've got one of these thermos soup flasks and it comes with a spoon in the lid. And the spoon only works if you're right Joanne. Since you're left handed, it folds up every time you use it. And incredible that a company like Thermos designed this product with a spoon that doesn't work for left handed people. And it just shows that we we all have these blind spots to design, to thinking about other people.

Penny Pollan: Absolutely. And I think I mean, I particularly think of left handed people because once I was doing something, and we had an activity that had involved paper and scissors and glue, I think. I don't know what it was. It was, I don't like icebreakers and energizers that are for their own sake. But if there's something related to the content that you're covering, the work that you're doing together, that can change the state, then that's great. As long as it's something related, not just creating, the tallest possible towers out of spaghetti and marshmallows just for the sake of doing that. But, so we are doing something with paper and scissors and glue, except I only had standard scissors, which are right handed. And there's somebody who who is left handed who find it particularly difficult to cut accurately. And ever since then, I've been much more careful and included that.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I've scissors because the paper always folds in the scissors because the blades are the wrong way around. You always end up the wrong side. I end up having to sort of cut backwards to force myself or and, yeah, I I have terrible trouble with tightening and loosening screws because for some reason, my brain just doesn't wanna do it in the way that it works. It's always reversed. And often, I end up tightening something up, but I should be undoing it without realizing. And I have to I have to actually work get another screw that I can turn and think, okay. Right. That got it now. And it's and I'm not sure that's whether that's being left handed or whether that's just the way my brain works because it's left handed. A lot of these things that seem natural to a right handed person just aren't for left handed people because everything works in reverse.

Penny Pollan: Well, something that I find useful is not just saying, you know, would you like a break? Yes or Jo? Just jumping back to what we were talking about a little while, but saying, what breaks do you need? So asking open questions as opposed to questions with yesno answers, which makes it easier for it's as if you're expecting a response to that question. It's not just a sort of, yeah, we'll have you know, brakes fine. But, actually, you know, what what dietary requirements do you have as opposed to do you have dietary requirements? Yeah. I

Joanne Lockwood: was I ran a workshop the other morning, and at the beginning of it, someone said, I I'll be having breaks during the session. It was a 2 hour session. I said, yeah. I'm planning 1 around about an hour in, and if we need one, just the last 20 minutes. They say, oh, the reason I need to know is my dog needs to have to be let out every so often. Jo it'd be really helpful for me if it was 40 minutes rather than an hour. I went, absolutely fine. 40 minutes ago for me. And so there was a just by planning the schedule and my needs, it actually reminded me that I actually need to ask people about, was that okay for them? And we also have to you know, we've we've all got deliveries, Amazon, Hermes, DPD, everything's turning out. The doors are knocking. Pets are jumping around. Kids need feeding and schooling. So we've learned really to be very adaptable to the needs of individuals. Whereas I think when we started this process, we were still that regimented, I've got you in my room. You're gonna do as you're told. And now we've learned we we can't herd our cats in that way.

Penny Pollan: Perhaps my book should have come out a couple of couple of years earlier, the the one about workshops. But, anyway, it'll it'll be there. Now I do have something that is quite useful when you're starting up meetings and workshops, which I call my magic 6. In fact, I used to call it meeting startup steps, but then one of my clients said, Penny, you should call it a magic 6. Quite useful for planning as well. So this, that discussion about where the break should be could, would come up if you, if you brought this up. So, and there is a visual as well for it, but I can't share that on this. So, but the first question is, we are here to, What are we here to do? So make sure you can answer that question or complete that sentence. We are here to. The purpose of the meeting, ideally about 7 words. So not a paragraph, quite high level. How, you know, what how will you know that this has been a success because you've done this thing? And then the next of the magic 6 is, Today we will Jo, what are the 4 or 5 objectives that we will cover today? The next one is our plan. And that's where things like start times, end times, breaks, and so on comes in. Who's doing what is another one. So what people are playing which roles in the session and make sure you've got them. I mean, with virtual, we need to have, somebody keeping time. We need to have somebody writing down actions, preferably in a shared way Jo everyone can see them. And then they can, you know, say, actually, that's not quite what I meant when I said I'd take that action on, and so on. One that's often forgotten is how we're going to work together. Lots of things there. I mean, especially virtually. Things like we know about muting if we're in a noisy environment, you know, we've had so many dog box and so on over the last year or so, but one person speaking at any time. If you're on a big call, why not say, stay your name at the beginning of anything you contribute? Because it's not always clear. I know the little lights come around boxes, but it's not always clear. And especially if somebody says, I'll take that action, and nobody knows who it is. So, those sort of things, how are we going to work together? Which is, if it hadn't come up already, hopefully that's where the, can we break every 40 minutes Jo that my dog can Joanne nip outside quickly? And then the final step is what's happening next? What's next? So that right from the beginning, we're thinking about what's gonna happen afterwards. And if you get those six things, sorted and clear, both in your preparation, but then crucially at the beginning of a meeting or workshop, then it will go much more smoothly and it will be shorter as well than it would otherwise be.

