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 where 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. Today is episode 147 with the title, breaking bias. And I have the absolute honor and privilege to welcome Lorne Epstein. Lorne is a social scientist, keynote speaker, facilitator, and has been transforming workplaces for over 2 decades by teaching people how to recognize and reduce unconscious bias. When I asked Lorne to describe his superpower, he said, helping professionals uncover and mitigate their biases. Hello, Lorne. Welcome to the show.

Hi, Jo. Thank you so much for having me. I'm on 147.

Yeah. I'm so 147. Where's that time gone? We met. When did we meet? It was 2019 on Amsterdam, was it?

Yes. It was 2019 in Amsterdam, so that's 5 years ago.

Yeah. Long time. Wow. It was unleashed, if I remember rightly, the HR conference.

Yeah. Yeah. That was great. That was great. That was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed kind of seeing the the European HR market, and it was it blew me away. I mean, people were just so great, very friendly. You know, still crazy like the HR people here, but it was it was nice.

At that conference, you were you were doing live interviews, and I was a guest on your show, if I remember correctly.

Yes. Yes. So, like, in 2015, where I live, they opened up a public radio station, and I got a radio show, and I made it all about jobs. And I was just doing it as a side thing. It was just for fun. There was no money because it was a public station. And and then, like, the last year or so, I started figuring out ways to make money, and one was to get sponsorships and go to shows like Unleash and interview folks. So I did that for about a year or so, and then everything kinda went to to shit because of COVID and, you know, the whole anyway.

So, yeah, that's how we met.

Yeah. We did. We touched base, if that's not too cliched as an expression, a few times early in COVID. You really got into the unconscious bias and you were yeah. Your business took off in that way, didn't it?

Yeah. Yeah. It was kinda wild. I had built I had, a federal client. A federal government agency was a client of mine. I was developing their their national hiring strategy, their diversity hiring strategy. And while I was doing it, their head of HR asked me to build them an unconscious bias workshop. And I've been doing experiential training for decades, so I did.

I did it for them. They loved it. And since then, I probably did it, like, 30 or 40 times. Just as 2020 started in January, an old college professor of mine suggested, why don't you submit it to this experiential learning conference in Philadelphia and get some feedback? And I'm like, that sounds great. So I applied and it got accepted, but I also applied to graduate school. I was going to get a master's degree in organizational development, and I got accepted. But there was a conflict on that date. My teacher said, well, you can't you can't go to the conference.

You have to come to class. Why don't you just do the workshop for the students and get feedback? I said, that sounds great. So we set it up, and the school had advertised it. It was gonna be on campus. And next thing you know, we have COVID. And in April of 2020, instead of doing it in person, we did it on Zoom. I had a 140 people from around the world in this workshop, and it just took off. People wanted more.

So the next month, we had a 100 and since then, over 50,000 people have done these trainings.

Oh, I think I actually crashed into one of your workshops in the in the early ones. It was the first or the second. I I sat in on one of them, the early ones, I think.

Was it fun?