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 Bytes. And today is episode 137 with the title Talking, Not Telling. And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Katie Allen. Katie is a specialist confidence coach and inclusion consultant. And when I asked Katie to describe her superpower, she said she loves rummaging around in grey ambiguity that everybody else hates. Hello, Katie. Welcome to the show.

Hello. Thank you for having me along. This is amazing.

Absolute pleasure. And I know if you're listening here today, you don't know this, but we've just spent an hour in the green room chatting away. We've. We've had a fantastic conversation and I almost wish we'd recorded some of it, but we've still got loads more to talk about.

I'm sure there'll always be things to talk about. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. So, Katie talking, not telling. Tell me more.

Absolutely. This. It's become one of my almost like, lifeblood conversations now, especially in the work of Inclusion, because it's one of those things. Things that I find whenever I speak to people about the work that I do, everyone gets that sheepish little look. Don't. Then they're like, oh, are you. Are you going to come and tell me all the things I'm getting wrong and all the ways I need to be better? And that's just not my style. I would much rather have conversations.

It's like, this, isn't it? I just want to sit down with people. I want to talk to them and understand, like, what's going on for you? How do you see the world? This is how I see the world. And how can we grow together? So it's really become, like, the heart of everything I do. I just want to talk to people and not. And not be telling everybody what they're getting wrong and start a conversation that inspires some action.

Yeah, I, I really resonate with that. You know this. You walk into a room sometimes as an EDI dei, whatever specialist you want to call us, and people go, oh, no, it's the inclusion police. We can't. What we're saying, we can't tell any jokes. We gotta. We gotta do this. And it's like, no, no, I'm a human being.

I laughed, I pass wind. I'm a human being. I just want the output to be positive for people and not at someone else's expense. And that's what we're trying. That's what we're saying really is exactly. Somebody else shouldn't be less than, because you are more than.

Absolutely that. And then I often find one of the barriers to being able to have those conversations comes through when people aren't really sure about what they can and can't say. So then no one says anything at all. And then. And then nobody really gets the opportunity and, you know, rummage you around in the grey areas of ambiguity, right, to just dump all of the stuff that's going on in our brains out on the floor and just pick through it so we can say, okay, I know that you see the world this way, but have you thought about, if you were someone else, it could feel like this. And people have that moment of like, oh, I didn't realise that. I didn't. I didn't see it that way.

And, and just making that space for people to just, yeah, rummage around in all of that crap that we all bring with ourselves so that we can just make better, better conversations and have better interactions.

So why do people get stuck in this ambiguity? How do they get themselves into this vortex of confusion then.