Joanne Lockwood: I think there's some great points there. I mean, I I think about this when I'm running workshops and maybe not meetings, but many workshops, is I try and create this story. Because if we're going on a car journey, we know we're a bit 10 miles away. We know when we're 20 miles away. We know the path, the route we're taking. So we can almost our brains become used to that journey. So if we're surprising everybody with micro bits of knowledge as we go, their brain can't plan ahead, so they don't know what's happening next. And I think that's brilliant, the idea that we we create this story and say, well, we're gonna first of all, we're gonna talk about this. We're gonna show that. I'm gonna do a bit of this, I'm gonna do a bit of that, and we're gonna talk again, and we're gonna have some of this. Is that okay? I'm gonna have a break about there. And so you almost narrate the agenda and create this sort of kind of shared vision, don't you? I think I think that's a great idea, just building it into that, the the 6 points at the beginning, making that part of your routine. And I do it all visually

Penny Pollan: and draw it up all over the screen. Just means everybody's clear, and visual support is helpful as well.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I love that. I love that. So maybe I'm doing this without thinking, and it's, it's it's actually good practice. So you've got this new book coming out. Is that is that in the new book, or is that in the original book? That's in the new book. In fact,

Penny Pollan: I think it's in pretty much every book I've written, but, because it just works so well. It's one of those things I came up with in 2007 and thought, oh, you know, next month I'll tweak it. And I haven't tweaked it since. But yes, it is in the new book, it talks about how to use those 6 steps for planning workshops, for running workshops, as well. Yeah. And, I do have some little cards. If people want a little card, they can get in touch with me, and I can point them at a a link to sign up to get sent 1 in the post.

Joanne Lockwood: So is this is this a a digital age uplift book? Is this is this a kind of a a 20 year 2021 book, or is this a a different topic to the original one?

Penny Pollan: The book I wrote last was Virtual Leadership. So this is all about getting things done virtually. I'm updating this to include a chapter on hybrid, but the one that's coming out shortly is Making Workshops Work. And it's about creative collaboration for our time. The title was actually decided before this whole COVID stuff kicked off, which I think was quite funny. But, and that's about how do you run workshops? And because it's now, it's for our time, it's how to run workshops, whether you're in person, whether you're hybrid, or whether you're virtual.

Joanne Lockwood: So we've got more nuggets. Yeah. I know you don't wanna ruin the entire book. You want people to buy it, but what there's a lot of nuggets have you got in there that we can you can share? I'm happy to share. So let

Penny Pollan: me just I'll give you a feel for the flow, and then maybe some nuggets will emerge as we go through. So I talk through some of my own horror stories, you know, the complete disasters, and I got some other people to share theirs as well, But also some stories that should be really inspiring, where where things have worked out incredibly well through using some of the ideas that I talk about later. I've got a whole chunk around that bit we were talking about, which is about how can you be a a workshop leader or facilitator? How do you go from that, I've gotta be in control mode to something more productive where you have all your brain available to think other than, just running around going, ah, I've gotta be in control. There's a whole chapter around what makes people tick. So that's people in your workshop, but also yourself as a workshop leader. So a little bit of neuroscience, social psychology, stuff like that in there as well. There's, it then goes through the planning, running the meeting, well, planning, choosing the activities, then running the meeting, getting actions to happen afterwards. There's a whole chapter of all lots of complications, and loads of people contributed complications that had happened to them. So there's lots of very practical stories for both in person, but also virtual and hybrid examples. And then it finishes off with 3 lovely case studies of people who, are using workshops to great effect in very different ways and in very different industries. So that's the book.

