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 it takes to create a world where everyone not only belongs, but thrives? You're not alone. Join me as we uncover the unseen, change 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 107 with the title Voices Unleashed. And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Helen Joy. Helen is a management development specialist and when I asked Helen to describe her superpower, she said it's her ability to build rapport and inspire people to make small changes that create big impacts. Hello, Helen, welcome to the show.

Hello, Joanne, and thank you so much for having me on this beautifully cloudy, Grey Friday. It is great to have some sunshine in my life by spending some time with you.

I know someone put on LinkedIn earlier. What was your ideal theme tune for the weekend? And I put, here comes the sun. And I thought then, Rob, it's a bit early in the year, we're only in February, but I can only dream.

Yes, it's coming. It's coming just a little bit away.

So, Helen, Voices Unleashed. Tell me more.

Well, in most organisations, there is this mid level of managers who so often have the hardest job in the business. They are filtering messages that come down from above. They don't get to make the decisions. The decisions are made up there in those ivory towers of C suites, and they're cascaded down through varying layers of management. And then they come down to those mid managers who then have to transfer that knowledge and that change or whatever's happening in the organisation to the people on the front line doing the role. They then have to absorb back up all of the things that might be wrong with that particular choice of direction, all the issues, all those things. But quite often, those middle managers are never heard, they're never asked, they're never listened to, they're never given the opportunity to actually share their knowledge and experience of what's happening and how things can be changed and adapted and for me, it's about making sure that those middle managers have the skills, the knowledge and the confidence to use those voices, to make sure that what's happening in a business is actually for the benefit of everybody across the business. So that's one side of it.

It's that making sure that they're heard, but it's also about those managers being able to create environments where their teams can genuinely thrive, where everybody in their team has got that sense of psychological safety, so they know that they can be who they are, they can bring their own uniqueness into that team and they are valued exactly for that. And everybody's voice in the organisation then gets heard, because nothing changes without all of those different perspectives. Your intro talks about challenging the status quo and that's what we need in organisations at the moment. And the status quo isn't going to change unless we listen to everybody, unless we get all of those different perspectives, all of those different thoughts and ideas and ways of doing things. So getting to hear those voices is so important. And that begins with building the confidence of those managers to be able to push those messages back up the chain and make sure that they're listened to.