Joanne Lockwood: And that's out in July, is that right? July

Penny Pollan: 13th, it comes out as a printed book. But, on July 12th, just that day, not the day after, even if you plead with me, because it's all done by the publishers, on July 12th, they're going to drop the Kindle price to 99p just for one day.

Joanne Lockwood: So So that should be about a week after this podcast episode drops. So put it in your diary now so that you It's a Monday. It's a Monday. So this will this it should launch on a Thursday, so 3 days' time. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. So the Monday after this,

Penny Pollan: Monday 12th July, the 99p offer is there. I mean, it's still very good for £20, which is the normal price. But I just thought people might like, you know, to have that. Or if you fancy the the

Joanne Lockwood: paperback and the the the real print, invest in it, or if you just want a quick preview, read the nice IP version on Kindle. Yeah. Great bargain. And there will also be a

Penny Pollan: a color workbook to download, that you can actually write your own stuff in for the whole planning, and preparing part, with lots of examples as well of doing things very visually, which I hope will be helpful.

Joanne Lockwood: Well, I'm looking forward to that. I'm gonna put my diary to remind myself to, on the on 12th, on the Monday to have a look at that. Yeah. So so what's your vision for the future? We we're living in this changing world. We've got hybrid. We've got in person. We've got return to the office. Where do you see the world going, and and how do we adapt and and and not ignore what we've learned? Oh, we need to not

Penny Pollan: ignore what we learned. The thing is this whole thing about how people work effectively together, the core is the same, whether you're virtual or hybrid or in person, it's about helping each person to do their best work. That is really dead simple, and it's also really complicated, but it is that simple. If we can look at everybody to do their own best work and to interrelate with everybody else as effectively as they possibly can and work together to produce amazing stuff. Doesn't matter if we're hybrid or virtual or in person. That's the challenge.

Joanne Lockwood: Jo. It it is so obvious. Yeah. We know the facts don't change people. We know that we shouldn't drive too fast. We shouldn't eat too much red meat. We shouldn't drink too much. We still do. And we still don't really appreciate how to motivate people, to engage people, how to get people on our side and create that sense of belonging. We still struggle with that, don't we? And that's I guess that's our own human nature. If everybody was the same and everybody could do that, there'd be something else we hadn't considered.

Penny Pollan: Well, hope that's probably why I'm using so many stories in in the books that I write because I think, yes, I can present the facts and I can present checklists and tips and all sorts of ways to make it as easy as possible. I think the most powerful thing that people remember are the stories of the differences can make, and also what happens when it all goes horribly wrong. And some of the most horrific stories are ones when I was in charge. I actually once shouted at an American lawyer in a very high powered meeting in Brussels with all these very senior people. I shouted, shut up. Anyway, I analyze it in the book, not quite as long as I've analyzed it in the past, I think, 15 years or so. Anyway, it's not what I advocate. But lots of little things like that just bring it to life and make it real.

Joanne Lockwood: That must have been kind of horrifying but gratifying. Did you get did you get looks around the table going, well said?

Penny Pollan: I was horrified, and I thought, oh, no. I have committed the ultimate sin as a workshop facilitator. I can remember looking around and they and what I saw in everybody else's faces was relief. We had 60 minutes, and this guy had spoken for, what, 10 minutes and 32 seconds, and other people had been trying to say something, and he just carried on. But but I was so shocked that I'd actually said something so awful and been so disrespectful. I was completely flabbergasted.

Joanne Lockwood: But we do find those people at our workshops, don't we? But they ask a question. They actually launch into a huge monologue, which is all about their opinion or their thoughts on how they would do it differently. And you wonder where the question is. Yeah. He didn't say anything for

Penny Pollan: the rest of the meeting, and I apologize afterwards. But actually, he funny enough, he's only really an observer. He wasn't even a core part of the

Joanne Lockwood: So if people wanna get a hold of you, I mean, we talked about your book coming out in July, 99 PM Kindle or or go for the full paperback if you want to with with the downloadable workbook. But what how do people get ahold of you?

Penny Pollan: LinkedIn or website? They can get the workbook if they, if they get the Kindle as well. I probably shouldn't be, saying that today. Yeah. If people want to get hold of me, Penny Poulan, p u, double l, a n, not e n. If you type that anywhere into Google or LinkedIn or anything like that, Twitter, I'm the only one, as far as I know in the world, may at least the only one who's who's really producing books and writing and talking. It would be lovely to connect. If you want to connect with me though, please do introduce yourself because I get loads of connections that, I tend to only interact with those who actually say, hi, I've heard Joanne's podcast and I've got some questions. If you connect like that on LinkedIn or send me an email or leave a contact message on my website, which is www.makingprojectswork.co.u k. There should be apennypullen.com as well when this goes live. So if there isn't, then there's Spanner in the works with website presence. But, anyway, hopefully, it should be easy for you to find me, and I would love to hear what you have to say and to respond.

Joanne Lockwood: I can confirm. I have as you were speaking, I have Googled you, and you do occupy the first page of Twitter almost exclusive sorry. 1st page of Google almost exclusively. So you are easy to find. Jo, yeah, p u. A n. Almost

Penny Pollan: exclusively. How do you find anyone else with the same name? Because I haven't so far, but you never know. There might be an n one. You're right. I have there is nobody else on that list. So

Joanne Lockwood: the first page, you do own it in various guises whether it's your book, as a speaker, on Amazon, or another site. So, yeah, you're quite correct. You are the only one on the first two pages. So, yeah, that's it's very handy when you own your name in terms of marketing and brand and PR, isn't it? So yeah, you are the only one, which is fantastic. Easy to find it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I've got a friend called

Penny Pollan: Alison Jones, who's actually the public owner of the publishers of my book. And I think there are lots of Alison Joneses, whereas Penny Pullen. Yeah, thanks to my husband. He Pullen's spelled strangely. There is a Penny Pullen, but that's not me.

Joanne Lockwood: Jo I've just been to your website, making projects work, and I can see there your virtual leadership book, your little bio, your search and case studies. So that's, yeah, good stuff. There's some plenty of information. People want to find out more about you there or on LinkedIn, or Twitter. I follow you everywhere. So, yeah, anyone listening, please do get in contact with Penny. Please do do buy her book. She'd love that. And then tell her how much you've enjoyed it and how you put it into practice. I think that's the feedback that every author wants, isn't it? Or if you disagree if you disagree,

Penny Pollan: that'd be great too. Yeah. Absolutely fantastic. Yes.

Joanne Lockwood: For sure. So thanks, Penny. I'm sure the listeners would agree. There's lots of inspiration, lots to ponder there, and some resources that people can get hold of if they want to find out more. So huge thanks, to you, the listeners, for tuning in, for listening, for coming back. So do subscribe if you're a first timer, keep updated on future episodes of the Inclusion Bites podcast, that's B-I-T-E-S. Tell your friends, tell your colleagues, I'm sure you have some, because I've got a number of exciting guests. I don't know if they're gonna be more exciting, but I've got loads more exciting guests come up, and I'm sure you're gonna be inspired by them over the next few weeks, Please do subscribe. And of course, if you're listening and you'd love to be a guest, then drop me a line to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. Tell me how can improve future shows. Tell me what you like, tell me what we hate. And finally, my name is Joanne Lockwood, and it's been an absolute pleasure Diversus podcast for you today. Catch you next time. Bye.